Game Collection (UK) seems to be shipping on Monday . They were pretty good for early orders, disappointing. Looks like Simply Games might be the way to go in the future. Thankfully I may have another lead for XV.
So the last time I posted, I talked about the combat being great, right? Well there is way to make it even better by upgrading to unlock new skills in the Ascension grid. The ascension grid revolves around a set of categories so we have the 'combat' grid which unlocks new abilities for combos or skills for Noctis. We have the team work grid which works by letting the Party AI learn new abilities or techniques that can come real handy in battle. Then we have the Armiger grid and the Stats grid, the latter of which is important if we want to gain more stats after leveling up. We can basically unlock nodes in that grid to improve our stats like Strength or HP. There are more grids to look into and honestly there is a lot to customize our playthough, depending on our play style. In my case, I focused mostly on Noctis which means I didn't learn new techniques for the party members until after quite a while.
It is easy to have one look at the grid and consider it disappointment and lacking any details but if we play the game, we can soon figure out that it won't be possible to max it out as easily, because it requires a lot of AP. So please keep this in mind and carefully focus on the grid that tailors to your play style. I prefer going all solo with Noctis hence I focused on his grid but I highly recommend to learn some of the better techniques as well have important stat boosting grids unlocked.
Party AI
The party members have a great AI and they do kick ass in battle, however they can also easily get obliterated during some of the tougher boss fights. It is not easy to kill them though and if they do die, we have items like Phoenix Down or Mega Phoenix (for all members) that can review them with full health. But these items are expensive and since there are no monsters that drop gil unlike in the past FFs, money will mostly come through doing sidequests and hunts. We can also sell some of the rare treasure that we pick up during our journey throughout the world.
If you are tired of the Party getting their ass owned in tougher battles, I urge to focus on the Ascension grid related to the party members. First of all, make sure to utilize their technique in battle, as they can be quite handy at times. Secondly, the Ascension grid can add slight tweaks to their AI like if they are close to death, they can use a first aid kit to save their ass. There are more advanced options that are unlocked later but they all require a lot of AP, and as I have said, they don't come easy. So good luck in trying to attempt a balance between your own skills and the Party on the Ascension grid.
Sidequests
Since I have spent a considerable amount of time in the world now, I feel confident in talking in detail about the quests. People said they were mostly fetch quests, which might rub the wrong way, but having spent a considerable amount of time with them, I can safely say that not all of them are simply 'fetch' quests. These quests actually urge us to explore the world map, discover its lore, even if they are simple fetch quests. Attempting more of the quests, I discovered 2 secret dungeons which completely surprised me as I had no idea of their location until I attempted the quests corresponding to them. I also uncovered more of the map and discovered some of the hidden monsters during my exploration. So even if they sound like simple fetch quests, they reward the player with exploration. They are also tied to the narrative it is not like every single one of them has some dumb reason to get the X item and get back.
There are quests to upgrade weapons done by Cid. Quests to upgrade the Regalia so it travels at a faster speed (YES!!!!) and also to make it travel at night without having to bump into enemies on road (YESSSS!!!). The weapon upgrades are all neat and they are done by Cid. I recommend to attempt them as soon as you can because Cid will take his sweet time to complete these quests but the reward is a much better weapon than what we can get at that point.
Aside from the side quests, we have the option to fish and as far as I can tell, it is a fun distraction. We can buy the bait and fishing line from outposts or shops all around the world map and we need a specific bait to catch a certain type of fish, so it is not completely barebone mini game. There is a good amount of work put in it which will please the people who love these type of things in an RPG. There is also racing with the chocobos, which is another thing that I didn't attempt much. I mean I have already played an insane amount of the game and yet there is just so much to do. So yeh, I did skip around some of these side content but I am just pointing it out that it is available in case you want to attempt it.
Talking more about the quests, there are some quests given by people at certain locations and then they change their location. There are also quests that are given by people that maintain their location and this results in a quest loop that can be addicting. MMO players might be familiar this feeling of the quest loop. We just keep doing the quests while getting new ones from the person and it honestly feels like there is no end in sight. So I did drop some of them midway even though I was enjoying my time in attempting them.
There are secret boss fights and dungeons to explore. I discovered two of them thanks to side quests but I am sure there is atleast one more. I saw that dungeon in one of the videos but I haven't come across yet, although it had the Samurai with the mine and Goblins. I discovered the Sewer dungeon and another dungeon that had similarity to
Chapter 7 dungeon
. Keep in mind these are extremely challenging dungeons that require you to be atleast Level 50 before you can attempt them. Otherwise be ready to get your ass kicked.
