Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV

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Japanese: KINGSGLAIVE FINAL FANTASY XV

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Information

Type: Movie

Episodes: 1

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Jul 9, 2016

Producers: Square Enix

Licensors: None found, add some

Studios: Square Enix Visual Works

Source: Game

Genre: Action

Duration: 1 hr. 55 min.

Rating: PG-13 - Teens 13 or older

Statistics

Score: 7.40¹ (scored by 36,299 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #2284²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #2822

Members: 60,257

Favorites: 155

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Synopsis

For years, the Niflheim Empire and the kingdom of Lucis have been at war. The empire, having dominated most of the world of Eos, covets the power of the last known Crystal, which is held in Lucis' capital city, Insomnia.

In order to protect his people from these advancing forces, King Regis Lucis Caelum CXIII used the power of the Crystal to surround Insomnia with a magical wall. Along with this barrier, Regis assembled an elite military task force known as the Kingsglaive. By drawing their power from the king, the Kingsglaive protect Lucis' borders from the onslaught of the empire and other forces that would do them harm.

One such member of the Kingsglaive is Nyx, a man nicknamed "The Hero" by his fellow warriors due to his arrogance and desire to save everyone. However, his pride gets the better of him, causing him to disobey his captain's orders, resulting in a demotion. Now, Nyx spends his days guarding the city gates, but things begin to change once word gets out that Regis plans to sign a peace treaty with their sworn enemies.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Related Anime

Sequel:	Brotherhood: Final Fantasy XV
Other:	Kingsglaive: FFXV Fan Kansha Tokubetsu Movie
Prequel:	Final Fantasy XV: Episode Ardyn - Prologue

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Ulric, Nyx

Main

Ayano, Gou
Japanese

Nox Fleuret, Lunafrena

Main

Kutsuna, Shiori
Japanese

Lucis Caelum, Regis

Main

Isobe, Tsutomu
Japanese

Lucis Caelum, Noctis

Supporting

Suzuki, Tatsuhisa
Japanese

Argentum, Prompto

Supporting

Kakihara, Tetsuya
Japanese

Scientia, Ignis

Supporting

Miyano, Mamoru
Japanese

Amicitia, Gladiolus

Supporting

Miyake, Kenta
Japanese

Izunia, Ardyn

Supporting

Fujiwara, Keiji
Japanese

Nox Fleuret, Ravus

Supporting

Nakamura, Yuuichi
Japanese

Altius, Crowe

Supporting

Fujimura, Ayumi
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Tabata, Hajime

Producer

Nozue, Takeshi

Director

Hasegawa, Takashi

Script

Méyère, Bruno

ADR Director

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Ending Theme

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Reviews

Aug 13, 2016

ClawViper

Recommended

Being a Final Fantasy fan who has been following the development of Final Fantasy XV pending its release, I decided to watch Kingsglaive as soon as it was released in the theaters. I will try to give my impressions of each individual aspect of the movie while withholding spoilers, thus keeping this review short. To sum it up - there is nothing that will blow your mind out of the water in this movie besides the animation, but it is definitely worth a watch if you're planning to purchase and play the game - it stands as a decent prequel to the game, although not ... so much as a stand-alone.

There is no shadow of doubt that the strongest point of the movie lies in its animation . Rather than engaging in redundancy by attempting to describe the animation in words, watch the official trailer on YouTube to see it for yourself. It's worth the two minutes of your time even if you're not a Final Fantasy fan. The depiction of Insomnia is extremely immersive and it does its job at getting me excited to begin exploring the world of Final Fantasy XV.

The story is nothing standout if one views it as a stand-alone movie. However, I consider that the main purpose of the movie would be more of an introduction to the world and historical background of Final Fantasy XV as it is a prequel to the game after all. While the story might be simple and rather predictable, I think keeping it this way as a prequel to the game was the correct decision as having a convoluted story with plot twists out of nowhere would spoil the movie's purpose of being an introduction as it will scare away a part of its target audience.

The characters are not particularly outstanding, but commendable nonetheless. The main character - Nyx is likable and will get you rooting for him throughout the story. By the end of it he will be remembered as a badass. One thing I must give credit to the creators for is the fact that they did well to show the plight of some of the characters in the story and their moral conflict within themselves in a not overly-complicated way. This movie did not just keep so simple as to merely - "Oh, this guy is good. This guy is bad," but actually displays why some of the characters in the show make the decisions they did, which gives way more depth to their actions. Although I think there could be more focus on that moral conflict, it was sufficient for me to see these characters as more than just mere generic good guys or villains.

Being a Final Fantasy fan, I could notice and appreciate many references to creatures that exist in the Final Fantasy universe, increasing my enjoyment of the show. My only complaint would be the fact that some action scenes can get really messy, which does make it unclear and possibly even confusing as to what is going on. I also thought that the action scenes were slightly too drawn out. However, it is far from boring and it didn't detract from my enjoyment and viewing experience.

