FFXV discussion thread [No Spoilers]

[Ikkin]

That makes a lot of sense too.

The reason why I said he was clueless was because (I'm going to reference a side quest here)

Spoiler

There is a side quest where Gladio asks Noctis to come help him pick flowers for Iris. When the time comes to give it to Iris, Gladio tells him it's better if he gives the flowers to her, to which Noctis replies, "Huh? Why me?"

Gladio then replied with "Are you really that clueless?"

It just gave off the impression he didn't really know throughout that quest, but him being purposely stand offish makes sense too. Lol douchey Noctis xD

In Lestallum I made Noctis answer Iris with the mean dialogue options. He's such an asshole there lol but he gets 2AP for every time you answer like that instead of EXP.

Huh, that does sound more like cluelessness... but then, if you play along with Iris in Lestallum, Noct jokes about Gladio killing him if he tried anything, so I could see his confusion coming from a different angle, too.

I made choices according to what I thought Noct would do, but I accidentally chose a mean option thinking it was a gentle distancing option and felt really bad when he joked about babysitting being a pain. XD;

 

[Tornak]

Just finished Chapter 13. Spoilers for it:

Spoiler

That was... long. It didn't bother me as much as most people, but it was still really stretched, samey and not very fun at all. Also, not very inspired artistic-wise.

The whole entrance in Gralea was so underwhelming. I think the Regalia part should have been longer and, especially, should have ended in a more spectacular and notorious way: its death was just so dissapointing (it was obvious it was going to happen at some point in the game). You barely see how Gralea looks like (hell, you basically get a much better picture of it in that loading screen), but it was alright.

It's a shame that they didn't expand more on Gralea's fucked up state (that's this game's biggest flaw by far: how cool some things potentially are and how quickly they go by), as I really like the theme of obssesing with getting revenge at all costs and then seeing that you've been deprived of the chance. Also, the fact that Niflheim citizens, even though you don't find any, seem like normal people under a shitty form of (controlled behind the scenes by some psycho) government, creating a parallel with Lucis' inhabitants. It would have been cool if they had let you wander around the city a bit during the beginning, finding a few endangered citizens and such (and getting most of the info through them instead of documents).

The excuse of separating the main characters isn't really original or well though, but it's not a big deal. The whole ring gameplay was dreadful, even if you kill the enemies by counter-attacks (especially the Magitek soldiers) and Holy (curiously called Versus in the Castillian Spanish version -interesting, because Holy has always been called Sacro here and the translations are usually spot on and very faithful, especially VIII and IX's-). I think it all comes down to you being unable to avoid some encounters unless you hide (which is long and boring) and, above all, your inability to run. WHY. I had to spend most of the time dodging like an idiot just to go faster.

There were too many "go there, activate "x" and return". At least you get your Father's sword at some point: you still can't run, but combat is no longer a drag. Ravus... man, the amount of potential this character had was enormous, what with his hidden intentions, his love for his sister and his relationship and parallelisms with Noct. So fucking dissapointing that you just find him dead and don't even get a chance to talk to him beyond his zombified version.

Prompto. Ok, what the fuck. He's a Magitek soldier? What? I don't get this. Why don't they explain it further? I knew some guy was going to be from Niflheim (mostly Ignis, but that was because of his accent in the English version: what is the fucking reasons for that? I'm assuming it's not explained, right?

The Daemons=humans isn't terribly original (or even new to the series) but I liked it, as well as the Magitek thing (Ardyn's comment about human babies was pretty disturbing). A fucking shame they don't explore more of this. Ardyn's dialogue during the entire chapter was cool (very Joker-like), but still scarce and minor.

Ok, now that demon guy. That was surely Iedolas, right? What a fucking shame, once more :/ It was obvious he was going to be the President Shinra/Queen Brahne of this game, but he deserved, you know, more scenes than just literally one minute. Again, the concept is great, but it's just so underwhelming and leaves a lot to be desired. Not even a comment in regards to his words. Or the fact that we get to see his throne with his clothes there.

The same happens with Ravus. Great design and good battle, but that's it. No emotional impact whatsoever. It's just there.

