IGN: Final Fantasy XV Impressions - Backseat Driver Simulator

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zassimick

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#1  Edited By zassimick  Moderator
Member since 2004 • 10470 Posts

Final Fantasy XV. Some love it. Most hate it. And the game has only had two demos and a crappy E3 to show for its 10+ years of fans anticipating some form or another of what this is.

Well lolGN posted an article recently about a long-time FF fan and a first-time FF player's first impressions on the game. In the article, 9GN basically logs a discussion between the two. Some highlights:

Beware of spoilers in the actual article.

Getting to know the characters is, I think, what the game’s doing best right now. It has so many little tricks and nuances to get you to love them. Like, can we take a minute to point out how excellent Prompto’s photograph feature is? I think that’s what ties it together for me...

You can get snaps from fights, funny scenes of areas you’ve visited that day, they even come from specific Kodak moment side-missions. It’s a perfect way to make this feel like a trip for a Facebook-y generation. I don’t know which millennium these guys are from, but they sure feel like Millenials.

This already makes me happy. Final Fantasy XII and Final Fantasy XIII both did nothing for me to connect with a large majority of the characters.

And the characters feeling like they are a part of our generation is a plus in my eyes, though I'd wager some longtime fans disagreeing.

Final Fantasy XV – and I’m going to put this on the record – has the most delicious looking food I’ve ever seen in a video game. There seems to be so many dishes that you can order from restaurants or Ignis, who doubles-up as cook while camping.

The pictures look great, but when it’s prepared you’re treated to this close-up where the dish exhales its scented steam into your face. It also serves a purpose, too: an open-faced breakfast sandwich increases attack by 30. I’ve gone on about the food too much – I’m now very conscious of that – but to finish, the model they’ve used for fried eggs belatedly vindicates the shift to next-gen.

We're finally to next gen, folks. Fried eggs have answered the long-standing question, "Are we there yet?"

And speaking of road trips, we are now to what will be an incredibly divisive part of the game. We all know you get a car in this game that will later turn into a flying car. Turns out, the character you are playing, Noctis, only drives at night when it's uber dangerous. Otherwise, caretaker Ignis drives during the day--and you don't get to skip this, folks; at least, not early in the game.

... During the day, Ignis is behind the wheel and drives you to the waypoints you choose. There’s nothing for you to do except sit back, enjoy the scenery, music (which is exclusively made up of soundtrack cuts from the Final Fantasy series, I'm told), or idly natter to your companions. When I realised that this was how driving worked, I wasn’t disappointed – that would be overstating it – but it was another great example of XV subverting my expectations.

Finally, we have combat. A lot of people have already expressed their grievances with the combat. What does sigh'GN think?

I’m not quite sold on how Square’s tried to implement an action-based combat system. I’ve always enjoyed Final Fantasy’s emphasis on strategy - once you’e fighting the top-tier stuff, you’re having to stage manage every move for every party member, ensuring you’re doing the right thing without falling prey to any nasty tricks. Here, it’s just a little… messy.

- - - - -

Final Fantasy XV: A Fan and a First-Timer Play the First 4 Hours

So, how do you feel about the game? What are you thoughts on the "too-much-water"GN's impressions? Think the game will attract newcomers? Also, will you enjoy the casual car rides in your gaming?

And remember, we're now waiting a tad longer for this game: November 29, 2016.

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dobzilian

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#2 dobzilian
Member since 2012 • 3409 Posts

Prefer scrambled egg.

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Pedro

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#3 Pedro
Member since 2002 • 69089 Posts

Sounds incredibly boring. I am still waiting for a reason to purchase this game.

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hayato_

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#4 hayato_
Member since 2007 • 5165 Posts

Its a non linear open world Final Fantasy with tons of side quest. I'm sure tons of people will dig that regardless of Final Fantasy's previous linear gameplay designs. I could care less tbh, but hopefully the story is good and doesn't go the route of the Witcher 3 where I cared not to even finish the game due to that.

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silversix_

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#5 silversix_
Member since 2010 • 26347 Posts

7/10 calling it.

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GameboyTroy

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#6 GameboyTroy
Member since 2011 • 9723 Posts

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mmmwksil

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#7 mmmwksil
Member since 2003 • 16423 Posts

So... let's see here...

Giving time to each character is a good thing. Few Final Fantasy games give characters a chance in the limelight to grow on us, so it's a plus, definitely. Thing is, I want variety in my roster. For as shallow as characters can be in Final Fantasy games, there's at least a healthy dose of crazy and genders. Here? It's all guys. Sorry, I want to see the fairer sex in my car, too.