Despite this not being mandatory to play the game, do give this a go if you are planning to play the game. It's worth it as it serves as a decent prequel and adds hype to the upcoming release of the game.

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Sep 18, 2016

ArchStanton

Mixed Feelings

Final Fantasy's developed a bit of a problem. Their stories were always quite simple, with evil empires, noble rebels, wizards, demi-god opponents, and monsters. Their strengths were the way they combined them to create emotional plots and unique characters. The problem with the recent installments is that they've buckled down on the exceedingly basic nature of their plots while dramatically increasing the complexity of their descriptions. While previous installments would be content to simply state that people are using a mana cannon, for example, its abilities to be demonstrated in game, more modern ones would feel compelled to describe the nature of the mana cannon, ... the means by which it draws its power, the construction of it, the strength of its blasts, some metaphysical conundrums raised by it, etc. And of course, they'd be sure to give it a unique and complicated name that you need to remember for later. Worse still, they might create all these details and then not explain them, leaving the audience to figure these things out on their own or requiring them to read the copious compendium. That might sound like exactly what I'm praising the early games for, but the difference is that everyone can work out what it means when they say a mana cannon is firing but it's a lot harder to understand what is meant when an el'Hurpaderp cannon is vlerping. The added details and terminology add nothing and makes everything more confusing. For example here, when the hero fights the villain he does so in league with a giant monster of some kind whose fight seems to echo his fight. What is this thing? Is he controlling it? Is it simply reflecting his actions? Why does his opponent have one too? Are they the same thing? And why couldn't they simply leave it at two guys fighting without confusing everything by adding in giant monsters that serve no purpose?

And so we come to this movie. It's not the worst example of Final Fantasy's weird terminology (it does at least call a magic wall a magic wall) but it's certainly fallen for the trap of overcomplicating simple matters. The basic plot is admirably simple. An evil empire is assaulting the good people of Lucis but they offer a treaty which could end the war at the expense of surrendering the territory outside their capital of Insomnia. The kingsglaive (a military unit filled by people from outside the city, though why the city-dwellers can't fight for themselves isn't clear) is understandably upset over this since that means that their homes are now outside the kingdom they were protecting. Shenanigans ensue, the evil empire is evil, and fin. There should be enough there to fill a movie. But they are so afraid of meaningful or measured expositing (as opposed to shouting out a lot of complicated phrases meaning nothing) that none of this is allowed to be introduced naturally instead of through shouted cries in between battle scenes. And so much that we need to understand is never explained. Who the heck is this Princess Luna and why is she so important? Why is rescuing her from the empire the king's main issue when his entire kingdom is at stake and when the empire was the one to bring her there as bride to the prince in the first place? Why is Prince Noctis so important to the safety of the world and to Luna personally when they've apparently not seen each other in twelve years? These are not minor unresolved questions that can be swept under the rug as cool mysteries to be uncovered later. They inform every decision made in the film and yet we're never allowed to understand the reason behind the characters' behaviour. The core of the second half of the film is Luna's rescue and escape yet we understand none of why this is happening. All that we know is that people are doing things because other people told them to and oh look at the pretty fight scenes.

A part of this is not the film's fault. The film is the companion to the game and as such has to leave out large parts of exposition which is saved for that story. For that reason it shares many faults with Advent Children. But that cannot excuse the way they chose to go about telling this story. If Luna's backstory can't be explained then leave her out of it. Or if that's not possible have one of the game characters (like King Regis) tell Nyx (the movie exclusive lead) that there are powerful secrets here that he cannot reveal to him. Build up a sense of mystery rather than just ignorance. Nyx isn't a lead in the game so what he knows and doesn't know can serve as the audience's surrogate in the film. It doesn't. There's never a real sense of why things are happening, simply a progression from one fight scene to the next. Characters are nonexistent. Nyx is an empty sack made worse by astonishingly bad voice acting from Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul. The man just does not care about any of this. Sean Bean as King Regis and Lena Hedley as Princess Luna (finally a good Cersei) round out the cast and do slightly better, but there's never any real soul to them. I attribute this to the fact that their motivations and behavior are inscrutable due to the aforementioned absence of meaningful exposition. This is especially unfortunate seeing how good the character work in the companion anime Brotherhood was. None of the characters was exactly deep, but they were distinct and had genuine relationships with each other and their world. Here I can't describe a single character trait beyond a description of their jobs. Nyx is, like, a soldier? He fights people I guess. And monster things. Luna's a princess who cares about something larger than herself? I don't know what that something is because they never tell us. Regis is king and he's, like, nice I think? Probably? It's all a vacuous waste made to service the "plot", by which I mean set up cool-looking fight scenes.

