Personally speaking, this video sums up my major issues with the game's story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Bp-uNdefJo
Good video very thoughtfully constructed. The author likes the story but feels its impact is limited because the setup for certain scenes isn't there. And while I love it overall, I agree the story could be handled better in that regard.
Like take Luna's death. I was still affected when it happened, because if nothing else, it's clear Noctis admires Luna more than anyone in the world. He's eagerly anticipating her throughout the game; he grows concerned whenever there's a hint she might be in trouble. And Luna, for her part, shows that she cares about Noctis, whenever she receives the notebook from Umbra, smiles and touches it in a lovestruck manner, or in later scenes where she straight-up tells Gentiana and Ravus how she feels.
But it'd be even more effective if they showed us more of their relationship, so we can better appreciate why they're so attached to each other in the first place. That's why I think the single best addition they could make to the game would be full-length letters you receive from Luna, once per chapter, upon first resting for the night. This could go on for the first nine chapters of the game. Have Umbra deliver them.
If done well, these letters could show us the relationship shared by Noctis and Luna. We could see they've connected so well because they innately understand each other, i.e. soulmates. We could see they're comfortable enough to really bare their souls and be emotionally vulnerable with each other. Like Noctis could express a sense of isolation, being the heir to the throne; he could confess his fears about his father's ailing health (something that would also help develop Noct's relationship with King Regis), and Luna could console him. These are just examples. The letters would ideally also show a lighter side of Luna a warmth and sense of humor and maybe even give us some of the mundane details of their day-to-day lives, so they feel like real people.
By having eight or nine letters of this sort, leading up to Luna's death, we'll feel like we know the relationship they share when it happens, and we'll feel the loss.
An addition like this would require good writing. Ideally, the letters would be fully voiced so we can squeeze in extra emotion. And ideally, we'd see letters both from Luna to Noctis and vice-versa, so we can see the back and forth. They could even have cutscenes showing the two characters reacting to the letters, making it clear they're in love.
The romantic in me would love something like this. But as it stands, there's still enough in the game to infer that the two characters care about each other. It'd just be more effective with more time given to their relationship.
Now, I don't agree with some of the video's other examples. Arriving in Gralea and seeing it gone to hell was still effective, especially since the game builds up to it with Aranea, radio broadcasts, etc, telling you the empire's gone to shit. This piqued my curiosity since the empire has been hounding my ass throughout the whole game, so from the outside they appear almost unstoppable, which makes it all the more amazing when you arrive in their capital and it's in tatters. Likewise, I disagree that Regis looking on during the ending lacks impact; it's true it'd be more impactful if we saw more of their relationship, but at the end of the day Noctis is still his son, so seeing his ghost unable to watch Noctis get stabbed to death was still amazing to me.
On a side note, I've been compiling a list of potential scenes they could add to provide more of the "moving parts" to the story. Like for example, maybe Gladio and/or Iris could have some flashbacks to Jared raising them as children, which I imagine he did being the family butler. A couple scenes like this, before and after Jared's death, would work wonders. (The ones after his death could even appear in Gladio's DLC, which will be between chapters 6 and 7.) Likewise, they could add a scene that shows the imperial general killing Jared, which would 1) show the empire are bad dudes, and 2) help develop the general you shadow before the fight with Aranea.
I also think they could replace the game's cold open (the flash-forward to Ifrit) with a scene better establishing the lore of the world (the gods, the crystal, the ring make it grand like the opening to Dark Souls), and the threat posed by the empire, and then focusing on the relationship between Noctis and his father, so that when we see Regis wishing Noctis on his way, we feel a connection.
There's so much potential. If what we have is what we get, I still love the game's story, but in terms of how the story is told, there are many additions they can make that would go a long way toward improving the overall tale.
