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[injurai]

Anyone against the delay needs to read this impression. Game is being held back incredibly by technical issues.

Tabata pls, if u need to go past November then fucking do it

Or they delayed to coincide launch with PS Slim / PS Neo bundles.

 

[Elios83]

Thanks for the impressions, so overall you liked the game but were disappointed by the graphics.
Can't say that I was impressed by the 50 minutes video in this regard. It looked really uneven in quality.
Hopefully we'll get something running better on Neo this year.

 

[YankeeDonB]

I mean, if we're gonna compare other console games to FFXV, I'm gonna use release screenshots. I also know the game ran at 20 FPS in certain areas.

Here's another one.

Yeah, I love Witcher 3, but playing it at release there were lots of rough looking areas. Also, lighting is flat.

That said, for a huge open world action RPG with dynamic weather and a day/night cycle on consoles it looked pretty damn good. But I suspect release version of XV with day 1 patch will also look pretty good given scale and scope, at least some of the time. Let's see.

 

[SolidChamp]

That's actually a normal reaction assuming your dad just died and you're suddenly in charge of everything, but it might come across weird to people not invested in Noctis before.

Praying a candle daily hoping they fix the graphics.

Terrible writing is terrible writing, regardless of how you want to spin it. An empathetic emotional reaction is one thing, nailing the delivery is something else entirely.

 

[CGwizz]

So the game still fun and interesting to play ? Good this is the only important thing to me. (I don't care about graphic, if it doesn't affect the gameplay).



You exaggerate here with Ps1 graphic hehe

What about garbage framerate ? Does this not affect gameplay to you?

 

[The Lamp]

That's what you get with these consoles we have. Game looks phenomenal on PC build.

No, most PS4 games look better and better as development progresses, but this just seems to get more and more downgraded over time.

 

[Dr. Benton Quest]

How's it looking unlikely? It's the reason they delayed the game.

That's not the reason they delayed the game. Tabata said in an interview the other day that they needed to bring the late game areas up to the same quality as the starting areas. Also needed to debug those late areas as well.

 

[stargateheaven]

finding out via the newspaper annoyed me also. I mean they have smartphones, too.. that kind of information would definitely come through. Japan still uses newspapers though so i guess it makes sense.

 

[SomTervo]

I think that's sort of the point though. People are continuing to criticize the graphics of the unfinished, unoptimized version of the game.

These discussions are pretty much pointless until the finished game is available to look at.

I agree.

I mean, if we're gonna compare other console games to FFXV, I'm gonna use release screenshots. I also know the game ran at 20 FPS in certain areas.

Here's another one.

OK.

 

[UpDownLeftRight]

TW3 don't agree with you.

You so sure about that? Go back to the main town and pan that camera around. I'm not even talking launch either. It's really not that nice looking at all and suffers from the same issues as XV, asking for more than the console has. PC version on the other hand IS pretty nice to look at, and there are moments that the lighting helps hide the PS4 versions blemishes, but it's also incredibly ugly at times.

 

[Dr. Benton Quest]

I think that's sort of the point though. People are continuing to criticize the graphics of the unfinished, unoptimized version of the game.

These discussions are pretty much pointless until the finished game is available to look at.

If you think the game will look any different on release you're deluding yourself. It might have slightly better performance and that's it.

 

[GasProblem]

A lot is going to depend on the reviews for me. If they're bad I probably wont get FFXV day one.

The game still looks fun to play trough though.

 

[Falk]

No, most PS4 games look better and better as development progresses, but this just seems to get more and more downgraded over time.

Come on, the former is objectively untrue going by the amount of threads on GAF about the exact opposite.

Spoiler

Ubisoft is getting better about it

 

[Crossing Eden]

Or they delayed to coincide launch with PS Slim / PS Neo bundles.

They've said multiple times that they didn't even look at the Neo. They need to get it up to scratch on the current hardware first.

 

[Ferr986]

No, most PS4 games look better and better as development progresses, but this just seems to get more and more downgraded over time.

uhhh... I remember more titles being downgraded than upgraded.

