Final Fantasy 15’s first 10 hours: A car ride that asks, “Are we there yet?”

More to come, but for now, we talk about new battling system, disappointing plot.

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[Akemi]

Katana314[/url]":1d156j3h]I'm a bit worried for the characters. I'm just coming from the Ace Attorney and Danganronpa games, which demonstrate to me the values of exaggerating aspects of your characters to their fullest extent. (eg, Danganronpa 2 has a highly-skilled animal breeder that views himself as some sort of immortal summoner that has killed gods, and issues commands to his hamsters with "GO, my four dark devas of destruction!!")

Something those games have in common is a pretty heavy dose of humor, but both of them also involve grisly murders. I think having both has been a good way of making one feel close to characters so that when something bad happens to one of them, you care and the story is more driven-in. I remember Final Fantasy 7 doing plenty of this - the later media plays it down, but the early game has plenty of silly exchanges between Cloud, Barret, Tifa, and Aeris.

To be fair. VII did have translation issues which included a not so insignificant portion of plot.

In some cases people were laughing at translation issues regarding grammar, spelling, and yes - missing dialog.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015- ... -fantasy-7

 

[Akemi]

Jurrasic[/url]":25n88yr2]

Zer0.exe[/url]":25n88yr2]

J.King[/url]":25n88yr2]

puppies[/url]":25n88yr2]

There's a real tension with the fact that these games developed in a 2d/barely 3d graphics world and long time fans (20 years for me, people!) enjoyed the gameplay that were a result of the very limited computers of the time.

1. I liked the cartoony style, esp in IX.
2. I liked the turn based battles - just downloaded FFT to my phone, actually.
3. I liked the 'reasonably closed' open worlds of the old RPG maps.
4. I loved the minigames

If they want to go all modern, they need to go all the way. Skyrim makes sense, GTA makes sense, CoD makes sense, this pastiche of old tropes doesn't. Just look at the driving menu! In an 'open world' game, shouldn't you just drive? Or give them a self-driving car like the old airships, where you just pick a destination?

I haven't played the series in years, maybe I shouldn't get a say at this point. But I don't see the point in a JRPG without the turn-based combat. Yes, FF always reinvented itself, but ALSO it takes more than spikey hair to be Final Fantasy.

It's always been a bit nebulous to me what "makes" a Final Fantasy game. The game mechanics change, and there's no world or plot continuity save for some recurring elements. Do people really like Cid and Bahamut that much?

Anyway, the tone of this review is pretty relevant to me. I stopped playing after VIII and the last one I truly loved was III/VI. I do hear that IX was delightful so maybe I'll pick that up someday.

I'd suggest that combat was a unifying mechanic. With minor tweaks the way combat works is the same in the first ten games, the greatest change being the pseudo-real-timedness in, er... IV, was it? The back row also survived a surprisingly long time (I'm not sure of VIII or X had it), and spells and their effects have been pretty constant. You were also guaranteed a globe-spanning conflict, an airship, and a party of some size. There are certainly some commonalities. That all ended with XI, and then XII. I've not played any since X in any great amount, though.

You'll want to pick up XII when it's remake comes out then. It had a more "steampunk" look to the airships, but it was still your standard fantasy fare (power hungry villain "muh crystals"). The Steam port of FFIX is excellent as well, they sped up the crazy long battle sequence intro and made some other mechanical improvements. A game that wouldn't normally age well with time got a shot in the arm on Steam.
Edit: FFIX is my favorite one by a longshot, but even I can admit that the zooming panning camera for like 15 seconds at the beginning of every battle just slows everything down. Not hating, I love the game, but it wasn't without its faults.

XII was criminally underrated.

In my opinion, it's the 2nd best in the series overall after VI, and the best with a bullet it it's game world mechanics. It is for it's time an almost perfect fusion of western CRPG and Japanese JRPG mechanics with a huge and sprawling world that wonderfully filled out the already existing world of Ivalice from the FF: Tactics series and Revenant Wings.

I really hope the refresh gets the attention and sales that it deserves. One of the PS2 era's greatest games of all time.

What do you mean? The X/XII HD remaster has been out for some time now on Steam and consoles. Since May of this year on PC. They're quite well done on the PC, so I'm assuming the console releases are in the same boat.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/359870/

 

[Akemi]

mikehild[/url]":1xez43el]


Not X-2, XII as in 12. Square is currently working on that remaster, with the name Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age.

Okay, the one upcoming in 2017. The naming system for the FF games gets under my skin. With X-2 and XII, then the sometimes different numbers for the same game between Japan and US releases. Like FF II (initial US title) being released in Japan as FF IV with all subsequent releases also falling under the IV heading. Just weirdness.