Played the DEMO but...

[Thule Esperada]

So I played the demo for XV and was left... less than impressed. At first I was impressed by the visuals, and the nice view on the horizon. Then the combat tutorial started and I was underwhelmed. They claimed the combat system would be like a more grounded version of Kingdom Hearts, but there was nothin KH about it: lock on is finnicky, movement feels sluggish, you perform combat animations by holding "play"(in this case square or L1) and your warp ability isn't really that useful. It felt like the exact opposite of KHs fast combat, which was dissapointing as I love the combat in KH.

They couldn't have picked a worse gameplay area to show in the demo. It's nothing more than a generic grass-land/forest area that has been in EVERY open-world style game. I don't care how many polygons your rpg world has if it looks so bland. There was nothin in the demo that would have managed to impress me. When I saw the bloody trailer-park I was ready to call it a day. The large dinosaur like beasts roaming the lakes were pretty weak compared to the Adamantortoises or Titan of XIIIs Gran Pulse. It was all so mundane and generic.

And Finally the quest: you get to hunt a Behemoth. Sounds awesome, or so I thought. The whole hunt and battle feel more like interactive cinematics. Made worse by the fact that the Behemoth is more or less invincible in a straight up fight. You have to resort to the cutscene attack summon to defeat it. Hold X to Win... just... wow.

For me the biggest offender was the music. It was all so forgetful. I don't remember any of it. And from a series thats know for great memorable music, thats pretty sad.

Maybe I'm being too hard on this one though, this could all be just some thrown together test area for demonstration purposes. I guess that after nearly a decade in development, I was just expecting something more... amazing, or something like that. Sorry for sounding like a whiny punk. I just needed to get this out of my system.

 

[KrisPistofferson]

So I played the demo for XV and was left... less than impressed. At first I was impressed by the visuals, and the nice view on the horizon. Then the combat tutorial started and I was underwhelmed. They claimed the combat system would be like a more grounded version of Kingdom Hearts, but there was nothin KH about it: lock on is finnicky, movement feels sluggish, you perform combat animations by holding "play"(in this case square or L1) and your warp ability isn't really that useful. It felt like the exact opposite of KHs fast combat, which was dissapointing as I love the combat in KH.

They couldn't have picked a worse gameplay area to show in the demo. It's nothing more than a generic grass-land/forest area that has been in EVERY open-world style game. I don't care how many polygons your rpg world has if it looks so bland. There was nothin in the demo that would have managed to impress me. When I saw the bloody trailer-park I was ready to call it a day. The large dinosaur like beasts roaming the lakes were pretty weak compared to the Adamantortoises or Titan of XIIIs Gran Pulse. It was all so mundane and generic.

And Finally the quest: you get to hunt a Behemoth. Sounds awesome, or so I thought. The whole hunt and battle feel more like interactive cinematics. Made worse by the fact that the Behemoth is more or less invincible in a straight up fight. You have to resort to the cutscene attack summon to defeat it. Hold X to Win... just... wow.

For me the biggest offender was the music. It was all so forgetful. I don't remember any of it. And from a series thats know for great memorable music, thats pretty sad.

Maybe I'm being too hard on this one though, this could all be just some thrown together test area for demonstration purposes. I guess that after nearly a decade in development, I was just expecting something more... amazing, or something like that. Sorry for sounding like a whiny punk. I just needed to get this out of my system.

I'm not worried about a buggy demo very much. After all it is a demo, and after the way SE handled their last FF MMO, disastrous release followed by abject apologies followed by a fantastic game. Seems like they'd be less likely to release a broken finished product but even if it was, they'd make it right.