 

[nortonff]

You so sure about that? Go back to the main town and pan that camera around. I'm not even talking launch either. It's really not that nice looking at all and suffers from the same issues as XV, asking for more than the console has. PC version on the other hand IS pretty nice to look at, and there are moments that the lighting helps hide the PS4 versions blemishes, but it's also incredibly ugly at times.

I won't argue, but to me The Witcher 3 looks way better than FFXV.
Both demos just hurt my eyes, while TW3 was a pleasure to play through.

 

[Skulldead]

What about garbage framerate ? Does this not affect gameplay to you?

If this is the case, yes it will... but right now from the video i saw doesn't seem that much a problem. But i can be mistaken, still haven't try it..

 

[SilentRob]

Thanks for the write-up! There aren't too many actual hands-on impressions yet, so it's still fun reading those.

For comparison's sake, this was my write-up from Gamescom:

I know it sounds inflammatory but I have to be honest: No, I didn't have fun with the game. And I don't think it was because of me or because of my unwillingness to accept the game's merits, strenths and weaknesses but because several of its technical and gameplay pillars are fundamentally badly designed and thought out. I have to give one big caveat though: I skipped the cutscenes because I didn't want to spoil me too much but what I saw from the screens next to me the pre-rendered cutscenes looked fucking gorgeous.

The framerate seemed like it was a pretty steady 30fps, which is obviously a big step up from Episode Duscae and very likely the reason the game looks so much worse even compared to the demo.

But to get to my more important points:

I feel like there are three big pillars to this game:

1) Driving around (The Road Trip pillar)

2) Fighting (The Final Fantasy & Action Game pillar)

3) Exploring, Questing, Looting (The Open World pillar)

I have huge problems with each one. Let's start with my biggest disappointemnt from this demo:

1) The Driving feels bad, lacks interactivity and betrays what a road trip is about

When I think of the concept of a road trip I think about freedom. About driving around unshackled from any boundaries and obligations, about exploring unknown territory, about going out of your comfort zone. In contrast to all of these concepts FF XV takes all control away from you when you drive. Even when you choose to control the game "manually" you:
-can't leave the road
-can't turn the wheel more than a few cm, while you snap back to your previous position the second you let go from the analogue stick
-can't drive fast
-can't exit the car wherever you want (kinda, but not exactly)
-can't take corners the way you want, the game automatically breaks, even if you pull the Gas button as far as you can

You are basically on a fixed track and you have to hold R2 to keep on driving on that fixed track. Whenever an intersection comes up you hold in the direction you want to drive and the game does the rest for you. When you want to make a U-Turn you just press Square and the game automatically does a U-Turn for you. There is no way for you to do this yourself since you can't actually steer away from the road in front of you. Even if there's a huge, long, endless straight in front of you Noctis will not drive with more than what feels like 15 mp/h, no matter how much you just want to race to your next waypoint. This means that driving long distances takes WAY too long with no way to skip to the end (at least in the demo I played), even in Automatic mode. When I hold X to exit the car, they don't immediatly do it but instead drive a few meters further to a predetermint point where the game allows me to stop. After that, the screen turns black and I stand outside of the car.

Nothing works as you'd expect it to work, nothing feels good, you are never in control and the black screen seems completely unnecessary and betrays the seamless transition they were going for originally.

Your Number 1 method of transportation feels like garbage and isn't fun in the slightest.

2) The Fighting System couples the action of Character Action games with the control responsiveness of JRPGs. It doesn't go well.

The controls are incredibly sluggish and unresponsiv, even at a steady framerate. Since you have to hold the circle button to attack you can't accurately control each strike. It's not intuitively noticable when one attack started or the next one ended. You never know 100% if you already queued up the next hit or not.

At the same time the fast paced fighting demands the accuracy of a Character Action game. You should not attack enemies when they block you, you should block when enemies attack you. Since you do not have complete control over your character and instead just tell him which NPD to attack instead of actively attacking him yourself, this demanded accuracy seems unnecessarily frustrating to achieve.

