Final Fantasy 15

[Gogan]

Release date delayed from Sept 30 to Nov 29th.

The companion movie, FFXV: Kingsglaive, released the first 12 minutes of the movie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxH4OMFOa7k

[Yooxra]

Movie actually looks good. At this point i'm ready to wait another 10 years for this game!

[Kz]

FFXV wont be on Wii U so i wont be playing it :(

[Yooxra]

FFXV wont be on Wii U so i wont be playing it :(

You got a Wii U, Lol..... Oh Kz....

[Kz]

got it cuz the wife loves Wii games its not for me. sept ill be playing that new zelda too

[Gogan]

FFXV wont be on Wii U so i wont be playing it :(

I plan on buying a PS4 just to play it.

I sort of want to get a Wii U for Zelda, but I haven't really liked the Zelda games since the original. The new one does look really cool though.

[Kz]

twilight princess was amazing too asano. and u could get that on Wii U i believe its backwards compatible with Wii. they had a streak after ocarina of time that was terrible. majora's mask and wind waker make people sad. but then twilight was really good. high hopes for this one.

[Kz]

like i said i play computer games though and she plays console so whatever system she likes better is the one i buy so i can play more computer games while she plays console :p

[Gogan]

Ah yes, I forgot about Twilight Princess. I actually have a Wii, and that's one of the three games I own for it. I played about 10 minutes when it first came out before giving up because I couldn't get used to the controls. But I do think if I gave it a reasonable chance I would've liked it.

[McGrupp]

This may force me to purchase a PS4. Damn.

[Yooxra]

Might as well buy the NX coming out in march. Will have the same zelda game.

[Gogan]

This may force me to purchase a PS4. Damn.

What's worse is Sony is supposed to announce their PS4.5, aka PS4 Neo, on Sept 7th, and with our luck will probably be released after FF15 is released. So we'll have to buy the "old" PS4 in order to play on day 1.

[Gogan]

Might as well buy the NX coming out in march. Will have the same zelda game.

Yeah, I don't think Zelda is even slated to be released until 2017. And tbh, I'm not sure I'm hyped enough to buy another Wii for it. I like Zelda, but not even close to as much as I like Final Fantasy.

[Yooxra]

Yeah, I don't think Zelda is even slated to be released until 2017. And tbh, I'm not sure I'm hyped enough to buy another Wii for it. I like Zelda, but not even close to as much as I like Final Fantasy.

I'm in the same boat really. I haven't bought a nintendo system since N64. Zelda is one of the best games made but I can't buy a whole system anymore for one game. They saying zelda will be out 6 months of NX release.

[Yooxra]

What's worse is Sony is supposed to announce their PS4.5, aka PS4 Neo, on Sept 7th, and with our luck will probably be released after FF15 is released. So we'll have to buy the "old" PS4 in order to play on day 1.

I'm hoping that the rumors are true that they release the neo by november. That was the rumor right when the rumored specs started. If they do anything like Microsoft announcement of the slim at E3 then released aug 2. I'm hoping something similar happens and we get the neo release by nov.

I have a ps4 so i'm not worried about not getting to play FF15 right away, but I just want to have the neo and most likely get trade in value of 200$ before it gets to old towards the neo.

[Gogan]

I'm hoping that the rumors are true that they release the neo by november. That was the rumor right when the rumored specs started. If they do anything like Microsoft announcement of the slim at E3 then released aug 2. I'm hoping something similar happens and we get the neo release by nov.

That would help explain why SE delayed FF15. Would help drive sales of the Neo, and the bump in hardware specs will no doubt help in handling FF15's new game engine, which sounds very taxing (http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Luminous_Engine):

It will be running at 1080p with 30 frames per second. Compared to the 20,000 polygons used for the Final Fantasy XIII characters, Final Fantasy XV will be using 100,000 polygons for its characters (around the same as The Order: 1886, Uncharted 4, and Star Citizen, but slightly fewer than Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge and inFamous: Second Son). Overall, Final Fantasy XV will be using 5 million polygons per frame, pushing 150 million polygons per second. This is one of the highest polygon counts known for a video game.

Each character model will be using 20,000 to 30,000 polygons just for the hair alone, more than any other video game, and the same as the polygon count for an entire Final Fantasy XIII character.

Each character will also have 600 bones, twelve times more than the 50 bones used by most PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 games, and the highest known for a video game so far. Final Fantasy XV also uses 30 MB textures for each character (in comparison, inFamous: Second Son uses up to 28 MB for a character).

Comparison screenshots between Final Fantasy XV's real-time gameplay and pre-rendered CGI appear to show the real-time gameplay graphics screenshot coming close to the quality of the pre-rendered CGI screenshot.

