RPG Talk: Final Fantasy XV - Noctis

I realized I had to have a blog post specifically about Noctis's journey when I was trying to write my original RPG Talk for this game and realized that 3/4s of it was all about Noctis and there wasn't going to be room for anything else. Perhaps more than in most RPGs, Final Fantasy XV is really about Noctis's personal journey than anything else. Other protagonists in other games might be the hero who rises to the occasion, and it's not to say that Noctis does not, but so much of the story is intrinsically tied to who he is and his family's heritage.

Noctis begins the game as a bit of an emotionally stunted and socially awkward prince who has never been outside of the capital city. He's sent off by his father to his arranged marriage to Lunafreya as part of a peace arrangement between his country of Lucis and the Niflheim Empire. Rather than a more elaborate retinue though, he's simply sent off in his father's car with three of his friends/retainers.

At first it seems drastically little for a prince being escorted to a major political ceremony. Their car even breaks down on the way to the port where he's supposed to catch a boat. But it quickly becomes apparent that his father was trying to get him out of the city before the Niflheim Empire attacked, knowing that they had no intention of actually following through with the peace accord. Then it makes sense that the prince would have left the capital with such a small retinue via a method of transportation that gives him an incredible amount of discretion.

Noctis, however, isn't ready to be king.

He's known since he was a child that he's the Chosen and that the kings of Lucis have a duty to the Crystal that protects their country, but he doesn't fully understand what it means to be Chosen. Only Lucian monarchs are able to use magic and gift it to their followers. (When the party enters combat and weapons materialize in their hands, that's not a cosmetic affect for gameplay purposes. They are literally summoned through Noctis's power as prince.) However, using the Ring of the Lucii necessary to commune with the Crystal saps the user of their vitality, as Noctis knows from how frail his father was getting. He knows what kind of future lies in front of him and it's one of self-sacrifice.

Heavy burden aside, Noctis is a young man who is still trying to get comfortable with who he is. Though he doesn't come off as spoiled, Noctis is clearly uncomfortable with how to behave around others. Early in the game, when Noctis first interacts with people on the road there are many chances for him to ask his friends what kind of answer he should give to a person and whether he should help them out.

His friends, though they are that, are also clearly there because they are chosen retainers. Gladio's family has served as the king's shield for generations. Ignis, a noble scion, was introduced to Noctis when he was six and is considered his royal advisor. The only spoiler in the bunch is Prompto, a commoner who befriended Noctis. But even that feels a little calculated, as if to remind Noctis of what the average citizen in his country may be like.

Throughout the first half of their journey they banter like a group of friends who have known each other for years. It's rare to find an RPG where the party at the beginning is the entirety of the party at the end. They joke with each other, take each other to task, and through Prompto's constant camera clicking we're reminded every time the guys bed down for the night that despite everything going on, these are a group of young men who enjoy each other's company.

However, Noctis is clearly the one in charge, even if he doesn't say a word about it. When they drive into town, sometimes Gladio will ask what they intend to do there, and Ignis will reply that it is up to Noctis. When Noctis decides to go fishing (at the player's discretion), he can literally leave his friends bored for hours when he pursues his hobby without a second thought that they might rather be doing something else. And we know they're bored because they comment on it.

Noctis doesn't impose his wishes over theirs maliciously (his behavior is pretty much what any player does from a meta perspective), but the game makes it clear that much of what the party does is because of or on behalf of Noctis, because he's the prince and he's the one who matters, whether he likes it or not.

It's telling that when the Crown City falls that Noctis only freaks out about his own family and doesn't spend a word asking about the families of his friends, though they must have had family there, and that's confirmed later when we find out that Gladio's younger sister, Iris, was spirited out of the city. Since she's the only one we hear about, presumably the rest died in the attack, including Gladio's father, who was serving as the king's shield for King Regis like Gladio does for Noctis.

Once the capital falls, Noctis is forced to come to terms with the fact he needs to become Lucis's next king and fulfill his fate as the Chosen, but he's not happy about it. He's doing it because he's told he has to and not because he wants to, and all the things that subsequently happen around him are because of who he is.

One of the things the game makes clear is that when a previous king is toppled, it is not just his family that is removed from power, but that of his followers. When Gladio's younger sister escapes the Crown City she does so along with the Amicitia family's personal retainers, who are still loyal despite the danger and the turmoil. While Noctis is running around getting royal arms and meeting with Astrals, one of those retainers is killed by agents of the empire. The retainer might have been able to save himself if he revealed Noctis's location, but he didn't. Noctis isn't even able to properly avenge the guy.

When Noctis faces his trial against Titan, it's narratively the most dangerous part of the early game, and Noctis begins freezing up, but Gladio forces him to accept that he's going to be king and he needs to start acting like it. If the burden becomes too great, then he needs to realize that he can give some of it to Gladio to share. Gladio has to tell Noctis this because Noctis himself isn't aware enough to know when to volunteer.

