Awesome / Final Fantasy XV

Warning: Spoilers Off applies from this point on. You have been warned.

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Pre-Release Trailers, Demos, and Events

• The emergence of the game from the depths of Development Hell at E3 2013 was a triumphant chain of Serial Escalation; the fact that it was even showing face after 2 years of silence had fans rejoicing from the start, but the move to next-gen consoles and the surprise reveal of its induction into the main series pushed the hype levels off the scale.
• From the E3 2013 Gameplay trailer: Noctis, Prompto, and Gladiolus taking down an Iron Giant, which culminates in Gladiolus throwing the Iron Giant's own sword into its chest.
  • Noctis scaling tanks to fire at Leviathan. Oh, and the tanks are hundreds of feet in the air.
  • About thirty seconds into said trailer, enemy soldiers open fire on the Citadel's main building, only to be greeted by Noctis slowly walking out, Armiger shielding him from their bullets.
• Consider this: one of the early teaser trailers from 2007 has Noctis take on a platoon with teleporting, blade spam and scaling buildings. At the time, everyone was impressed but nobody believed this could possibly be done in-game and that it was just Cutscene Power to the Max. Eight years later, the Episode Duscae demo is released, and no, it's not: You may do this any time you want, and it's in fact key to how Noct fights. (Scaling structures and occasionally peacing-out for a quick breather is an important part of the game's combat cadence.)
  • Episode Duscae gives you a fairly gameplay-emergent example of this: at one point while exploring a cave, Prompto gets lost and nabbed by some goblins. You eventually catch up to him and need to rescue him, but he's on the other side of a wide chasm. What's the fastest way to get to him? Throw a sword, teleport yourself across the chasm and just start laying waste to everything in sight. The only pre-scripted part is Prompto getting separated from the group; everything else is the player performing actions themselves.
• Episode Duscae also has you summon Ramuh who is absolutely gigantic and one-hit-kills anything you summon him on — typically, the Behemoth you have to take down to beat the demo without stupid amounts of grinding.
• Malboro: 1, Noctis & co.: 0.
• Collecting all four Royal Arms in the Episode Duscae demo and activating a special move that makes Omnislash look dull!