As a pretty display of animation the film does alright. The visuals are stunning if so overblown as to be wearing. And the fight scenes with the teleporting swords are pretty damn cool. As a trailer for the world of the game I suppose the film can be tolerated. I know more now than I did before, but at the same time I'm confused and worried that this will be another XIII since all that game's faults are on display bar the endless corridor. That said, Final Fantasy has never adapted well to film and this one is really no worse than Advent Children except for the fact that we went into that one knowing who those characters were. A bad film does not a bad game make, and even if it did the fact that Brotherhood is really quite good gives me some hope that the game is taking a more character-driven approach. I suppose that this film can't really be judged in the absence of the game. It's possible that once the game reveals all this movie will make sense and stand on its own. But I really really doubt it.

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Aug 23, 2016

SanaeK10

Not Recommended

"I went in expecting nothing and still got disappointed". This sentence sums up Kingsglaive succinctly and accurately. Of course, for a more detailed explanation of why this movie is somehow worse than that cash grab that is Advent Children, I'll be spoiling the film below. If you care about the story and/or have no qualms paying 10 bucks or so for a ticket, go ahead and watch it. Otherwise, welcome, dear reader, to another episode into the dark spiraling hell that is my review.

Spoilers start here.

The movie begins promisingly enough, a simple prologue that explains the world and its inhabitants well enough. However, after that ... comes a poorly shot fight scene. This fight scene is a prime example of one of the movie's greatest downsides. As pretty (and I mean pretty) the CGI is, the frantic and erratic camera following the fight make it difficult many times to even comprehend the action and the stakes involved. However glamorous or epic the scale of the action is, the erratic camera makes the action scenes far less enjoyable than it should, which is a damned shame.

As we enter the movie proper, you may notice that the lip syncing is way off. Which is curious, considering the movie was shot with the English voices first. Not that it matters much, especially considering how atrocious some of the dialogue is. None of the characters in Kingsglaive speak like normal humans. The biggest offender is Lunafreya, the main heroi- damsel in distress of the film, who seem to speak entirely in what I call "Trailer Bait", who goes on vaguely saying such gems like "I must fulfill this destiny for it is my duty to fulfill this destiny" or some "destiny"-infused nonsense. Nyx's dialogue is mostly passable, he seems the most human of them all. It is really jarring to see how disconnected and artificial the dialogue is seeing as the actual game itself (judging from recent gameplay footage), and hell, the anime, have the characters speak naturally and normally. Ardyn's dialogue I rather liked, although that could be chalked up to how much fun his VA is having with is character. His scenes are a pleasure to watch, few as they are.

The story itself is simple, but poorly told. Many characters seem to be written backwards. What I meant by this is that, instead of having a character's motivation naturally progress them into a situation, most of the characters seem to have a purpose or a scenario they are required to be in and the writing tries to force the characters into fulfilling this purpose or being present in the scenario by whatever means necessary. An example off the top of my head is Libertus' betrayal and redemption. So the big guy gets mad, betrays the glaive, and feels bad after seeing that the Resistance members are all nutcases, and then comes back to save Nyx. His arc is so poorly formulated the only reason I can think of why he's written like this is because the writers wrote the scene near the end with Nyx struggling with Glauca near the end and they needed to write someone in to save him. That and Luna needs a driver and Cor's nowhere to be found (Cor's probably in the trunk of the Regalia methinks). Ravus' arc was pretty lousy as well, so he hates Regis for not helping him despite it was the Empire's fault his country fell and now he's actively harboring a personal vendetta against Regis specifically? Uhh, you go dude. I'd hate it if he ended up as the Main Villain of FFXV, his motivations are lousy and weak.

Ultimately the story ends as an ad for FFXV. Not complaining about this in particular, since this was basically the purpose of the film, but I'm sure a lot of casual moviegoers would be left disappointed as the whole story thread isn't resolved even after the end. Instead, the whole purpose of the film is basically to act as the 2 hour opening CG cutscene to FFXV. In that retrospect I can't hate it as much, but then I remembered I spent money to watch the opening cutscene of a game that isn't out yet.

At least Advent Children had a proper story with a beginning and end and the plot is resolved. Sure it reuses the same plot threads, but at least I knew what was going on in that Bahamut fight, the same cannot be said for the Ultros fight here.

In summary, this movie is a beautiful mess.

2/10.

Also where's my boy Cor in all of this? And Etro?

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Ulric, Nyx

Nox Fleuret, Lunafrena

Lucis Caelum, Regis

Lucis Caelum, Noctis

Argentum, Prompto

Scientia, Ignis

Amicitia, Gladiolus

Izunia, Ardyn

Nox Fleuret, Ravus

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Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV

Alternative Titles

Information

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Resources

Synopsis

Background

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Characters & Voice Actors

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Ending Theme

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