Food detail? I've seen it before in Muramasa. It's nice to look at, but I don't care. It's a means to an end, like potions and antidotes. I don't look at the pretty potion bottles and admire the craftsmanship; I just down the stupid thing because it heals me. The novelty of the food would wear out within minutes.

The fact that you cannot drive the car yourself from the get go is lame. It's Square taking the game away from me and forcing me to watch as it plays itself. It's an extension of what was wrong with XIII rather than attempting to remedy it. What good is this open world if you don't allow me to explore it at my pace, be it in a car or on foot?

Lastly, the combat is garbage. It was always garbage. It will always be garbage. Know why? Because party-focused Action RPGs are bad by design. Because it's not possible to control your party, and the game lacks combat with the depth of a quality hack-n-slash like Bayonetta. I want to micromanage my party. It's why we play JRPGs; because we like to tinker with every little aspect of our team.

I want the game to release already. I want it to release so I can see the mainstream media kiss Square's collective, colossal ass just like they did in 2010. It's XIII all over again.

(The music is the only highlight. I want to hear Yoko Shimomura's work with the OST, and I cannot wait for it to be officially released!)

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deactivated-5acbb9993d0bd

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#8 deactivated-5acbb9993d0bd
Member since 2012 • 12449 Posts

My thoughts:

The Car - Is a form of early fast travel, nothing more, nothing less, as I thought, it mainly only travels on roads, and you have to land the flying mode on a road. So when people have said "Wtf is the point of chocobos in this?" simple ... they can go ANYWHERE, off road, they swim, etc. Chocobos level up in racing, maybe they can eventually fly and the car becomes irrelevant... as pretty standard with most FF games.

Combat - While abit janky and hard to manager, its no different to Kingdom hearts (just 4 characters, and less forgiving) you can make a case like the person above said "Real Time group combat doesn't work because its a mess" meanwhile on the flip side, old FF combat, is so easy, I literally got bored playing the previous games again. ATTACK / CURE / ATTACK / CURE "oh the occasional elemental spell, or buff" people are WAY OVERSTATING the strategy in the old games, or skill involved, hell I argue that they are far more casual than people make out and thats why there was alot of mass appeal in the first place. FF7 is a P*ss easy game with the exception of a FEW fights.

The "Wait Mode" makes it alot more manageable, wether the A.I is good (unlike Dragon Age for example in its last game) is another story. but you can set commands, target parts of enemies, call out moves and change behaviours, all standard for ALOT of classic WRPGs and JRPGs alike. so I find the whole "Real Time is a mess" argument lame to be quite frank.

Comparison with other games? slightly janky, but so was Kingdom Hearts, still good, alot of room for epic moments (unlike 4 morons standing in a row taking it in turns to "attack" .. or the terrible FF13 role switching cluster f*ck). This combat is better than the likes of the Witcher ... something that ALWAYS had a free pass... but hey, DOUBLE STANDARDS N ALL.

This will have score big (9) or score (7) due to the great production values lacking depth/content behind them.

But the combat arguments are just s*it imo. Like a really bad double standard. but hey, lets go back to traditional final fantasy ... where you just spam the same few moves from a command window, and call it "intelligent strategy"...

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mmmwksil

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#9 mmmwksil
Member since 2003 • 16423 Posts

@MBirdy88:
Combat in the Final Fantasy series has always been pathetically easy. The same applies to Kingdom Hearts outside one specific instance; Action RPGs just have garbage combat.

Know the irony about FF series combat, though? The most hated games actually have the best combat compared to the rest of the series (namely: X-2, XII IZJS, and XIII).

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deactivated-5acbb9993d0bd

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#10 deactivated-5acbb9993d0bd
Member since 2012 • 12449 Posts

@mmmwksil said:

@MBirdy88:

Combat in the Final Fantasy series has always been pathetically easy. The same applies to Kingdom Hearts outside one specific instance; Action RPGs just have garbage combat.

Know the irony about FF series combat, though? The most hated games actually have the best combat compared to the rest of the series (namely: X-2, XII IZJS, and XIII).

To be fair, we mayaswell agree to say, RPG's have "meh" combat in general, with very few exceptions. The big difference with action-based ones, is that you are far more likely to mess up, therefore there is abit "more" to it in my books. Hell, FF Tactics is probably the closest things to a tactical and sometimes difficult final fantasy (outside of the MMOs).

I find it hard to say "FF13 combat was the best in the series" , it had potential, but the way it was utilised just dragged it down. I didn't like the whole "Want to heal? switcher everyone for a few seconds!!!!" melarky .. class switching like that just breaks the appeal of individual characters in my book.

