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[GoldenCrow]

Don't think that was as much a criticism of 12. 12's world was brilliantly crafted in the options you had.

One of my favourites. But it had an illusion of freedom rather than actual freedom, you could go do a hunt rather than the story but wouldn't be able to get to a location due to a rainstorm or other issue. Calling it too linear would be a mistake on my part but it had a strange way of limiting freedom whilst trying to make you think you had it.

 

[benzy]

I think many people got a wrong idea about how the flying car works. There are still boundaries. I remember someone stating that you can't fly the car everywhere and you can't take off and land everywhere. Was it Tabata himself or were it the guys from Gameinformer in their podcast after playing the game for a couple of hours. I don't clearly remember where and when I heard it. But I remember that I thought, yeah, that fits to that map.

Tabata said you can fly the airship anywhere. You can only land and take off on even pavement though. Still unsure what those white lines are but I don't think they're barriers.

http://kotaku.com/an-in-depth-q-a-with-the-director-of-final-fantasy-xv-1782282444

Schreier: So that airship, I just saw that this morning, it looks incredible.

Tabata: You can fly around freely in the world, and if you really wanna explore in a lot more ways, you can fly around with the airship, it’s really great.

Schreier: You can fly anywhere?

Tabata: You can fly anywhere you’d like, but you need to find a road to land on. It’s not 100% land anywhere, take off anywhere, fly everywhere, but we really wanted within the system we’ve created to give the player the freedom to fly as freely as possible, anywhere they could. There’s a great level of freedom they can get from that.

 

[Koozek]

how will this work with the flying car? invisible walls? That's gunna suck if so.

I think many people got a wrong idea about how the flying car works. There are still boundaries. I remember someone stating that you can't fly the car everywhere and you can't take off and land everywhere. Was it Tabata himself or were it the guys from Gameinformer in their podcast after playing the game for a couple of hours? I don't clearly remember where and when I heard it. But I remember that I thought, yeah, that fits to that restricted map.

No, no, only the landing is limited to roads. Otherwise you can fly everywhere (even the Game Informer guys said that).

 

[Die Squirrel Die]

how will this work with the flying car? invisible walls? That's gunna suck if so.

You'll probably be able to fly over the areas, just not land on them, similar to how airships in older FFs couldn't land in forests.

 

[Tyaren]

so yeah, does that mean invisible walls? because that will be awful :/

I don't know, maybe you can just fly up to a certain height, not high enough to cross mountains enclosing the traversable regions.
I wonder if you will be able to cross the sea to get to the other areas with the flying car. But they also stated you can't manually drive the boat that we saw in videos. It has a set course. That also seems to indicate clear boundaries. (Or am I wrong about this too? XD)

@benzy and Koozek: Thanks for clearing that part up.

 

[The Last One]

Tabata said you can fly the airship anywhere. You can only land and take off on even pavement though. Still unsure what those white lines are but I don't think they're barriers.

http://kotaku.com/an-in-depth-q-a-with-the-director-of-final-fantasy-xv-1782282444

Schreier: So that airship, I just saw that this morning, it looks incredible.

Tabata: You can fly around freely in the world, and if you really wanna explore in a lot more ways, you can fly around with the airship, it’s really great.

Schreier: You can fly anywhere?

Tabata: You can fly anywhere you’d like, but you need to find a road to land on. It’s not 100% land anywhere, take off anywhere, fly everywhere, but we really wanted within the system we’ve created to give the player the freedom to fly as freely as possible, anywhere they could. There’s a great level of freedom they can get from that.

No, no, only the landing is limited to roads. Otherwise you can fly everywhere (even the Game Informer guys said that).

Anywhere? So we can fly through Altissia, for example?

 

[MagnaderAlpha]

Just because you "run through wide areas" in XV as you said doesn't make it more like Elder Scrolls. My point is you "ran through wide areas" in older FF games too. And yes, there was no way they were going to make a seamless open world FFVII at the time that matched the pre-rendered visuals of the game's more linear segments. No one mentioned anything about combat, we're talking about game and world exploration, in which case FF is actually one of the few game series where a seamless open world actually makes sense for the modern era.

"Running through wide areas in a fantasy game will bring Elder Scrolls to mind. FF meets TES."