And then the crystal scene, which was cool. So it seems like Ardyn is a previous King. That was one of the two bulletpoints an asshole spoiled me (it was a normal Neogaf thread, with no indication there had been leaks -they had just been posted-). And then a poster here, before the game even released, posted (in the general news thread) that they were real and that he was dissapointed and blablabla. Great job, thank you very much.

So yeah, no big surprise. I like it, but I hope his story is expanded upon, although given how many chapters are left... Well, good luck with that.

Bahamut was very cool, but it felt so out of nowhere and unimportant that it's hard to get excited about any of this. Same with Shiva, which I didn't mention before. No payoff, no lasting effect, nothing.

Spoilers for the beginning of Chapter 14:

Spoiler

30 year old Noctis is so much better as a design than 20 year old Noctis that is not even funny. Fucking Nomura I swear, all it took was fixing some of the hair and voilà (even "just out of the bed for the first time in 10 years" Noctis looks better -beyond his left eye being covered).

But of course, 85% of the entire game has to be played by a character with ridiculous hair (I like him sometimes though! Mostly when you can't see his hairspikes in the back). God forbid let us have a FF main character that looks relatively normal. If they don't allow us to play as him in the post-game or NG+ I'm gonna be pissed, considering just how much I've still got to play in the post-game.

What would be so hard about it? The cutscenes? As far as I know it shouldn't be too complicate to replace the older model, considering real-time changes (clothes, even the hat and how it presses his hair against his head) are possible and that, well, they're not the most masterfully-animated scenes. He has the exact same body and animations for everything, as well as the same face skelleton. So hopefully if it hasn't been included yet is because of time constraints!

The same for the rest of the main characters, as they look perfect in the future (at least Gladio and Ignis).

The world has gone to shit, I see. Considering everybody's comments, it doesn't seem like this part is very open either. A big same, as I wanted to wander a little bit around the world: had they used this as the turning point for the game (allowing for, say, a remaining 30% of the game's critical path to finally see the consequences of the plague), I would have loved it.

So my thoughts are the same as before: good to great gameplay (even though many parts post open-world were testing my patience so fucking hard), great concept (world, story beats, lore, characters...), but poor and unsatisfying, for the most part, story-telling, for it is short and very spaced, badly paced, not very well directed, awkward, out of nowhere and short in content... Man, the potential this game had from a story point of view is totally killing me :/. Great camaderie though, one of the best depictions of such I've seen in a game.

I might give a super pessimistic impression (just reread it and holy shit, yes), but I've had a blast with the 30 something hours I've been playing (don't particularly like number rating, but this wouldn't be under a 9). The game is very good!

It's just that I haven't seen a game waste so much potential so transparently (and I'm not even talking about Nomura's vision™): it had everything to be my favourite game ever, but it just falls apart in its execution and content, as the foundations for the game are great and they're barely taken advantage of (have in mind I'm mostly talking from a story and writing perspective).

 

[Storm]

costlemark dungeon... 3x red giants and a naga is no joke.

do i need to go down in each cube before finding the right path?

edit:

https://twitter.com/noxfleur/status/809859863144779777

aranea keeps delivering

 

[Jubileus]

costlemark dungeon... 3x red giants and a naga is no joke.

do i need to go down in each cube before finding the right path?

edit:

https://twitter.com/noxfleur/status/809859863144779777

aranea keeps delivering

She's got so much attitude you can't help but love her lol best female imo xD

 

[All Hail King Bimpy]

It's just that I haven't seen a game waste so much potential so transparently (and I'm not even talking about Nomura's vision™): it had everything to be my favourite game ever, but it just falls apart in its execution and content, as the foundations for the game are great and they're barely taken advantage of (have in mind I'm mostly talking from a story and writing perspective).

i think by the nature of Noctis being the focal POV how can you show or play everything else that went on during the final chapters? the camera hardly leave his POV, which is why everything we experience not related to him suddenly happens. i think character base DLC takes advantage of events that he isnt part of. theres not a bunch of head hopping from A b to C going on like we normally see in JRPGs

 

[Jubileus]

It's true that the main game shows Noctis POV, but that choice and format sacrificed the lore and story, which leaves the game feeling empty.

