Gonna agree with you for opposite reasons. The combat in the postgame dungeon, Costlemark I think. The one where you can’t use any healing items, it was a worthy challenge.

The other postgame dungeon, the platforming one was, was way better than many final fantasy challenges like jumping rope and dodging lighting.

Special mention for the incredible soundtrack, the Matoya’s Cave remix especially.

But ya everything before the postgame, the umm main game I guess, was ridiculously short. Imagine FFIV ending when you drill into the underworld, or FFVI ending when the the world breaks, that’s what the story in FF15 feels like. As soon as you depart to the next continent you get rug pulled by a time jump that takes you to the final boss 🫠

Xbox was so great when it launched. Thanks for bringing us decent length controller cables, hard drives, and Riddick Escape from Butcher Bay 👌

Nowadays, uhh thanks for making an unnecessary media center I guess 🤷‍♀️

The mediocrity as I understand was from the rift that developed in the team about the vision of the game being a sandbox vs a campaign.

However, I witnessed a new divide among the team which was less well-known; as more core game developers (such as myself) were recruited to help finish the game, a cultural gap emerged between the newer ‘gameplay’ team and the older ‘Sim’ team. The former group (which went on to spearhead Darkspore) was primarily concerned with how Spore played as a game. Were the mechanics engaging? Did the player’s choices matter? Was the game replayable? In contrast, the ‘Sim’ team carried the traditional Maxis DNA and was more comfortable with Spore as a toy box. Could the players express themselves? Was sharing one’s creations with other players meaningful? Did the game spark the imagination?

These cultural divides ruined Spore’s chances to be a focused, cohesive experience.

http://www.designer-notes.com/2013/09/

Yeah really fun premise slathered in boring characters.

If I recall it devolved into some CW-flavor bullshit revolving around the girl, who is her real father, why is she special. Blah blah blah.