Gamescom 50 minutes of XV [SPOILERS]

[The Witch]

http://www.polygon.com/2016/8/16/12503094/final-fantasy-15-gamescom

We need to talk about the 50 minute gameplay from Gamescom.


The best part in this was Hobo!Noctis. This killed my enthusiasm for the game and I hope that the game has more to it than clothes, aimless quests, food, and bogged down battles. because that's all square showed us with this footage.

Im on mobile so I cant write up everything I wanna say but for now...ugh, just someone else get in here and talk.

 

[The Witch]

i was gonna make a new thread but ill just put it here since it comes from the footage

http://www.famitsu.com/matome/ff15/2016_08_17_02.html

https://twitter.com/famitsu/status/765820488111169536


basically, noctis went from asian to caucasian.

dont get me wrong, he's hot af but its still weird

 

[ZaXo Ken'Ichi]

I thought it was completely fine. My only mechanical issues I saw were that some battles might seem to take too long, and that stamina really should be infinite outside of battle. Not sure why they still haven't changed that. Also, looking at the controls for when Noctis is driving, it doesn't look like you can steer, which is kind of a disappointment, but doesn't really seem detrimental to the experience.

I got what I expected from that footage, and a bit more. So my stance is about the same as it has been: Barring combat being tedious and mash-happy, this looks like a great game.

 

[The Witch]

to me, my prob is that it seems more like q quest game instead of story. i was hoping to get some storyline details but all i got was a bunch of monster quests and shopping and shit. im still hopeful but i just have mixed feelings now

 

[ZaXo Ken'Ichi]

I think they're just trying to be really protective of the story. If you look at it, this is probably the FF we know the most about story-wise before it has released. So I think they're trying to avoid spoiling too much more. If you noticed, they skipped through a lot of the cutscenes, some of which I know for a fact are much longer, because they've shown unfinished animations and such of said scenes. I think they're emphasizing the freedom because people hated the structure of XIII so much. Overcompensation maybe, but understandable.

 

[The Witch]

well then, i wish they would have made the video shorter because the majority of it was repeats . i hope you're right

 

[ZaXo Ken'Ichi]

I felt that way a bit too. It seemed like they were even 'getting bored' of the hunts, because there was that montage where they showed like fifteen seconds of the first hunt, ten seconds of the second hunt, and then just a brief glimpse of the third during one segment. It seemed like a bit too much content to show, and not quite enough variety in what they showed. Though, that was clearly more than the 'first 50 minutes'. Just six minutes in, the pause screen revealed that they'd skipped two minutes. And there's no way the game moves that fast, because they did quite a bit main mission-wise during that video. You might be able to do it all in under an hour, but you'd be skipping cutscenes, dialogue, etc. Unfortunately, they didn't pause at any time near the end of the video (that I remember), so I couldn't get another glimpse of the timer past like fifteen minutes into the video or something. My guess is that was probably more like four hours of game condensed into an hour.

 

[FinalxxSin]

Apparently the YouTube version has been compressed a good amount. If anybody wants to look at a more accurate version in terms of visuals, then this site is the place to go: http://press.na.square-enix.com/rel...lighted-in-new-hour-long-final-fantasy-xv-gam
In the bottom right corner of the page, there should be a file that is 8.3 G large.

My only mechanical issues I saw were that some battles might seem to take too long, and that stamina really should be infinite outside of battle. Not sure why they still haven't changed that.

The game was being played on normal mode. There is also going to be a hard mode that will probably be unlocked once the game is finished for the first time. Stamina isn't going to be infinite outside of battle due to that being more connected with the reality aspect of the game. However, there may be a technique that transfers over to the final game that is doable in the Platinum Demo that is a Sprint Burst technique:

 

[ZaXo Ken'Ichi]

Let's hope that works, because there are concessions you make for realism, and concessions you don't. This is a fantastical world where the main character can turn energy drinks into healing "Potions", absorb elements from shiny rocks, and has ancestors who can give him magical blades from beyond the grave... also he can teleport. It's not a survival game, so you don't put massive open fields in front of me, and then tell me that my character can't run for more than ten seconds without getting winded (and just a few seconds later show me that he's able to fight a giant monster for ten minutes straight without stopping). Noctis is already a bit slow to begin with, which itself isn't bad; he has other modes of transportation that should, and do feel faster than his running speed. But it's aggravating when 50% of the time he can only reach half his max speed, because he's out of stamina. Here's to hoping that there is either an infinite sprint skill, or a skill that allows you to teleport-run around the environment or something. I don't need him to be blazingly fast. I just don't need the game to waste my time, when there's realistically no reason why he can't just sprint forever outside of combat.

Lol, sorry. Those are the little design decisions that annoy me the most; the stuff where it's like "How did nobody realize that was a stupid idea?". Like in Mario Maker for (an off topic) example. Why is there no way for the community to check levels as suitable or unsuitable for 100 Mario Challenge? The whole mode is designed around beating a certain amount of random community levels with 100 lives. So why can the community not curate what shows up? Because of that one "No duh" piece of design not being implemented, 30% of the levels in 100 Mario Challenge are 'test levels' which usually consist of a few mushrooms, a ton of coins, and the flag sitting ten feet away with no obstacles in sight. Another 30% are unfair levels with some sort of hidden 'back door' used to bypass the whole level. Another 30% are freaking Auto-Mario levels! Then you're left with maybe... maybe one out of ten levels being an okay to good one. The lack of that one piece of design ruins the whole mode, and one has to ask, why does the mode even exist at that point?

