29 replies to this topic

[dhm]

If you hold back the tears and pretend it's not a Final Fantasy game it actually looks kinda neat.

I feel it'd make a better movie than game though.

[Sinfullyvannila]

I very interested in it, because when my brother GM's a contemporary pen and paper roleplaying settimg, it usually starts out with friend on a road trip.

 

It's an excellent foundation for an adventure and story. Hoping they take advantage of it.

[Monkeydog]

http://kotaku.com/ho...y-xv-1690073560

 

Ten more days until Type-0 HD and the demo drop. I'm still very interested in how this turns out, but it does sound like everything is pointing into a good direction. 

[Kyle]

The way I see Final Fantasy is it was downhill after 10. Which, when a game series is running that long, does not need quality with a following that we've seen even despite great failure with Final Fantasy XIV which was a failed attempt to beat their already successful MMORPG. With this comes A) a loss of money, which leads to a loss of quality. And B) a need to go to drastic means to try and pick the horse up when it's already dead.

Honestly Final Fantasy is like that favorite local band of yours that is a bunch of friends with true songs and meanings that become a sensation and then a sellout. Final Fantasy is just another attempt from Square (Enix) to milk all the money they can for something. And while their attempt to fix Final Fantasy XIV with Final Fantasy XIV: A realm unborn is very courteous, they should be focusing on new projects, say, Kingdom Hearts 3?

Alas, my words don't matter because they'll still be making money for those hardcore fans. Wait till Final Fantasy XXIV, it'll be looking like some K-Pop RPG. 

[Sinfullyvannila]

Ehh, IMO 12 was the best, and aside from 4, the battle systems from 10 and on are SOOOO much better than the "Golden Age".

 

 

4-7 though, were still absolute gems though.

[Monkeydog]

I like turn based, so I do not particularly care for the direction the series has taken since X, but I'm not against it trying to find a good middle ground. FFXII is the only offline FF I never spent a lot of time with, so it's amazing, I don't know (I wish it'd get re-released somewhere though).

I do agree though that there is nothing send about the first nine battle systems. I do like X the most as its more strategic (actually, if I remember correctly, I like X-2 the most). I don't think that dismisses turn based completely though. I think Persona and Bravely Default have done some awesome things with it. Heck, even Chrono Cross did something unique with it.

[Monkeydog]

So I got to play the demo. Didn't play much. But from what I have I can honestly say I'm excited.

It is very Bethesda RPG/GTA open world-esque.

I'll spend more time with it tomorrow. But the graphics and the world are really nice. I don't see how they're really going to pull this off but, like I said...

Excited.

[Vicious Parker]

Is it more Bethesda open world, or more GTA open world?

[Monkeydog]

At this point. I guess more GTA. As there's not a lot of civilization where I've gone. But it's a lot more majestic like what I remember Morrowind being when I first played it. And there's a lot more hidden areas to go explore. But also it's more restricted than either game (you can't swim)

My opinion can change. And the full game could be very different. I haven't done much but fight some monsters, which was fun. Hopefully I'll spend more time with it tonight.

[Monkeydog]

Finished.

 

It's good. There's a lot of good things about it, but that's not to say it's not horribly flawed in some areas. I also don't want to think too down on it because it is a demo, of a game that might not even come out within a year from now.

 

I originally was writing this as pros/cons but I realize I kind of just mixed them all together in both areas...so...yeah.

 

Pros:

Battle system - It's pretty enjoyable, and it rewards you for not button mashing all the time. There's a lot to it (and it doesn't even have a magic element to it yet). I had a lot of fun playing the game, it does get incredibly hectic at times though, and you don't even know what is going on, but that seems like something that can be easily fixed. The game does seem a bit "easy". It's very hard to actually die. Once your HP hits 0 you're useless and limp around until someone pats you on the back and then you go up to your max HP again. However, if you never get patted on the back and you can't run away from the enemies they can still attack you and bring down your max HP until your max HP is 0, then you die. The only way to raise your max HP back up is to use a potion. It's interesting, but unless you're getting attacked by a mob of enemies there's like no way you'll fail. Also your HP slowly regenerates in battle (higher if you're hiding), and your HP goes back to your "max HP" after a battle.

