RPG Talk: Final Fantasy XV - Episode: Prompto

I enjoyed enjoyed this DLC much more than I thought I would, even though I already knew the key details of Prompto's backstory that were skimmed over in Chapter 13 of the main game. It takes place several days after he's been pushed off the train by Noctis in Chapter 11. By this time Noctis and the others have already met with Aranea in Tenebrae, placing Episode: Prompto during Chapter 12.

Following his separation from the rest of the party, Prompto is desperately trying to catch up with everyone and he's trekking through the snow to get to Gralea, where the group had been heading, but he passes out from weakness and the cold and is brought by magitek troopers to a research facility. Why did they capture rather than kill him? Most likely because of Ardyn, who appears in this DLC for no discernable reason other than to offer zippy one-liners and send Prompto on his way with a physical handgun since the one he would normally summon as one of Noctis's retainers doesn't appear (presumably because Ardyn is blocking it).

It's a pretty flimsy setup, but it gets the meat of the story rolling as our poor guy is trying to find his way out of a hostile facility full of magitek soldiers who would love to kill him. Yes, after dragging him there in the first place.

We know from the main game that Prompto is a sort of proto-magitek soldier. Magitek soldiers are created by infecting babies with the plasmodium parasite that turns people into daemons. When the infected babies sublimate as adults they're ultimately turned into the magitek cores that power the mechanical soldiers. But the main game doesn't really go into more than that. Prompto brings it up when he returns to the party, but it's kind of awkward as he goes through the cliff notes version of his backstory in about 30 seconds and then it's over.

Episode: Prompto draws out everything we couldn't see, but was implied to have happened off camera. There are some really nice touches too, as we see Prompto discover research notes and draw his own conclusions about his origin.

The first time he activates a door lock at the facility he uses his barcode by accident, just by bringing his hand up to the door. But the second time he encounters a locked door, it's only after he's discovered the research into daemonifying human infants and learning that one of them was stolen from the facility by a Lucian. He's been in denial that he could be a part of this, despite the mounting evidence (like his barcode matching the established guidelines issued to every infant based on their birth year), and he knows that if he uses his barcode to open that door he's acknowledging this facility as a part of his past.

It's a really good scene.

Prompto is so much better when he's allowed to be more than the goofy comic relief and deal with his own insecurities. Though it's not directly spelled out, the reason he is the comic relief who generally gets picked on by the other guys is because he's terrified of getting kicked out of their social circle. Being the man of least influence is better than not having friends at all.

But once he learns the circumstances of his birth, he begins to question whether there's a place for him within that circle at all. After all, he was created to attack his friends' homeland. Prompto begins to see himself inside the magitek troopers he's fighting, and at one point even hallucinates Noctis trying to kill him just like the prince had killed many of those soldiers in the past.

After he escapes the facility with help from Aranea, he looks at the barcode tattooed on his wrist and contemplates burning it off, but even if he tries (player's choice) it can't be removed. It's irrevocably part of who he is.

Gradually though, with a little tough love from Aranea, he comes to accept that he can't help where or how he was born, but he can choose how he wants to move forward with his life, and that leads to striking back against his researcher father, who is one of the imperial faces early in the main game who inexplicably never returns again (until this DLC).

It's pretty good stuff and we see genuine character growth from the Prompto who started this DLC to the one who ends it, which I really wasn't expecting, and it's too bad we don't get to see this transformation over the course of the main game.

Prompto has his terrible reunion with his dad, who he was cloned from. He takes out a magitek factory. His episode covers how much researchers in the empire knew or didn't know about what they were doing. It makes the cold unpopulated opening to Chapter 13 make sense. Sure, we find out later in the main game why everyone's gone, but if we'd gotten that information chronologically at the same time Prompto did it would have prepared the player in advance.

But at the same time Episode: Prompto is designed to be played after Chapter 13. With a couple tucks I think it could have been made to run concurrent to the main game's Chapter 12. It shouldn't matter whether we find out Prompto's origin from his own mouth in Chapter 13 versus his father's research in Episode: Prompto.

The problem is that the ending of his episode shows Prompto waking up imprisoned in Chapter 13, though we don't know why/how other than Ardyn probably had something to do with it. We see Noctis and company rescue him, and in the post-credits scene Noctis apologizes to Prompto for pushing him off the train and basically saying that it doesn't matter where Prompto came from.

It was nice having Noctis apologize, since he never does it in the main game, but if we cut the credit roll scene and post-credits scene, we wouldn't have any Chapter 13 spoilers and you actually could play Episode: Prompto right after Chapter 11 when he gets booted off the train and it would work seamlessly with what's already in the main game.

And there are ways the main game could have been altered a bit to make Prompto's "by the way" bombshell a little less of a surprise, especially since most players probably ended up going through the main game first, making Prompto's origin reveal all the more awkward. If, for example, the player could discover research notes not just related to humans being turned into magitek soldiers, but that one of the infants had been kidnapped to Lucis that would have helped. Just little tips that would eventually make the player realize before Prompto returns that Prompto was born to turn into a magitek soldier.

That would better set up the fact that the rest of the party tells him it's no big deal that he was born in the Niflheim Empire, because they, and the player, would have already had time to process that information.

One small thing that still sticks with me after the DLC though, is that Prompto used to be chubby as a kid, and that's how he looked when he first met Noctis and was encouraged by Lunafreya to befriend the prince. It seems like becoming the trim person that he is in the present day is likely part of trying to look like a presentable member of the team, one worthy of being a companion to Noctis. So it comes off as cruel now that one of the main game's party banter conversations is Prompto asking if they can check out the Crow's Nest diner for food, and Ignis telling him that's fine if he wants to put on weight.

Ignis is probably not trying to be mean, as that doesn't seem to be in his personality, but considering he already knew Noctis at the time Noctis met Prompto, I find it difficult to believe that he's completely oblivious to the fact Prompto used to be overweight.

The fact that Episode: Prompto has made me think a lot about it following the ending and recontextualize conversations in the main game makes it a solid addition. I can't speak much for the gameplay since I'm not a shooter fan, but for non-shooter fans it's not too difficult to complete even on Normal difficulty thanks to the existence of healing potions.

Next week I'll take a look at Episode: Ignis, finishing off the party member DLCs.