A King's Tale: Final Fantasy XV is a fun little beat-em-up side story

Those who pre-ordered Final Fantasy XV at GameStop or EBgames in North America, or GAME in the United Kingdom, A King’s Tale: Final Fantasy XV came with it. What’s this all about?

A King’s Tale’s place in the so-called “FFXV Universe” comes in the form of King Regis telling his young son Prince Noctis a bedtime story of his travails with close friends — a journey not dissimilar from the one Noctis embarks on in FFXV. The game itself is a 2D side-scrolling beat-em-up, where you control a young King Regis, who — like his son — can conjure weapons and magic in battle.

For a small-budget promotional game, it’s a pretty fun romp; I’d recommend checking this out while Final Fantasy XV installs rather than an endless purgatory of Goblins.

We played through the story mode on PlayStation 4 — check it out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeqBIVC-jMY

Regis has three attacks mapped to the face buttons: light, heavy, and shield moves. You’ll be using these depending on what enemies you come across, where a Quick Slash can keep up with Goblins, heavy attacks can break through Ronin parries, and a Shield Bash to smack away exploding Bombs. Using various combinations of these moves will unlock other moves as well. Regis can also use fire, ice, and lightning magic that is useful too — Blizzard, for example, can slow down fast enemies like Cactuars to make them a little bit more bearable to deal with. This is mapped to a shoulder button, and by holding down the attack, you’ll be able to deploy higher tiers of spells

Of course, Regis’s buddies will also help out in battle with specific presses of two face buttons. Weskham will charge in with his dual pistols, Cid will use his spear, and Clarus with his double-edged blade. Landing attacks without being hit will let you activate them. The Armiger is also present, and when sufficiently charged up by landing attacks, Regis can deploy all of his weapons on a single foe. Using the buddies before activating the Armiger will allow them to jump in and help too.

The main story will take you anywhere from 90 minutes to two hours to complete — your mileage may vary of course, based on what difficulty mode you choose. After you clear the story, you’ll be able to take on “Dream Battles”, where you can try for a high score or time attack record while fulfilling specific objectives like “don’t use magic” or “perform 10 Aerial Slashes”.

final-fantasy-xv-screenshot-2016-12-01-10-08-04

A King’s Tale: Final Fantasy XV is now available with pre-order of Final Fantasy XV via GameStop, EBgames, or GAME retailers. No announcements have been made yet on whether the game will be obtainable elsewhere.


About the Author

Tony Garsow Tony joined Nova Crystallis in 2015, and has spent more than a decade writing in the Final Fantasy community. He also contributes to the Nova Crystallis Twitch and YouTube channels, where you can watch select gameplay highlights, previews, and streams.

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