• The 2016 Active Time Report has the gameplay footage of Noct and Co. infiltrating a Niflheim military base. Moments include:
  • Noct one-hit killing enemy troops from the shadows.
  • Prompto blinding enemies with his Flare Bomb ability.
  • Noct hijacking a gun turret and going to town on the enemy soldiers.
  • Noct damaging an enemy mech, causing oil to spill out before igniting said oil with a Fire spell (which he throws like a friggin' grenade), blowing it and half the warehouse to kingdom come.
  • And we end off with Aranea Highwind stealing the show after not having been mentioned at all since the 2011 Versus XIII trailer.
• The Uncovered event on March 30, 2016:
  • The father of Final Fantasy himself, Hironobu Sakaguchi, was at the event and spoke on stage. Anybody who is familiar with the history of Final Fantasy knows that Sakaguchi did not leave Squaresoft on good terms shortly before they merged with Enix. The significance of him being so prominently present at the event and more or less giving his blessing to Final Fantasy XV after years of wanting nothing to do with the franchise cannot be overstated.
    • In the same vein, Nobuo Uematsu, who also left Square-Enix shortly after Sakaguchi did, provided a video message for the event expressing that he too is excited for XV and has high expectations for the game.
    • Yoshitaka Amano was also there in-person, and an enormous montage of his Awesome Art was featured.
  • The Ultimate Collector's Edition of the game went on preorder for $270 during the event. All 30,000 copies sold out within 2 hours. The PS4 version was gone within half an hour; the Xbox One version followed suit in the next 90 minutes.
  • The game's release date of September 30, 2016 was prematurely leaked. Despite this, Square still managed to keep the really big announcements under wraps: a CGI movie and a five-episode anime series, both meant to promote the game before release! Nobody saw this coming! And they even managed to make a sharp jab at Gamespot for ruining the release date, calling them out by name on stage.
  • The very last few seconds of the final trailer shown at Uncovered: Flying Car. That is all.
  • The sheer amount of money Square-Enix is pouring into the Final Fantasy XV universe. Suddenly, the long development cycle makes a lot more sense:
    • Square-Enix and Audi have partnered to create a one of a kind real-life model of the Audi R8 in the Kingsglaive movie.
    • The crew of Epic Meal Time was hired to design the food in the game.
    • Florence + the Machine was commissioned to perform a cover of Ben E. King's 1961 song "Stand by Me."
    • Professional fashion designers are designing the clothing for the characters in-game.
    • A mobile game is in the works and to be released before the game itself, just like the anime and Kingsglaive.
    • Sean Bean, Lena Headey, and Aaron Paul are all starring in Kingsglaive, some of the biggest stars in American TV as of 2016.
• In the Platinum Demo, we get to see Noct as a child beating down Nightmares. Granted, he's in a dream and his weapons are mostly toys, but still.
  • At the climax, Noct and Carbuncle are confronted by an Iron Giant. As he fears for his life, Noct dimly hears his father telling him that he alone controls his own dreams. He then transforms into his future self and his toy weapons turn real, before he proceeds to lay the smackdown on his enemy.
• We get a brief glimpse of how Aranea Highwind fights in the Reclaim Your Throne and Uncovered trailers. It's quite clear that the Niflheim army doesn't call her "the Dragoon" and the master of aerial combat for nothing: her fighting style makes heavy use of her spear as leverage to keep her in the air and pinned against her opponents, so that she rarely has to touch the ground while fighting.
• The E3 2016 demo presents an altered version of the Titan fight. Remember the shot from the earlier trailer with Noctic slashing at Titan's foot as he prepared to step on him? In a gameplay sequence, Noctis blocks the stomp with his sword and slashes him back. The fight then continues with Noctis's buddies showing up to aid him and the Niflheim army showing up, and a three-way battle ensues, culminating in Noctis and co. freezing Titan's arm with Blizzard and shattering it!
• The Revamp of the Death Spell. A staple of the Final Fantasy series, "Death" has seen varying degrees of usefulness, as it often worked on a dice roll and most powerful monsters were resistant to it anyway, rendering it moot. This time, "Death" can become a constant danger to your enemies, gradually draining them of matter until they simply vanish! Even powerful encounters such as the Bandersnatch are slowly disintegrated by "Death"!
• The "Omen" FMV trailer, animated by DIGIC Pictures, the same studio that did the whole of Kingsglaive.
• After some people decided to Photoshop◊ photos of the crew in the car looking to the side at various things, Tabata released art assets with transparency enabled to encourage people to make more, because he thought it was hilarious. They got an official approval from the director.

Brotherhood: Final Fantasy XV

• From Episode 1:
  • The fight at the end of the chapter. Noctis begins by using his Signature Move to impale one of the Magitek troops and starts to lay waste to everything, while his friends come right behind and cause their own part of devastation, with some awesome moves by Ignis (who throws knives underhand to destroy a soldier) and Gladiolus (whose huge swords can kill anything in one hit).
• From Episode 2:
  • One for Prompto, who was an introverted Formerly Fat boy that becomes a Determinator to lose his extra weight in less than a year, and also manages to become the happy-go-lucky boy we see later — all on his own. Because he wanted to prove to himself he could be a good friend to Noctis (after Luna subtly pushed him to be friends with the Prince).
• From Episode 5, which picks up from where Episode 1 ended:
  • Regis going full Papa Wolf on the Marilith that nearly killed Noct, using his Royal Arms to scar its face before forcing it off a cliff.
  • The Marilith knocks Noctis off the cliff into the water below, and just when all hope seems lost, Noct thinks of his father, which gives him his Heroic Second Wind. He then Warp Strikes the Marilith from the water and activates Armiger, giving it the thrashing of its life before finally chopping its head off.