We have seen the Niflheim base infiltration and it will be a story mission in the game, but there are even optional bases that are scattered throughout the world map. For starters, each of the base is designed in its own way. I played through 3 bases
2 of them are required for story
and each of them had a different design. We can go full stealth in the base or all guns blazing, which won't be easy if we have a low level. The base infilration ends with boss fights with magitek armors over level 50, so make sure you are prepared for the final fight as it won't be easy.
Loot
I feel that this is very important point to highlight here as there is plenty of loot to collect in the world of Final Fantasy XV. I highly recommend to have atleast one of each type of item from the shops across the world map because some of the side quests will require these items, if we already have them, it makes the job easier. Also don't sell every loot that you collect as mentioned above, they can be given in some of the side quests. We can also use the loot to craft magic and some of the more powerful and rare loot can craft a very powerful magic spell. I was able to craft a powerful firga spell having potency of 200+ but sadly there is a damage cap of 9999 and to unlock it, we need an insane amount of AP points (999!!!).
The loot is also unique with each enemy. The larger and harder monster variety drops loot that can be sold for a good amount of gil, or used for weapon upgrade by Cid. They can also be used to craft powerful spells. The smaller enemies also drop loot but of course the rare monsters are the bigger draw here. We can also kill monsters to get some of the food items that can be used by Ignis to cook food, which in turn can give stat buffs. As I played through the game, I learned the importance of these buffs and since some of the bigger buffs can be expensive (there is one in Altissia that can cost 300,000 gil!!!), Ignis' cooking can come handy as he cook them free of cost. Sadly he can only cook at camps which means we will have to look around for camping spots if we want to buff up without having to spend money at a restaurant.
Altissia and Coliseum
So
our entry to Altissia
is a breathtaking visual spectacle. It is like seeing the city of Midgar for the first time. It is easy to get overwhelmed as we enter the city of the first time as it looks like there is a lot to do and discover. The city is huge and full of NPCs and the best part is that we can just stay next to them to hear their conversation. This removes the need to talk to every NPC manually and adds more realism to the exploration aspect. This is nothing new of course, I just wanted to point out that I really like the implementation here in FFXV.
Altissia will offer the players plenty of new things to try. New weapons, sidequests, new items and new hunts. The hunts that are offered in Altissia are all set during the night and I was able to unlock some very powerful hunts including some secret bosses that will please the old FF fans . They require a higher level of course but no one is stopping you from attempting them. One thing I should mention here is that Altissia hunts somehow allow the option to wait until Nighttime, since every hunt is set at night. This should have been an option with the other hunts dealer as well, so I hope it is added with a patch.
I will conclude this post with the Coliseum impressions. It is basically an arena where we witness the monsters killing each other for sport. We can wager and bet on the monsters by purchasing medals. Our only participation in these battle is through the use of horns that we can blow during the battle. These horns can either boost their attack or provide stat buffs. We start with a default horn which improves the attack, I think. I didn't really look much into it but there was a vendor right outside the Coliseum which was selling horns with different types of buffs/advantages in arena. They were expensive AF though so unless you have a shit load of money, you won't be able to buy them. Watching the battle unfold is actually quite fun and the prizes that we can win in Coliseum range from powerful weapons to new type of Skins for Regalia. Speaking of which, the Big Bang amano artwork is an unlockable skin in the Coliseum but good luck in getting it, as it requires a lot of medals. We initially purchase them through money but we can get more with bets.
To Be Continued
So this concludes my impressions for the second part and I will now post my final part of impressions once I am done with the game. I will have one thing to say though, if you are rushing through the game just to beat the story in a short time, you are missing quite a big chunk of what makes FFXV so good.
For those who got the game early, how much did you pay for your copy? I'll never do it, simply because we have no stores at Montreal that breaks street date, but I heard some early sellers would go up to sell it double the value of the game, just to cash in from the hype. So curious about that.
For those who got the game early, how much did you pay for your copy? I'll never do it, simply because we have no stores at Montreal that breaks street date, but I heard some early sellers would go up to sell it double the value of the game, just to cash in from the hype. So curious about that.
For those who got the game early, how much did you pay for your copy? I'll never do it, simply because we have no stores at Montreal that breaks street date, but I heard some early sellers would go up to sell it double the value of the game, just to cash in from the hype. So curious about that.
Yeah, mine is processing now too. They usually ship earlier, I tend to get Tuesday releases on the Saturday, it'll be Monday or Tuesday now though... so I'll not get to play a lot of it until next weekend with college getting in the way of it
For those who got the game early, how much did you pay for your copy? I'll never do it, simply because we have no stores at Montreal that breaks street date, but I heard some early sellers would go up to sell it double the value of the game, just to cash in from the hype. So curious about that.
Thanks, keep the awesome impressions going!