Basically, I've always came to the conclusion(even back in the sprite-based FF games) that the first gif of Cloud on the Chocobo exploring FFVII's world map was symbolic of what was actually going on in the second picture. Cloud was actually exploring a MASSIVE world on the back of a Chocobo. Similar for random encounters, Cloud and company, in the REAL life sized world of FFVII, stumb upon a monster lurking in the wild and a battle commences(or in battles where enemies strike first, your party is ambushed out in the wilderness). I've ALWAYS felt that symbolism to be representative of what we are experiencing in real time with FFXV(or real time RPGs in general).

Kinda like when I talked about anticipating Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild(in another thread), and how I said when I was playing the OLD LoZ games(like the NES ones and ALttP), those sprite worlds were symbolic of a world massive like the one seen in BotW. To me, BotW is my ideal LoZ game(when I was envisioning the worlds of the older games as a kid, but in real size, it was exactly like that).

 

[Ran rp]

Has it ever been mentioned if town/environment themes have been added or does music only play during battles/events and with in-world sources like radios?

 

[Cwarrior]

He can get games out fast.

Crisis Core is the best selling non Monster Hunter title for the PSP, maybe even the best thing to come out of the compilation of FF7 for them.

Type-0 is a successful spin-off for the series.

Nomura & Kistase thought well of him enough to direct Crisis Core and even Parasite Eve.

What?lol I think you need to go back into time to investigate when those games where first announced.

Crisis core ,parasite eve and type-0(which was original know as ff agito) where all handheld games in development hell for like 3 years before coming out.

Crisis core was announce at at e3 2004 then went missing for 2 years with no news then showed up in later 2006 then released in september 2007.

Parasite eve 3 was announce in 2007 may a year later became a psp game then came out in december 2010 and development was outsource to hexadrive anyways.

FF type 0 was annouced as agito in 2005, a psp verison was in the works & mobile version was cancelled in 2008 the game finally came out after 6 years of development hell in october 2011.


Hajime Tabata puts out games on time? yeah that's not Tabata.

 

[Falk]

One of my favourites. But it had an illusion of freedom rather than actual freedom, you could go do a hunt rather than the story but wouldn't be able to get to a location due to a rainstorm or other issue. Calling it too linear would be a mistake on my part but it had a strange way of limiting freedom whilst trying to make you think you had it.

That's why I said it was brilliant ;p

You definitely had far fewer people making corridor comments regarding 12 compared to 10 and 13.

No, no, only the landing is limited to roads. Otherwise you can fly everywhere (even the Game Informer guys said that).

Here's an interesting question. Will FFXV's world map be torus-shaped then? :O

edit: http://kotaku.com/classic-jrpg-worlds-are-actually-donuts-1239882216 for reference

 

[Die Squirrel Die]

I feel like the missing link in the evolution of the FFVII chocobo gif to the FFXV one isn't actually found in the FF series but in Dragon Quest VIII, and how it presented a more 1:1 scale idea of an overworld. Of course its stylised art direction meant that the actual world was smaller but it pulled the overworld down from the large character in a miniature world running up to representations of towns.

 

[Damsung]

Basically, I've always came to the conclusion(even back in the sprite-based FF games) that the first gif of Cloud on the Chocobo exploring FFVII's world map was symbolic of what was actually going on in the second picture. Cloud was actually exploring a MASSIVE world on the back of a Chocobo. Similar for random encounters, Cloud and company, in the REAL life sized world of FFVII, stumb upon a monster lurking in the wild and a battle commences(or in battles where enemies strike first, your party is ambushed out in the wilderness). I've ALWAYS felt that symbolism to be representative of what we are experiencing in real time with FFXV(or real time RPGs in general).

Kinda like when I talked about anticipating Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild(in another thread), and how I said when I was playing the OLD LoZ games(like the NES ones and ALttP), those sprite worlds were symbolic of a world massive like the one seen in BotW. To me, BotW is my ideal LoZ game(when I was envisioning the worlds of the older games as a kid, but in real size, it was exactly like that).

It symbolizes the same thing but that doesn't mean they are the same. In the FF7 image you move like 30 miles in a few seconds, in the FFXV you move under 30 feet in the same amount of time. Very different gameplay.

 

[Tyaren]

It symbolizes the same thing but that doesn't mean they are the same. In the FF7 image you move like 30 miles in a few seconds, in the FFXV you move under 30 feet in the same amount of time. Very different gameplay.

Well, if you get the flying car, you will travel similarly fast over the map which has then practically transformed into an overworld too.

 

[NoctisVsStar]

It symbolizes the same thing but that doesn't mean they are the same. In the FF7 image you move like 30 miles in a few seconds, in the FFXV you move under 30 feet in the same amount of time. Very different gameplay.