The developers also didn't think about several fundamentals of the Action game genre and instead had to work around them with stopgap solutions. The biggest example to me is the utter lack of noticable enemy tells. The best character action games achieve a perfect balance of letting the player know when and how an enemies is about to attack while also demanding great reflexes and the knowledge of how to counter said attack. An obvious example would be the red flashe some enemies in Metal Gear Rising display shortly before attacking. This red flash always means the same and is an established part of the ruleset.

In FFXV everything explodes in effects and characters since 3 of your companions share the screen with you most of the time while you often fight against 3, 4 or 5 small enemies at the same time, making it utterly impossible to actually notice any tells from any of the enemie NPCs. So what did Square Enix do?

The put a Huge "GUARD! USE SQUARE!" tooltip up everytime an enemie attacks with an attack you could parry. Instead of actually working on the issue the built a ugly workaround, removing any learning curve and finesse inherent in actually learning an enemie's behaviour. With big enemies there comes a new problem of actually not knowing what is an attack and what's just movement. You don't really know what hurts you and what doesn't.

And don't even get me started on their solution to "Oh Jesus, no one knows what's going on during these battles, what should we do?" Just PAUSE them? Are you serious? That's like building a terrible shooter where no one hits anything and instead of working on the AI or the controls you just tell your players to pause the game and move the crosshair over your enemie's head in that time.


3.) Exploring the open world is tedious and straight-up not fun

I could go on and on about this point (oh my god using the car is seriously such a fucking chore) but this post is already way too long so I just want to give you one perfect example of how badly thought out almost every aspect of this game is:

I drove on a street when I heard a scream from somewhere and a new side quest popped up. A hunter needed help! I wanted to help him...but the game didn't actually tell me where I should go to do that. The game registered the side quest. It marked it in my Quest Log. And I could even get a waypoint! But not just like that - I had to put in some work. And, honestly? This feels so obviously unintuitive and easy to fix that I think I probably missed a button here. If that's the case, please correct me and I will quote you as soon as I see it. But I tried and tried and didn't find a way. So what did I have to do?

Well, I was driving in my car - and while driving I couldn't access my Skill Menu or Quest Log anymore. The options were gone from the Start Menu. I could only open my map. I had to get out of the car to be able to access the Quest Log. This was the process:

- Getting the sidequest notification
- Holding X to stop the Car
- Waiting for the Car to stop further down the road for no discernible reason
- Getting a Black Screen while my characters left the car.
- Accessing the Quest Log
- Marking the Side Quest as active
- Leaving the Quest Log
- Getting back in the car
- Turning around
- Slooowly accelerating and driving back to the point where I got the notification and go from there

For whatever reason I could only ever track one quest on my mini map. This sounds like a small thing but in an open world game where such notifications hit by the minute, making me leave me car slooooowly only to be able to tell the game to allow me to approach the activity while I could have done so way easier while actually already sitting in my car is a completely unnecessary obstacle between me and my desire to explore the world.

I would go in further detail but just imagine a really ugly Dragon Age: Inquisition and you got the picture.

 

[UpDownLeftRight]

I won't argue, but to me The Witcher 3 looks way better than FFXV.
Both demos just hurt my eyes, while TW3 was a pleasure to play through.

That's fair enough. I actually enjoyed it at launch, but returning to it some time around patch 1.07 I just couldn't handle the FPS drops anymore, especially since I had the PC version too. I honestly had glossed over the visuals at first myself since I was busy enjoying the game, it was only after comparing it to itself on PC I saw just how much of the settings had to be dropped really low just to get it running with a really unstable FPS.

Open world games in general suffer on these systems because of the shoddy excuse of a CPU they used. I do hope we get a PC version of this too eventually to see what the engine can do with less boundaries.

 

[Nozem]

It doesn't take long for Noctis to get super angsty. One scene with Cor in a royal tomb sees him chuck a real tantrum: "What was my father thinking! What good am I! What did he expect me to do! I'm no king! etc. Eye-rolling stuff, couldn't dislike it more.

Goddammit. Ah well, it was to be expected.

