Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV Review

We usually don’t review movies here at GearNuke but Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV is a very unique case as it is essential to the story of Final Fantasy XV, a game we’ve been looking forward to for a long time. The movie is Square Enix’s third effort at creating a movie after Spirits Within and Advent Children, lets see how it does in our spoiler free review below.

Although intended to be part of the hype machine for Final Fantasy XV, Kingsglaive is no normal promo short but a full blown box office experience. Set during the beginning of Final Fantasy XV, Kingslaive is focused around the events in Insomnia while the game’s protagonist Noctis is away from the crown city. The story of Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV is integral to the main game so you should definitely be watching it if you planning to play the game come November.

The game has gone through a lot of changes over the years after being announced as Versus XIII back in 2006. Kingsglaive’s events were first hinted at during the game’s E3 2013 trailer when it was re-revealed as XV. Events of that trailer are now scrapped as Noctis is now not in the city during the attack.

The movie starts off with an introduction to the world of Final Fantasy XV and the political landscape. The warrior nation of Niflheim is on a path of world domination as they’ve captured most of the world’s territories and their crystals. The last crystal they haven’t captured is located in Lucis, whose King is protecting the country with a barrier using magic of the crystal. One day after a skirmish, Niflheim proposes a peace treaty out of the blue, which lead into the main events of the movie.

Kingsglaive features a star studded cast of characters including Aaron Paul as Nyx, Lena Headey as Luna and Sean Bean as King Regis among others. The voice work and facial expressions are very well done and feel really natural. I was notably impressed with Aaron Paul’s work on Kingsglaive’s resident hero, Nyx, who I really liked as the protagonist. The movie barely had any weak characters other than maybe Luna but its way too early to tell. The writing was excellent for the most part and I didn’t notice any cringe worthy dialogue that you can expect from such movies.

The events are told from the perspectives of the Kingsglaive, an elite group of warriors able to use the crystal’s magic in battle. Tightly knit like a family, watching their struggle during the events of the movie was a great way to tell the story.

The movie is certainly a looker as Square Enix prove again why they’re considered to be the kings of CGI. The movie is certainly as close to photo-realism as I’ve seen and never gives a feeling of being just a CGI movie.

The action scenes are certainly a highlight although the editing could have been better as the camera angles and quick cuts slightly take away from the action. However everything looks so damn beautiful that I didn’t really mind.

Sound design was spot on as the movie used its own original soundtrack as well as tracks from the game. The audio certainly contributed to the mood and feelings portrayed, especially during a certain scene where Somnus, the track featured in the game’s debut trailer, was played.

If you couldn’t tell already, I was greatly impressed with Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV, which was not only a great way to promote the game but was also a good standalone movie.

You should definitely be watching it if you’re craving a good fantasy drama movie.

After watching the movie I’m much more hyped for Final Fantasy XV, what about you? Let us know in the comments of what you thought of the movie.