Final Fantasy XV demo and impressions

looks meh and it looks like a boy band simulator. These character designs are as bad as the dumb exaggerated space marine characters in other games, just opposite end of the spectrum
 
Stolen from GAF:

Previews/impressions:

IGN (includes new video footage)

"Final Fantasy XV: Episode Duscae gives us a brief glimpse of the possibility in Square Enix's eventual open world role-playing game, but the demo isn't just a simple sample of what's to come. Duscae is a deep, rewarding exploration of a gorgeous world, a group of friends, and Final Fantasy XV's complex and challenging combat."

IGN UK

"I came away from my first experience with Final Fantasy XV feeling hopeful. Square Enix has given us something tangible, finally, and it’s looking promising. I may have entered that room not knowing what was coming, but I left with a solid idea of what to expect in future. Combat is nothing like we’ve seen in the franchise before but, thanks in part to a magnificent open world just brimming with curiosities begging to be uncovered, it doesn’t matter. It just feels like Final Fantasy through and through. Unfortunately, Square Enix may have inadvertently shot itself in the foot; while the studio was undoubtedly hoping this teaser would tide us over until the full release, it’s done the exact opposite. So get cracking, Square. After all, I’m not getting any younger."

Kotaku

"I have a lot of thoughts. The short version: Final Fantasy XV is full of smart ideas, and although the tropes are all there—phoenix downs, gysahl greens, peppy victory music—it feels totally different than any Final Fantasy before it, more akin to Skyrim or Far Cry than any JRPG we've seen to date. But can Square Enix's tech live up to their vision? The demo I played was janky, peppered with distracting jaggies, and full of framerate drops that made exploring FFXV's open world feel like more of a chore than it ever should have been."

"At least they have time to fix it."

Eurogamer

"It feels like a very long while since a Final Fantasy universe has felt like one I'd want to spend time in. I'm still not entirely convinced by the characters or that their chatter won't begin to grate after a few hours, but the juxtaposition of traditional Final Fantasy tropes and aesthetics with more modernised, realistic elements like the party's car and costumes didn't trouble me nearly as much as I thought it would. Where a few of the past series entries felt like you were being harried down a long corridor, funnelled from one fight to another, Final Fantasy 15 seems to appreciate the quieter moments as much as the whirl of battle or the excitement of exploring: cooking, wandering, telling stories, standing still and looking."

Gamespot

"I love the idea of four guys on a road trip to save the world. It's refreshing to see a small group that emotionally trusts each other; they're relationships are pre-established before the demo, and the level to which they connect with each other is evident on the surface. This is a positive representation of male camaraderie without machismo, a rare representation of "bromance" that is infrequently used in video games."
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CasualGamer said:
looks meh and it looks like a boy band simulator. These character designs are as bad as the dumb exaggerated space marine characters in other games, just opposite end of the spectrum
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Really? I think it looks great. Don't forget that we have a huge game world here, and man those animations look awesome.
 
Finished the demo. Overall I enjoyed it. However, the combat has some issues I hope they work out and the frame rate dips. The summon is bad ass.

-The max camera sensitivity is too slow.
-Right Bumper is Lock on and Left Bumper is Block, I'd like to change these to the triggers.
-In dense forestry areas it can be difficult to see what your fighting.
-In battle when you go to heal an team member its the 'A' button, the 'A' button will also warp you; which then happens at a inopportune time when your trying to revive an ally. Now what makes this worse is that LT and RT do nothing. So they could use the extra buttons to avoid s*** like this.
 
i try to play type 0 and its a mess, ill try this demo.
All this do is re-enforce me not to buy Japanese gaming crap.

I will do FFXIV ARR and that is far as I go.
 
CasualGamer said:
looks meh and it looks like a boy band simulator. These character designs are as bad as the dumb exaggerated space marine characters in other games, just opposite end of the spectrum
Click to expand...

Avenged Sevenfold saves the world. Lol

The game looks cool. I'm genuinely surprised by the visuals. Really nice.
 
I hated the demo. It reinforced all of my fears for this game. If only this game stayed as Versus XIII, it may have had a chance.
 
Ok i just finished the demo too. The things i like are the combat, quite a lot actually but they really need to make changes to the camera in combat, cause you easily lose track of some of the faster enemies. That said, graphics are a mixed bag. Characters look good, but the things in the background are just blurry, and there's a rather huge amount of aliasing on the car, the gas station, fences, trees and so on. Definitely not a pretty sight and definitely not a very high resolution. The one thing that was actually worse for me was the framerate. At times it's ok, kinda smooth, but then starts to bog down and plenty of times pretty much unplayably bad. Now i know this is just a demo, but i saw some videos on Gamersyde of the PS4 demo and it seems more smooth. However, i did not see the exact same parts where in my X1 version the framerate just seems to die, in that PS4 footage.

I did like the cave exploration, even if it was basic,it was cool. The summon was really nice as well. I just wonder if this gameworld is going to be interesting enough to explore. Time will tell, but if this demo is from a recent build....ooh boy, this game is far....FAR from finished then. But who knows, maybe the demo is rather old. I realize it's very hard to make a demo of a JRPG or even just a RPG and make it 100% enjoyable. If they can bring us the nice and cool looking towns we know from the FF games, give us ridable Chocobos, drastically improve that framerate, resolution AND remove the aliasing....it'll be promising.
 
