To be honest, for how good it is compared to the rushed story, I don't want more open world main installments like this. I'm not saying I want Final Hallway XIII either, but i'd rather the games just be more balanced in their content like FF7 or 9 or 10 again, all games that were linear in story but let you dick about at various points or return to earlier content liberally after a point.
It's clear that the open world focus for XV led to compromises for the story and other elements that could've done with some much-needed refinement.
[QUOTE=TheJoker;51526266]Shiva was equally worse[/QUOTE]
Shiva looked like Shiva.
Ifrit looked like a "demon" by ye olde standards rather than what we know him as.
Personally I thought Bahamut was fine but I am slightly annoyed that they called him Bahamut rather than someone else.
Titan was ok.
Ramuh is the same as always.
Leviathan was basically the same design from the originals.
[QUOTE=RikohZX;51526270]To be honest, for how good it is compared to the rushed story, I don't want more open world main installments like this. I'm not saying I want Final Hallway XIII either, but i'd rather the games just be more balanced in their content like FF7 or 9 or 10 again, all games that were linear in story but let you dick about at various points or return to earlier content liberally after a point.
It's clear that the open world focus for XV led to compromises for the story and other elements that could've done with some much-needed refinement.[/QUOTE]
I'd give them a few more shots at it. This is only their first time after all, some experience might help them strike a balance with the open world and the story
[QUOTE=Sift;51526243]I met Ifrit
This is by far, by faaar the absolute worst Ifrit design in the entire franchise. God I hate this "everything has to be a human" bullshit.[/QUOTE]
Most of the deities in the game are portrayed as their earliest appearance in the franchise, with the exception of bahamut.
Back in FFIII and FFIV, Ifrit, Shiva, and Titan were all mostly human looking with leviathan as a snake monster. Hell Ifrit looks almost exactly as he did in IV (big hairy man with horns).
The point being, making summons into massively complex looking contraptions and ghouls is only a development as recent as the MMOs
Still, I'm far more used to demon goat thing then bored naked sitar dude. For all the complaints lodged against the game the visual design for a lot of creatures is just upsettingly dull. Everything felt way too grounded in reality and by the end of it I was just sick of it and dying for something that felt more... final fantasy I guess. It's kind of bad when I come away from beating the game and I think World of Final Fantasy was better despite all expectations.
Speaking of which I just finished the game and while I'd be a broken record stating stumblings I still have to give my biggest, realest gripe. Spoilers for end game. [sp]World of Ruin was so interesting, I expected I'd be in it for awhile so when I literally teleport to the end game I can't help but be let down. I really, really wish they had explored that more.[/sp]
If I had a game to compare this to, after putting some thought into it, it would be Xenogears. Like this is 2016's Xenogears. Massive World in the first half that has a ton of world building and set up that falls apart in the second half of the game due to budget/time constraints/whatever where you're railroaded to the ending at breakneck speeds, characters die off screen or change randomly, plots are left unresolved and ultimately leaving players unsatisfied. Like I can't believe how structurally similar they are. All I need now is for Noctis to sit in a chair and monologue for like 5 hours about past clones or whatever.
I quite liked Ifrit's design
I liked all the summons' design tbh
I just wish the trigger for them was clearer, I shouldn't have to look that shit up. Or better yet just overhaul how the summons worked entirely, maybe piggyback it onto the armiger bar and the player can choose whether to summon or to use the armiger. idk something like that, I don't like how seemingly random it is.
I also don't think the second half is that bad, that could just be because everyone told me that the second half was bad so my expectations worked in my favor but I had a good time with it. Had some of my favorite sequences [sp]Fighting leviathan and the cutscene that comes after that, warping across ships and blowing them up, and like I said before I actually liked the ending. My only problem with the second half is Chapter 13, but even that wasn't as bad people made it out to be imo. I also thought it was ironic that chapter 13 was so hallway heavy after the Final Hallway 13 meme. Almost seems like it was intentional.[/sp]
Honestly, Chapter 13 is probably closer to what the actual chapter lengths should've been overall when not counting the open world, seeing as [sp]post-Altissia[/sp] the game zooms along at breakneck speeds on the plot without giving you time usually to explain it or dwell more on it. The problem is that 13 is mostly the same stuff over and over again with most of the story bunched up at the beginning and end.