While the lack of infinite sprint outside of battle doesn't have near that big of an impact, it's still rather insulting. Part of a testers job is also to offer design advice; they don't just find glitches. You can't tell me that at least one tester didn't go "This is all great fun, and the new features seem to be working fine, but why doesn't the player have infinite sprint outside of battle? Having played this section for at least 40 hours, it got tedious 37 hours ago.". Hell, I guarantee at least half of the dev team realizes the issue is there. So then why is it not fixed? Like I said, with all of the other concessions they made to make the game fun over making it realistic, this one has no excuse. I'd argue it's much more important that traversing these massive areas be as painless as possible. Again, it's a small thing realistically, and likely won't do any more than just slightly irk some players. But small, yet easy to see optimizations like that, which don't get done... they really bother me.

 

[FinalxxSin]

....

Don't quote me on this, but I think I read/heard something at some point about some of the food buffs providing a movement buff. I don't know if that movement buff would be something restricted to combat, or if it would be universally applied. I understand your concerns with the running. The world is quite massive once unlocked. I think that is part of the reason driving the Regalia for on-road stuff and using Chocobos off road is accessible so early in the game. While running around on foot can be done, it's probably never going to be the most optimal choice for covering a lot of ground quickly within FFXV.

 

[Dionysos]

I can see the stamina for running being a problem. It's something that annoys me in a lot of games because it takes away valuable time. I understand realism, etc, but when they implement this sort of thing it doesn't end up feeling smooth or realistic anyway. It always feels like a gameplay mechanic. In real life you'd sometimes be able to sprint or jog at a reasonable pace for more than 5 seconds, and then you might rest and continue. Or you train your body so that you can run farther.


I quite like the idea of food affecting this though... But not in the way we'd think? Eating might improve our ability to run. But what if we make Noctis eat something like a Christmas dinner? Would he slow down then and have to be rolled into his car?

 

[ZaXo Ken'Ichi]

But what if we make Noctis eat something like a Christmas dinner? Would he slow down then and have to be rolled into his car?

I lol'ed so hard at that! It'd be amazing! Reminds me of cheeky mechanics like katamaris rolling awkwardly when you pick up weirdly shaped objects, or CJ's (San Andreas) maximum jump height and speed being less if he eats too much fatty food.

Since this is an RPG, they should just allow stamina to be upgraded, with the final level being infinite. Or tie it to something else, like Elder Scrolls, where you're upgrading stamina for other core gameplay reasons, but that also gives you more sprinting time as a side-effect.

 

[Rey]

I watched this all the other day and I felt very engaged in the world and the combat looks incredibly fun. The first 10 seconds might be very spoiler heavy for some; therefore, I really recommend skipping them. Anyway, the game does feel like it took a hit in graphics, or at least that's what "critics" on Neogaf are saying. Personally, some of these screenshots they released look incredibly bad, and it makes me wonder how this is good advertising for the game, but anyway, I'm not here to be a graphics whore, I'm here to give my impressions and what I'm looking forward to most.

The Good

+ Combat: Multiple ways to fight and imo, the animations are incredible. Some moves look very satisfying to pull off and there was one bit where Prompto slid into an enemy. I thought that was great. It looks like those swords we collect throughout the story are going to unlock new moves as well. I'm not totally sure. It doesn't look like you mash the square button constantly and parry every once in a while. Switching weapons in real time and weapon variety with your allies will change that whole "mashing button feel"


+ Graphics are still up to quality. Yeah yeah, I know people say this version was downgraded and Duscae looks better. I'm not a graphics whore but these graphics look pretty damn good still, and with the two month patch it may look better. Keyword is MAY. I think the patch is mostly to fix bugs, textures, janky animations, etc. I say up to quality because it doesn't bother me, which means these graphics are ok to me. There wasn't anything that was standing out to me as notably worse besides the hair of the characters, which looks pretty awful and loading issues.

+ Sidequests are plentiful. It seems we have a variety including hunts, chocobo racing, fishing, fetch quests (which rpg doesn't have those?) and taking down Nilfheim bases for Cor. I wonder if taking down bases will be a consistent thing with the story or if it is just for fun. Maybe some additional scenes with Nilfheim might happen. Just speculating.

+ Towns: The dream of HD towns is back…. At least with some.

Difficult? Either we level up extremely fast or chapter 2 is way ahead of where it is at in the video as it is heavily edited. Noctis was like level 7 in chapter 2 and there was a level 30 Iron Giant. Yikes! I'm hoping it won't be a grind fest sort of thing and levels will be manageable by story because grinding in a game to make it longer is a little silly. Sometimes I appreciate it and sometimes I don't *cough chapter XI of XIII cough*

+ Multiple outfits.


The Ugly that the patch will hopefully fix

- The hair in this build is disgusting. I don't know if it is just me but the hair looks awful. I mean for the bros mostly and Noctis.

- Ugly as hell textures at some parts.

- Voice acting is a bit shite. I hope they redeem that by giving Luna a British voice or something. Prompto is meant to be annoying but sometimes a bit too annoying. Cindy... well let's not even go there.

- Vendors don't seem to load on time (Master version my arse)

......... please fix that SE.

- CINDY IS STILL USELESS AS HELL (paw paw and y’all make her so annoying)

Other than that, I think this game really did deserve the delay. I mean, yeah, I was angry and all about it but listening to criticism on NeoGaf about some of the bad parts changed my mind about that. This game doesn't look up to the standards of a ps4 game in this build... I mean really, this loading issue was definitely last gen and I don't recall seeing it in the demo. SE CANNOT release the game like this and get points for it. I'm a little worried but hopeful at the same time. I'm certainly MOST HOPEFUL about the story compared to anything else. I know i've said this game will get high 90 scores elsewhere but now I'm not so sure unless they seriously polish it up now.

But yeah, let's see what they do with this delay because while gamescom reception is extremely positive atm, some people are overlooking bugs and issues. People even reported the game crashing a few times.