Main Game

• Every Summoning Sequence:
  • Ramuh's Judgement Bolt:
    • Ramuh immediately takes up Noctis in his hand before summoning his staff and hurling it downward, obliterating all enemies.
    • When underground in a dungeon, Ramuh searches for Noctis and gets his location. He then summons his staff and hurls it, barely missing Noctis while obliterating his opponents.
  • Titan's Gaia's Wrath:
    • Titan rips a massive chunk of the Earth and hurls it on Noct's location, creating an eruption of molten stone to blossom outward.
    • Titan suddenly barreling towards Noct from behind. He then scoops Noctis up before slamming his fist into the ground to create the same eruption of stony destruction. He does the same in his Finishing Move against the Adamantoise, but not before punching the everloving shit out of the moving mountain!
    • Titan also gets a unique summoning sequence when fighting against the Adamantoise that is just beyond cool. He basically just charges in, punches the big turtle a couple of times before using Gaia's Wrath.
  • Shiva's Diamond Dust:
    • The area suddenly freezes. Shiva under her human guise of Gentiana walks past a freezing Noctis, then sheds her persona and flies off. Suddenly, Noct is surrounded by almost a dozen Shivas who freeze the enemy dead.
    • During the fight with Ifrit, Shiva finishes the former off by kissing his frozen lips, resulting in him getting shattered. Noct also gets a mention for just shrugging off the cold, unlike before.
  • Leviathan's Tsunami:
    • Leviathan erupts from the ground, flies towards Noctis and scoops him up while bringing an unrelenting torrent of water. The enemy is crushed in a titanic vortex of water while Leviathan roars ferociously.
    • Against larger opponents, Leviathan will actually pick them up in her jaws before dropping them on the ground.
  • Garuda's Call of the Crosswinds:
    • This summon becomes available upon completing "Adventurer from Another World", the Final Fantasy XIV crossover quest. As Noctis and his friends are struggling against the primal Garuda, a long-forgotten deity whose statue is at the sight of the Lady of the Vortex's summoning offers her aid. When summoned, a woman who appears similar to Garuda appears in the skies overhead, then BOOM! She unleashes a projectile that is strong enough to slay a primal!
• Prompto shooting a sabretusk off of Gladio during your first mission. This is one of the first fights he's ever been in, and he's already a crack shot. It's justified in that he was born to be an Imperial soldier.
• During the boss fight against Aranea, performing a Warpstrike on her while she's in the middle of a Jump attack can lead to an awesome midair battle as both she and Noctis trade blows while floating. And at the end, Noctis can grab Aranea by her face and slam her back down to the ground.
• Ravus' first appearance. Your team just destroyed an entire Niflheim base with ease, but his appearance induces a Mass "Oh, Crap!" from everyone including Prompto, who hasn't even heard of him before now. We see why when he effortlessly curbstomps Gladio.
• Ignis delivering the final blow to the Malboro by making it literally eat a Fira, in spite of being blind.
  • Heck the fact that after Noct was consumed by the crystal, instead of hiding in Lestallum, Ignis decides to continue saving the world. Even though he never gained his eyesight again, during the 10 year gap, he became a daemon hunter to help saved humanity, becoming a Handicapped Badass. He even stated that being blind became an advantage for him.
• Everyone's Heroic Sacrifices are appropriately badass:
  • Regis — knowing that Insomnia's fall cannot be prevented — stays in the city anyway because it's his responsibility to protect it. The enemy needs to send over two airships of reinforcements to keep the city.
  • Luna healing Noctis' fatal injuries instead of her own, incidentally saving Altissia from Leviathan in the process.
  • Noctis taking the throne, summoning 13 of the past Lucian kings and teaming up to tear Ardyn to shreds in the afterlife.
  • Ignis' in the alternative ending of his episode. With the full knowledge that it will kill himself, he uses the Ring's power to curbstomp Ardyn in under 3 minutes. Considering that using the ring as a non-royal always causes instant mutilation at best and death at worst, Ignis is so determined that the ring acknowledges him as temporary wielder and grants him its powers.
• The fact that, in the end, Ardyn manipulated his way into getting almost everything he wanted-revenge, death, and just perhaps, the end of the Starscourge.
• On occasion, Aranea will help out Noctis and his group at night whenever Daemons appear.