I see no reason why we can't have intermission scenes in between chapters and segments of the game showing us what the other characters are up to for clarification purposes.

Kind of like a "meanwhile in Niflheim - cue Empire scene" thing.

It just comes off as the writer for this game wasn't very good at her job. I think it was the dissidia writer? As a huge fan of the game, even I can't defend how poor the narrative for this game was

 

[Jubileus]

Just finished Chapter 13. Spoilers for it:

Spoiler

That was... long. It didn't bother me as much as most people, but it was still really stretched, samey and not very fun at all. Also, not very inspired artistic-wise.

The whole entrance in Gralea was so underwhelming. I think the Regalia part should have been longer and, especially, should have ended in a more spectacular and notorious way: its death was just so dissapointing (it was obvious it was going to happen at some point in the game). You barely see how Gralea looks like (hell, you basically get a much better picture of it in that loading screen), but it was alright.

It's a shame that they didn't expand more on Gralea's fucked up state (that's this game's biggest flaw by far: how cool some things potentially are and how quickly they go by), as I really like the theme of obssesing with getting revenge at all costs and then seeing that you've been deprived of the chance. Also, the fact that Niflheim citizens, even though you don't find any, seem like normal people under a shitty form of (controlled behind the scenes by some psycho) government, creating a parallel with Lucis' inhabitants. It would have been cool if they had let you wander around the city a bit during the beginning, finding a few endangered citizens and such (and getting most of the info through them instead of documents).

The excuse of separating the main characters isn't really original or well though, but it's not a big deal. The whole ring gameplay was dreadful, even if you kill the enemies by counter-attacks (especially the Magitek soldiers) and Holy (curiously called Versus in the Castillian Spanish version -interesting, because Holy has always been called Sacro here and the translations are usually spot on and very faithful, especially VIII and IX's-). I think it all comes down to you being unable to avoid some encounters unless you hide (which is long and boring) and, above all, your inability to run. WHY. I had to spend most of the time dodging like an idiot just to go faster.

There were too many "go there, activate "x" and return". At least you get your Father's sword at some point: you still can't run, but combat is no longer a drag. Ravus... man, the amount of potential this character had was enormous, what with his hidden intentions, his love for his sister and his relationship and parallelisms with Noct. So fucking dissapointing that you just find him dead and don't even get a chance to talk to him beyond his zombified version.

Prompto. Ok, what the fuck. He's a Magitek soldier? What? I don't get this. Why don't they explain it further? I knew some guy was going to be from Niflheim (mostly Ignis, but that was because of his accent in the English version: what is the fucking reasons for that? I'm assuming it's not explained, right?

The Daemons=humans isn't terribly original (or even new to the series) but I liked it, as well as the Magitek thing (Ardyn's comment about human babies was pretty disturbing). A fucking shame they don't explore more of this. Ardyn's dialogue during the entire chapter was cool (very Joker-like), but still scarce and minor.

Ok, now that demon guy. That was surely Iedolas, right? What a fucking shame, once more :/ It was obvious he was going to be the President Shinra/Queen Brahne of this game, but he deserved, you know, more scenes than just literally one minute. Again, the concept is great, but it's just so underwhelming and leaves a lot to be desired. Not even a comment in regards to his words. Or the fact that we get to see his throne with his clothes there.

The same happens with Ravus. Great design and good battle, but that's it. No emotional impact whatsoever. It's just there.

And then the crystal scene, which was cool. So it seems like Ardyn is a previous King. That was one of the two bulletpoints an asshole spoiled me (it was a normal Neogaf thread, with no indication there had been leaks -they had just been posted-). And then a poster here, before the game even released, posted (in the general news thread) that they were real and that he was dissapointed and blablabla. Great job, thank you very much.

So yeah, no big surprise. I like it, but I hope his story is expanded upon, although given how many chapters are left... Well, good luck with that.

Bahamut was very cool, but it felt so out of nowhere and unimportant that it's hard to get excited about any of this. Same with Shiva, which I didn't mention before. No payoff, no lasting effect, nothing.

Spoilers for the beginning of Chapter 14:

Spoiler

30 year old Noctis is so much better as a design than 20 year old Noctis that is not even funny. Fucking Nomura I swear, all it took was fixing some of the hair and voilà (even "just out of the bed for the first time in 10 years" Noctis looks better -beyond his left eye being covered).