 

[L]

i didn't start playing it with a lot of expectations but i am pretty disappointed in it

i know we have our fair share of complaints when we nitpick about things but honestly i'm just disappointed in it. i loved the old games, could go either way on 12, absolutely despised 13 and still think it's probably a better game. hell, after 10 minutes of playing type 0 i know that it's a better game and will get okay reviews

fucking everywhere i walk my asshole party members are in the way. this is why we don't have collision physics for players in mmos. i'm trying to avoid an attack and "i'm wearing a duck's ass on my head emo kid" is just standing there in the way like a fuckin' retard.

i didn't even finish the demo

i had enough of it after getting gang raped by a bunch of baby mammoths and just laying there taking it like the whore "noct" is after being knocked to the ground by the big one, chasing what looks like a Mesmerize all over the region until it was dead and engaging in the most ridiculously long, tedious and irritating monster battle in the demo.

i wanted to know what the internet thought about it so i put "ffxv demo sucks" in google and read an article where someone stated that when you fight behemoth it is invincible and killable by cinematic sequence only which i'm assuming is a cinematic button sequence. smh

if this is what they released a bunch of handheld titles for to make the money to make a big title, i fear for the future of final fantasy because this was a huge disappointment and i hope that this isn't a representation of a finished product because it needs more work than a 20 year old single mother

After all it is a demo, and after the way SE handled their last FF MMO, disastrous release followed by abject apologies followed by a fantastic game. Seems like they'd be less likely to release a broken finished product but even if it was, they'd make it right.

truthfully, few popular mmo releases go as expected and are actually quite disastrous. the teams for both games are also different. but as far as ffxiv's release goes, i think it was just a matter of their team underestimating how big of a market there was for a final fantasy game in the MMO genre.

 

[ff1-10]

Hmm...this is a different viewpoint. I've heard that it's "amazing". It's good to hear another view. That Behemoth sequence sounds...weird. I hope that the final product isn't rushed like it sounds. I just hope everything is fixed, and unmemorable music...well, FF hasn't had memorable music for a while now so that's not a surprise.

 

[L]

something that was really pissing me off was that i could not parry no matter how many times i tried

turns out that you can just hold down L1 indefinitely instead of as soon as an attack is incoming =| the game seems a lot less bad suddenly. after playing so many action games that is just not the kind of way that they do things

im seriously sitting here for like 15 minutes yelling at my monitor WHAT THE FUCK IS THE POINT OF THIS MARKER, IT INDICATES NOTHING YOU FUCKING SHITLORD lmao

some of the special abilities could really stand to be improved on imo, i'm finding full thrust is the only one worth using as it can close a large gap and do devastating damage. drain blade is frequently dodged and does no dmg, dragoon jump takes too long and costs too much mp to be worth using and tempest is just lol. the player party npc collision is still annoying. even though this discovery makes the game playable i still find it's combat wanting because of things like having to wait 50 years for anything like a mammoth to use a parryable attack since that is the best way to kill them fast and enemies like sabertusks are annoyingly fast and impossible to slow down which leads to a ridiculous chase and just makes the game experience feel horribly artificial

 

[Zombie3k]

Hello first time posting. I feel like I have to vent because there's so much potential for this to be a great FF game and a return to form after a lot of disappointment.

Let's get the good stuff out of the way

- Graphics - are amazing. Even the animations like running through bushes as Noc pushes them out of the way are excellent. Next gen!

- The World - The area as a whole was excellent. Like the Steppe from FF XIII and a return to a more open world style is very welcome. I also liked the blend of fantasy with tech in having magitek/cars etc.

- Characters - I actually liked all of them! Even Prompto. I was not anticipating four male characters to have such a good dynamic but it really works. There were several moments that were really quite hilarious so great job SE.


Now onto the not so good stuff.

- Battle system - this is a bit unfair to put this here because it has a lot of potential but that damn camera absolutely ruins it. The lock on just does absolutely nothing. It's supposed to work like FF Type 0 and follow the locked on target so you can attack freely without messing around with the camera. But at the moment you have to manually control every single bit of movement the camera makes, and the lock on is rendered pointless. This has to be fixed as a top priority.

- Debuffs - The characters do a weird animation like they're in pain every so often when they're poisoned (and presumably have other debuffs), completlely stopping any attack and making you sit there for 2-3 seconds while the animation plays out and enemies are killing you. "What's that? You wanna use an antidote to remove poison before it drains your last bit of HP? Too bad, I'm gonna hold my head in pain for a few seconds to let you know I'm dying!" It's very annoying and adds nothing to the game. Get rid of it.

- MP - Oh dear. To regen MP you're advised to go and hide behind cover in battle while your other party members get on with actually playing the game. Not only that but when you do run out of MP Noc comes to a complete standstill for a few seconds while he recovers! And to add insult to injury if you try to use an ability and it doesn't hit anything you still use the MP!!! This also happens all the time because of the dodgy camera. It's just a disaster.