I have one question no one was able to answer me before. You seem like you actually explored much of Altissia. So, here we go:
There's this big, domed palace situated above Altissia, it's visible in some of the trailer cutscenes. Can we go up there and explore at least the surroundings of this palace or is it like much of the world just window dressing and merely a pretty backdrop for cutscenes?
Just gonna do a big copy pasta of every "combat" keyword / relevant discussion regarding the combat system so far in this thread (from oldest to newest) for sake of some attempt at a compilation for those (like me) who are wondering about it. It'll also give a view of how it has been perceived over the course of the thread. Not linking to each individual post, and I'm trying to restrict it to people who've actually played the finished game, rather than basing impressions solely on the demos. Pure copy and paste job: (Disclaimer: I've no idea if any spoilers have slipped through this pasta net, although I deliberately didn't copy anything that was spoiler tagged in the original posts (other than one post), so please view at your own discretion)
Sorry if this type of compiling is frowned upon, feel free to delete it if so. I just figured there are a lot of people who will be inquisitive of the combat without wanting to wade into story impressions etc. And sorry if anyone feels I've taken their quote and missed a key part of context, or if I've missed any key discussions on the topic. I literally just browsed by a keyword and tried to manually filter based on people who have actually played the retail game.
Thanks, keep the awesome impressions going!
I have one question no one was able to answer me before. You seem like you actually explored much of Altissia. So, here we go:
There's this big, domed palace situated above Altissia, it's visible in some of the trailer cutscenes. Can we go up there and explore at least the surroundings of this palace or is it like much of the world just window dressing and merely a pretty backdrop for cutscenes?
Their stats improve but I haven't paid much attention to their design. We can't see them on the equipment screen so the only way is to use them in battle. I didn't really consider it.
Their stats improve but I haven't paid much attention to their design. We can't see them on the equipment screen so the only way is to use them in battle. I didn't really consider it.
Yeah, so is mine actually and the money's been captured in my account. They said on Twitter yesterday, shipping would be on Monday but maybe they got it earlier.
I cancelled my Amazon Alien Isolation order after I heard Simplygames was sending them out early and placed an order around 2pm while at work, came the next day. If they have enough stock, you should be able to get it tomorrow.
The Story. Holy shit what a nose dive. I gave them the benefit of the doubt but christ man it's obvious they have no idea how to handle the story at all. They have all these cool ideas but they squander it entirely. The story has no moments to breathe except when you're just exploring. And not only that but a lot of it is starting to make no sense. Not in a confusing way but in a "why are they doing that?" And chapter 9 does something that fucking kills what the whole 8 other chapters were all about (HUGE SPOILERS DONT CLICK)
And that is not let us see Ignis get hurt. Oh yea this actually pissed me off more than the other major moment of this chapter, but don't get me wrong that part is really stupid too. I read the leaks when they came out and I always told people that it's the execution that matters, but by god that might have been the worst way they could have done it.
Altissia's size - the game fooled me. You could see me posting here just a few hours ago amazed by how big the town is, but it isn't that big. It's beautiful place and not small by any means but the devs are fucking assholes cause when you open the map to Altissia you literally only explore like 1/10 despite it the other 9/10 being super detailed with even an area to the side that has a name and everything. Pissed me off
The Story. Holy shit what a nose dive. I gave them the benefit of the doubt but christ man it's obvious they have no idea how to handle the story at all. They have all cool ideas but they squandered it entirely. The story has no moments to breathe except when you're just exploring. And not only that but a lot of it is starting to make no sense. Not in a confusing way but in a "why are they doing that?" And chapter 9 does something that fucking kills what the whole 8 other chapters were all about (HUGE SPOILERS DONT CLICK)
And that is not let us see Ignis get hurt. Oh yea this actually pissed me off more than the other major moment of this chapter, but don't get me wrong that part is really stupid too. I read the leaks when they came out and I always told people that it's the execution that matters, but by god that might have been the worst way they could have done it.
Altissia's size - the game fooled me. You could see me posting here just a few hours ago amazed by how big the town is, but it isn't that big. It's beautiful place and not small by any means but the devs are fucking assholes cause when you open the map to Altissia you literally only explore like 1/10 despite it the other 9/10 being super detailed with even an area to the side that has a name and everything. Pissed me off
Thanks for the impressions, it's interesting to see that loot and sidequests are the main ways of making gil, I hate games where you end up with loads of cash and nothing to spend it on.
From what you've played have you come across any new clothing options? either through vendors / sidequests / loot
There are secret boss fights and dungeons to explore. I discovered two of them thanks to side quests but I am sure there is atleast one more. I saw that dungeon in one of the videos but I haven't come across yet, although it had the Samurai with the mine and Goblins. I discovered the Sewer dungeon and another dungeon that had similarity to
Chapter 7 dungeon
. Keep in mind these are extremely challenging dungeons that require you to be atleast Level 50 before you can attempt them. Otherwise be ready to get your ass kicked.