 

[Korigama]

Maybe I'm just old or maybe I just played many ugly games in my life but the graphics look alright to me. They could be better ofc but after finishing Trails of Cold Steel which looks like a PS1 game and turned out to be one of the best RPGs I played in the recent years, I only care about gameplay and story.

There's not a single game on PS1 that looked like Cold Steel. Not even close (though this may come across as needlessly antagonistic, particularly given the positive evaluation of that game overall, even though not exceptional by PS3 standards from a technical standpoint, such an evaluation was hyperbolic).

 

[sensui-tomo]

[*]I've just recently been playing FF VI and VII for the first time so to me Cindy is just the worst thing ever. Not saying Final Fantasy has ever been the pinnacle of progressive ideals but Jesus... Ridiculous design.

You are definetly new to the series and you havent even seen ridiculous outfits in 6 yet (let alone others in the series)

rosa and rydia

this is the worst thing no child should wear design

and dont get me started on the sword

and of course BELTS THE OUTFIT

Final Fantasy has always had some ridiculous design thrown in somewhere that makes people go bonkers.

 

[Vancouver]

I care more about FFXV running well/smoothly than the overall raw graphical excellence. The current level of scope, size and general graphical prowess is nice, which is enough for me.

I really don't care all that much about how well the shrubs, grass and their hair look when i stand still.

 

[ethomaz]

I can accept the bad graphics if the combat is fun... that is my main issue with the game (it is the same issue with TW3).

 

[Perfect Cha0s]

2) The Fighting System couples the action of Character Action games with the control responsiveness of JRPGs. It doesn't go well.

The controls are incredibly sluggish and unresponsiv, even at a steady framerate. Since you have to hold the circle button to attack you can't accurately control each strike. It's not intuitively noticable when one attack started or the next one ended. You never know 100% if you already queued up the next hit or not.

At the same time the fast paced fighting demands the accuracy of a Character Action game. You should not attack enemies when they block you, you should block when enemies attack you. Since you do not have complete control over your character and instead just tell him which NPD to attack instead of actively attacking him yourself, this demanded accuracy seems unnecessarily frustrating to achieve.

The developers also didn't think about several fundamentals of the Action game genre and instead had to work around them with stopgap solutions. The biggest example to me is the utter lack of noticable enemy tells. The best character action games achieve a perfect balance of letting the player know when and how an enemies is about to attack while also demanding great reflexes and the knowledge of how to counter said attack. An obvious example would be the red flashe some enemies in Metal Gear Rising display shortly before attacking. This red flash always means the same and is an established part of the ruleset.

In FFXV everything explodes in effects and characters since 3 of your companions share the screen with you most of the time while you often fight against 3, 4 or 5 small enemies at the same time, making it utterly impossible to actually notice any tells from any of the enemie NPCs. So what did Square Enix do?

The put a Huge "GUARD! USE SQUARE!" tooltip up everytime an enemie attacks with an attack you could parry. Instead of actually working on the issue the built a ugly workaround, removing any learning curve and finesse inherent in actually learning an enemie's behaviour. With big enemies there comes a new problem of actually not knowing what is an attack and what's just movement. You don't really know what hurts you and what doesn't.

And don't even get me started on their solution to "Oh Jesus, no one knows what's going on during these battles, what should we do?" Just PAUSE them? Are you serious? That's like building a terrible shooter where no one hits anything and instead of working on the AI or the controls you just tell your players to pause the game and move the crosshair over your enemie's head in that time.

Eesh. This kind of stuff is what I was afraid of. =/

 

[injurai]

They've said multiple times that they didn't even look at the Neo. They need to get it up to scratch on the current hardware first.

What the? Sony won't let you target just for Neo, and this is a game that was re-revealed in 2013. Of course they aren't looking at the Neo.

A bundle is a bundle.

 

[MilkBeard]

Eesh. This kind of stuff is what I was afraid of. =/

For what it's worth, I didn't have any of those problems at all when playing Duscae demo and Platinum Demo. It will takes some time to cope, but, unless they made some drastic changes, you will easily get used to the combat and the flow over time. It felt pretty natural to me. The only thing is that you just need to get in-sync with the flow of the animations. You will find that holding the button isn't necessary- you can cue up attacks in different ways.