Though Noctis doesn't entirely lose his awkwardness in the first half of the game (allowing him to get all but bullied into side quests for certain NPCs), he gradually gains confidence and begins to call some shots of his own instead of letting himself get dragged where fate tells him to go.

Once the second half of the game begins, the open world is closed off and stakes get high fast. Noctis wants to reunite with Lunafreya in Altissia, where she plans to awaken Leviathan so he can receive her blessing as the Chosen, the True King. In order to do that, he has to negotiate with another state for the first time as a representative of his country, and in a nice touch the player gets to choose how Noctis will handle his attempt at diplomacy, which can be clumsy or surprisingly adept. This also results in splitting up his team so they can help evacuate the city in the event Leviathan turns destructive, which turns out to be the case.

It's an exciting chapter with Noctis getting powered up with the might of previous Lucian kings, and the city is destroyed, but at the same time Lunafreya is killed.

I wish, though, that he'd had more time with her so her death had meant as much to me as a player as it presumably did for Noctis. The game plays it cool, given that they were supposed to have an arranged marriage, so when Noctis and Luna exchange messages via notebook throughout the first half of the game, Noctis can be brusque or genuinely looking forward to the idea of seeing her.

Someone made the effort to code different descriptions of the notebook following Lunafreya's death, depending on how Noctis corresponded with her, but chances are most of the player base will never see it, which is a pity. Since Noctis is an introvert, it's not surprising he's not comfortable talking about Luna with the other guys, so reading the notebook description after her death is really the only way to know how he felt about her, and it's entirely player decided. I played Noctis as genuinely looking forward to marrying her, and learning that he kept the notebook, now stained with the tears he shed after her passing, was moving, but I only discovered it towards the end of the game.

After the battle, Ignis is the one who delivers the news of Lunafreya's death to Noctis, giving our prince a one-two punch as he realizes that his plan has not only cost Luna her life, but his friend's eyesight. He walks slower and uses a cane, and in the ensuing chapter, Gladio will chew out Noctis if he runs so far ahead that Ignis is left behind. Eventually, Ignis brings up the elephant in the room about his disability and that he still wants to come with Noctis, but that he will need to be left behind if he becomes a burden, because Noctis is king and his duty takes precedence, and you know Noctis doesn't want to be a position where he one day has to make that choice.

But when it comes to leaving someone behind, it's not Ignis who is lost, but Prompto, who Noctis accidentally pushes off a train due to an illusion.

When the battered group finally reaches Gralea, the capital of the Niflheim Empire, their party is down to three, and their car, the Regalia, is smashed getting them inside the city gates. I have seriously never felt as sad about the loss of a game vehicle than hearing Noctis's farewell to the Regalia, since it ended up being one of the last things his father gave him.

And shortly after that Noctis is separated from his remaining friends and his powers as sealed, leaving him nearly helpless and unable to call on his magic or his weapons in a strangely vacant and nocturnal city which has now been filled with daemons. It's so bad that he finally puts on the Ring of the Lucii, which is the only thing that still works, even though it's probably killing him every time he uses it. While the gameplay changes in this chapter in ways that I didn't like (shoving in survival horror stealth aspects along with jump scares), there's no denying in how effectively it isolates Noctis, who finds himself not only shouldering the fate of his kingdom, but now the world.

Through his losses and his acceptance of the burden he bears, Noctis pushes on even though it's entirely possible he has no one left to count on. Though the team reunites again before the end of the chapter, even Prompto, Noctis is forced to leave them behind again, voluntarily this time, so he can go for the Crystal while they hold off what looks like a never ending horde of daemons without him. He doesn't want to, but he has to, because he's the Chosen and if he doesn't make it to the Crystal nothing else will matter. The aimless Noctis from the beginning of the game isn't there anymore.

But the Crystal doesn't turn out to be the saving grace he expects it to be. Rather he's consumed by it and learns what it truly means to be the Chosen. Just as his subjects will devote their lives for the king, he has to sacrifice his own to save theirs.

The game doesn't pull any punches with it. Noctis spends ten years sleeping inside the Crystal and when he finally wakes the only thing on his mind is meeting up with his friends again to finally end the literal darkness that is covering their world.

After the timeskip, he emerges a much more somber character and cognizant of what he needs to do without having to be prodded. In the mid-credits scene, which actually takes place prior to the final battle, he tells his friends that he's made peace with what he has to do, and finally, though it's hard, he manages to tell them how happy he is to have known them.

When Final Fantasy XV was still in development, they announced "Stand By Me" as the theme song, which I thought was an odd choice, given that it's an American song from the 1960s, but after it rolled on top of the first set of credits I was stunned by how appropriate it was. The friendship between Noctis and his friends is the emotional core of the game, but the story that sticks with me beyond the plot to save the world from another evil empire, is that of Noctis's personal journey. He started the game as an aimless prince, but ended very much a king.