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Thunderdrone

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#11 Thunderdrone
Member since 2009 • 7154 Posts

Super concerned about the western development inspired, open world approach.

Vast, empty fields of samey looking, real-world inspired assets sprinkled with boring timesink tasks just doesnt scream Final Fantasy to me.

Also not a fan of the harsh lighting in this game. It washes out colors way too much.

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mmmwksil

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#12 mmmwksil
Member since 2003 • 16423 Posts
@MBirdy88 said:

To be fair, we mayaswell agree to say, RPG's have "meh" combat in general, with very few exceptions. The big difference with action-based ones, is that you are far more likely to mess up, therefore there is abit "more" to it in my books. Hell, FF Tactics is probably the closest things to a tactical and sometimes difficult final fantasy (outside of the MMOs).

I find it hard to say "FF13 combat was the best in the series" , it had potential, but the way it was utilised just dragged it down. I didn't like the whole "Want to heal? switcher everyone for a few seconds!!!!" melarky .. class switching like that just breaks the appeal of individual characters in my book.

I think it's fairer to say Final Fantasy has meh combat, and that's being nice. The way some other series do combat (examples: Dragon Quest for a simple-yet-deep approach, Shin Megami Tensei for a more punishing trial-and-error approach) work for them and keep things interesting. Final Fantasy has never achieved that, I think.

And yes, the action approach does mean the possibility for error on the player's part does mix things up in a way a turn-based game never could emulate. But we also have to consider mistakes brought about because the AI controlled party in an action game do stupid things, and that lack of control in an RPG is something I cannot abide. But that's me personally. Tactics being the hardest game in the series is up for debate, but it certainly does a better job than almost any game in the main series, that's for sure.

As for XIII, it was good in theory. It gave each of the six roles something to DO in battle, which is something the series failed to achieve with nearly every game (save X-2 and XII IZJS as I mentioned before). I think it would have been cooler if you could order individual members to change roles instead of the whole team, but I suppose without trying it firsthand I can't say if it would have helped all that much (if at all). I'd still take XIII's combat over anything seen in main series games 1-10.

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#13 svaubel
Member since 2005 • 4571 Posts

@Pedro said:

Sounds incredibly boring. I am still waiting for a reason to purchase this game.

Same. After the awful 13 trilogy I'm very skeptical. Not to mention the fact the trailers and demos did nothing to help interest me.

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FireEmblem_Man

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#14 FireEmblem_Man
Member since 2004 • 20248 Posts

@Thunderdrone: TBF, if you're taking a back seat and have no control driving the car, then it isn't much of an open world game.

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#15 Lulekani
Member since 2012 • 2318 Posts

@FireEmblem_Man:

But.... but..... The Characters, The Dialogue ? :(

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#16  Edited By lamprey263
Member since 2006 • 44503 Posts

looks so boring, and worse yet is that people who do pick it up will have spent about $120 on it considering they probably bought Type 0 just for the XV demo

it's guaranteed to disappoint, it just looks too flawed, and by that I'd want to reiterate that when a game is in development building hype for a decade people expect nothing less than perfection, more evident by the reaction to XIII series which wasn't that bad but man did people hate it, and hell that was only in a 5 year lengthy development

and it doesn't have the benefit of Playstation exclusivity to give it a bump on people feigning satisfaction with its mediocrity, probably the other sin of XIII they haven't realized yet

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#17  Edited By robokill
Member since 2007 • 1392 Posts

Dragon Age Origins is how to do party combat. I have no idea why it's not the standard. Compete control in a chess like environment, yes please. Acrobatics and AI teamwork heck yeah.

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#18 Flubbbs
Member since 2010 • 4968 Posts

Im excited for it.. all of the hands-on impressions from Gamescom have been good

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Bigboi500

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#19 Bigboi500
Member since 2007 • 35550 Posts

Bargain bin game confirmed.

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#20 A-new-Guardian
Member since 2015 • 2458 Posts

Pre-order cancelled.

Seriously though very excited and they can delay it to 2017 and I'd still be okay with it because we already have a packed second half of the year already.

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#21 speedfreak48t5p
Member since 2009 • 14411 Posts

Not interested. Moving on.

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#22 zassimick  Moderator
Member since 2004 • 10470 Posts

@a-new-guardian said:

Seriously though very excited and they can delay it to 2017 and I'd still be okay with it because we already have a packed second half of the year already.

DUDE!

Don't give them ideas!