I'd agree save for in 8 when Eden fucking warps time/space and blasts enemies into the solar center of a distant galaxy (and then makes said galaxy implode just for shits and giggles). Maybe 12 too. Because Zodiark and space lazerz.

 

That still does less damage than Lionheart, lol.

GFs are for junctioning Ultima and Meteor and becoming OP as fuck.

Sigh, I loved junctioning...

 

Drawing the magic needed to junction, on the other hand...

 

Meh, it's no more tedious than a lot of old school jrpg mechanics.

I did learn very quickly to not waste my time drawing Fire. Especially when there was cards to play...

 

Ramuh gave me the chills, man!

But uh, what's with that visible stripe of skin between Noctis's pants and boots? >_<

Junctioning was cool, but drawing and stocking magic like items and magic being consumed like items on use was disgusting.

 

Eh, in a world where being a Sorceress means something, I found the system oddly fitting/ novel.

As for Noctis' clothes, I noticed that too. I just wrote all that off to Nomura weirdness. Maybe there's supposed to be a belt covering that gap? Lol

 

Playing it.

Edit: It's really hard to get a handle on the combat. There's so much happening and the combat tutorial isn't repeatable. You can do sparring sessions but Gladio (L15 to start) is a beast and will one shot you up until you're level 10 or so.

Edit 2: Once you get the hang of dodging/parrying, the demo is pretty easy, with only the behemoth and mobs of 10+ really able to put the hurt on you.

So... impressions. In general, it was fun as shit and it still manages to feel like FF despite being so very different from its predecessors.

Pros:

1) It's absolutely beautiful. I spent most of my 7 hours of gameplay running aimlessly around the massive Duscae map (which will be far far bigger in the full game supposedly), looking at the scenery, and finding little blue and red treasure bulbs.

2) Takes being open world seriously. There are barely any directions beyond the main quest markers. You have to really explore to find the locations that trigger sidequests.

3) Warping and the Armiger. Warping is nicely streamlined. Armiger combat is hella cool, especially after you clear the demo and open up the omnislash attack.

4) Battle music. It's pulse-racing and awesome.

5) Noctis' English voice actor. Doesn't really fit the jpop image, but the dude makes Noct seem like an effortless badass.

6) Being able to change weapons whenever and wherever, even mid-combat. Current weapon setup not working out against a certain type of enemy? Change it. Zweihander in Crush and Partisan in Ravage was epic.

Cons:

1) Focus and targeting. Targeting is a massive clusterfuck. The camera has real problems effectively following the enemies.

2) Ramuh summon is crazy OP. This is justified with the drawback that anything he kills won't give you exp or items. Still, they'll definitely need to input a way to limit how many times it can be used.

3) The night/day cycle is way too short.

4) Game will occasionally lag when you get caught in continuous night mobs of 20+ enemies.

5) Aliasing problems here and there... but that will probably get fixed by the final product.

 

1) Agreed regarding camera/ targetting. That's been an issue since KH1 though so I'm worried. They need to draw the camera back, make it less twitchy and more clever and possibly mark enemies in the environment.

2) As for summons, totally too OP, but the epicness odds unquestionable. I think I'd be fine if they were virtually only usable in 'scripted' fights where the goal of the fight isn't to make their HP 0, but to find a way to trigger the summon.

Would be a cool puzzle twist to combat with an awesome payoff.

3) Yes

4) 5) ignore for now. Free demo etc

Edit: i was getting really fucking annoyed with the dog enemies in the game. Constantly running around makes them a pain to hit and they don't even always focus on you so you can counter.

Then I got the blade that lets me blink around the battlefield and hit enemies with a handful of swords that float around me by tapping R1+L1 with full mana.

Is that the omnislash thing you were talking about Khan?

Either way, that's the kinda shit I want.

As an aside, I thought ol' Daisey Duke was supposed to be the 'Cid' in this game... Shouldn't her name be Sydney (or Cidney?) not Cindy?

Meh

Gladiolus definitely wants a piece of that though... Lol

 

The L1R1 activation was the standard Armiger special you get after finding one of the swords. First one I found was the one from the goblin caves. Second was stuck in a rock on the north-northwestern edge of the map that gives you a guard counter attack thing during Armiger. And third was granted after defeating Deadeye that lets you do a warping mid-air omnislash attack when you lock on and press x during Armiger.

I was killing the fugly yellow garulas in like 5 of those.

