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FFXV Hands-On Impressions

jett

D-Member
That ol' world map people like to re-post has always seemed misleading to me. We've seen nothing from the actual game that suggests an actually huge world. In fact we just keep seeing Duscae and neighboring areas.
 

Damsung

Banned
That ol' world map people like to re-post has always seemed misleading to me. We've seen nothing from the actual game that suggests an actually huge world. In fact we just keep seeing Duscae and neighboring areas.

It is misleading since the majority of it are mountains you can't trek over. From what we've seen the game isn't very large at all. The three areas shown in the 50 minute demonstration take up almost half of the world and they're really not large.
 

injurai

Banned
It is misleading since the majority of it are mountains you can't trek over. From what we've seen the game isn't very large at all. The three areas shown in the 50 minute demonstration take up almost half of the world and they're really not large.

Is the flying car meant to throw us off then?
 

Damsung

Banned
Is the flying car meant to throw us off then?

By trek I mean walk.

Good thing Luna has a whining barrier prepared for DOF complaints.

f7sTWAc.gif


At the end of the day, this is thus far the only game to use the Luminous Studio engine and there's clearly been some trouble with it. But FFXV was designed with high-end assets from the start and I'm going to have to disagree with James Scott about MGSV, which I think looks worse even then some of the most unflattering screenshots of a game that might still be optimized with more than two months to go. IQ may be worse and there are some DOF issues in FFXV, but the assets are clearly of a far higher quality than MGSV, just look at the scar and imperfections on Luna's face here. MGSV is a game which, very often had low-poly items close up. It looks great for what it is, but that's a game that had to hit 1080/60 fps, and it does look the part.

FFXV's assets since the reboot in development don't look like they'd be workable on last gen at all. The game has more modern ambitions, and again, Square Enix delayed this game two months and until after Black Friday in the US/Canada, possibly to make sure the game is significantly optimized on PS4 and XB1. If it were just to include what would have been a day 1 patch then you'd think it would be earlier in November at the latest. Apparently they're adding content too, but I think they're going to try to push the OG PS4 and XB1 to their limits as best as they can. Don't get me wrong, it won't be perfect visually, but it's an incredibly ambitious game all the same.

Erm, what? Graphically both games are very similar outside of the stark 30FPS difference, but if we're talking about female characters Quiet, Paz, or the Skulls are a step ahead of Luna.
 

injurai

Banned
By trek I mean walk.

I mean, if the world is so small then why do we need a flying car?

Nomura's original design only had the car and it wouldn't fly. I feel Tabata's world may have become larger. Maybe less dense, but I think its going to be quite vast.

Unless of course the car is meant to throw us off and help sell the game.
 

Ishida

Banned
I mean, if the world is so small then why do we need a flying car?

Nomura's original design only had the car and it wouldn't fly. I feel Tabata's world may have become larger. Maybe less dense, but I think its going to be quite vast.

Unless of course the car is meant to throw us off and help sell the game.

Nothing so far has suggested that the world is small. The overworld seems to be huge, actually.
 

Mailbox

Member
Nothing so far has suggested that the world is small. The overworld seems to be huge, actually.

yeah, seems like its going for the ff9 ideology of open world design. Giving you smaller (but still massive) chunks of the world at a time until at some point you get full open world access. The higher level hunt quests seem to imply that we can come back to hammerhead, for instance.
 
Based on what I've seen, it seems to be following the xenoblade area progression. Big open areas tied together linearly dictated by the story. That's probably my favorite approach to a rpg. Worked well in Xenoblade.
 
By trek I mean walk.



Erm, what? Graphically both games are very similar outside of the stark 30FPS difference, but if we're talking about female characters Quiet, Paz, or the Skulls are a step ahead of Luna.

I'll need to play the final version, but Duscae demo looked a good bit better to me than MGSV, which isn't surprising as it was running at 900p and 60fps
 

Crossing Eden

Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
By trek I mean walk.