 

[JBwB]

Nice write up!

The majority of these impressions are really positive which is good to see.

 

[Byvar]

Thanks for the write up! I'm not too worried about the graphics issues -- according to the first leak they've only just started porting it to consoles a few months back. 3 more months of development time could improve the situation greatly. Of course their priority will be fixing major bugs, but that doesn't mean they can't have a graphics optimization team working concurrently.

• Some of the ambient banter wasn't subtitled. Hopefully just a bug.
• I played with Japanese voices and English subs, this was of course optional.

This is what I feared. The English translators took a lot of liberties with the script and seem to have been allowed to remove parts of it. This is likely why some of the Japanese banter isn't subtitled -- it isn't translated in the first place. The problem extends to cutscenes as well where whole lines are removed in the English translation and thus won't show up in subtitles. The script doesn't flow well at all and doesn't even match what's happening on screen at times (e.g. the reaction to finding out about

Spoiler

the king's death

from a newspaper is only lame because it's not even mentioned in the original Japanese script). Things aren't looking too well for people who want to play this game in English, regardless of whether they're playing the dubbed or the subbed version.

 

[Necro900]

Damn, driving on rails doesn't sound good. I've always preferred to drive in games that place plot points in car banter, but it sounds like being behind the wheel is more like a chore than anything else.

Also, I still haven't forgiven the series for going full action, but I suppose sometimes you just have to let things go.

I'm happy that they've overhauled the weapon selection based on stick position, or however it worked, with a simple fixed selection. In Duscae I honestly never knew what weapon was going to come out next.

 

[Koutsoubas]

PS Neo or PC Version. Dont see any other viable option

 

[Koozek]

This is what I feared. The English translators took a lot of liberties with the script and seem to have been allowed to remove parts of it. This is likely why some of the Japanese banter isn't subtitled -- it isn't translated in the first place. The problem extends to cutscenes as well where whole lines are removed in the English translation and thus won't show up in subtitles. The script doesn't flow well at all and doesn't even match what's happening on screen at times (e.g. the reaction to finding out about

Spoiler

the king's death

from a newspaper is only lame because it's not even mentioned in the original Japanese script). Things aren't looking too well for people who want to play this game in English, regardless of whether they're playing the dubbed or the subbed version.

Seems like I was right. Gladio doesn't say

Spoiler

the king is dead

in the original JP audio in that newspaper scene.

I mixed the Duscae ending audio + video in OP. Lip sync is in English, but the scene is the same.

https://vid.me/5MMX

That's a crazy change and now it makes sense why the whole scene lacks any weight in the English version. Oh, man...

 

[BlondeTuna]

Thank you for the write-up. Mostly good impressions but the issues folks have with the car not being fun and the performance / presentation is worrying.

Let's hope some improvements can be made prior to release.

 

[Vincent Grayson]

If you think the game will look any different on release you're deluding yourself. It might have slightly better performance and that's it.

I think the game looks perfectly fine right now. I have no doubt it will look better, and play better, on release.

I don't tend to assume people are lying when they say they're going to improve the game prior to release and that the 2-month delay was for expressly that purpose.

 

[jett]

Thanks for the write up! I'm not too worried about the graphics issues -- according to the first leak they've only just started porting it to consoles a few months back. 3 more months of development time could improve the situation greatly. Of course their priority will be fixing major bugs, but that doesn't mean they can't have a graphics optimization team working concurrently.

This is what I feared. The English translators took a lot of liberties with the script and seem to have been allowed to remove parts of it. This is likely why some of the Japanese banter isn't subtitled -- it isn't translated in the first place. The problem extends to cutscenes as well where whole lines are removed in the English translation and thus won't show up in subtitles. The script doesn't flow well at all and doesn't even match what's happening on screen at times (e.g. the reaction to finding out about

Spoiler

the king's death

from a newspaper is only lame because it's not even mentioned in the original Japanese script). Things aren't looking too well for people who want to play this game in English, regardless of whether they're playing the dubbed or the subbed version.