[Yooxra]

Yeah. I think them delaying till end of november will most likely help them overall if the neo hits before FF15 release on both fronts. Helping the sales of neo and helping play FF15 the smoothest. They also won't need to lower the price of the game. If they release in september there are lots of people that will wait till november for the price drop even if it's 10/15 since holiday season is so close after.

[McGrupp]

Interesting. Thanks for the heads up. Why wouldn't they make a PC release? I'm sure they'll port it later..?

[Gogan]

Yeah, I'm sure they'll port it later but it may be a few years. They just finished porting the FF13 trilogy to PC, and a FF10 HD port. They're still due for FF8/9/12 too.

They seem to always release for consoles exclusively at first. Probably some deals with Sony/Microsoft to help drive console sales? Dunno, it's just the way they do things.

[Yooxra]

They said PC is a maybe. I think it will be over two years at least. They said they need to sell 10 million just to break even.

FF12 HD for PS4 next year
http://www.polygon.com/2016/6/6/11866048/final-fantasy-12-hd-the-zodiac-age-ps4-trailer

They need to release FF7 remake without trying to overmilk it by doing dumb stuff like turning it into 3 parts or whatever.

Then make FF6 remake from the ground up.

[rursusferre]

I'm pretty excited for the Zelda game, it looks pretty incredible. I haven't played a Final Fantasy since X however. I loved those games though.

[Gogan]

FF12 HD for PS4 next year
http://www.polygon.com/2016/6/6/11866048/final-fantasy-12-hd-the-zodiac-age-ps4-trailer

Damn... that's pretty lame. Probably means a PC port of 12 is even further away. I own 12 on the PS2, but have been waiting to play it hoping for a PC release.

[Gogan]

I managed to finish the FFXV storyline yesterday after putting in about 55 hours. There's a lot of endgame content that I haven't experienced yet, but my initial impressions after "beating" the game are as follows:

The Bad

The music. It's not that the music is bad, but there is very little original music for XV. Instead, you find the soundtracks of all the previous FF games that you can play instead. It's great listening to some of the old classics again, but I've always found the music to be a huge part of FF, so the lack of original music this time is a bit of a bummer.

The story. Again, this is a huge part of the FF franchise, it's a bummer that this one wasn't better. The movie was great, and the animated shorts were really good. They got me super hyped for the game and a long, intricate story. But the game's story turned out to be really short and poorly fleshed out.

Magic. Gone are all the classic FF spells, and you basically get 3 spells: Fire, Lightning, Frost. You have to "craft" spells, they have a limited number of uses (usually 3-6), casting a spell puts magic on a 30s cooldown, and you can tweak them in power and utility with various components. But it's all too complicated to bother with. I tried to make a caster-focused character, because magic is very powerful, but 99% of the time I crafted the same 3 spells.

The summons animations are spectacular. But you only get 3 of them and you can't choose which gets summoned (it's based on the area you're in, and it's not guaranteed it'll even get summoned). Again, most of the time you forget about it so they never get used.

Your party is mostly useless. They do their own thing, and you can't really control them. Fighting a mob a ranged because it one-shot cleaves everything in melee? Have fun constantly rezzing your dumbshit party members. And you they never seem to get any stronger throughout the game. You can marginally raise their stats and give them new moves, but they're all pretty weak compared to your character.

Chapter 13. Almost everyone hates this chapter. It's very different from the rest of the game. Chapter 13 strips you of your weapons and you're forced to play Final Metal Gear Solid Fantasy for a few hours. It kinda sucks.

These are all minor gripes, with the exception of the story. That's the biggest thing holding this game back.

The Good

Almost everything else is really good.

Great combat. I was leary of real-time action combat, but it's actually fun.

Enormous amounts of optional content. There's maybe 10-15 hours of main storyline, and 90 hours of optional content. No exaggeration. And there's probably as much post-game content as there is leading up to it. It's insane.

Stunning visuals. I almost bought a 4k TV just for this game. The environments are as good as all the screenshots make it seem. Really gorgeous game.

The progress system isn't my favorite of the franchise, but it's not terrible.

The world is hugely open, and almost never locks you into a point of no return. Yes, there are story points which lock you in for brief period, but it's never for too long. It's probably the most open FF game in the franchise. Almost intimidatingly large when you're starting out.

You can easily spend 100 hours on this game, and most of it is actual content -- very little, if any, grinding required.


Anyway, overall it's a great game, but not without its flaws. My favorite is still 6, but I think XV does enough well that'll it'll rank in the top 5 of most people's lists. If the story were deeper and more fulfilling, it would easily be a top-3 contender.

[rursusferre]

Most reviews I've read for the game is basically "its a beautiful mess and I can't help but love it"

[Gogan]

Yeah, pretty much.

My hunch is the FF7 remake is going to be the same gameplay style as 15, which could be spectacular.