PREVIEW – Truth be told as a fan of the Final Fantasy series, I was disappointed in the last few sequels for the past couple of years. All of them had their own good parts, but did not contain that plus, that part which left a mark in me. Some of the Final Fantasy games felt forced to me. That is why I waited for Final Fantasy Type 0’s release so that I may try FF XV’s demo.

The final (heh ) concept for Final Fantasy XV was a real rocky ride. While the XIII was in development, the second part of the Fabula Nova Crystallis trilogy was announced, aka Final Fantasy Versus XIII. A cinematic was released, and then the entire project just went off the grid to be barely seen. A lot of people thought it was going to stay in development hell, until gameplay footage was shown at the 2012 Tokyo Game Show. As years passed the Versus XIII name was dropped, and moved to the next gen consoles, rebranded as Final Fantasy XV.

Pretty new world

Once we get to control our character, a breathtaking scenery is presented to us that waits for us to be explored. In terms of visuals it seems that Sqaure-Enix decided to actually take risks, which in my opinion was a really good idea. Imagine a world that combines the modern elements of our world, and the magic of the original Final Fantasy games, a bit of gothic architecture. The Luminous Studio engine does its work. From sun down to night battles to the lighting, everything is superbly detailed in FF XV. While battling the enemy sometimes I got lost in the visuals which resulted in a few retries. The gameplay is the usual open world in terms of style. Due to this everything happens infront of us is in real time. This also means that the combat is not turn-based.

Swords and magic

Combat is hack and slash, with multiple weapons, and magic to be combined with them. A lot of neat combos can be created this way. An interesting mechanic here is the Warp move. If an enemy is too far from us, or if we wish to retreat to a higher vantage point and strike from there, this skill will be perfect for that. We’ll have to be on our toes constantly as the battles are fast. Attacks can be evaded, blocked, but the camera did not always help me achieve these two options. When there were a lot of enemies attacking me the camera just went crazy.

Imagine a world that combines the modern elements of our world, and the magic of the original Final Fantasy games, a bit of gothic architecture.

I was not able to keep track of how many enemies wanted to kill Noctis. We can also take a stealthier route by hiding, and if we do it quick enough the enemy will not notice us. It works perfectly to stalk the enemy, or to recover mana. I especially liked it that before attacking the Behemoth our characters discussed the ambush of the beast. XPs are given once a camp is made, when this is done you can even get XP boosts, or attack power.

Everything is great if the band is great

Finally we have likeable characters. Our party has a lot of different members. Gladiolus a badass who is full of tattoos, Promto the loud mouth. There’s also the smart guy Ingis and the heir, our hero Noctis. He doesn’t speak too much, a bit depressive. True to Japanese roots some of the characters look and have feminine features.  I also would like to mention every man’s dream, Cyndi aka Cid. Why the dream girl? Since she’s hot who loves cars.

Begone demons

I noticed real quick that there is a large amount of attention to detail created in FF XV. If we move through a bush, our character will slow down, and try to push away the branches. The characters will high five each other in case of a victory. The world’s animals are diverse. Near small ponds, white creatures will drink from its water, in the woods there are hideous creatures. In hidden caves there evil Goblins

If Square-Enix is able to provide this level of quality, and a top notch story (plus some bug fixes for the camera) , this game might be just as good as FF VII.

– Parzival –