• Daemons are relentlessly attacking the train that the team's on, with Noctis being the only one available to hold them off; then Leviathan arrives in time to literally wash away all the daemons, even firing off miniature replicas of herself at them as projectiles.
• Parrying the Titan's fist is already awesome, but finishing the fight by freezing the whole arm with ice magic and then smashing it to bits is even better.
• Let's give the Empire of Niflheim a round of applause for killing Shiva. The corpse you find is the size of a skyscraper, and her current incarnation can one shot both Ardyn and Ifrit. Though it's slightly lessened by the fact that Shiva had just awakened and wasn't actively trying to fight back.
  • Speaking of, there's something to be said for Gentiana (that is, Shiva in her human form) shutting up Ardyn by freezing him with a touch to his lips while he's in mid-sentence.
• In Chapter 13, Ardyn disarms Noctis, separates him from his friends, destroys the Regalia and keeps trolling him the whole chapter. Noctis still fights his way up using the Ring of the Lucii and later Regis' sword to fend off the daemons.
  • The Ring of Lucis itself gives all the tools you need: "Death" gradually drains the enemy's existence until they vanish; "Holy" literally becomes Deadly Dodging epitomized, punishing attackers in holy fire; and "Altera" creates a black hole that sucks its victims into the void!
• The March 2017 update completely revamps Chapter 13.
  • First, you now play part of the chapter as Gladiolus! Compared to the slow and tedious beginning of the chapter as Noctis, Gladio brings the pain at full force! Those who didn't buy the Season Pass or won't have Episode Gladio don't have to be afraid of missing out on playing him.
  • Second, by bumping up the Ring of Lucis' powers: "Death" now deals damage in addition to its eventual insta-death effect. "Holy" doesn't just blast the enemy in fire, but instead prompts Noctis to Warpstrike them down wreathed in divine power. And Altera is even more powerful, sucking in an Iron Giant with ease (though it could already do that), and the trailer teasing that it can take down the freaking Adamantoise!
• Luna standing up to Leviathan becomes this once the full scene plays out. In this game, Leviathan is a haughty, temperamental sea goddess who takes umbrage at a "speck" like Luna summoning her to enter a covenant with Noctis. Luna's response?
  "It is in receiving mercy that men offer praise. And in shedding grace that the Gods solicit worship."
  • Leviathan then tries to eat Luna, but the Oracle knocks the Astral back by saying her name and firing a beam of light from her trident.
  • And then Luna, after being fatally stabbed by Ardyn, uses the last of her strength to empower Noctis by blessing him with the remaining royal arms in Altissia as well as the Trident, essentially giving him an 11th-Hour Superpower which allows him to fly and fight Leviathan single-handedly with the Armiger Arsenal.
  • Another for stabbed Luna whose first thought upon having just been stabbed is healing Ardyn from darkness. It doesn't work and he shakes her off, but her dedication to ridding the world of darkness is literally knowing no bounds.
• The battle against Ifrit, and summoning Bahamut to take him down. Except that the Astral is only a distraction: Ifrit parkours his way through the building-sized Storm of Blades that Bahamut rains down on him (an attack which defeated him in Episode Ardyn, for bonus points), then parries Bahamut's main blade when he rushes at him. Bahamut glances at Noct, who realizes what he must do and delivers a superpowered Warp-strike straight to Ifrit's head. Ifrit just gets back up again after being staggered for a few moments, but now, he's vulnerable.
  • Once Ifrit is put on his last legs, Noct summons Shiva, who beautifully swarms Ifrit and freezes him solid as he struggles to run down Noctis. And to add insult to injury, Shiva daintily kisses Ifrit's lips before he shatters into dust.
    • It crosses into Tear Jerker when you remember that Ifrit and Shiva used to be lovers, and that the Ifrit Noctis and Co. fight is nothing more than a mindless beast reanimated by the Starscourge.
• The final boss battle. Forced to confront Ardyn solo, he quickly demonstrates to Noctis that he has the same Magic, Warp, and Armiger powers, creating a Duel Boss as the player is confronted by matching versions of their own attacks and abilities. This only extends further when Noctis and Ardyn enter full Armiger mode, and promptly take their fight to the skies of Insomnia. Whilst understated compared to the usual trend of final boss fights for the series, Noctis makes up for it by hitting Ardyn with all 13 Royal Arms of the previous Kings and Queens of Lucius to kill the immortal, followed by coming after him in the afterlife and obliterating his soul with the combined might of the souls of said rulers.