Sounds like people wanting to play with Japanese voices are a bit fucked. That's honestly way too many liberties taken by the translators. In the English "newspaper" scene Noctis also goes on about Altissia, but he never mentions the city in the Japanese version.

I wonder if the lip-syncing animation will even change when you choose Japanese.

I guess when/if the PC version hits we'll have to depend on fan translators, lol. It's a tradition after all!

 

[Gbraga]

Terrible writing is terrible writing, regardless of how you want to spin it. An empathetic emotional reaction is one thing, nailing the delivery is something else entirely.

I do think the japanese actor nailed the delivery, though, it was very impactful, you can see it in the japanese version of the Uncovered trailer. This scene was pretty much what solidified my decision of playing with japanese audio.

Sounds like people wanting to play with Japanese voices are a bit fucked. That's honestly way too many liberties taken by the translators. In the English "newspaper" scene Noctis also goes on about Altissia, but he never mentions the city in the Japanese version.

I wonder if the lip-syncing animation will even change when you choose Japanese.

I mean, I don't really speak japanese, but I notice when subtitles aren't accurate all the time when watching anime, so I'm guessing it'll be the same here.

 

[Dr. Benton Quest]

I think the game looks perfectly fine right now. I have no doubt it will look better, and play better, on release.

I don't tend to assume people are lying when they say they're going to improve the game prior to release and that the 2-month delay was for expressly that purpose.

I'll just quote myself because I'm tiring of shooting down this wish for a technical miracle.

That's not the reason they delayed the game. Tabata said in an interview the other day that they needed to bring the late game areas up to the same quality as the starting areas. Also needed to debug those late areas as well.

 

[MilkBeard]

I'll just quote myself because I'm tiring of shooting down this wish for a technical miracle.

That's what he said in *an* interview. I'm pretty sure I remember reading in other interviews/comments that they were also going to focus on general visual/performance improvements as well.

 

[gregor7777]

Thanks for the write up! I'm not too worried about the graphics issues -- according to the first leak they've only just started porting it to consoles a few months back. 3 more months of development time could improve the situation greatly. Of course their priority will be fixing major bugs, but that doesn't mean they can't have a graphics optimization team working concurrently.

This is what I feared. The English translators took a lot of liberties with the script and seem to have been allowed to remove parts of it. This is likely why some of the Japanese banter isn't subtitled -- it isn't translated in the first place. The problem extends to cutscenes as well where whole lines are removed in the English translation and thus won't show up in subtitles. The script doesn't flow well at all and doesn't even match what's happening on screen at times (e.g. the reaction to finding out about

Spoiler

the king's death

from a newspaper is only lame because it's not even mentioned in the original Japanese script). Things aren't looking too well for people who want to play this game in English, regardless of whether they're playing the dubbed or the subbed version.

Yikes

 

[Dr. Benton Quest]

That's what he said in *an* interview. I'm pretty sure I remember reading in other interviews/comments that they were also going to focus on general visual/performance improvements as well.

Look, I can't force you to accept what Tabata said yesterday, but if you think the game will look different on release you're going to be disappointed.

 

[bunkitz]

Sounds pretty good. I like most of what I hear, especially the camp stuff and the adventure feeling, but as a person who's not too picky with graphics, it's pretty discouraging... I really hope they can improve it by the time it releases.

Thanks for the write up! I'm not too worried about the graphics issues -- according to the first leak they've only just started porting it to consoles a few months back. 3 more months of development time could improve the situation greatly. Of course their priority will be fixing major bugs, but that doesn't mean they can't have a graphics optimization team working concurrently.

This is what I feared. The English translators took a lot of liberties with the script and seem to have been allowed to remove parts of it. This is likely why some of the Japanese banter isn't subtitled -- it isn't translated in the first place. The problem extends to cutscenes as well where whole lines are removed in the English translation and thus won't show up in subtitles. The script doesn't flow well at all and doesn't even match what's happening on screen at times (e.g. the reaction to finding out about

Spoiler

the king's death

from a newspaper is only lame because it's not even mentioned in the original Japanese script). Things aren't looking too well for people who want to play this game in English, regardless of whether they're playing the dubbed or the subbed version.