[QUOTE=Dunsparce;51526792]I quite liked Ifrit's design
I liked all the summons' design tbh
I just wish the trigger for them was clearer, I shouldn't have to look that shit up. Or better yet just overhaul how the summons worked entirely, maybe piggyback it onto the armiger bar and the player can choose whether to summon or to use the armiger. idk something like that, I don't like how seemingly random it is.
I also don't think the second half is that bad, that could just be because everyone told me that the second half was bad so my expectations worked in my favor but I had a good time with it. Had some of my favorite sequences [sp]Fighting leviathan and the cutscene that comes after that, warping across ships and blowing them up, and like I said before I actually liked the ending. My only problem with the second half is Chapter 13, but even that wasn't as bad people made it out to be imo. I also thought it was ironic that chapter 13 was so hallway heavy after the Final Hallway 13 meme. Almost seems like it was intentional.[/sp][/QUOTE]
The thing that made the last chapters so bad honestly was just the length of them, like I mentioned in my comparison once you hit the "okay we're ditching the open world" part everything just moves insanely fast- time seems to skip forward rapidly with no attempts to fill the void and a lot of details are just thrown at you and you're told to just... accept it, and plot details seemed to get resolved like 5 seconds after their introduced. Example; Spoilers for chapter 10 and beyond [sp]Ignis goes blind. At first I thought he was just injured or missing a eye and left it at that only to find out through the escort quest that no he's just blind-blind. 10 minutes of walking through a toxic puddle later he's suddenly back to fighting form and it stops mattering and isn't really brought up again.[/sp]
There's no time to soak anything in, and instead of making time for it they chose to make chapter 13 last like 20 years and have nothing but Noct alone going "Gee I sure am skooked u guys"
Hell Prompto (huge character spoilers) [sp]Gets shoved off a train by his best friend and left for dead for a good long while. First time you see him and talk after that a few chapters later it's "Haha you got me that's cool also I'm a robot monster now? Iunno. And it adds nothing to the story other then to explain why he's a human keycard. It makes these "big" revelations feel pointless[/sp]
[QUOTE=Sift;51526888][sp]Ignis goes blind. At first I thought he was just injured or missing a eye and left it at that only to find out through the escort quest that no he's just blind-blind. 10 minutes of walking through a toxic puddle later he's suddenly back to fighting form and it stops mattering and isn't really brought up again.[/sp][/QUOTE]
[sp]He's still blind and he's still nowhere near as efficient as he was pre-blindness, he just can actually use techniques and be of some help after he gets his stuff together. It's post-timeskip that he's finally back to capability after ten years, explicitly referenced by Noctis and Talcott.[/sp]
[QUOTE=RikohZX;51526900][sp]He's still blind and he's still nowhere near as efficient as he was pre-blindness, he just can actually use techniques and be of some help after he gets his stuff together. It's post-timeskip that he's finally back to capability after ten years, explicitly referenced by Noctis and Talcott.[/sp][/QUOTE]
Gonna be honest, do you even [sp]really use him after the dungeon until the time skip? After chapter 10 theres parts where you fight with teammates and whatnot of course but they all last like... a single fight at best? Noctis kinda flys alone for the most part in the second half[/sp]
[QUOTE=Sift;51526970]Gonna be honest, do you even [sp]really use him after the dungeon until the time skip? After chapter 10 theres parts where you fight with teammates and whatnot of course but they all last like... a single fight at best? Noctis kinda flys alone for the most part in the second half[/sp][/QUOTE]
[sp]You do have some brief fights at the end of Chapter 13 too while he's along for the ride, and he still stumbles around and awkwardly fights, but yeah, it's a real missed opportunity due to how rushed it all was.[/sp]