  • Noctis calling upon the past rulers sounds awesome in itself but then you realize the manner in which he does it. 13 fully armored and uniquely armed knights each attacking individually? It's the fan favorite Knights of Round Summon.
  • Ray Chase's epic delivery of what otherwise could've been a pretty corny line.
    Power... of LIGHT!
  • Special mention should also be given for the fact that it subverts the usual Square-Enix Final Boss formula by not having Ardyn go One-Winged Angel at all. Just a pure one-on-one fight to the death between the kings of Lucis.
    Ardyn: Let the games begin.
    Noctis: No. Now they end.
• Shiva's standard summon cinematic has Noctis shivering and struggling to even stand straight due to the cold. When Noctis summons Shiva for the last time, against Ifrit, he doesn't even flinch.
• The Adamantoise. XIII turned them into titans with tusks and jaws the size of a man. XV then proceeded to buff the Catobelpas to similar size levels. Then 2014 rolled around, providing a brief glimpse of a mountain, effectively. The eye of the giant turtle is this size of Noct's torso. And then there's actually taking it down, even if it is somewhat of an Anti-Climax Boss in comparison to the ones from XIII.
  • You can also pull off a unique (and rare) counter with the Adamantoise as well that has Noctis dodging to the side as his teammates group up, Noctis summoning four of his Royal Arms for him and his team (Noctis with the Blade of the Mystic, Gladiolus with the Axe of the Conqueror, Ignis with the Swords of the Wanderer, and Prompto with the Sword of the Wise) and all four warp to the top of Adamantoise. As in the literal mountaintop of the giant turtle, before diving down from said mountaintop and attacking the head of the Adamantoise. Talk about death from above!
• Thanks to a handy-dandy glitch, Aranea can be made into a freaking fixed party member! That goes well above awesome. To be warned, it does seem to prevent On Tour quests from being initiated unless you remove her from the party by triggering a story cutscene or quest.
• In Chapter 9, after spending the previous chapters incognito, Noctis is finally called to be King publically. It starts with him having to negotiate with Altissia's leadership to gain their assistance in the rite, which can end with him gaining their unconditional trust if the player chooses the right dialogue options. Then Noctis takes on Leviathan to prove himself to her and the world that he's the Chosen King.
  • Episode Ignis dialogue implies that Noctis getting the best outcome is canon as the First Secretary gives Ignis as much support as she can during the catastrophic events, including giving a boat that could be used to save survivors.
• While it probably isn't so awesome for Noct, the entirety of Noctis Nightmare sequence, an abridged version of the Omen Trailer, is pure eye candy and accompanied by the amazingly haunting track Disquiet.
• The Noctis who returns after ten years inside the crystal is totally different from the shy, awkward teenager with a penchant for complaining. He now carries himself like a true king, walking tall and completely assured as to his purpose. He also tosses out some incredible lines during the final confrontation with Ardyn.
  Noctis: Off my chair, jester. The king sits there.
• Though a rather understated thing, Ignis will recreate any dish he tries at any place you can buy food. For many restaurants, how they prepare their food is a closely guarded secret. It's a testimate to Ignis' culinary skills that he can make a match, with his own flare, that carries the same effects after only one sampling of the dish.
• Groups of enemies will occasionally fight and kill one another, completely ignoring the party if they're outside aggro range.
• Couldn't get the DLC episodes? No worries! A December update finally added the ability to switch between all four party members.
• The Royal Edition has Luna helping the squad from beyond to break a barrier, by calling in all the summons. It must be seen to be believed.
• In a mix between heartwarming, tearjerker and absolutely awesome, Royal edition also adds three new fights with the Founder Kings, where your brothers get a chance to shine for one final time before you go and face Ardyn alone. First off, Gladio protects you against the Fierce and reiterates his position as your trusted Shield, then Prompto gets to prove how sharp his eye and shooting arm are against the Rogue, promising to be there for you until the end as your best friend, and Ignis, your Hand and confidant, goes on to burn throughtThe Mystic, the Founder King himself.
  Noctis: Hate to break it to you, but you're outnumbered.