- Party AI - hopefully this is just AI in progress but it still has to go on the list. Party members take an age to rescue you while you're "dead". One time I was literally stood dead next to two party members who were doing absolutely nothing and I had to wait almost 10 seconds for the rescue. It needs to be an immediate - "the player is down, stop everything and get him back". Members running alongside you while out of combat is always dodgy. This is particularly evident when it comes to small places like the Behemoth lair where you have to crawl through tiny spaces and the party members are just stood in front of the entrance and you have to run way back and around everyone to get in.

- Minor issues - please let me zoom the map...
- when the objective changes it goes from BIG TEXT THAT SAYS READ ME!!!!! > to tiny text you can barely see that shows your current objective. Very minor but your new and current objective should be the most prominent. It's basic design.

Despite all these issues I don't think there's anything here that can't be fixed and that gives me great hope that we might have a decent FF game to look forward to in the near future.

 

[Thule Esperada]

I also found the enemies to be frustrating to fight. The sabertusks pose no real threat, but they have much more HP than they should, and also they don't stagger which leads to them dodging all your attacks constantly. Nothing like playing cat and mouse against oversized vermin. And the big mammoths? I fought one untill it became night, and it was dawn when I started. And at night the monsters suddenly all crawled out of their holes and I was swarmed. Also the imperial enemies hunt you in swarms and they're alot stronger. They are also really hard to stagger, and hit worse than the mammoths.
Changing your weapons arround also had no actual effect on gameplay outside of visuals. You hit the same ammount regardless of weapon.

 

[Razberry Knight]

So I played the demo for XV and was left... less than impressed. At first I was impressed by the visuals, and the nice view on the horizon. Then the combat tutorial started and I was underwhelmed. They claimed the combat system would be like a more grounded version of Kingdom Hearts, but there was nothin KH about it: lock on is finnicky, movement feels sluggish, you perform combat animations by holding "play"(in this case square or L1) and your warp ability isn't really that useful. It felt like the exact opposite of KHs fast combat, which was dissapointing as I love the combat in KH.

understandable. thats something to note. hopefully the full-version is more smoother.

They couldn't have picked a worse gameplay area to show in the demo. It's nothing more than a generic grass-land/forest area that has been in EVERY open-world style game. I don't care how many polygons your rpg world has if it looks so bland. There was nothin in the demo that would have managed to impress me. When I saw the bloody trailer-park I was ready to call it a day. The large dinosaur like beasts roaming the lakes were pretty weak compared to the Adamantortoises or Titan of XIIIs Gran Pulse. It was all so mundane and generic.

xactly what i was worried about. no one shares my fears. but hopefully at least for this part, the should open up some eyes.

And Finally the quest: you get to hunt a Behemoth. Sounds awesome, or so I thought. The whole hunt and battle feel more like interactive cinematics. Made worse by the fact that the Behemoth is more or less invincible in a straight up fight. You have to resort to the cutscene attack summon to defeat it. Hold X to Win... just... wow.[/quot] sounds like kingdom hearts 2. overall, this i wasn't expecting. i still expect a genuine RPG feel. meaning using attacks and lowering its health till it goes to 0. if i need a live cinematic event tofinish it off, its more action than RPG.

For me the biggest offender was the music. It was all so forgetful. I don't remember any of it. And from a series thats know for great memorable music, thats pretty sad.

haven't heard some yet...but i do know there are some memorable music, if we're talking about the music in the gameplay. a lot of that in recent ffs has been common.

Maybe I'm being too hard on this one though, this could all be just some thrown together test area for demonstration purposes. I guess that after nearly a decade in development, I was just expecting something more... amazing, or something like that. Sorry for sounding like a whiny punk. I just needed to get this out of my system.

It is for demonstration purpose. its a demo after all. but thre are still some things to worry about. we have to think about how much is this demo a reflection of the entire game.

