Final Fantasy XV
greentooth
Surprised there isn't a thread on this - am I the only person getting massively hyped for this game?
[ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z9yUCQzfnA"]Final Fantasy XV - Gameplay & Story Trailer - YouTube[/ame]
I'm so excited that they're returning to a pseudo-grittyrealism setting similar to FF8 - I'm really hoping the franchise has turned a corner here as I've been almost universally disappointed with every title since FF9.
[ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z9yUCQzfnA"]Final Fantasy XV - Gameplay & Story Trailer - YouTube[/ame]I'm so excited that they're returning to a pseudo-grittyrealism setting similar to FF8 - I'm really hoping the franchise has turned a corner here as I've been almost universally disappointed with every title since FF9.
Replies
My expectation of FF15 is that it'll essentially be a souped up Type-0, a game which they worked on for a very long time and then only released in Japan for no good reason (even if the PSP wasn't considered viable in the west anymore, they could have easily ported it to something else). For those that never saw it:
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Will definitely check it out.
There just came out a bit of news, but it seems that it might not be at E3 this year:
http://www.epicstream.com/article.asp?id=257&name=Final+Fantasy+15+Release+Date+and+New+Game+Plan+Details+
ErichWK - Felt the same way about 13. Though I did give 13-3 a rent and was surprised I actually liked it. Solely because of the open world nature and combat. (unfortunately everything else was quite bad imo)
This game is one of the main reasons I'll be looking to pick up a PS4 at some point down the line!
I think FF13 got more hate than it deserved. I pre-ordered it like 6 months in advance and even took a day off school to play it and while it wasn't the game I was hoping for, it was still enjoyable. The art and music were amazing, the voice acting was great, the rendered cutscenes were amazing, the only real lacking part was the gameplay.
13-2 made some improvements but it was really the same thing, awesome art, awesome music, flawed gameplay.
I've been playing Lightning Returns and it is a huge step up in terms of everything. In fact, it's a great game, the only problem is that to understand the story, you'd had to have played the first two games in the FF13 story arc, and that is what will probably ruin it for a lot of people.
I think the main problems with 13 and 13-2 stem from the fact that many studios that make modern JRPGs have a tendency to "over-explain" things. The tutorial for FF13 seriously didn't end until you got to Gran Pulse, which was like halfway through the game (between 20-40 hours in, if I recall correctly.) Many studios seem to think that people who play JRPGs seem to be getting less intelligent due to the fact that most people play simplified games in modern times.
Lightning Returns has increased my expectations of FF XV though, it shows just how much the developers have changed their attitude towards gamers in the last few years. Instead of babying you throughout half the game, they basically throw you into the world without doing as much as telling you your overall goals. If FF XV can have this same "figure it out yourself" mentality, then I think it will be an incredible game, especially considering it will be a fresh story.
Also, Hope is REALLY annoying, literally every 3 seconds he will pop up and say "LOL HIGH LIGHTNING!!1one"
really i'm sorry i rarely ever bash games and do respect other peoples work, but ffxiii did not get more hat than it deserved. The fans NEED to express how bad it was so maybe the next titles will be better again.
Bacn is eager to see if they can pull things together. From what I've seen in the trailer it could go either way.
But my hopes are high. I mean Tetsuya Nomura would be the Nr. 2 choice for a FF game right after Hironobu Sakaguchi. But Nomura did great work with the Kingdom Hearts Series. The World and characters seem more interesting and less surrounding silly gimmicks (chocobo hair?). And ofcourse the visuals and fights are mindblowing so far...
That trailer looked wtf bonkers, excited, but will reserve judgement for gameplay. Didn't like the look of 13's combat but ended up enjoying it, hope this is the same.
How's that a final fantasy game...
I'm only waiting for kingdom hearts 3...
edit: Furthermore, I do agree ff 13 was a total mess. I was the first one hyped for it...
I'm really not sure what square did one the ps3-36- gen.
They were for me the glorious and mighty when they were developping games on ps1-ps2...
They should just make a Smash Bros style Final Fantasy game (NOT another Dissidia!). People have enough nostalgia for those characters that i'm sure it would sell like hot cakes.
You are probably right. I looooved 7,8,9 and even 10 (for it's amazing late game -EU version), but havent played or cared since. But anything with the old chars in it like Cloud, would grab my attention
The newer games are much more hormonal. Yes, some big event happens but you get the feeling that if character X existed in our world, they'd be expressing the same angst over buying eyeliner in Hot Topic that they do in coping with ultimate evil.
I have to give Square credit though, they do try new things whereas the rest of the JRPG market seems to be stuck in 2004. Sure, some games are more successful than others, but you can't hit the mark every time you step out of the box.
I think one of the best/easiest improvements they could make would be to allow players the ability to turn off voice acting in exchange for classic, text based dialogue. Localization would be MUCH less awkward because they wouldn't have to shoehorn in dialogue that fits the characters facial movements. Also if I hear one more audible male gasp, I'mma punch someone.