But of course, 85% of the entire game has to be played by a character with ridiculous hair (I like him sometimes though! Mostly when you can't see his hairspikes in the back). God forbid let us have a FF main character that looks relatively normal. If they don't allow us to play as him in the post-game or NG+ I'm gonna be pissed, considering just how much I've still got to play in the post-game.

What would be so hard about it? The cutscenes? As far as I know it shouldn't be too complicate to replace the older model, considering real-time changes (clothes, even the hat and how it presses his hair against his head) are possible and that, well, they're not the most masterfully-animated scenes. He has the exact same body and animations for everything, as well as the same face skelleton. So hopefully if it hasn't been included yet is because of time constraints!

The same for the rest of the main characters, as they look perfect in the future (at least Gladio and Ignis).

The world has gone to shit, I see. Considering everybody's comments, it doesn't seem like this part is very open either. A big same, as I wanted to wander a little bit around the world: had they used this as the turning point for the game (allowing for, say, a remaining 30% of the game's critical path to finally see the consequences of the plague), I would have loved it.

So my thoughts are the same as before: good to great gameplay (even though many parts post open-world were testing my patience so fucking hard), great concept (world, story beats, lore, characters...), but poor and unsatisfying, for the most part, story-telling, for it is short and very spaced, badly paced, not very well directed, awkward, out of nowhere and short in content... Man, the potential this game had from a story point of view is totally killing me :/. Great camaderie though, one of the best depictions of such I've seen in a game.

I might give a super pessimistic impression (just reread it and holy shit, yes), but I've had a blast with the 30 something hours I've been playing (don't particularly like number rating, but this wouldn't be under a 9). The game is very good!

It's just that I haven't seen a game waste so much potential so transparently (and I'm not even talking about Nomura's vision™): it had everything to be my favourite game ever, but it just falls apart in its execution and content, as the foundations for the game are great and they're barely taken advantage of (have in mind I'm mostly talking from a story and writing perspective).

Gotta say I agree for the most part.

Game had so much potential and it wasn't fully realised. Is the writer for this game staying on for the DLC and story patches?

Man I seriously hope the SE staff are seeing all these comments online and making the necessary adjustments to the story, otherwise people are gonna be pissed if they do a shallow story patch.

 

[Storm]

It's true that the main game shows Noctis POV, but that choice and format sacrificed the lore and story, which leaves the game feeling empty.

I see no reason why we can't have intermission scenes in between chapters and segments of the game showing us what the other characters are up to for clarification purposes.

Kind of like a "meanwhile in Niflheim - cue Empire scene" thing.

It just comes off as the writer for this game wasn't very good at her job. I think it was the dissidia writer? As a huge fan of the game, even I can't defend how poor the narrative for this game was

i think the narrative is poor because of limited time/budget, which led to rushed scenes and sometimes almost no scenes at all.

the writer did fine imo, the dialogue is miles better than the awful melodramatic cheesy lines of XIII, let alone the characters.

concluded costlework, and the dungeon paid off the hard work, the boss is incredible (tho he makes no sense in this place) and the last room reminded me a lot of

Spoiler

allagan design from XIV

u can clearly see some dungeons are from

Spoiler

solheim era

 

[Nova]

It just comes off as the writer for this game wasn't very good at her job. I think it was the dissidia writer? As a huge fan of the game, even I can't defend how poor the narrative for this game was

We have to remember Saori Itamuro was in charge of careful editing on an unproven Nojima script too.

 

[Jubileus]

i think the narrative is poor because of limited time/budget, which led to rushed scenes and sometimes almost no scenes at all.

the writer did fine imo, the dialogue is miles better than the awful melodramatic cheesy lines of XIII, let alone the characters.

concluded costlework, and the dungeon paid off the hard work, the boss is incredible (tho he makes no sense in this place) and the last room reminded me a lot of

Spoiler

allagan design from XIV

u can clearly see some dungeons are from

Spoiler

solheim era

Yeah I agree that the limited time and budget was a major contribution.

We have to remember Saori Itamuro was in charge of careful editing on an unproven Nojima script too.