Yeah that's the dungeon I stumbled on I think. The mines, I ran into that Samurai monster and he was going to destroy us. So I bailed out like hell. Lol. That dungeon in super early on the map.
It's tagged as a spoiler. If general reaction to specific chapters are a spoiler (and it's subjective from person to person) I would suggest bailing. 4 days to go.
The monsters variety is more apparent in dungeons and hunts yeah. In free exploration they're not very varied yeah. Although I just encountered a totally new - and impressive looking - beast few moments ago while I was running in Duscae. Some monsters only appear in specific weather conditions (rain/sandstorms), and some only in nightime (even if not deamons). Overall I think the bestiary in the game is very impressive. There's always something new to fight.
How did you find the set-pieces? I thought they were mindblowing for an open-world game and hype af.
Also *SPOILER*
What did you think of the CG cutscene? It was super well-directed imo. caught me off-guard.
The monsters variety is more apparent in dungeons and hunts yeah. In free exploration they're not very varied yeah. Although I just encountered a totally new - and impressive looking - beast few moments ago while I was running in Duscae. Some monsters only appear in specific weather conditions (rain/sandstorms), and some only in nightime (even if not deamons). Overall I think the bestiary in the game is very impressive. There's always something new to fight.
The set piece was bad. Not as good as the Titan one imo. Nothing really challenging and wasn't much of a set piece at all.
You fight a few soldiers, then do a bunch of QTEs. Then watch the dumbest moment in the game. Then you fight a "boss" that you have no way of dying against so it was more like waiting for the health to go down. Somehow the 2013 footage puts it to shame.
The
CG scene
had no emotional weight. It's just same shit being repeated. We learn nothing new that didn't know before hand. I guess it was cool that it was
It's tagged as a spoiler. If general reaction to specific chapters are a spoiler (and it's subjective from person to person) I would suggest bailing. 4 days to go.
The monsters variety is more apparent in dungeons and hunts yeah. In free exploration they're not very varied yeah. Although I just encountered a totally new - and impressive looking - beast few moments ago while I was running in Duscae. Some monsters only appear in specific weather conditions (rain/sandstorms), and some only in nightime (even if not deamons). Overall I think the bestiary in the game is very impressive. There's always something new to fight.
Yeah, so is mine actually and the money's been captured in my account. They said on Twitter yesterday, shipping would be on Monday but maybe they got it earlier.
They've taken the money, sent me an email warning me about black friday mail volume possibly causing a delay in delivery and changing my order status back to "Awaiting Stock/Release."
Not looking good for early. They've always been good about delivery, but if i wanted it release day (or the day after, knowing Royal Mail) I would have walked into a Tesco or Asda and bought it there.
The set piece was bad. Not as good as the Titan one imo. Nothing really challenging and wasn't much of a set piece at all.
You fight a few soldiers, then do a bunch of QTEs. Then watch the dumbest moment in the game. Then you fight a "boss" that you have no way of dying against so it was more like waiting for the health to go down. Somehow the 2013 footage puts it to shame.
The
CG scene
had no emotional weight. It's just same shit being repeated. We learn nothing new that didn't know before hand. I guess it was cool that it was
Set-pieces are supposed to be challenging, and if you can die in a set-piece then it's not a well-designed one.
XV has tons of traditional boss fights and super bosses so I think it earned the right to make some of its fights "easy", cinematic and set-piece-y.
*SPOILERS
*I though the setpiece was very well done, starting with the chase with Prompto and parrying Leviathan attacks. It wasn't a QTE imo since you were using the normal game controls (defends then attack to parry). Then the struggle in an unwinnable fight against the best inside a tornado where the destroyed buildings are floating everywhere and you can warp to each one of them. I thought it was mindblowing how they managed to pull that off in an open-world game.
I see why would you hate the super sayian bit but I thought it was HYPE AF. Reminded me a lot of the early Versus trailers were Noctis was super OP. Flying around, destroying Leviathan wings and throwing all your royal arms at her was super satisfying.
I think the compassion with the 2013 trailer is unfair, since that was 100% CG - and SE should get more shit for that -. As far as I'm concerned, XV pulled of the most impressive set-piece I ever say in any open-world game.
As for the
CG, I agree that the event itself lacked the emotional impact, but that was the game's fault, not the cutscene itself. I thought the cutscene was very, very well-directed and impressive visually. Got the feels in the last drowning bit .
But I can see the chapter be highly controversial yeah. It's not exactly what you expect from a RPG.
. They were pretty good for early orders, disappointing. Looks like Simply Games might be the way to go in the future. Thankfully I may have another lead for XV.