Erm, what? Graphically both games are very similar outside of the stark 30FPS difference, but if we're talking about female characters Quiet, Paz, or the Skulls are a step ahead of Luna.
I would sincerely do a double take on what those models looked like, they're not very high poly:

this is Luna's model:
while post downgrade visuals put MGSV on the map in terms of comparison, FFXV is still ahead. Not just with models either.
 

injurai

Banned

People can say their piece on Quite's outfit, but her facial makeup is really good as far as video games go. She's not dolled up, it's pretty par for the course makeup as far as it goes with women. A+ right there.

I honestly hadn't noticed how well it was done until now.
 

DragoonKain

Neighbours from Hell
The map isn't fully open from the start. You get a piece of the map and then in order to open up more of it you must do more of the story.

Well I hope there's a point where you have full access to the whole thing for a long period of time and it isn't like once you fully open up the map, it's time to face the final mission!
 

HeelPower

Member
People can say their piece on Quite's outfit, but her facial makeup is really good as far as video games go. She's not dolled up, it's pretty par for the course makeup as far as it goes with women. A+ right there.

I honestly hadn't noticed how well it was done until now.

She's incredibly well done ,but I'd say she's disproportionately better made than the rest of the characters.

Clearly more effort went into making Quiet's model.

However,hair in general is pretty bad in MGSV.
 

Toth

Member
It is misleading since the majority of it are mountains you can't trek over. From what we've seen the game isn't very large at all. The three areas shown in the 50 minute demonstration take up almost half of the world and they're really not large.

That is only the map of the Kingdom of Lucis.
 
It still looks interesting, i'll pick it up when i finish all of the final fantasies (I to X)

My only worry is the combat honestly, at times it looks clunky.
 

Dmax3901

Member
So just for fun I found this screenshot of the map in the build I played. I've added numbers for your reference. Spoilers I guess? The text and circle about Duscae were already part of the image.

1. This is Insomnia. The road leading out of it to the south and west is completely out of bounds. The scene with them pushing the car happens somewhere between 4 and 2 (I would assume).

2. The Hammerhead Petrol station where Cid and Cindey are. There's a couple of fetch quests you have to do in the area while they fix up the Regalia.

3. You then drive south to the resort (can't remember the name). I believe the plan is to catch a ferry to some crazy spikey looking island you can see in the distance way to the south east of 3. This island kinda looks like Death Mountain in Twilight Princess. This is where Luna is, or at least where they were going to get married. The ferry is not in operation. The boys stay the night while they wait for the next ferry, in the morning is when they get the newspaper. Worth noting that the majority of the road between 3. and 2. is super narrow, cliffs on either side, again feels closed off ala Dragon's Dogma, Xenoblade etc.

4. This is where they first start seeing dreadnoughts and empire soldiers chilling out, they take a detour around the roadblock, you fight a few guys and then there's the scene on the cliff overlooking Insomnia.

5. After chatting to Cid for a bit you head north to meet with Cor and visit your first Royal Tomb. He joins you for like 2 minutes and then you go into a dungeon with goblins and spider ladies and get your second Royal Weapon.

6. You, the guys and Cor all attack an imperial outpost, which ends in the mech fight. You can now travel into the Duscae area. This is the 'long drive' they suggest you prepare for.

7. Is lestallum. That horseshoe part of the road just before it is quite scenic, travelling along cliffsides and bridges and finally a tunnel built into the cliff. It is VERY clear however that all the terrain to the north and east is not actually part of the game. So everything north and east of the horseshoe, and west and north west of 6., is just cliffs with cookie cutter trees on them. I will happily eat crow upon release if this is not the case.

8. After meeting Iris you head to the next Royal Tomb which is behind a waterfall. This is where the Ronin and Flans are. I fucking hated this dungeon, lots of places you can fall and have to backtrack, enemy encounters seemed to respawn so if you cleared out the lower area and then fell again later you'd have to do it again. As mentioned in the OP, the Ronin annihilated my party. Stasis out my ass too. As you can see it's an equally long drive but not referred to as such by the characters. In reality it takes like 2 minutes.