MosquitoSmasher said:
I just wonder if this gameworld is going to be interesting enough to explore. .
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Yea i'd say the open world is still closer to FF13's open section than Skyrim. Getting almost all the side quests from signs out in the world is lame and interactions with NPC's is minimal. In Skyrim at least even the people with the least dialogue still felt like they were present in the world. Hopefully its more robust in the final game.
 
I beat the demo today and loved it. I had fallen away from FF since 10, 12 was good but released at the wrong time and I couldn't get into 13. I think thid will definitely bring me into the fold. I enjoyed it more than Dragon age!
The best part of the demo was that my daughter loves it. I see a future FF fan in the making.
 
I really can't believe this is what they have to show for this game considering how LOOOOONNNNG it has been in development. I feel really bad for Japanese developers now-a-days. They've been so thoroughly surpassed by western devs, it's kinda disorienting. They just got stuck... Nintendo seems to be the only one who can consistently make good games.

I guess you could say From, but until the Souls series, they had been pretty mediocre as well. Don't even get me started on Sega. :(
 
male cameraderie without machismo
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Whoever wrote that is clearly a woman. (checks link) Yup...

Not all male interactions need to be like GoW,but when your whole party looks like Arc L'ciel its hard to take crucial interactions seriously...
 
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After finishing the first chapter in Type-0 I really wish they would have just used a similar combat system for FFXV.

-Being able to change characters is nice.
-Tapping LB+B to dodge in 15 is cumbersome in Type-0 you just tap B.
-Not everything you do is tied to the MP bar like 15.
-Type-0 your special techniques are all mapped to your buttons, while you may only two offensive and one defensive it much easier to get them off in the heat of battle instead of 15's cycle to the one you want and then watch the damn wolf thingy run away from the close area technique that was just selected.
 
Mua'dib said:
Whoever wrote that is clearly a woman. (checks link) Yup...

Not all male interactions need to be like GoW,but when your whole party looks like Arc L'ciel its hard to take crucial interactions seriously...
Click to expand...

Final Fantasy men have always looked effeminate. I'm not sure why that is. A Japanese thing, I guess. "Boy band" is actually a step up.
 
Just when i am starting to think i've played enough of the demo, it pulls me back in. I absolutely love the combat system. Just now i was fighting the Behemoth on the big open field and man this stuff looked damn epic. Finally realtime combat in FF and i friggin love it.
 
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Mua'dib said:
Whoever wrote that is clearly a woman. (checks link) Yup...

Not all male interactions need to be like GoW,but when your whole party looks like Arc L'ciel its hard to take crucial interactions seriously...
Click to expand...
In the current state of the world I wouldn't have been surprised if it had been a self hating guy writing it.
 
Game is still in development, but looks like PS4 has better res and performance.

These modern Final Fantasy games are weird. Monsters and magic, combined with cars and guns.
 
Intellivision said:
Game is still in development, but looks like PS4 has better res and performance.

These modern Final Fantasy games are weird. Monsters and magic, combined with cars and guns.
Click to expand...
I like the mix, personally. Any kind of different is welcome in my book. I'd expect the PS4 version to look better, but the performance should be similar, given the lower rez on the X1.
 
Mua'dib said:
Whoever wrote that is clearly a woman. (checks link) Yup...

Not all male interactions need to be like GoW,but when your whole party looks like Arc L'ciel its hard to take crucial interactions seriously...
Click to expand...
They look like Arc L'ciel because they are Japanese. This is a reoccurring problem in Final Fantasy games.
 
Frozpot said:
I really can't believe this is what they have to show for this game considering how LOOOOONNNNG it has been in development. I feel really bad for Japanese developers now-a-days. They've been so thoroughly surpassed by western devs, it's kinda disorienting. They just got stuck... Nintendo seems to be the only one who can consistently make good games.

I guess you could say From, but until the Souls series, they had been pretty mediocre as well. Don't even get me started on Sega. :(
Click to expand...

But i think this is where a lot of people misunderstand it. Has the game truly been in development for so many years? On NeoGAF i read that the version for X1/PS4 has only been in development for 2 or 3 years now. Wasn't the whole PS3 game canned? Either way, this is just a demo of a small region in the game, i bet they have already finished many other regions and cities.
 
MosquitoSmasher said:
But i think this is where a lot of people misunderstand it. Has the game truly been in development for so many years? On NeoGAF i read that the version for X1/PS4 has only been in development for 2 or 3 years now. Wasn't the whole PS3 game canned? Either way, this is just a demo of a small region in the game, i bet they have already finished many other regions and cities.
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They showed a bit of gameplay a couple years ago at e3 2013, i believe. That's a long time to be still trying to sort things out, imo. I actually like where they are going with it, but it seems like they are still developing the core gameplay. I think I read the main dev guy saying that this demo is part of developing that. It sounds like an inefficient design strategy. Don't most devs figure all of that stuff out in pre-development when they are prototyping, and before they start making all the assets?

I don't know, I could be way off base. I want it to be good, and aside from their J-pop characters, I like the visual styling and mix of tech and fantasy.
 
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