the car’s gauges actually work
Have Ignis drive somewhere and watch the leftmost gauge. That’s the tachometer and the needle actually corresponds to the engine’s state. You can barely even see the thing, and they actually bothered to make it function.
Center one’s the speedometer.
you can even toggle different viewing angles/pov of the camera by pressing L1 i think? Then you can bask in the glory that is the dash~~~
One problem probably is that once you get chocobos they basically have the standard open world all-terrain vehicle functionality so they’d make the car utterly useless if it weren’t for occasional places where the game requires you are in the car. They also botched the airship mode in rather spectacular ways (like taking off and hitting a deadly streetlight on the way up because roads are not designed for airships) although it doesn’t matter much since the airship is postgame anyway.
ALWAYS BET ON REAPERKING*
*unless there are flexitusks
I thought SelectButton liked FF12. The story is fascinating in the sense that your group of adventurers are going around doing stupid shit while the grownups are actually carrying all the serious stuff in the plot in the background.
I get a similar vibe from XV’s.
Anyway, I’ve played a few hours of this.
This may be my favorite open world of any game I’ve played (Perhaps not counting Steambot Chronicles, but that’s a different ballpark entirely). The fact that it’s not a world built first and foremost for chaotic violence makes all the difference. Like, Asscreed or GTA could approach this, but the fact that it’s impossible for me to stab or push a random pedestrian on the street or go around smashing lammposts with my car makes it work perfectly. It’s the complete opposite of western open world philosophy.
Also, damn is this game pretty. The design sensibility present in the art direction of the environments is astonishing. I keep discovering new little nuanced details. It’s frankly gorgeous. I’m not sure what people are comparing it to when they don’t see how fantastically beautiful this world is. Perhaps GTA V can come close? But that doesn’t even have the Final Fantasy touch, so I don’t get it.
The characters aren’t so hot design wise. There’s still the inexplicably dressed NPCs that started around… X I thonk (maybe VII)
And this is it, guys. The dream of Final Fantasy finally realized. It’s like all those CG renders from the PSX era except now it’s all in realtime, right there, fully modeled and you can explore and observe at your leisure (the game could benefit form a first person view mode though)
The story isn’t especially worse than other Final Fantasies. It’s just poorly paced and conveyed. This matters a hell of a lot less than, say in FFXIII because XIII had absolutely nothing else that redeemed it at all. Also XV’s story isn’t incomprehensible garbage, just poorly told (kinda to be expected from a game with such a tortuous dev cycle). Again, this isn’t really the point, I feel. The game has plenty of strengths and new things other than telling a story, which I’ve already seen done in a videogame.
The combat system is pretty chaotic. It’s hard to tell how to play it “right”. Not really that fun by itself but (most) encounters aren’t that long anyway. It took me a while to register how to properly block attacks, but even then I’m constantly in the danger zone and consuming a ton of potions just to stay alive.
It’s weird that you are seemingly always in need of cash. The economy seems busted. For a fantasy ostensibly based on reality, it makes no sense that a plate of salmon in a restaurant costs twenty times more than a new sword. Oh well.
I wonder what happens if you find yourself without money, gas and no place to sleep and recover…
In any case, I’m enjoying the heck out of this game. It’s pretty much a longform, take-it-easy chill game and I’m perfectly ok with that! Not sure what other people expect from a JRPG, really, but for me it works!
Oh yeah and the environmental stuff isn’t good just at the building detail level (which it is) but also at the macro geographic level too. There’s rivers, mountains, forests and other geographical accidents that feel appropriate to scale in a way other games don’t manage. Not to mention infraestructure like the roads themselves, bridges, arches, power lines, roadside sheds, power plants, cement walls, detours and gas stations, transportation routes, other vehicles… It’s not MGSV, but they all make sense and it’s made at a much bigger scale.
There are some “cheating” tunnels you go through. but overall it’s really really well realized.