 

World - It's huge. Arguably though, it's huge and there's nothing to do it in. But it is a demo. And for a demo I feel like it had a lot of things I could do, including optional things I didn't need to do and could stumble upon just wandering around. However, I didn't wander a lot, as I didn't expect to be rewarded for anything I was doing. It was more of "go to this quest marker and then go to the next one kind of thing". Which would be a bad thing if the game end up be solely that, which I'm hoping it won't. There's a lot of promise in what is there, the environments are beautiful and varied, and the few small areas with people and shop have a few small things to look at and read...buuuut...I'll just give it the benefit of the doubt now because it's a demo. I will say I am interested in riding a chocobo or driving a car or flying in airship through this world. That should be fun.

 

Camping - There's a day/night system and at night you're supposed to go find a place to make camp or find a caravan (basically an inn). Sleeping does a lot of things in this game. It basically the only way you can save. You can cook during camping, which can give you varies buffs depending on what you make. It is also the only way you can level up. All the EXP you gained during the day gets applied when you sleep. It's a different way of doing things, and definitely makes it worth doing.

 

Events - There's a lot of really cool events in this game, that really make the game seem huge and awesome.

Spoiler

Like when you're first hunting down the behemoth, or when you summon Ramuh.

 

One kind of spoilerish thing, which I'll hide too, is eventually you make your way into a cave. The cave is very dark and cramped, as you'd probably expect a cave to be.

Spoiler

Eventually you find a crevice you have to squeeze sideways into to get further into the cave, and once you get a little far in you start to see a ton of goblins coming your way which causes you to have to back out as fast as possible and start fighting.

Which isn't like crazy much, but it adds something that makes the game feel more interesting. 

Warping - I thought this would be stupid, but it's not, it's awesome. It's used for a really specific reason half way through the demo and it's pretty cool. Overall though, it's pretty useful in battle, and I like it.

 

Cons:

Battle system - I'm just going to lump few things in here. Targeting is just absolutely broken/bonkers in this game. I don't even know what is going on. I think this can easily be fixed in time of the full release though. Attacking is also a very confusing thing in this game. You basically have a ton of weapons and I don't even get what the heck is happening with them. That will most likely be fixed with the full version as I'll have more control over what is going on there. Then, finally, there's the whole group dynamic. I don't even know what anyone else in the party is doing 99% of the time. There is not strategy to anything that is going on besides what I'm doing. Which is greatly disappointing. But that, again, might be better in the main game.

 

World - The world is going to be huge, probably even bigger than Skyrim. My hope is that there is something to do in the world. Like I said above, I think it's because it's a demo so you can't have too much for me to do, obviously. But still...there isn't a town in the demo, just two rest stops. They're kind of cool, it's really well detailed (a gas station and a chocobo farm)...but there's not really anything to do there. Your team mates, whenever in a rest area, kind of go off and do their own thing, which is neat...but I wish you could like do things with them, like have a conversation with them or something. Or have conversations with anyone, or do something, or explore things of substance.  Also I noticed all of the girls in this world do not wear full shirts. Cidney is the worst offender of ugggh ness. Also the majority of the men just look really weird. 

 

Enemies - You run into enemies all the time. There's also a space ship that drops robot soldiers on you. You can basically run away from everything though, it's not that hard, and the HP system is super forgiving so even if you take a hit while running away it doesn't much matter. But it is annoying. Especially the robot soldiers, I was trying to fight this one really annoying hard enemy and I get getting groups of robot soldiers dropped on me which just made my life even harder. It also makes me not want to explore, because I'd spend most of my time fighting through long battles for nothing. The battles aren't even hard for the most part, just annoying. But I have faith that will be better in the full game, because the battle system does make things more tolerable, it's just the encounter rate and easy (but durable) enemies. I wish there was a real boss battle in this game though. I'd be interested in how that will be handled. 

 

 

 

 

I definitely expect more from this game now that I've played the demo. I don't think it'll disappoint me on the same level FFXIII did. I don't know if I'll like it more than anything that came before FFXIII...but I expect even if it fails in some respects it could shape up to be a decent and respectable game.