This is sort of nitpicking.

 

[Koozek]

Anywhere? So we can fly through Altissia, for example?

I think it was mentioned somewhere that you could fly over the cities, too, I mean, otherwise how would it work if you're flying around in Duscae near Lestallum?^^ Invisible walls that keep you at distance? Naaah.

Here's an interesting question. Will FFXV's world map be torus-shaped then? :O

edit: http://kotaku.com/classic-jrpg-worlds-are-actually-donuts-1239882216 for reference

Haha, yeah, I remember reading that years ago. Blew my mind, never thought about that

 

[KingdomHeartsFan]

God dam that looks amazing, excluding the pop in.

 

[Damsung]

Well, if you get the flying car, you will travel similarly fast over the map which has then practically transformed into an overworld too.

Not quite, the world is huge!

This is sort of nitpicking.

I'm giving perspective not nitpicking.

 

[MagnaderAlpha]

I'm giving perspective not nitpicking.

Maybe you should just be blunt and say, "I just don't like it because that's not my ideal vision of how Final Fantasy should be."

 

[Damsung]

Maybe you should just be blunt and say, "I just don't like it because that's not my idea vision of how Final Fantasy should be."

Why would I have said that? I didn't say I didn't like it. It's fine like this, natural progression.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

Here's an interesting question. Will FFXV's world map be torus-shaped then? :O

edit: http://kotaku.com/classic-jrpg-worlds-are-actually-donuts-1239882216 for reference

Well FFVIII's world map wasn't a torus but a real sphere, and FFVIII is a big stylistic influence on XV.

 

[Falk]

IIRC FFVIII was still a flat map where you went off the bottom edge and appeared at the top.

 

[YankeeDonB]

It sounds to me like you're craving a Rockstar game! You described their open world games to a T. Did you mean to describe a game like this set in a fantasy setting?

For me the game would feel like a JRPG if there wasn't long boring stretches of travel for minimal gain and I was constantly going through progression. Open world games RPGS don't often do this right. Like if I play pretty much any JRPG I'm constantly in battle increasing my stats or finding chests, my brain chemistry is just having a blast doing this. In open world RPGs I'm bored because nothing enough is happening between story sections.

I think the first half of FFXV will be more open than the second half though, that seems to be when they focus on the road trip and stuff. Then the story's drama will pick up and pacing will be more focused.

Note I also called out jRPG art and music, which would not fit rockstar to a T. As for whether their games scratch my linear plot in semi open world itch, no. They're too open from the get go with way too much retreading for my taste.

Pretty sure the first half of XV will be less open in that we won't have the airship and/or a large list of easily accessible world-wide warp points. The story will follow the road trip which will govern the progression of settings, granted with side exploration. I expect it to open on the back half, then a linear run to the finish at the very end. I.e., classic FF style.

I was talking about this a while back in another forum. I didn't see anyone in here noticing following: In one of the the gameplay videos they showed the complete map of Duscae and surrounding regions for a second and one could clearly make out white borders. Eos seems not fully traversable. It seems to be made up of a net of corridores and some more open areas, like the Duscae valley. I colored these areas green here:

Light blue is by the way the Duscae area we were able to explore in the Duscae demo. Looks so small.

Good catch. Duscae is huge! I've spent 20 hours in the demo region alone between 1.0 and 2.0. What percentage of the total playable map is this region shown hereI wonder. If the old modeled topo map is anything to go by, this looks like maybe a fifth or sixth?

 

[Blackleg-sanji1]

I was talking about this a while back in another forum. I didn't see anyone in here noticing following: In one of the the gameplay videos they showed the complete map of Duscae and surrounding regions for a second and one could clearly make out white borders. Eos seems not fully traversable. It seems to be made up of a net of corridores and some more open areas, like the Duscae valley. I colored these areas green here:

Light blue is by the way the Duscae area we were able to explore in the Duscae demo. Looks so small.

You mean to tell me that blue are is only the demo area... I've greatly underestimated this games world

 

[YankeeDonB]

You mean to tell me that blue are is only the demo area... I've greatly underestimated this games world

Tabata did say it's so big that driving/train travel are basically necessary for traversal, which is obviously not true for most "big" open world games. Wonder what the projected on-foot completion time is...

 

[Blackleg-sanji1]

Tabata did say it's so big that driving/train travel are basically necessary for traversal, which is obviously not true for most "big" open world games. Wonder what the projected on-foot completion time is...