What the fucking fuck, this is awful! Makes me wish I was fluent in Japanese even more now... Jesus, I hope they fix this too. Although, erm, is that just wishful thinking or is three months enough to do that along with all the other performance fixes they're doing?

 

[Omnistalgic]

Sounds like the mechanics and overall game is fantastic they just need technical peppering up. I hope SE allows another delay if necessary...well I hope they can just polish it enough for release, or patch it for Neo or whatever.

Problem just seems to be manpower or mismanaged time, the creative stuff (what most of us care about) sounds great, would be a shame if it's held back for technical difficulties

 

[MilkBeard]

Look, I can't force you to accept what Tabata said (VERY recently), but if you think the game will look different on release you're going to be disappointed.

I'm not expecting the game to look drastically different, but I do think they will try to continue to make further general optimization improvements for the whole game.

 

[Lunafreya Nox Fleuret]

I really appreciate all the thoughts you have gathered up in this hands on preview. Honestly, much of this stuff is a little worrying to me. Tabata has a lot of promises for 2 months time and those are to hopefully upgrade visuals, fix glitches/bugs, and polish areas. After this preview, I'm admittedly not too fussed about the graphics but people are exaggerating when they say it looks really badly. Just my opinion but we'll likely see it looking well at final release and if not there is always Neo or PC to please the visuals. Also, does it really matter if Noctis throws a tantrum? He doesn't understand what he is doing yet and maybe feels his father is using him. Yeah yeah, typical anime trope but were you not expecting this? The newspaper scene is admittedly disappointing though....

 

[Dr. Benton Quest]

I'm not expecting the game to look drastically different, but I do think they will try to continue to make further general optimization improvements for the whole game.

You don't get optimization by cranking up IQ. You're probably right that the frame rate will be a bit better at launch, but they can't increase performance AND image quality in less than two months.


Edit: Also I doubt much refactoring can be done in that amount of time either.

 

[ironcreed]

I am normally not too picky, but the game looks downgraded as hell in the visual department. Like last-gen looking in areas. Night and day compared to all of the gorgeous trailers and even the demo.

 

[mrmickfran]

Talking to shopkeepers adds nearby POIs to your map. They can also give you monster hunt side quests, but only one at a time which seems silly.

FUUUUUUCK, THIS WAS MY BIGGEST CONCERN

Xenoblade had you take as many as possible, why is it so hard Square?

 

[Maledict]

And FFXV will probably be bigger than both in terms of size.

I honestly don't see what this has to do with anything.

Size in an open world game means nothing. Daggerfall is one of the biggest open world RPGs ever made - and 99% of it was filled with procedural generated cardboard towns. No Mans Sky is the largest game ever made in gaming history from what we can tell - and 99% of it is boring rubbish.

Huge open expanses filled with random monsters and nothing doesn't mean squat. even Ubisoft have stopped talking about how big their gameworlds are. It's nothing to be excited about or praise at all - what matters is what's *in* the gameworld.

 

[BlueTsunami]

The clunkiness of the car mechanics sounds gross. Part of the appeal of Final Fantasy is how smooth UI and game mechanic aspects tend to be, polished. This game sounds like its going to be full of immersion breaking transitions.

If not for not having something qued up after FFXIII, this game should have been aborted. Now we get to experience a square peg being banged into a round hole.

 

[Perfect Cha0s]

For what it's worth, I didn't have any of those problems at all when playing Duscae demo and Platinum Demo. It will takes some time to cope, but, unless they made some drastic changes, you will easily get used to the combat and the flow over time. It felt pretty natural to me. The only thing is that you just need to get in-sync with the flow of the animations. You will find that holding the button isn't necessary- you can cue up attacks in different ways.

I've played Duscae and Platinum, too. They had similar problems but I'd figured they would fix it. The visual sluggishness in combat is a problem, and the button prompts really felt like band-aids meant to hold over until root problems are fixed.