Interesting point indeed.

 

[Storm]

spoilers guest character

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cz69TbGXAAEl7EK.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cz69UjVXEAAXMq1.jpg

one of the best guests of the franchise isnt it

 

[Jubileus]

spoilers guest character

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cz69TbGXAAEl7EK.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cz69UjVXEAAXMq1.jpg

one of the best guests of the franchise isnt it

I heavily dig it xD

I remember when this happened to me in the game. I was so happy.

Awesome character.

Love the "what am I doing here again?" Pose in the first pic.

 

[Nova]

I'm actually rather impressed how much they managed to surpass my expectations with Aranea's involvement in the plot, used to think she'd just be a boss fight and boom nothing else since Versus XIII.

 

[Ikkin]

I'm actually rather impressed how much they managed to surpass my expectations with Aranea's involvement in the plot, used to think she'd just be a boss fight and boom nothing else since Versus XIII.

Same here. And what's especially funny to me is that I hated her Versus design so much that I was honestly hoping she wouldn't turn out to be more than just a one-shot mini boss. It's amazing how much of a difference proper pants and a great personality can make. And I really like how, in the post-game, she'll help you, but only on her own terms, since it gives her a certain amount of mechanical agency that party members -- even temporary ones -- tend not to have.

 

[Slaintimez]

I hope they didn't draw this for no reason. I hope with new scenes with Ravus and Luna, or even maybe DLC about them

 

[Jubileus]

Whoa where did you find that concept art? Very nice.

 

[Slaintimez]

Whoa where did you find that concept art? Very nice.

4chan or official forums, don't remember. Its from guidebook i think.

 

[Tornak]

i think by the nature of Noctis being the focal POV how can you show or play everything else that went on during the final chapters? the camera hardly leave his POV, which is why everything we experience not related to him suddenly happens. i think character base DLC takes advantage of events that he isnt part of. theres not a bunch of head hopping from A b to C going on like we normally see in JRPGs

I mean, I can see what you mean (and actually talked about it in an earlier post), but it still feels empty even when big things do happen in Noctis' journey. I don't think it's only design choice (like Jubileus said, we get to see things happening outside of his POV): it's painfully obvious how little time/budget/whatever they had by the time they had to flesh out the story. It doesn't feel grand (I'm sure the ending will do, but it's too late) or natural, and the plot could be summarized in a couple of phrases (I get that that can be done with any piece of fiction or FF, but you can do this with that and you would barely miss any big story beat).

The base story is potentially great: simple, emotive, with a great relationship dynamic between the main four and with a very interesting lore and world; but the execution leaves a lot to be desired and, actually, most things that you have to do in the critical path I can't help but feel are padding (and not very good at that. Even the Astrals feel like that, especially a few that shouldn't definitively be that unimportant). The story barely moves and, when it does, it's in such a short amount of time and in such a heavy-handed way that you barely care (and I've been so into this story and characters for years and years, so it's especially glaring in that sense to me, because I do have a big interest and still feel empty in many regards).

Now, maybe because of that, I'm very interested in whatever extension of the main story they might add. I don't expect anything too big (although I kinda wish, as it would be a great excuse to play NG+ and be more invested in the story). Actually, something I'm also dissapointed about: that seemingly all the DLC chapters might be in certain parts during the story I hold incredibly little interest for :/ But I'm really curious though, and, if they're good enough, they might be the first DLC I ever purchase.

As I said, great game. To me this is nothing less than a 9, but I can totally see people thinking this as an 8 (again, I don't like numbered reviews too much, but I can see their usefulness) precisely because of those flaws (it's not a perfect game in its gameplay, but it's excellent, I think, for the most part and, while failing in some things most games get right, FF XV does so much right and so much that's unique right that you don't even care about that).

Anyways, I played until half or so of Chapter 14:

Spoiler

The World of Ruin is so cool :/ I really wanted to go to Hammerhead by myself, but I can't see I was suprised to see myself being driven there. Really cool seeing Talcott grown-up.

