Final Fantasy XV (previously Versus XIII)

And LR.

Edit: Awkward pagetopper.

edited 21st Sep '14 3:21:04 AM by LordofLore

While I like the idea that this game might actually be released at some point, the new information on the battle system is really concerning. Aside from confirmation of no female party members, Noctis is apparently the only controllable character, weapons cannot be manually switched during gameplay, combination attacks are context sensitive with no player input, and instead of attacking, dodging and defending manually, the player merely shifts between offensive (auto-attacking) and defensive (auto-dodging) stances by either holding or releasing the attack button. Hopefully, it's not as bad as it sounds...

edited 22nd Sep '14 12:51:29 AM by Null

I have the same fears. Hopefully there will be something like LR's perfect dodges/blocks because right now the game sounds way to automated.

It sounds a lot like The Last Story to me

Ugh. What is it with RPG developers these days forcing you to use the main character when the series has had perfectly good party synergy up until now? Did they all catch Atlus syndrome? -_-

The dwindling party numbers since XIII-2 have been bothering me immensely.

Yikes, I'm not liking this at all, the character diversity took a huge hit in this installment, seriously those guys look the same to me. They had better be well written to stand out, and the combat is sounding more and more automatic. Just what in the world were you doing these past 8 years Square?

edited 22nd Sep '14 9:38:52 AM by FFmax

Actually the game has only been in actual development since 2011, the other 5 years were just doing concept, story and the most of the people were working on other projects.

edited 22nd Sep '14 9:48:36 AM by Memers

I don't think this was posted yet?

Its...well its pretty.

And apparently only 70% as pretty as it will look when released.

As for the alleged "automated" gameplay, I'm going to wait for the demo before passing judgement.

Looks pretty awesome to me. I wasn't interested until I saw the TGS trailer, now I want this game. The art style looks very held back and restrained compared to previous games - no ridiculous neon lights and flying motorcycles or any of that nonsense. The main characters all wear pretty normal looking clothes that wouldn't be too out of place in a contemporary city, which seems to be what they're going for with this "fantasy based on reality." The knights are just knights (with machineguns!) and the green hills are just rolling green hills that look like the real world instead of some bizarre fantasy, with a few features standing out. I dunno, it's refreshing after so many games with overdesigned costumes and crazy light shows. I'm sure there will be a lot of special effects for the big fights and other moments, but overall I like the restrained look I've seen so far.

On the lack of a female playable character - I doubt those four are the only playable characters. Everything seen so far looks very early in the game, so I think those guys will just be the initial party members, with more characters being introduced later. That said, the TGS trailer gives me a "bros on a road trip" kind of vibe, which is an interesting direction for a Final Fantasy game.

Anyway, this looks pretty awesome to me. I didn't touch any FF games after X, which I hated, but this could be the game that puts the series back on the map for me.

Wait, Noctis is the only player character? What happened to being able to play as any of the party members? I remember them talking about how playing as Prompto gives you something similar to TPS controls.

edited 22nd Sep '14 6:09:52 PM by TechPowah

That is actually a pretty interesting observation. That is something I can really get behind, especially if the individual characters are fleshed out and their camaraderie is well-written and endearing.

XII is pretty solid all-around, though the political drama is a little bit dry. The game would have been substantially better if they had kept their original intention of having Basch be the player character, but unfortunately that didn't work out.

edited 22nd Sep '14 6:13:17 PM by wehrmacht

The protagonist being some random tag-along in XII is one of the things that kept me away. Are we really doing the Tidus thing again, where the dude we actually play as is some loser who just follows the real heroes around and annoys them (and me) while accomplishing nothing? Even his design is similar; Vaan◊ and Tidus.◊

But I really just lost interest in the series. XV has my attention because it seems to be doing something different.

This is what I'm hoping. It would ruffle some feathers, but I'd actually be fine with just the four guys we've seen in the TGS trailer being the only party members and having the game be kind of an ensemble story about them. There's never been a Final Fantasy game with a "road trip" type story, so it would be worthwhile. I still think what we've seen is just early in the game though, and more characters will join the party later. The "road trip" might only last a few hours.

Also, my impression of the combat is that it's a proper real-time combat game - not like Xenoblade or FFXII where your character attacks automatically. I hope that's the case, since I found the combat in Xenoblade to be decent enough, but not as enjoyable as a true real-time system.

edited 22nd Sep '14 6:51:05 PM by Nysos

in all fairness, vaan and tidus are pretty different in temperament and overall personality, and tidus is actually a lot more relevant to x's plot than vaan is given that tidus is emotionally relevant to the party. Vaan is the definition of tag-along not too long into XII. But I understand what you mean.

I'm expecting the road trip isn't the entire focus of the game either, but i hope that assuming noctis and all of his posse are main characters, that we don't get too many more party members. when given the choice i'll always prefer a smaller party with more focused and dense characterization for each one rather than a bigger one where the characters aren't as interesting. either way as long as the writing is at least decent i'll be fine.

edited 22nd Sep '14 6:59:58 PM by wehrmacht

Abandoning all that crazy stuff is probably the only way this game is making any progress.

Fixed that for you. Vaan is, all things considered, very damn relevant on a character level as Ashe's foil and the Occuria's Plan B (which also links back to Ashe's foil). The problem is that he isn't relevant to the political side of the plot, which takes center stage compared to the relatively-background Occuria side of the plot. Think of Vaan as the not-as-well-written Raiden to Ashe's Solid Snake. But this is really a conversation for the main thread.

I have seen no evidence that Noctis is the only playable character, and the reason that there has finally been major progress is because Nomura and Versus were shat on for 8 years in favor of ARR and the XIII Trilogy. Once they got upgraded to XV, they were finally allowed a full, dedicated staff; and with the jump to PS 4 & Xbone, they more or less had to restart development completely aside from having the story written and characters drawn.

Ashe is the protagonist, Vaan is the viewpoint character. Like Solid Snake and Raiden in MGS 2.

edited 22nd Sep '14 9:02:26 PM by TheAirman

I thought that the protagonist of XII was the Dalmascan princess?

An interview stated that he is the only playable character and the party you see will be it.

[1]

Its FFXII with only 1 character that can be controlled at any time and if he dies its game over like Kingdom Hearts or SMT Nocturne.

It also confirms that development really only went into full swing after Type-0 was published, which I assume is the reason for XV having a lot of Type-0 influence now. Also that interview confirms that the party is male only.

edited 22nd Sep '14 10:11:02 PM by Memers

Until you have some actual evidence of pandering to that crowd stop harping on about it, it's seriously getting annoying.

Ah, well that's a shame; though I had already planned on spending most of my time as Noctis anyways. Yay, more Teleport Spam for me!

This, please. From what I can tell this game is shaping up to involve the most brotastic roadtrip ever.

edited 22nd Sep '14 9:17:09 PM by TheAirman

Brotastic road trip is a go!

I'm fine with only controlling Noctis, just as long as the combat is enjoyable. The main things that interest me about this game is the open world nature, a first for the series, and the setting, which is a refreshing mashup of modern day stuff and fantasy.

I concur with the latter. ^^

Sausage party it is.

Aside from Balthier (who is not a bishie), my favorite FF characters have always been female and secondary (Fang, Rikku, Freyja, Yuffie), so...SE will have to try very hard to make it even less appealing to me.

This is good to hear, the road trip vibe is something they're specifically aiming for. This is kind of story that's never been told in a Final Fantasy game and, to my knowledge, any video game period. FFXV could really be a breath of fresh air both for the series and the genre.