DLC Episodes

Episode Gladiolus

• This game's version of Gilgamesh is basically the most menacing and badass version of him yet, going from being the constant six-armed Comic Relief to a millennia-old being whose purpose is to weed out those unworthy of protecting the King of the Lucis. He only has one arm, yet this does absolutely nothing to diminish his abilities... and when he wants to get serious, he can re-create a ghostly arm to dual-wield against you.
  • The story of why he only has one arm is even better. He lost it to Gladio's predecessor, Cor, as a mere teenager. Though the predecessor technically failed, this impresses Gilgamesh so much that he keeps the very weapon that claimed his arm in deepest respect. Plus, while usually anyone who fails the trials gets killed, Gilgamesh allowed Cor to live for having outmatched him, even if only for a moment.

Episode Prompto

• Prompto breaking out of the confines of the Magitek facility near single-handedly, and when he is cornered, who should rescue him but Aranea!
• Aranea being the one to pull Prompto out of his funk and get him to focus on what truly matters, including that his friends have been there for him from day 1, and they probably won't care about his origins.
• Prompto and Aranea, armed with only a folding sword, a pistol, a lance and whatever weapons were lying around in the warehouse, manage to take down one of the Empire's experiments, a half ape half machine monstrosity that eats bullets like candy!
  • The second boss is even better. Prompto's true father, the professor who invented the Magitek Troopers and created Prompto via cloning, merges with a robot to become a colossal worm-like machine codenamed Immortalis. Aranea drives an armed snowmobile across the frozen wastelands of Niflheim while Prompto lays waste to it via an LMG on the snowmobile's rear.

Comrades

• As the Kingsglaive were considered nothing but traitors in having utterly failed their sworn duty to protect Insomnia and King Regis, you fight Bahamut himself in a trial of combat, and ultimately manage to absolve yourself of your sins in the eyes of the gods, to the point that you become handpicked by them. Then to top that off, you spend the following ten years fighting almost non-stop to make sure Noctis can arrive back safely and meet the others for the finale, and live.
  • Just to add extra emphasis to this, the fight with Bahamut is not only considered the best boss fight in the entire game (they even got Final Fantasy XIV devs to help work on it), but both the story battle and the Optional Boss re-fight have tracks composed by none other than Nobuo Uematsu himself!
• There's something to be said for the remaining humans in the ten year span between Noctis's imprisonment and his awakening: almost immediately upon the world going to shit, all of them band together to form La Résistance against Ardyn and the daemon hordes. Not only do fighters like Cor, Aranea, and Iris become legendary protectors, background supporters like Cindy, Holly, and Jeanne immediately spring to action right from the outset to help keep people alive with the help of EXINERIS's power plant. And it works: their resistance to Ardyn's dark tyranny lasts long enough for Noctis to come back and save the world.