A shame that we don't get to play, say, a couple of chapters in a semi-open part of the world during this time, as the playground is cool: eternal night, strong as fuck monsters (what the fuck is that Demon Wall: he's the only enemy I've encountered and ran from, as well as that 72 level one in Insomnia) and a big room for some development (and new character designs): Iris as a hunter, and older Cidney, a different Cid (sad to hear that, actually), life in Lestallum... and, especially, the main guys. The fact that they don't get to hang out as much is very sad (and makes, in a way, a whole lot of sense).

Insomnia is alright: not very inspired artistic-wise, but there are some cool things (like the underground station) and nice dialogue from the main characters. I actually feel the "end of the world" vibe they want to give, as in, this is clearly the last thing you'll most likely do considering how fucked up everything is.

The enemies in the city are really fun to fight for the most part. That level 72 monster destroyed me, so I took the underground passage to get to the doors of the Citadel. The King Behemot fight was cool, although it was basically me against him, as my mates were sleeping on the ground the whole time.

It just feels short and simple, as I'm in front of the main doors and I assume I won't be able to get back and what I have next is the Ifrit fight and whatever comes after.

PS: everybody looks so much better in the new clothes and hairstyles: Gladio looks like a samurai (especially with the KG cloak) and his fuller facial hair suits him; Ignis went from an alright design I didn't really care about to a design I really like: the glasses and scars give him a lot of personality, and so does the Japanese delinquent hairstyle; hell, even Prompto, who's my least liked design of all the main cast, looks cool and he doesn't even change beyond his goatee (he looks like a Musketeer with that and his KG cloak).

Also, Noct, what a waste of a great design Also, very surprised when I used the jacketless version of his King outfit, as I was expecting the plain suit. I really like it, though (it's the one I'm using), but it was weird to me.

PD2: D-does Gladio have a girlfriend now? See? That's what I mean: had they let us play for, say, 30% of the game in the World of Ruin, with it being more of a slow burn, we would have been able to see how changed these characters' lives are :/ As it stands, it's like no time (at least, not 10 years) passed by, especially in regards to Noctis.

 

[Jubileus]

You're right in that the base foundation for the game is already great. I think they'll be adding in a substantial amount of story and content patches so a few years down the line, I'm under the impression that we're gonna end up with a very different game.

I'm all happy for that. However I'm not sure what reception for that will be like tbh. It's the people who are demanding a story patch obnoxiously that usually end up being the most negative about it ironically enough.

Either way, Square is gonna get blasted if they do or don't succeed with the story patch. So two scenarios raise their heads:

1.
"Man the game and story is soo good now. Thank goodness for the patch but the file is so large and now the base disc is the incomplete version so they need to release another edition of the game. This could've been avoided if they added all this in the first place! How inconvenient and stupid. Didn't Tabata say he didn't want a massive patch for the game? What a liar!"

2.
"What a waste of time. Can't believe I waited so long for this patch and the story is still confusing! Square forgot how to tell a good story. FF is dead. They should've added more scenes and kept Nomura on with the original Versus stuff. This shit sucks".

I feel that no matter what they do, they're gonna get hate either way, whether the end result be good or bad

 

[Jubileus]

Playing in Altissia again and I thought I'd say something about the map.

Spoiler

If you open up the map and have a good look around, you can tell that they originally planned for you to be able to explore every part of Altissia, not just that small part.

In the north east corner of the map, there is something resembling a dungeon of sorts.

A few days ago Storm posted a video showing someone swimming to various parts of Altissia, with the second video in his post showing a "dungeon" of sorts.

I think all the assets are either completed already or are near completion.

What they need to do now is to find a way to fit all of this "excess" content into the game in a way that makes sense with the main narrative.

Also regarding chapter 10 and 11...

Spoiler

I'm under the impression that you were supposed to be able to drive the Regalia around a part of the map in chapter 10, but they put you on the train instead because that was the most important part of the chapter.

If you replay chapter 10-11 and look out the window, you can see roads and some parking spots too.

Just thought I'd explain why I think the story patch would be substantial and not just a minor thing.

Square did say it was a "mid term goal" but I'm under the impression it could be a year or more.

The MMO stuff will take 2 years at least (long term goal since they need to create maps, avatars, missions, etc ect ) and all of this will take a very long time.

So I think story wise, within a year or a year and a half, they can get a lot done.