I’m not an FF7 fanboy by any means (it’s not even in my top 3 favorite final fantasies) but if they set up the FF7 remake as an open world in the same vein as this, it’s going to be something truly remarkable (even if they will almost surely screw up the combat system).
Lately I seem to just be getting things for vendors. I can’t find any hunts.
they’re patching the plot
I wish devs patched the plot more often.
Who has patched the plot of a promiment game, other than Valve? (story-based games in early access excluded)
mass effect 3 and it wasn’t for the better
Ok @Iacus your positivity ( I really shouldn’t single you out, so nothing personal) towards this game confuses me. I mean if you like it overall good on you. I just can’t find many positive things about this game beyond it being pretty.
The story seems thin but I’m still near the beginning so i’ll let that slide. But the combat system is no ideal there’s no real reaction need, no combos to dig in with, no strategy, or options. Maybe there’s some component to it I’m missing, but I think it’s supposed to be akin to something more like kingdom hearts. Heck straight up cloning the combat system from crisis core which would of been better than what we got. I mean it’s maddening that square wouldn’t pull the virtues of it’s own library to work out this system.
To it being an open world game. I take your point that it’s more peaceful. While there is combat the game isn’t geared around you becoming a force of destruction, Slamming into poles or other cars ect. That’s fine. It’s good also as @GlamGrimfire pointed out somewhere that on a trip you actually have to hit hotels, visit a diner talk to locals. Probably the strongest aspect of this game. But you CAN’T slam into poles, it just won’t register, you can’t slam into another car, you can’t get hit by car driving by. Things just stop or don’t connect, like a bad ps2 game. When an AIR SHIP is driving by to drop off solders who descend from ropes you don’t rev the engine and run through them or past them the game forces you to PARK and fight them… at a notable distance. That is maddening.
Though to another positive you pointed out the game is good about having robust landscapes, and in a show of next gen capability the draw distances are such that when you’re moving you won’t see things pop in. That’s cool. But I haven’t seen much interaction with these things. Outside of a painful stealth section with a monster. Unlike MGSV where there are more barren patches of land (so much so they could of shrunk the map to make a better game) but when you got to an area of interest the landscape and distance played to a host of stealth, environment, and active systems that emergent play came through. Clearly FF isn’t going for this, but it puts it in stark contrast to what has been done, interacting with the landscape vs just seeing something pretty.
On that, I know some might take issues but some comparisons need to be drawn. To the monsters, Witcher/ Monster Hunter have really set a bar that if you’re going to base a large portion of your game around ‘hunting’ There needs to be more in understanding the beasts patterns, strengths and weaknesses. Just go fight the checkmark anymore feels antiquated.
All of this wraps around the same problem I had with Final Fantasy 12. It’s essentially the MMO you play by yourself. But the MMO of 2006 was more apt. In 2016 an MMO may not be AS pretty as this game, but still many are graphically impressive with interesting landscapes. Many have interesting combat, and social aspects as well ATOP playing and interacting with friends or rando human beings.
Even with all of this, I think the biggest problem is the combat not being super easy. If this is supposed to be some chill road trip, where you chill out get some random cool cut scenes, and some cool dialogue that could be fun. If it was about taking random strangers requests as you go because it’s about the journey and what you find and very little about the destination, where they purposely made side quests more robust and intricate than the main quest by design, that could be real cool. If you’re chilling out then you should just kinda mash your way through most combat and win. But no, the fact you can’t just run through this game really highlights every other aspect their lacking in because the detail isn’t there on a ‘game’ perspective.
