so, since this year marks the release of FFXV, and it has been almost an decade since trying to play an FF properly (FF12), of course I had to focus on the upcoming flagship/trainwreck that this instalment could be.
I’ve watched the first episode of FFBrotherhood
, and … yeah, it’s kinda nice that you’re getting it for free, but so far in Ep1 nothing much happened except name dropping and setup.
obviously had to follow that up with the PLATINUM demo, and if there’s a thing the game surely cannot live up to, it’s the name PLATINUM. We’re talking of Bayonetta and VANQUISH feelings being evoked here, and these are games that FFXV will never manage to live up to, no matter what it’ll actually end up being, neither that it’d try, I’d say. Still, PLATINUM. Bad choice, and with that out of the way, time to start this sucker.
Since it's me, what'd I naturally do in an instant? Right, go checking out the four-wheelin' action. nice numberplate there, mate.
You cannot see it in this screencap, but SQEX surely knows how to pander to their oddest fanbase(s), by including … fxxxing *fading brakelights*, of all things.
seriously.
Movin' on, even when trying the small sports-box for a while, there are a few thing's I've noticed: You cannot use the building blocks for proper jumping action => :confused: . What's more, the handling felt a bit … off(?). Maybe because they decided to separate camera controls from the movement of the car? idk, but drifting felt a bit weird, because
- for one, morphing back into a human when trying to apply the handbrake never happens in other games
- and otoh, even when the wheelbase == essentially length of the car, the rear slided around like it had a tad bit too much inertia. Maybe it’s soil conditions (or rather: parquet flooring)? I will have to try that in the final game for a Final Ferdict (ok, VERDICT, but i just couldn’t come up with anthing that’d let me use FFXV as an abbreviation, i feel bad yeah). Come to think of it, the Cadillac Sixteen (the carThatNoticsAndBuddiesAreDrivinRoundWith) also has quite the long wheelbase and a small, but significantly longer tail than the boxy car in the demo. Maybe it’ll feel more natural going fast/round corners in this … will report back when it happens to be out.
So yeah, it isn’t DRIVING EMOTION TYPE-S levels of magic carpet land-handling (or rather: un-handling), but it isn’t Gran Turismo rivaling stuff either.
I’d place it quite above Disaster Report (anything else’d be a #sickBurn ) and Driving Emo, but still below Sleeping Dogz, that also had a bit of wonky-physics going on, but managed to be tolerable.
So, after getting this out of the way, what else can I say about the game?
it
looks
nice, yupp.
i found fighting needs a bit of time getting used to, but shifting around lampposts and seeing them being destroyed in the process was a nice touch - you can do some hanging 'round action, but that has at least minor consequences - nice, i liked that touch.
That aside, after playing BB recently and remembering how Remember me managed dodging, FF could do with a more fluent way of handling doding action … it never felt as fluent or natural as in the two aforementioned games when sidestepping or dodging an attack (maybe because it is trying to be less video-gamey and more tru2life™?)
in any case, next stop would have to be justice monsters V
so far for the FFXV-related bit this week.