9. Is just to signify the return to Lestallum, the chat with Ardyn and the demo ending.

CSYb.jpg


Very interested to see how flying works and if it enables you to land in those off-limits areas I mentioned above. I honestly would be very surprised if you can.
 
So just for fun I found this screenshot of the map in the build I played. I've added numbers for your reference. Spoilers I guess? The text and circle about Duscae were already part of the image.

1. This is Insomnia. The road leading out of it to the south and west is completely out of bounds. The scene with them pushing the car happens somewhere between 4 and 2 (I would assume).

2. The Hammerhead Petrol station where Cid and Cindey are. There's a couple of fetch quests you have to do in the area while they fix up the Regalia.

3. You then drive south to the resort (can't remember the name). I believe the plan is to catch a ferry to some crazy spikey looking island you can see in the distance way to the south east of 3. This island kinda looks like Death Mountain in Twilight Princess. This is where Luna is, or at least where they were going to get married. The ferry is not in operation. The boys stay the night while they wait for the next ferry, in the morning is when they get the newspaper. Worth noting that the majority of the road between 3. and 2. is super narrow, cliffs on either side, again feels closed off ala Dragon's Dogma, Xenoblade etc.

4. This is where they first start seeing dreadnoughts and empire soldiers chilling out, they take a detour around the roadblock, you fight a few guys and then there's the scene on the cliff overlooking Insomnia.

5. After chatting to Cid for a bit you head north to meet with Cor and visit your first Royal Tomb. He joins you for like 2 minutes and then you go into a dungeon with goblins and spider ladies and get your second Royal Weapon.

6. You, the guys and Cor all attack an imperial outpost, which ends in the mech fight. You can now travel into the Duscae area. This is the 'long drive' they suggest you prepare for.

7. Is lestallum. That horseshoe part of the road just before it is quite scenic, travelling along cliffsides and bridges and finally a tunnel built into the cliff. It is VERY clear however that all the terrain to the north and east is not actually part of the game. So everything north and east of the horseshoe, and west and north west of 6., is just cliffs with cookie cutter trees on them. I will happily eat crow upon release if this is not the case.

8. After meeting Iris you head to the next Royal Tomb which is behind a waterfall. This is where the Ronin and Flans are. I fucking hated this dungeon, lots of places you can fall and have to backtrack, enemy encounters seemed to respawn so if you cleared out the lower area and then fell again later you'd have to do it again. As mentioned in the OP, the Ronin annihilated my party. Stasis out my ass too. As you can see it's an equally long drive but not referred to as such by the characters. In reality it takes like 2 minutes.

9. Is just to signify the return to Lestallum, the chat with Ardyn and the demo ending.

CSYb.jpg


Very interested to see how flying works and if it enables you to land in those off-limits areas I mentioned above. I honestly would be very surprised if you can.

That's basically the whole northern part of the map if you go by that old map everyone is trying to push as reality.

Does that part feel like the size of GTAV or Witcher 3's map at all?
 
So just for fun I found this screenshot of the map in the build I played. I've added numbers for your reference. Spoilers I guess? The text and circle about Duscae were already part of the image.

1. This is Insomnia. The road leading out of it to the south and west is completely out of bounds. The scene with them pushing the car happens somewhere between 4 and 2 (I would assume).

2. The Hammerhead Petrol station where Cid and Cindey are. There's a couple of fetch quests you have to do in the area while they fix up the Regalia.