Please someone make my argument stupid, I want to be wrong.
i’m pretty sure you’re not wrong (except that i don’t think xv has anything at all to do with xii). i don’t know what to make of xv. it’s sort of awe-inspiring. i’ve only played like ten hours, and i’m going to play some more because i like things like diners and car conversations and ignis’s finger snap when he decides what to make at night and making camp to cash in xp and noctis being super psyched to go fishing and the menu screen (i love the menu screen); almost everything else is either awful or totally inscrutable. it has capital G Graphics for sure, but i have trouble believing anyone finds the art direction particularly inspired, and there’s something janky going on at basically every turn. combat is literally incomprehensible.
cindy is completely inexcusable, i actually can’t believe i kept playing after i had to watch her refuel my car in a surprise cutscene
i mean, i know people are having fun liking this, but jesus it really seems like a trainwreck to me
Nah, your observations are correct. Except that I don’t really see much connection with FFXII on this other than the general vibe of the plot? (so far at least. XV’s is much, much thinner, though)
Full disclaimer: I’ve always wanted/fantasized about a proper “road game” or road trip story game where you take a single car and drive it throughout the whole adventure, and this is the game that comes closest to that so far (at least as AAA uber-lavish productions go), down to the inordinate attention to detail on the food. My tastes are biased towards these aspects so that accounts for a lot of my enjoyment.
I’m actually disliking the combat system quite a bit as I play more. It’s stuck in that uncomfortable space where you can’t really mindlessly mash through fights yet also doesn’t offer enough control or tactical options to demand full attention from the player.
I haven’t tried putting it on easy to see what changes but if I get more frustrated with it I may end up doing just that.
Did you pay attention to that restaurant in Galdin Quay, or the cable car in Lestallum, the selection of car styles, the facades of buildings and arrangements of the streets in bigger towns? The rusted roof in Hammerhead?
The model for the Regalia itself is some extremely impressive work, not just in terms of plain craftsmanship but of design. I know it’s a silly fictional car but there’s a lot to respect in the work that went into that base car!
Idk, I can see how it may seem a little too mundane and plain for some. They are going for a super grounded, “based on reality” style after all. This is a especially welcome addition after the inscutable techno-twisty blobs of FF13.
I already love this kind of stuff in real life, so why wouldn’t I love them arranged together in such a lovely fashion in a videogame, where this kind of treatent of a present-day setting (w/ some futuristic elements) is extremely rare? Some of the furniture, or vehicles or building styles in this game could appear in a design book or a travel photo book easily.
I think this is the only part of square’s legacy that’s completely unblemished
Oh, it is!
I knew that going in already. The thing I like about the game overpower the things I dislike enough to play it.
oh so it’s Destiny
Thanks @Iacus, I can basically sign this w/ my name and go “seconded” here.
Basically just started chapter 2 though, and I might switch to the “wait” mode for battles to have at least an idea of what’s going on. Good thing is this is probably going to be patched before I hit end game territory, so juggling Wdogz2, Last Guardian and XV has at least one upside to it.
in other news:
… this game.
just cuz it came up twice. The only connection I’m drawing between XV and XII is that they are essentially MMOs you play by yourself. But to be fair
This is a Final Fantasy MMO.
Honestly ff14 is also pretty much an mmo you play by yourself.
XV is definitely a train wreck, but I’ve also played it for 40 hours. I’m trying to figure out why.
The combat is a mess, but I can’t stop fighting stuff.
I like long drives in the car.
Lestallum feels like a place. There is some real artistry there. I like the art direction across the game. It is a thoughtful blend of the real and imaginary. The other “towns” in the overworld could use some love, or at least the world could have used at least one more town of that scale.
It does feel more grounded after the wackiness of 13. I mean, i’d play another two games of this.
Most of the side quests are dumb, but I’m doing them all.
It’s still kind of wild to me how you’re out in the overworld and you just walk into a dungeon and the games just like, “okay you’re in a dungeon” without any loading screens or fuss.
I’ve been checking every corner of the world trying to find more of them. It’s pretty great when I do find one!
I do wish more stuff was destructible. I wish there were more types of magic.
I want to know who modeled the food, because a lot of it looks genuinely appetizing.
I like how they just “pop” the potions and antidotes. It’s a great little sound.
Sound design in this game is strange. Lots of things feel oddly omitted. Cars passing you are silent, but they look like they should be loud gas guzzlers.
The regalia really does look nice. It’s a car I’d drive, or be driven in.
