Final Fantasy XV

[gospvg]

6 hours ago, Cosmic_Guru said:

Well, having watched the "film", I now know how a 2 hour in-game cut scene would feel.  I didn't grasp the motivations of the guards though, particularly the BIG guy.  Is this explained in the anime?

 

Yes the anime brotherhood series explains the relationship between Noctis & his 3 companions.

[Harrisown]

So I'm nearly 7 hours in now.

 

I want to play it and see some cool stuff but right now it's biggest problems are killing me. Getting around the world is such a pain and the combat camera is appalling.

I'm enjoying levelling up and growing in power while seeing new things as they are all presented really nicely. It's got a really nice atmosphere to it.

The car is the biggest pain in the arse, it's often a toss up of going through a whole bunch of shit just to get on and off the road or just leg it for as long as the main characters stamina bar will let you. Neither option will get you anywhere quick enough.

The lock on camera is confusing the hell out of me when I'm in battle. I'm constantly ending up facing and attacking in completely the wrong direction. My view is often obscured by my team mates or something stupid like a bloody bush! Why can't the lock on camera LOCK on to an enemy rather than having to hold it down.

 

So many design problems in a genuinely interesting package.

I'm almost certain now that in a few years time we'll look back and think of this game as being Squares downfall. They are doomed to be the next SEGA or at the very least rein in their spending to produce much more modest products. It's a shame because I really really wanted to like this enough to spend many hours in it but rather than relax I can only get utterly frustrated.

 

 

 

[Capwn]

I wonder if they would be too stubborn to go back and change things like camera lock and make the driving less hassle?

[Varsity]

21 minutes ago, Harrisown said:

 

The lock on camera is confusing the hell out of me when I'm in battle. I'm constantly ending up facing and attacking in completely the wrong direction. My view is often obscured by my team mates or something stupid like a bloody bush! Why can't the lock on camera LOCK on to an enemy rather than having to hold it down.

 

 

That is the main thing putting me off, every single combat vid I've seen of the game the camera has been god awful and the character ends up against a wall/running into cover repeatedly etc/ 

[Opinionated Ham Scarecrow]

These impressions aren't inspiring confidence guys. Sounds like people are battling to enjoy it.

[Harrisown]

17 minutes ago, Varsity said:

 

That is the main thing putting me off, every single combat vid I've seen of the game the camera has been god awful and the character ends up against a wall/running into cover repeatedly etc/ 

When you get hit enough to enter stasis it does the thing that is an absolute no go in gaming for me. It makes your character really slow and unable to attack. When the character gets knocked down it seems to take an age to get up and give you back control.

If you get knocked down it take a portion of your maximum health so eventually you end up with a tiny health bar until you go find somewhere to rest.

This is all somewhat clever but not a lot of fun to be honest because on a number of occasions I've been caught in a god awful loop of being knocked down, running away really slowly , fumbling to find the menu button to use a potion which hardly heals me so then I use a better one then get hit again and get knocked into to stasis again repeating the cycle.

This is all my fault for being awful at the game and taking on enemies too far above my level I know but it's a terrible way to punish me for trying.

[NecroMorrius]

Agree that the lock on is fucking annoying. Why it isn't just r3 to lock on like dark souls is baffling. Press r1 to lock on and then press r3 if you don't want to hold down r1 but then if the enemy dies and you press r3 to lock on again the map screen comes up show you have to press r1 and then r3 for every enemy. It's bafflingly shit. They've done more work to make it worse. 

[womblingfree]

This sounds fucking dire.

[p b]

The thing which annoys me the most is that the picture doesn't seem to fit my screen. I have to fight 0/     enemies for this quest. 0/1? 100? 1000? No other game has ever done this to me, and I don't know if I want to change the PS4 settings just for this. 

[Broker]

It's got a full car customisation system in a game where you can't steer. There's a well developed angling minigame but the battle camera doesn't work. It spends no time whatsoever explaining the actual mechanics of battle to you and gives you next to no information on what your abilities do, but when you have dinner you choose the meal and it gives you a breakdown of how it influences your stats next to a beautiful high res 3D model of the dish. 