3. You then drive south to the resort (can't remember the name). I believe the plan is to catch a ferry to some crazy spikey looking island you can see in the distance way to the south east of 3. This island kinda looks like Death Mountain in Twilight Princess. This is where Luna is, or at least where they were going to get married. The ferry is not in operation. The boys stay the night while they wait for the next ferry, in the morning is when they get the newspaper. Worth noting that the majority of the road between 3. and 2. is super narrow, cliffs on either side, again feels closed off ala Dragon's Dogma, Xenoblade etc.

4. This is where they first start seeing dreadnoughts and empire soldiers chilling out, they take a detour around the roadblock, you fight a few guys and then there's the scene on the cliff overlooking Insomnia.

5. After chatting to Cid for a bit you head north to meet with Cor and visit your first Royal Tomb. He joins you for like 2 minutes and then you go into a dungeon with goblins and spider ladies and get your second Royal Weapon.

6. You, the guys and Cor all attack an imperial outpost, which ends in the mech fight. You can now travel into the Duscae area. This is the 'long drive' they suggest you prepare for.

7. Is lestallum. That horseshoe part of the road just before it is quite scenic, travelling along cliffsides and bridges and finally a tunnel built into the cliff. It is VERY clear however that all the terrain to the north and east is not actually part of the game. So everything north and east of the horseshoe, and west and north west of 6., is just cliffs with cookie cutter trees on them. I will happily eat crow upon release if this is not the case.

8. After meeting Iris you head to the next Royal Tomb which is behind a waterfall. This is where the Ronin and Flans are. I fucking hated this dungeon, lots of places you can fall and have to backtrack, enemy encounters seemed to respawn so if you cleared out the lower area and then fell again later you'd have to do it again. As mentioned in the OP, the Ronin annihilated my party. Stasis out my ass too. As you can see it's an equally long drive but not referred to as such by the characters. In reality it takes like 2 minutes.

9. Is just to signify the return to Lestallum, the chat with Ardyn and the demo ending.

CSYb.jpg


Very interested to see how flying works and if it enables you to land in those off-limits areas I mentioned above. I honestly would be very surprised if you can.

I'm pretty sure they said already that you can fly anywhere, but only land on driveable roads.
 

Dmax3901

Member
That's basically the whole northern part of the map if you go by that old map everyone is trying to push as reality.

Does that part feel like the size of GTAV or Witcher 3's map at all?

Absolutely not. Say we counted the area between point 8 and 4 and forget that you can't just take a dirtbike up any hill like in GTA, I'd say it's comparable to the area of the Los Santos third of GTA V's map.

So we're talking similar but nowhere near the same freedom.

Obviously I'm going off memory here so I could end up being wrong, one thing for sure is that dualshockers image is ridiculous.
 
Absolutely not. Say we counted the area between point 8 and 4 and forget that you can't just take a dirtbike up any hill like in GTA, I'd say it's comparable to the area of the Los Santos third of GTA V's map.

So we're talking similar but nowhere near the same freedom.

Obviously I'm going off memory here so I could end up being wrong, one thing for sure is that dualshockers image is ridiculous.

So it's big, but not insanely big.

1317948749195_8942560.png


Picture is not for you btw.
 

sappyday

Member
That's basically the whole northern part of the map if you go by that old map everyone is trying to push as reality.

Does that part feel like the size of GTAV or Witcher 3's map at all?
There's a better image that showcases exactly how much of the land is the start area. The north west side of the map is definitely not in the starter area.
 
So just for fun I found this screenshot of the map in the build I played. I've added numbers for your reference. Spoilers I guess? The text and circle about Duscae were already part of the image.

1. This is Insomnia. The road leading out of it to the south and west is completely out of bounds. The scene with them pushing the car happens somewhere between 4 and 2 (I would assume).

2. The Hammerhead Petrol station where Cid and Cindey are. There's a couple of fetch quests you have to do in the area while they fix up the Regalia.