Also on the Prompto spoilers, [sp]he's not a robot, he's a test tube baby born and branded for the Daemon projects that would turn him and numerous others before embedding them into the Magitek Soldiers, but he and many others apparently escaped early on. The thing is the game doesn't really do anything to explain this well and the twist really is dropped immediately afterward. It's been hinted as far back as Brotherhood, with his younger fat self wearing the wristband on the exact same wrist and living alone, but no one expected it to just get.. said and dumped so randomly.[/sp]
[QUOTE=RikohZX;51527002][sp]You do have some brief fights at the end of Chapter 13 too while he's along for the ride, and he still stumbles around and awkwardly fights, but yeah, it's a real missed opportunity due to how rushed it all was.[/sp]
Also on the Prompto spoilers, [sp]he's not a robot, he's a test tube baby born and branded for the Daemon projects that would turn him and numerous others before embedding them into the Magitek Soldiers, but he and many others apparently escaped early on. The thing is the game doesn't really do anything to explain this well and the twist really is dropped immediately afterward. It's been hinted as far back as Brotherhood, with his younger fat self wearing the wristband on the exact same wrist and living alone, but no one expected it to just get.. said and dumped so randomly.[/sp][/QUOTE]
where did you get this info? unless it's by assumption, which doesn't really count...
At any rate it's not in the game, and that's all that matters
I finished the game yesterday and I have the same kind of aftertaste you get after finishing a really bad lengthy book
[QUOTE=Ryuken;51527075]where did you get this info? unless it's by assumption, which doesn't really count...
At any rate it's not in the game, and that's all that matters
I finished the game yesterday and I have the same kind of aftertaste you get after finishing a really bad lengthy book[/QUOTE]
The logs around the area [sp]explain that they turn people into Daemons and then implement them into the Magitek Troopers. The Complete Guide (basically the strategy guide) also states that the one evil scientist dude of the Empire that showed in Kingsglaive is also his biological father due to the DNA contribution.[/sp]
XV's rife with stuff that isn't explained up front. For example (endgame spoilers), [sp]Ifrit is the cause of the protobacteria that is converting people and wildlife into Daemons because he hates humanity so much after his war with the rest of the Gods before. This arguably makes him a bigger bad guy than Ardyn, who may of propagated the Starscourge that ushered in eternal night but is listed as a 'servant' under Ifrit in the character relationship chart in the Guide. Not one lick of this is ever explored in the game, and Ifrit shows up out of nowhere with a snide 'he hates humanity, now fight him and come meet me at the throne' from Ardyn, gets a bunch of Godly interference in his fight, and then dies and the game continues on without giving a damn.[/sp]
Wow. The red giant was easier than pretty much any galvanade encounter in costlemark.
[QUOTE=RikohZX;51527125]
XV's rife with stuff that isn't explained up front.[/QUOTE]
Man they did this shit with FF13 too. Can they fucking stop? [sp]They really couldn't have had someone throw in a line like "oh yeah all these daemons? Ifrit" would have explained that shit because that was one of my biggest questions[/sp]
World of Final Fantasy has the best Ifrit joke and I can't believe it counts for FFXV to
It's along the lines of "Ifrit is a huge fan favorite in the final fantasy series even among those who don't manage to see the quests through- it probably has something to do with the fact you meet him so early on in all of the games."
[sp]Literally the first thing you see in this game is Ifrit[/sp]
[QUOTE=Sift;51527409]World of Final Fantasy has the best Ifrit joke and I can't believe it counts for FFXV to
It's along the lines of "Ifrit is a huge fan favorite in the final fantasy series even among those who don't manage to see the quests through- it probably has something to do with the fact you meet him so early on in all of the games."