 

[Exoskeleton]

While I did like the environment(Since it's meant to be a game similar to reality and what not) and enjoyed the way things looked and felt similar/modern I was let down by the battle system. I've had a hard time accepting that they've scrapped the ability to control other party members, thus limiting us to Noctis, whose abilities are fun, but may get a bit repetitive for me as time goes on. I was really looking forward to shooting things and punching stuffs. I thought the open world was neat but nothing special seeing as most modern rpgs keep leaning toward that route.

As for the bugginess and the demo ending on a cutscene: You have to realize that it's literally just a demo. It's not the finished product and of course they're going to put some epic summon cutscene in there to try to impress fans. That's mostly just marketing and I highly doubt all boss battles are going to end with Ramuh throwing his giant staff all over the placetehe.

The story changes are what worry me the most. I've been seeing less and less of Stella as time goes on. She initially seemed like a badass in her own right but I fear they may have Princess Peached her in a castle somewhere.

 

[AuronX]

Personally when I first fired up the demo my excitement shot through the roof and then collapsed pretty hard as soon as I reached the battle tutorial and realized just how awkward the battle system is in its current state. But then my excitement gradually came back up as I spent more and more time with the demo. Even though it's still awkward I learned the ins and outs of battle and got proficient at it, and with that obstacle out of the way, I was better able to see the game's strengths instead of its one weakness.

I agree the Duscae region was really not a good choice for a demo. I understand why they did it, as it provides a big, wide open area for players to run around in without a lot of linear storytelling, but overall it really isn't very representative of the game, so far as we know. FFXV will be a mix of urban and rural areas, but based on released information it sounds like it will end up being more urban than rural. You wouldn't know that from the demo, though. So it doesn't represent very well.

The critical thing to remember is just how incomplete this game still is. Tabata has stated that the game as a whole is only around 60% complete, and the battle system itself is only 50% complete. Think about that: the battle system in Duscae was rough, sure, but that's literally only half the code they're going to put into it, and it's already decent. Plus, they've now run a player survey and publicly noted that combat was a pretty widespread complaint and they intend to address that feedback.

From the beginning I sort of feared the demo would do as much harm as good, as now people will tend to judge the game by Episode Duscae instead of reserve judgment for the real thing. Personally while I really have enjoyed Duscae I've come out with my expectations set a bit lower, but I'm staying open to experience whatever the final product will be.

 

[SquallKefka17]

Played it for first time last night for an hour or so visuals great as you'd expect that aspect of FF these days doesn't excite me anymore its a sort of a given. I only went as far as first camp save point so I don't think I've explored much yet. Interestingly I'm playing through FF III alongside it for first time and it's funny to see how far away from each other the two games are.

Promptu is probably the only character I like I found other three annoying I can't get over Noctis' Batman voice it doesn't suit the look of his character at all. Was it me or did Noctis appear to move around the map with a limp? Gladiolus comes across as a typical duh I'm the muscle guy sort of character. I'm on the fence about Ignus so far.

The tutorial while necessary seems to have one thing in common with all older Final Fantasies it was painful. I think when the battles get going it is quite engrossing however there are a lot of bugs with the battle system. The Party AI is atrocious I found myself having to heal Noctis constantly with potions and getting cornered by monsters while others took an age to offer any help I'm also not sure not sure why I had a phoenix down in the inventory if there are no KOs just a weird sort of stunned stance until someone revives you or you use a potion on yourself.

Another alarming thing for me was the messiness of the night battles way too many enemies moving at once and bizarrely respawning all over the place and I didn't get what it was with same 3 soldiers in airships respawning over and over again between them the battle wouldn't end unless you ran away? They need to limit enemies and add some organisation to the full game. Take this contrast in FF3 you have to think about strategy and prepare well for battles whereas in FF15 there is very little strategy thus far just a strangely convoluted set of button combinations used in battle and it's all to do with timing more than anything else. It also comes across in this demo like Square want players to use menus less and less in new FFs I tried pressing triangle to display a menu of some sort and nothing. What bit of an equipment menu is there feels weak and lightweight.


Like I said this is my 2 cents based on less than an hour of gameplay I did like the demo overall but while I accept it'll be nothing like the classic FFs I still feel it doesn't feel Final Fantasy enough for an FF game if that makes any sense so far. I still feel I'll get the full game and in the fairness the demo when played alongside type 0 feels way less linear than type 0.