3. You then drive south to the resort (can't remember the name). I believe the plan is to catch a ferry to some crazy spikey looking island you can see in the distance way to the south east of 3. This island kinda looks like Death Mountain in Twilight Princess. This is where Luna is, or at least where they were going to get married. The ferry is not in operation. The boys stay the night while they wait for the next ferry, in the morning is when they get the newspaper. Worth noting that the majority of the road between 3. and 2. is super narrow, cliffs on either side, again feels closed off ala Dragon's Dogma, Xenoblade etc.

4. This is where they first start seeing dreadnoughts and empire soldiers chilling out, they take a detour around the roadblock, you fight a few guys and then there's the scene on the cliff overlooking Insomnia.

5. After chatting to Cid for a bit you head north to meet with Cor and visit your first Royal Tomb. He joins you for like 2 minutes and then you go into a dungeon with goblins and spider ladies and get your second Royal Weapon.

6. You, the guys and Cor all attack an imperial outpost, which ends in the mech fight. You can now travel into the Duscae area. This is the 'long drive' they suggest you prepare for.

7. Is lestallum. That horseshoe part of the road just before it is quite scenic, travelling along cliffsides and bridges and finally a tunnel built into the cliff. It is VERY clear however that all the terrain to the north and east is not actually part of the game. So everything north and east of the horseshoe, and west and north west of 6., is just cliffs with cookie cutter trees on them. I will happily eat crow upon release if this is not the case.

8. After meeting Iris you head to the next Royal Tomb which is behind a waterfall. This is where the Ronin and Flans are. I fucking hated this dungeon, lots of places you can fall and have to backtrack, enemy encounters seemed to respawn so if you cleared out the lower area and then fell again later you'd have to do it again. As mentioned in the OP, the Ronin annihilated my party. Stasis out my ass too. As you can see it's an equally long drive but not referred to as such by the characters. In reality it takes like 2 minutes.

9. Is just to signify the return to Lestallum, the chat with Ardyn and the demo ending.

CSYb.jpg


Very interested to see how flying works and if it enables you to land in those off-limits areas I mentioned above. I honestly would be very surprised if you can.

Sounds like a well paced opening taking you to a variety of locations at least. Also I like it when you see locations you are meant to go to earlier in the game. I'm sure we will end up on the spiky island at some point!

How does this indicate wit in any way

The grin whilst holding the chocobo in a confident way gives me the feel that he is witty.
 

Tyaren

Member
Absolutely not. Say we counted the area between point 8 and 4 and forget that you can't just take a dirtbike up any hill like in GTA, I'd say it's comparable to the area of the Los Santos third of GTA V's map.

So we're talking similar but nowhere near the same freedom.

Obviously I'm going off memory here so I could end up being wrong, one thing for sure is that dualshockers image is ridiculous.

Yeah, I always found that fan map comparison highly doubtful... ;)
The game world still seems to be very big, probably still bigger overall than GTA5's island but probably not bigger than The Witcher 3, especially after it's expansions.
The in-game map in your screenshot just depicts Lucis with it's regions of Insomnia, Leide, Duscae and Cleigne (seems you didn't visit this one in the Gamescom demo?) and that probably makes up about a third of the complete game world. But that is only my guess here. Beyond the ocean it goes of course on with with Accordo,Tenebrae, Solheim, Niflheim etc. And some places we don't know of yet. The developers said that we haven't seen more than half of the regions and cities yet that are in FFXV. So, there might be some cool and interesting stuff for us ahead. The more fantasy-inspired regions and cities are also said to be waiting near the end of the game.
 

Tyaren

Member
The PS2 comparison is of course BS...but it does actually look worse than a WiiU game, which is already bad enough...

WiiU_XCX_SCRN_01_bmp_jpgcopy.0.0.jpg


Final-Fantasy-XV-Gamescom-4-1280x720.jpg


Not just technically but also in style it looks considerably worse...
 

Toth

Member
The PS2 comparison is of course BS...but it does actually look worse than a WiiU game, which is bad enough...

