Which is like pretty much every open-world RPG... but there's not a lot of XV that has been shown yet, so don't be so quick to judge.


Err... there's been 2 females shown so far and they have bewbs. I'd rather emo teen bromance than female looking aquas like Tidus or Vaan.

That Malaysian fellow is actually the Lead Game Designer for XV, so... he's actually quite a big shot. Wan Hazmer is his name. I don't think he was part of the original XV staff development team though.

So, first few bad things...

- Atrocious framerate. Considering the game is only 900p on the PS4 and looks no where near their final target, Squeenix has a huge amount of optimization work ahead of them. There is way too much stuttering all over the place and it does hamper gameplay, more so when this is actually an action RPG.

- The lock-on system needs to be tweaked. Right now, the game makes the decision for you to lock-on to an enemy. It's extremely inconsistent and what's worse is that KH1 actually had a better lock-on system, ironic isn't it?

- AI (party members) are still dumbfounded. This is not what was promised by Squeenix, they're supposed to be your "bros", not your deadweight. I believe this can be fixed so I wouldn't worry about the AI in the demo.

- A frustrating and simplistic battle system. I don't really quite get the whole press square with rhythm to chain combos. I understand that XV isn't going to be a Bayonetta or DMC type of game, but I think many people will have trouble with the battle mechanics for the first few hours.

- Stealth. Oh God. I hope they remove this. It's terribly clunky, terribly implemented, almost as if someone in the team said "hey! let's do a metal gear section, except you know, FF style!". If anyone remembered the stealth sequences in FFVII:DoC, this is actually nearly as bad as that.


Now the good stuff.

- Despite being at 900p, despite only using trilinear filtering for AF, despite having no AA, despite having poor transparency filters, despite... okay, really, despite many of the technical visual feats that are missing from XV demo, the game does look good. It's great to see that the game will have huge open spaces once again, not corridors like in XIII.

- The monsters design are seriously stunning. You guys have seen Ramuh, Behemoth, the Garulas, all kinds of monsters that looks varyingly different. Having seen all these iconic monsters in the game, many of which still hasn't shown up, I seriously can't wait to ride Bahamut (why not?!). The team has done a stellar job with the models and it's been a long time coming.

- The music, man the music doesn't even get boring even though there are only several tracks in the demo. There's a good sense of epic, intensity, and calm. I cannot say I like the english VA too much yet, they're pretty decent but... I don't think the VA for Noctis match, he's too young to have a deep voice, it's a stark difference from the Japanese VA.


So, XV. Plenty of work ahead for Squeenix. It will definitely not be released this year and I think with the scope they have for this game, possibly not even next year (if we're lucky, perhaps very late 2016).

Well... remember that the last-gen consoles were promising 1080p games left and right like no body's business in their first 2 years of existance. Here were are, 8 years later and we still haven't got 1080p as a standard. I cannot blame people who are getting angry over that.

I will only blame the makers of the consoles (Hi, Sony) and the publishers + devs that cannot deliver on their countless promises.

Looks like there will be an update to the demo that fixes a few things -



Hmm.

Theoretically, she never existed lol... I mean, she never even had a voice. She was also in Versus XIII and not XV.

Squeenix logic.

We only assumed that it was Stella. It was never officially confirmed that it was her.

Stella could probably be a different person in XV, but with the same model. Different background, different person, different name.

Confirmed; there will be NO dual-language tracks on the disc. But plans for language pack to be offered as DLC is in the works, whether it will be free or not remains a question (most probably paid, knowing squeenix).

Airships might not happen if it doesn't "offer anything new". Business DV2 is now in charge of making airships side quest, but if it doesn't benefit the main game, then airships will be cut out.
I see where this is going, it means airship side quests may be offered as DLC...

Yes. It could be free (which I hope it is), but I wouldn't be surprised if it's paid either. Take into account that there are considerably a lot more VAs for XV than Lightning Returns, so that means more licensing fees, more legal hoops to jump through.

Welp, demo incoming tomorrow. 4.5GB. Will play the Noctis dream sequence.

Cersei is Luna. Damn.

Squeenix has went all in on XV. It's go big for bankrupt. I like this, stop with the conservative bullshit business tactics.

Day 1.

*EDIT
Dare I say it, the CG on the movie is Blizzard level if not better. Hot damn.

This post has been edited by SSJBen: Mar 31 2016, 10:54 AM

30th September is the NA release date. Everywhere else should be on the same day or just shortly after.

Before that, they better improve those framerates. It's atrocious.

This post has been edited by SSJBen: Mar 31 2016, 12:58 PM

Quote me for the future please;

If the PS4k is real, Squeenix will announce a "remaster" or "definitive" version of FFXV for the PS4k. And no, the normal PS4 version won't be patched.

They already did, with Sleeping Dogs Definitive Edition.

^No there isn't.

But it's an open secret and it'll be coming. The PC port begging just needs to shut up, because it'll come.

The demo...



Y...eah, not looking good.

Not my pic, will check later to see how it fares.

Pay money to get a lousier performing version, with more bugs. Then strip off original version which was better from the Steam store so users are forced to "upgrade" if they ever delete their original version. Sure, good upgrade right?

Not saying they'd do the same with XV, but they've done it before so who's there to say they won't do it again?

Before that though, let's hope the game even gets ironed out for performance first. From the Platinum demo, it isn't looking that smooth.

Not a very 1:1 comparison since the E3 2013 reveal was not in real-time, but... yeah:




*EDIT*
Not my pics btw.

This post has been edited by SSJBen: Mar 31 2016, 11:32 PM

Actually, even the normal edition is kind of stupidly priced. USD already weaken, but selling at RM259? Lol? Games being sold when USD1 = RM4.50+ was only RM239.

There will be "over 200" siequests in the game... damn, this means that 70% of them are going to be copy-paste go fetch me a banana drone quests.