As the cast of the Persona games were but the Final Fantasy XIII cast wasn't. If the charas are decent, had a story to tell i actually could live with the very limited freedom in every aspect of the game. But starting from Lighting (whom they designed as one of the most despicable character...iam all for strong female leads and we can't have enough female characters in games that are not sexualized or trophies or damsels but they should have emotions other than spite, anger or beeing jaded). Or the more than annoying Snow or the fanservice Serah and the others...whoever they were.
FFVII for example had it's weaknesses plotwise, ofcourse, but me and i guess a lot of others played the hell out of it (i think i played it 5 times all the way through) simply because i LOVE the cast. That's why i was able to forgive the otherwise not so great Movie, because the cast came back. Thats probably why 8 was never continued or 9 (eventhough they were good games) and they continued 10 with just plain cheap and creepy fanservice (i mean did anyone really like Tidus or Yuna)?
There is not much to say about the cast of XV yet but i already like the interaction of the charas inbetween the fights.
Nobody is going to give a shit about explosion no.1003 in Final Fantasy XV six months after they've beaten it. Meanwhile old school gamers still have fond memories of Prince Edward, Rydia, Terra, and Cloud. And it's because of those strong characters that the franchise lives on in people's hearts.
#cry
I have no desire whatsoever to play this FF game, but am very excited about Witcher 3 and Persona 5
I have no idea what is going on in this trailer hahaha I do love 12... 7,8 and 9 haha I guess i am hoping this game makes sense, it has interesting characters, and a good long intricate story... if not i'll prbly pass. I never got to play 13. Didn't look that good to me for some reason. This game sure looks pretty tho.
so yeah, quite optimistic about this one!
It was supposed to follow the 13 world but was turned into it's ver own thing 2 years ago with it's jump to next gen consoles.
http://www.epicstream.com/article.asp?id=257&name=Final+Fantasy+15+Release+Date+and+New+Game+Plan+Details+
Shinji Hashimoto (corporate exec at Square) said the earliest will be March 2015.
Of course if they want to do that then fine, but it probably doesn't help if you're making games for an international market (and multiple age groups).
In terms of pure sales figures FF still does better then SMT afaik? The Tales series has been steadily growing in popularity as well.
Persona 4 (PS2 version) is one of my favorite JRPGs ever, largely because of the great cast of characters. Persona 3 was a huge disappointment after that since (other then the robot girl) they didn't seem interesting at all. I'm really crossing my fingers for an interesting cast in Persona 5, and that Altus gets solid voice actors for them (the re-dub for Chie killed P4G for me, her PS2 VA was so much better it hurts to think about).
Anywho... this game looks alright... will keep tabs on this and hope that they delivery a truly memorable set of characters, intricate story, and badass bosses and cinematics.
I prefer the darkness of P3 because it seemed more believable. Some things seemed to be somewhat poorly presented, Junpei's jealousy for the first half of the game, for example. In the game he just seems like an annoying jerk but if you watch the movie he is presented differently. Instead of just being a passive-aggressive jerk, he seems more like the "I just want to be good at something in my life" type of person which makes him an appealing, realistic character in my opinion.
I hope for Persona 5, they can effectively combine the best parts of all of the games together. I'm hoping for some well made comedic relief characters like Teddie, but I'd also want some realistic characters where you can say "Hey, this person is like me!"
In terms of gameplay, I'm quite happy with the way things were in P4 but it would be nice to see some additional changes. I think a re-vamped Fusion system would be great for example, as it is now, trying to transfer a skill from one persona to a new persona is just a time consuming task. It'd be nice if you could just pick which skills you want to transfer over which would just be a faster implementation of what is currently available.
What bugs me about mainly the newer FF games is how much extra vocabulary they add for everything unless you pay close attention you can miss what something means and if a friend stops by and watches you play they can be totally lost by the weird jargon in the dialogue too. For the main series I feel like it's been having worse and worse gameplay too, but basically just having a action timer turn based set up but limiting you from controlling your entire team down to a single character for the FFXIV games. It sacrifices control basically and just tries to add as many glowey wispy effects as possible.
You should give 12 a go if you haven't!! I don't remember the story being great (couldn't get into it, felt too political and not very focused), but has some of the most fun gameplay and visual design of the post PS1 era Final Fantasy games. FFX is pretty, but the design is just all over the fucking place, FFX-2 was a little better visually, but still not as good as 12. FFXII has a very consistent, cohesive look, from the main characters, npcs, villains, and creatures.
The combat system is different, but felt like the first true evolution of the turn based RPG, kinda feels like a single player mmo group play, with fun AI configuring via simple scripting in the UI. You can get the game to play itself, but never felt like that diminished the fun i had in setting my builds up to do that.
The last boss battle is kinda bullshit, but is ok, the fight before it was really fun. Really relies on your Gambit setups (scripted spells). The side-esper boss battles are also really cool (Cuchulain was very fun, and there is a tornado guy who was a challenge too).