WiiU_XCX_SCRN_01_bmp_jpgcopy.0.0.jpg


Final-Fantasy-XV-Gamescom-4-1280x720.jpg


Not just technically but also in style it looks considerably worse...

Not the best comparison as not only is X a smaller world but that game has horrible pop up (especially of monsters) and plenty of slowdown issues. The aesthetics are saved by some very creative designs.

Also, this is an intro area we are seeing. A more apt comparison would be a valley area or one with more rivers and natural features.
 

Mediking

Member
The PS2 comparison is of course BS...but it does actually look worse than a WiiU game, which is already bad enough...

WiiU_XCX_SCRN_01_bmp_jpgcopy.0.0.jpg


Final-Fantasy-XV-Gamescom-4-1280x720.jpg


Not just technically but also in style it looks considerably worse...

What's funny is that XCX was my most anticipated for such a long time... and it totally failed in hooking me and keeping me interested.
 
Show us a PS2 game that looks like this?

I think everyone who makes stupid comparisons like this need to put up or shut up. It's getting ridiculous.

Game looks far smoother in motion anyway. Watch the video.

I think you're getting a little angry over an opinion. Calm down, it's only a video game. I've played PS2 games which graphics today still looks good on par with PS3 games. Gran Turismo 4 can be comparable to that image. But like you said, it's probably better in motion.
 

Tyaren

Member
Not the best comparison as not only is X a smaller world but that game has horrible pop up (especially of monsters) and plenty of slowdown issues. The aesthetics are saved by some very creative designs.

Also, this is an intro area we are seeing. A more apt comparison would be a valley area or one with more rivers and natural features.

I thought X is so gigantic? I played a bit of it but it didn't keep me hooked as the OG Chronicles (amazing game!) did, so I am not an expert. It's probably overall larger than FFXV's game world after we now found out the fan comparisons were a bit hyperbolic.
But I don't really think the size of a world even matters much in terms of overall graphics anyway. What counts is what is generated in your field of view, not what's miles outside of it. And X looks better. Here's another shot more inside the FFXV desert:

final-fantasy-xv-2016125204133_4.jpg

(Yep, that is a direct feed promo screenshot by Square Enix. D:)

What's funny is that XCX was my most anticipated for such a long time... and it totally failed in hooking me and keeping me interested.

I felt the same... :( Didn't even finish half of it and I played the OG Chronicles two times with over 300 hours of playtime combined.
 

Mailbox

Member
Absolutely not. Say we counted the area between point 8 and 4 and forget that you can't just take a dirtbike up any hill like in GTA, I'd say it's comparable to the area of the Los Santos third of GTA V's map.

So we're talking similar but nowhere near the same freedom.

Obviously I'm going off memory here so I could end up being wrong, one thing for sure is that dualshockers image is ridiculous.

Not to mention that literal size and perceived size are very different things. Where in GTA you can pretty much go anywhere anytime, it feels massive. But since most of your time with 15 was on car (i assume, please correct me if i'm wrong) on simple roads (not clogged interconnected roads like some areas of GTA) no less, it could very well feel like it was a smaller area.

It could very well be that the Density of witcher and GTA's worlds make them feel bigger and the design of FFXV's world makes it feel smaller. World designs are very different so the feeling of size is different.
 
Not the best comparison as not only is X a smaller world.

Are you crazy? X is around three times the map size of Witcher 3 combined pre-dlc (Novigrad+Skellige), which is already huge. X is near Just Cause 2 levels of map size.

If there is one thing X isn't is small.
 

wanders

Member
The PS2 comparison is of course BS...but it does actually look worse than a WiiU game, which is already bad enough...

WiiU_XCX_SCRN_01_bmp_jpgcopy.0.0.jpg


Final-Fantasy-XV-Gamescom-4-1280x720.jpg


Not just technically but also in style it looks considerably worse...

None of XV's landscapes look as interesting as X's. And from that screenshot it looks it has higher texture resolutions in the rock formations lol
 
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