 

I killed the shit out of those guys too, they give their Sirloin, which makes the best food btw.

I really like that system.

I was also wondering if Noctis would even get magic. With the amount of MP you burn on warping and special abilities, I'm guessing not?

Maybe other characters will? Will we even be controlling them?

I'm one of the rare few that really enjoys seeing how they toy with the mechanics each game, I'm super excited!

 

It's pretty much guaranteed that the whole sytem will be overhauled for full release. Squeenix has an odd habit of totally changing combat mechanics in the last year of production.

My real concern is weather or not the game will be able to run at 1080p and 60fps as promised. I have a feeling it won't. 1080p 30fps probably.

 

Was it promised? Or just a goal?

Either way, it's not very twitchy. DA:I hit 60, but it looked kinda janky at times. I wouldn't mind 30fps while squeezing as much fidelity out as possible.

As long as it's locked, I don't want slowdown...

 

I mean... it was promised as much as anything is promised during game development. They said they were going to be able to do something, but there's really no certainty they'll be able to follow through.

 

Odd. I prefer the English Noctis to the original. Doesn't normally work that way...

On another note, can you even defeat Deadeye without Rumuh? Looks like he had around 500k health if the amount of faith each strike took off was any induction.

I just summoned him right after the first 'fight', when the others were running, so I dunno if it's possible normally.

Edit: I was still unsure about a lot of the combat systems in this until after I watched this video. Really helpful.

 

Yeah it's possible to beat Deadeye without Rumuh, just takes a while. Doing so is kind of a pain in the ass though. That said, once you can take one hit and can Knightsguard consistently he's not that bad, more of an endurance test than anything, although I haven't tried fighting him at night to see if he gets any crazy shit.

 

I fought him in the rematch, it went into night and I ran out of potions, more for my meat shields than myself. Once he could focus on me, I died too. Got him to like 10%ish.

I'll try again another time, and buy a lot of pots

 

How do you guys feel about the all male team for the game? I for the most part, am vaguely disappointed with this. They could make it work like in Tales as far as interaction go really. I don't buy their bull excuse for that

It feels like a cater for the Japanese fangirls who caters to a lot of BL (boys-love) scenarios in Japan.

Really, Tales did with the male/female team it and the interaction still feels solid on the skits... UNLESS it's gonna be a "BUY FEMALE MEMBER DLC!" wooo..

 

I don't fucking care as long they're interesting characters? How about that?

This may seem harsh, but I'm tired of people bringing up shit like this while ignoring questions like 'Why are SE's writers so terrible, regardless of what's between their characters' legs?'

In this game specifically? Acknowledging that what we played may never appear in the main game, I adored the laid back vibe. These guys are very obviously childhood friends and the road-trip feel is infinitely better than whatever heavy, overly dramatic and philosophical garbage they've tried in the past.

I wanted the world to throw more problems their way to see how they'd react. I want lame in-jokes, arguments about sports or video games and perving on attractive girls (or just outright cockblocking Gladiolus). This kind of stupid would make these guys way more likable or relatable than any of their protagonists in the past.

Except for Peompto. Because ugh.

If that means its section of FF.net is filled with BL, so be it.

 

Yeah I don't care one way or another. Sure, a posh female butler type probably could've replaced Ignis and nothing would've change dynamically... but they wanted to tell a story about bros on a roadtrip. Everybody just needs to deal with that.

And really.... they've said like 10 times that the female side characters are important to the story, and that they may even have female characters join the party as guests.

Basically' it's KH.

 

Personally, I get tired of companies trying too hard where it concerns gender/sex/race in games (though I have no problem with four bros on the road and typically enjoy playing as a male character more than a female).

Big, ridiculous titties on NPCs (Cindy? Cidney? Cid?) as making main characters too hot. Can't you find a common ground where a suitably attractive female... has back acne? A cleft lip? I don't know, be creative Square; not everyone in the world is (or wants to play as) a white Japanese male.

I long for the days when some of the playing characters weren't even human. FF9, for example: Vivi, Freya, Quina, Eiko, Amarant... even Zidane. I can only imagine what they could concoct if they returned to that format instead of the buddy system. Even if their backstories are completely different, the four guys are going to end up remarkably similar to one another (although I do agree with Hugplx; who cares, as long as they are interesting?)

Fortunately, the rest of the game looks awesome, especially summons/bad guys, so I do have great hopes for FF15.