 

At the start, Prompto's battle ability was to shoot things with his gun. It gave a slight boost but seemed totally useless, aside from the time I pissed off some birds. Later last night, the game let me replace that with an ability where he takes a picture of the enemy. The picture has no statistical or tactical value.

 

It's an absolutely beautiful mess. Like the Cloud Atlas (the movie version) of games.

[Varsity]

Really hope there's enough redeeming features that I could enjoy it cos I'm a huge FF fan but everything I've seen indicates otherwise. 

[Vin]

5 minutes ago, Broker said:

It's got a full car customisation system in a game where you can't steer. There's a well developed angling minigame but the battle camera doesn't work. It spends no time whatsoever explaining the actual mechanics of battle to you and gives you next to no information on what your abilities do, but when you have dinner you choose the meal and it gives you a breakdown of how it influences your stats next to a beautiful high res 3D model of the dish. 

 

Was tempted a bit earlier, but after reading this bit, no mate, just no. Can't be dealing with that. 

[NecroMorrius]

I swear the combat doesn't work. I'm fighting this scorpion thing,  after my first attack he rears up. Mashing or holding square to phase dodge just doesn't work and I get hit anyway. It's like I've got 900ms delay on my TV or something. Which I don't. 

[Harrisown]

I'm going to do a Metacrtic prediction and say 78.

its a difficult one to judge because I think a hardcore group of people are going absolutely love a main line Final Fantasy game whatever the cost.

[Harrisown]

1 minute ago, Moz said:

I swear the combat doesn't work. I'm fighting this scorpion thing,  after my first attack he rears up. Mashing or holding square to phase dodge just doesn't work and I get hit anyway. It's like I've got 900ms delay on my TV or something. Which I don't. 

Exactly this. 

[Bazjam]

I haven't really had any problems with the battle camera so far. I tend to pick off the enemies on the outskirts of the pack first, and if I get swamped I activate wait mode and pan around at my leisure. 

 

Really can't wait to get back into this tonight but have to wait until wife and child go to bed.

[Wiper]

41 minutes ago, Broker said:

It's got a full car customisation system in a game where you can't steer. There's a well developed angling minigame but the battle camera doesn't work. It spends no time whatsoever explaining the actual mechanics of battle to you and gives you next to no information on what your abilities do, but when you have dinner you choose the meal and it gives you a breakdown of how it influences your stats next to a beautiful high res 3D model of the dish. 

 

At the start, Prompto's battle ability was to shoot things with his gun. It gave a slight boost but seemed totally useless, aside from the time I pissed off some birds. Later last night, the game let me replace that with an ability where he takes a picture of the enemy. The picture has no statistical or tactical value.

 

It's an absolutely beautiful mess. Like the Cloud Atlas (the movie version) of games.

 

I can't lie, this sounds so wonderfully off in its design that I can't resist it. I'll be getting the pretty steelbook edition next week as an early Christmas present; even if I hate it I'm going to have a fun time finding out!

[NecroMorrius]

My party killed the first "proper" boss for me while I warped from point to point wondering why my HP wasn't regenerating out of combat. After he was dead and the post-battle screen popped up I jumped back down to where they were, his body exploded with no warning and killed me instantly. 

 

10/10 would scratch head again.

[NecroMorrius]

2 hours ago, womblingfree said:

This sounds fucking dire.

 

It's not though, that's the strangest thing about it. And it's a very long list of strange things.

[NecroMorrius]

8 hours ago, Duckula said:

The bar is turned off by default which implies they don't want you to see it - why even have a stamina system in the first place?

 

Another annoyance, I'm on a quest that specifies the monster only shows up at night. Fine, but there seems to be no way of advancing time to a specific point so i'm just standing around doing fuck all in game time until night falls. I can't even grind mindlessly as random battles seem to be largely non-existent.

 

Honestly trying to keep an open mind with this but the above 2 points are basic quality of life improvements for an open world game.

 

There are more pseudo-random battles later on. After about 5 hours

 

Spoiler

Dropships appear every few minutes and drop robot dudes in to fight you

 

Which is actually a bit annoying when you're taking on a big enemy out in the world.