[sp]Literally the first thing you see in this game is Ifrit[/sp][/QUOTE]
Now that you mention it, that is kind of a clever touch:[sp]You do meet the Fire/Blizzard/Thunder summons early on as usual, though you don't know it yet, and you don't get them mostly. I wonder if it was an intentional touch. [/sp]
[QUOTE=Dunsparce;51527379]Man they did this shit with FF13 too. Can they fucking stop? [sp]They really couldn't have had someone throw in a line like "oh yeah all these daemons? Ifrit" would have explained that shit because that was one of my biggest questions[/sp][/QUOTE]
At least in 13, the datalogs existed. Though it was bothersome for some folks to stop everything they were doing and read the logs to make sense of stuff, it was in the damn game. And anything that wasn't explained was either something no one knew in-universe or reserved for the sequels. 15 sets up significant events for the party members and cuts them out without any explanations given as if to wink and nudge at the DLCs, and has significant background lore that is at best implied or hinted at in-game and otherwise left to Kingsglaive, Brotherhood, and the strategy guide to explain. If they even do.
For example, the reason Gladio has a facial scar in XV where he was clean-faced in Brotherhood flashbacks is because he protected Noctis from a drunken assailant two years prior to the game. This isn't stated anywhere in Brotherhood, or in the game itself - it's, I shit you not, a throwaway mention on his art page in the guide.
The train section felt like you were supposed to stop off at different towns and have mini open worlds, but fuck that apparently.
That feeling when you've collected over 100k XP and you go to that one super expensive hotel
:saxout:
[QUOTE=Ray551;51528856]That feeling when you've collected over 100k XP and you go to that one super expensive hotel
:saxout:[/QUOTE]
That feeling when you are lvl99 and experience is useless :ohno: getting those 999 point skills is gonna take a while now.
I'm getting most of my skill points from doing hunts and long trips, I invested in the "Get a point every so often when you do something time consuming" skills early
[editline]14th December 2016[/editline]
I hope the updates they're planning they add more unique quests or just general stuff of interest in the land. I think everything is nicely detailed there just isn't much variety in terms of quests that don't feel like Radiant quests
I want to mod in a counter in the bottom of the screen for how many times Gladiolus just flys off the fucking handle for no reason.
Honestly by the time the credits rolled I didn't know why he was considered a friend. He's kind of a asshole 90% of the time and spends most of the game being a huge angry jackass.
Speaking of, do we ever get an explanation of why before heading to the [sp]ruins with smokin' dragoon chick, he just fucks off and is like "bye catch you later" before coming back to play Moonbsse Alpha at the power plant with you covered in even more scars?[/sp]
That was when I was at my "ok, this is horseshit" limit.
[QUOTE=Eva-1337;51530137]Speaking of, do we ever get an explanation of why before heading to the [sp]ruins with smokin' dragoon chick, he just fucks off and is like "bye catch you later" before coming back to play Moonbsse Alpha at the power plant with you covered in even more scars?[/sp]
That was when I was at my "ok, this is horseshit" limit.[/QUOTE]
[sp]I'm guessing that's going to be his character DLC.[/sp]
[QUOTE=Eva-1337;51530137]Speaking of, do we ever get an explanation of why before heading to the [sp]ruins with smokin' dragoon chick, he just fucks off and is like "bye catch you later" before coming back to play Moonbsse Alpha at the power plant with you covered in even more scars?[/sp]
That was when I was at my "ok, this is horseshit" limit.[/QUOTE]
Noctis: Gladio where are you going
Gladiolus: Buy the DLC to find out
Noctis: What? What even is that?
Then Gladiolus winked at the camera and walked away
[QUOTE=Sift;51530201]Noctis: Gladio where are you going
Gladiolus: Buy the DLC to find out
Noctis: What? What even is that?
Then Gladiolus winked at the camera and walked away[/QUOTE]
at least it wasn't the cup noodle advertising, where he might as well of legitimately done so
Aranea and Iris should be permanent party members.
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