I'm hopeful, yet not having too high expectations for FFXV. XIII left a sour taste in my mouth.
If you go a step further and get the XPadder software you can set up hotkeys on your controller that are associated with any key on a keyboard (and you can also set up turbo buttons and alternate control sets.) I used it to set up save state and load state buttons on my controller which would allow you to save anywhere or load from anywhere, which is quite helpful if you're like me and have to randomly leave to do something else while playing a game.
If you have a disk copy of the game you can create an ISO from the disk too, just look up a tutorial for that if you need help.
The International Edition of FF12 (ie. the enhanced edition) also has a complete fan translation patch which has some very nice enhancements over the NA/EU version.
FF12 running in HD via PCSX2 is really something worth seeing:
FF12 was pretty cool but I got bored once I got the gambits working so harmoniously that I proceeded to play the game using only the movement stick. My characters just blew the shit out of everything by themselves.
I feel like they forgot where their niche was and haven't figured it out again.
That video just looks like a God of War game. Visually cool, but looks horrendously linear.
But sadly, Square has poisoned their brand to the extent that it just looks sad. And I can tell you when it started. Right when they switched out whoever headed up their art direction with someone that thinks everything should look..... like it does now. And it's not just how it looks. It's how they took any sense of fun and whimsy out of them. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE anime, but this is some weird angsty seriously creepy ass shit they're making. It feels incredibly conceited and snobby. You can tell the people in charge take it all very seriously like they're painting the fucking sistine chapel.
Agreed that it's not good for games to be too serious, they need to break things up with more whimsical moments from time to time. I think if you want to make a good FF it needs to have a few things:
Comedy
Mini games
Side quests
Traversable world maps with pilotable/drivable air ships/vehicles
Numerous explorable towns/villages/cities/etc.
Extensive and memorable soundtrack
Memorable/likable characters and story
The best Final Fantasies had all these things, but there hasn't been a single game in the series with all of them since the end of the PS1 era. Music is still good, but I think that's about the only thing that's remained consistent.
I'm playing through FF8 again and the fact that I can explore the world map and find towns/dungeons/etc. at any pace I want creates a huge feeling of exploration which I think has been lost.
I'm about ~10 hours in, and I'm really enjoying the game. Graphically well done, that's to be expected of Square at this point though.
There are a lot of call-backs to previous games, both in lore and music (you start with a few of the previous titles' OST as playable, and can buy others through various towns as you progress). They took some elements from other FF games as well and incorporated them (Chocobo racing from 7/10, Hunts from 12, as well as staple monsters from the series --- I won't say which due to spoilers).
The combat feels simple, yet a bit complex, which I personally enjoy. You COULD just hold down a button, but it's much more satisfying (and effective) to do some of the more specific, "advanced" techniques in battle. Not to mention the removal of the ATB is fantastic (you can activate a psuedo "Wait" mode however if you're a fan of the ATB system).
I know some people weren't thrilled about the "brotherhood" vibe, or the japanese k-pop band feel of the main 4. I have to say I'm really enjoying their camaraderie as you explore the world and in battle. It feels like a group of journeymen or "guardians of the light", as the heroes are called in FF1.
All in all, I'm pretty pleased thus far and excited to continue.
So here's some things i don't like too much:
the lack of fine control over the allies and their abilities... FFXII had a potentially great system with gambits. being able to set up a list of things your allies should check through in battle and act accordingly (like using phoenix downs on allies, or if ally health < 20% use potion, etc.) was great. But because you had a crazy long list of gambits you could make for each hero, it made the game too easy... you could just walk around with a team pre-programmed to take down everything. if i had the ability to set up 5 gambits per hero in this game, that would be great, at least a little finer control over what they do.
The car... omg... even now i've got it flying it's still boring as all hell.
The leveling system... by comparison to... well, every other FF game ever, it's incredibly simple. It's set up just to be a grind, and nothing more. There's nothing else to it than just go out and grind exp to spend on new ascensions.
Edit: tiny irk... really dislike the skin shader they chose, it's outdated and the blue/red are really overpowering.
And here's things i do like!
Character designs... Wow! as much as i'm not a fan of having super high fashion in games (vivian westwood did the clothing designs or something), they do look good. The hair is awesome to look at and wonder "how you do dis?!". And the characters are all pretty likeable for the most part.
Chocobo's! i can't begin to tell you how much better the game is if you just dump the car and run around on chocobos. So good.
Active battling... much like FFXII this is a much needed improvement over other iterations of final fantasy. turn based battling is boring, and random encounters always killed the immersion and fun for me. Being able to explore the map and choose what to, and when to engage is fantastic.
The dungeons are pretty baller too. It sometimes felt like the designers have been playing some dark souls with their monster placements.
The summons feel truly epic. Though i wish there was a way to choose which summon you get.
Looking forward to finally 100% a final fantasy game since maybe 8 or 9 (got close with 10 but... boredom set in).