 

Edit: Shit sorry I didn't mean to triple post, my bad.

[carlospie]

your making this sound so bad 

[NecroMorrius]

Cards on the table, it's dragons dogma with a silly haircut and a ridiculous budget. That's the most reductive description of it I can give. You know how in Dragon's Dogma, the story didn't really matter and everything was a bit rubbish but you were really compelled to play it anyway because it was weird and compelling? It's like that. 

 

It feels like they divided the development team into equal sized units and gave them all equal time and budget to get their bit done. So the battle system is half baked and lumpy and the quests are mostly forgettable busywork, while the "tea time" and "fishing" systems are lavishly detailed. It's bizarre in quite a fun way.

[Comrade]

Apparently you unlock more depth to the combat as you progress through the game.

[NecroMorrius]

That's good. I'm realising that defence is key. Defend the whole time until you see an enemy out on his own or an easy opening. It's a shame there isn't a better basic combat system. Right now I'd have preferred if they'd lifted the Batman combat and put an anime spin on it - sort of like Shadows of Mordor did but wackier. And have materia-style elemental combos. Anyone play Remember Me? You'd put an effect on each combo press, like "give HP" or "give MP". The further along the combo, the more effective that effect was. That could work here but with elemental/status effects, and a wait system where you could trigger the whole combo automatically if you didn't want to do the old XXYXXYY kind of input. So you'd trigger a fire/ice/status spell if you got the end of the combo without being interrupted.

 

Or just, y'know, make a fucking turn based Final Fantasy battle system y'cunts

[cubik]

I can't believe a forum full of FF fans could make a FF game sound so poor. Last one I played was FFXIII on PS3 and I gave up after about 15 hours because it was pretty  rubbish. It had a terrible story & characters and boring linear map/gameplay.

I can't believe its Metacritic score (83/7.3), if it hadn't been part of a popular series it would be on 50% or so and have sunk without trace.

 

Shame really, I was hoping this would be good, but from the sound of it it isn't even though people are willing it to be.

It may be passable but I don't have enough time or money to afford to sink hours and hours into something on the off-chance it could eventually become fun.

[Curtis]

Gotta be honest: any Dragon's Dogma comparisons would sell it to me straight away. But i'm holding off on the December Pro patch, regardless. That, and more impressions from you fine folks.

[Kevvy Metal]

56 minutes ago, cubik said:

I can't believe a forum full of FF fans could make a FF game sound so poor. 

 

You do realise you're reading rllmuk don't you? The forum where fun goes to die and everyone is an armchair critic, most of the time getting human error confused with actual problems with a game's design? It's the problem with interactive entertainment, the person interacting with it is a requirement which can lead to subjectivity. I'd take everything with a pinch of salt, as always. 

[Uzi]

People do have a hyperbolic setting here - they swing wildly from "it will be AMAZING" to "this sounds AWFUL" to a few impressions apart that were nowhere near that divisive in the first place (Moz's posts sound pretty interesting to me!). Just chill out and wait for more reviews and impressions before freaking. 

[Harrisown]

After a piss poor boss fight in another section during the game that nearly made me rage quit I'm having fun running around the more free roaming area.

I think if they just patch in the ability to LOCK onto a target by just tapping R1 then have it auto LOCK onto the next nearest target it would make all the difference.

It would instantly make this game a lot more playable.

This section I'm in is rather lovely looking and quite a pleasure to plod around in.

 

i'm in..

Spoiler

The Forrest of Duscae 

 

 

[DC Lemon]

I've put around eleven hours in over the weekend and while there are niggles and moments of 'why are you making me do this?', there's more than enough that makes it feel like one of the most memorable experiences of the year. The positives have far outweighed the negatives for me. At no point have I wanted to stop playing. I mean, I haven't played Titanfall 2 all day or Overwatch all weekend. Or Pokemon Moon. Outrageous!

 

It's so close to genius that it's allowed, nae obligated, to be flawed.

 

Tip. If you find the car journeys boring, just pick up your phone/tablet while they're taking place and come on here to moan about the combat to pass the time.