No, that title isn't confusing at all.
SquareEnix has brought mainline Final Fantasy back to Nintendo consoles... in a fashion.
The company released a trailer for Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition HD on their Youtube channel earlier tonight, confirming the game for a Switch release "soon". The game has already launched on Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
The original Final Fantasy XV was announced in 2006 as Final Fantasy Versus XIII before being rebooted into Final Fantasy XV as a XB1/PS4 game in 2013 for a 2015 launch. This marks the first release of a mainline Final Fantasy game on a Nintendo console in nearly a quarter century, unless 2009's Final Fantasy IV: The After Years is considered.
Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition was also announced for PS4 and Xbox One so I’m not of the mindset that Square Enix is merely serving Switch owners scraps. The company didn’t have to port anything to Switch so while I’m not interested in this at all, I’ll give credit where credit is due. The power disparity between Switch and other platforms makes porting a minefield.
Are there micro-transactions in this? I'm slightly interested, but the art style is off-putting.
The biggest hurdle is most likely that Final Fantasy XV was developed on Square Enix’s own internal Luminous Studio which currently does not support Switch. This is a similar issue with Resident Evil 7, developed on Capcom’s RE Engine. Last year, Final Fantasy XV Director, Hajime Tabata, said they attempted to get Luminous Engine running on Switch but they were having issues. We can pretend this was a long-con to make it seem like they tried. Occam’s Razor suggests porting the engine probably wasn’t worth the effort.
I believe the intention was to get the original version running on Switch. Effort acknowledged. Sometimes it doesn’t work out. Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition was also announced for PS4 and Xbox One so I’m not of the mindset that Square Enix is merely serving Switch owners scraps. The company didn’t have to port anything to Switch so while I’m not interested in this at all, I’ll give credit where credit is due. The power disparity between Switch and other platforms makes porting a minefield.
Are there micro-transactions in this? I'm slightly interested, but the art style is off-putting.
My understanding is that the console versions do not. The mobile versions used them to unlock the various chapters of the game, which is why it's F2P on mobile and $30 on the storefronts (currently on sale for less).