Episode Ignis

• The DLC's events coincide with one of the darkest parts of the main game: the fall of Altissia, as well as the loss of Ignis's sight. However, the DLC makes it clear: Ignis sure as hell did not go down without a fight. In fact, at the DLC's climax, he reaffirms his Declaration of Protection towards Noct, before slamming the Ring of the Lucii onto his finger. The Ring has a very strong case of Only the Chosen May Wield; it cost Ravus his arm and Nyx Ulric his life, but Ignis is willing to wear it and fight Ardyn alone in order to protect Noctis. It seems the cost of him doing this was his sight, and he lied about it simply being the fallout of Leviathan's rampage, possibly because he knew Noctis would blame himself.
  • We also get to see Ignis and Ravus as Back-to-Back Badasses, taking down the imperial forces together.
  • The boss battle with Ravus upon his discovering that Luna has died is very impressive in terms of atmosphere, choreography, and soundtrack. Special mention goes to the opening sequence, which sees Ignis and Ravus fencing with each other as the former tries to keep the latter from attacking Noct, as the music seems to actively synchronize with Ignis' dialogue at certain moments.
  • 'Gladio' seemingly discovers Ignis and Ravus together and attacks Ravus. Ravus instantly sees through Ardyn's mind tricks and figures out it's really him.
  • Unlike the other DLC episodes, Episode Ignis comes with a special Alternate Ending! Choosing to go along with Ardyn instead of immediately standing against him well have Ardyn lead Ignis to the Crystal and reveal his identity. Ignis takes the time to try and stop Ardyn, but not without using the Ring of the Lucii and risking his life, resulting in one of the best boss fights ever!
    • Losing results in a Downer Ending. If you win, however... Ignis succeeds in (temporarily) killing Ardyn! And just before the Ring of the Lucii consumes him as its price, Noctis and the guys arrive just in time, thanks to Ravus, to get the ring off of him and for Noctis to willingly go into the Crystal, thereby saving Ignis's original fate of losing his eyesight. Skip to final battle 10 years later, as Noctis gives his thanks to his friends and as he walks up to Insomnia's Castle, Ravus is also there to proudly give him Regis' sword.
    • And as the final cherry on top of this Alternate ending, we're treated to Iggy addressing Noctis, who in this timeline is alive and well, as "Your Majesty".
    • What makes this particularly awesome is that Ignis essentially broke the plot of the game in order to give it a different ending, because he was just that determined to prevent Noctis from dying.
    • The ring specifically requested "a life for a life", making very clear that it will only help Ignis save Noctis if it can have his life in exchange. Ignis doesn't die yet Noctis also doesn't. Ignis unknowingly cheated and got two for the price of none.
    • And as if that wasn't awesome enough, the ending of Episode Ardyn showed that everything spanning the last two millennia was preordained by Bahamut, and that Ardyn himself was unable to stop that. Ignis, through sheer stubbornness, proceeds to do the impossible and give the Leader of the Six a massive middle finger.
• Whereas Gladiolus tears his way through hordes of powerful monsters with some handholding from Cor in the Trial of Gilgamesh, and Prompto destroys the Immortalis while fighting alongside Aranea through several platoons' worth of Imperial Soldiers, Ignis gets to deal with the full might of the Imperial Army head-on in the aftermath of Noctis' Trial with Leviathan, and with no combat assistance for the first chapter. Even if you did most of the work as the other two in their episodes, Ignis has his work cut out for him — and can singlehandedly take back Altissia against a veritable army with all but brief respites to catch his breath and gain his bearings. And all of this just to make sure Noctis is safe, as a priority over his own well-being and not thinking straight all the while. What Ignis lacks in raw strength or firepower, he more than makes up for in sheer efficiency, which shows when he also beats Ravus in a one-on-one where Gladio couldn't, and can kick Ardyn's ass in the alternate ending.
  • And while all three of the heroes use their environment or wits to their advantage — Gladiolus with pillars and the environment, and Prompto with stealth and improvised weaponry — Ignis loots a Magitek Trooper's armor and jury-rigs a personal grappling hook in the span of five seconds. The result for someone like himself, who already prioritizes mobility? Unrivaled access to the rooftops and environment that even Noctis can't compare to, making him able to approach his enemies from any angle and travel the ruined city with few obstacles.

Episode Ardyn

• Say what you will about Bahamut; he knows how to make an entrance.
  Bahamut: ARDYN LUCIS CAELUM, I COMMAND THEE TO HALT AND KNEEL BEFORE ME.
• The entire fight between Ardyn and King Regis, using their own Armiger's against each other... and oh boy, THE MUSIC!
• The second half of the DLC is a big villainous one for Ardyn, and truly showcases how powerful he is. How powerful is he? He takes on Somnus and wins. Somnus, the Founder King of the Lucis line and the penultimate final boss in the main game? And before that, Ardyn had made mincemeat out of the Glaives and Regis. If Bahamut hadn't intervened, Ardyn would have gotten his revenge by stabbing Regis to death.
  • The subjugation of Ifrit. Relatively freshly awakened and yet still sane and inexperienced, Ardyn gets thrown into a fight with a VERY angry Ifrit; he loses as the massive deity grabs him easily. Ardyn uses his powers on him and Ifrit instantly goes down on his knees while angrily shouting how he dared to enslave a literal god before turning and coming under Ardyn's control. It also shows that the main game could have been WAY harder if Ardyn would have cared, seeing that he could have easily gotten to Titan and Leviathan and done the same, if he had wanted.

The Dawn of the Future

The Beginning of the End (Aranea)

• Aranea single-handedly taking down a Diamond Weapon. The very same Diamond Weapons that destroyed an entire city in one night.

The Final Glaive (Noctis)

• Noctis staying his hand when he has the chance to slay Ardyn. He admits what he wants is to protect the world and everything in it, and that "everything" includes Ardyn. It's a subtle moment, but it's the moment where Noctis takes the step from being The Chosen One to instead Screw Destiny, refusing to being Bahamut's pawn any longer.
• The final battle, which basically involved Noctis teaming up with most of the Astrals to take down Bahamut on Eos, and Ardyn beating him down in The Beyond.

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