I spent 35 hours in that demo...this is bad lol. Maybe I shouldn't buy anything else this year

 

[CrimsonSquall]

What he totally looks Western. Look at him crimson no need to be sarcastic

Xp

Okay maybe my choice of words with screams alluded to a sarcastic tone but that's not what I meant. He actually does have a point with that, besides his hair maybe the black robes in all the cast "screams" Western influence compared to FF of yesteryear

 

[YankeeDonB]

I spent 35 hours in that demo...this is bad lol. Maybe I shouldn't buy anything else this year

Ha ha, at least I'll finish by Persona 5's Western release, so should work out OK. I may have to hold off on TLG for a while though.

 

[Blackleg-sanji1]

Okay maybe my choice of words with screams alluded to a sarcastic tone but that's not what I meant. He actually does have a point with that, besides his hair maybe the black robes in all the cast "screams" Western influence compared to FF of yesteryear

Ya think eh looks like a much cooler,cloud/squall to me

Ha ha, at least I'll finish by Persona 5's Western release, so should work out OK. I may have to hold off on TLG for a while though.

I absolutely have to make significant progress in the game by December because another Lil gem is coming out that can't be ignored no Matter what or else the keyblades on my wall will haunt me

 

[Koozek]

Okay maybe my choice of words with screams alluded to a sarcastic tone but that's not what I meant. He actually does have a point with that, besides his hair maybe the black robes in all the cast "screams" Western influence compared to FF of yesteryear

The clothing is literally the most un-Western thing in the game.

 

[Evil Monkey DTT]

Tabata did say it's so big that driving/train travel are basically necessary for traversal, which is obviously not true for most "big" open world games. Wonder what the projected on-foot completion time is...

So do we know how the open world is being handled in terms of content? Side quests and main quests obviously but please kill me if this does a ubisoft and completion is required to "pick up xxx items across the map". Best case scenario I'm looking for is a witcher 3, and even then you had many areas that called for completion of boring tasks.

Spoiler

I only ask because I am completing this game, but I need to know if I need to set a month of my life or 40 years of it.

 

[The Last One]

IIRC FFVIII was still a flat map where you went off the bottom edge and appeared at the top.

FF IX is like this too.

 

[Blackleg-sanji1]

So do we know how the open world is being handled in terms of content? Side quests and main quests obviously but please kill me if this does a ubisoft and completion is required to "pick up xxx items across the map". Best case scenario I'm looking for is a witcher 3, and even then you had many areas that called for completion of boring tasks.

Spoiler

I only ask because I am completing this game, but I need to know if I need to set a month of my life or 40 years of it.

Mmm there's hunts,most likely fetch quests,fishing,of course you'll have to pull over to take pictures for prompto lol.

Not sure if the phantom swords are hidden in the world or if you get them all thru story

Don't expect ubisoft levels of collect 100 feathers or something tho at least I don't think

 

[NoctisVsStar]

Mmm there's hunts,most likely fetch quests,fishing,of course you'll have to pull over to take pictures for prompto lol.

Not sure if the phantom swords are hidden in the world or if you get them all thru story

Don't expect ubisoft levels of collect 100 feathers or something tho at least I don't think

Phantom swords were pretty hidden in duscae :S

 

[CrimsonSquall]

The clothing is literally the most un-Western thing in the game.

All black is indicative to what in your opinion?

 

[Blackleg-sanji1]

Phantom swords were pretty hidden in duscae :S

I know just didn't wanna give him false info not sure if that was just a demo thing or not. Have they said? Would love to have to find them

 

[NoctisVsStar]

I know just didn't wanna give him false info not sure if that was just a demo thing or not. Have they said? Would love to have to find them

They haven't said anything, I guess the Phantom swords are the equivalent of ultimate weapons so it makes sense if they decide to make it a bit hard to get.

 

[Damsung]

The clothing is literally the most un-Western thing in the game.

Don't a lot more western games have characters wearing realistic clothing than Eastern games?

 

[Blackleg-sanji1]

Don't a lot more western games have characters wearing realistic clothing than Eastern games?

As far as I can tell Noctis and his kingdom are the only ones in "realistic" clothing or close to it. Everyone else are straight up jrpg

 

[Damsung]

As far as I can tell Noctis and his kingdom are the only ones in "realistic" clothing or close to it. Everyone else are straight up jrpg

Well the NPCs wear very normal albeit fashionable clothing. Scarves and slacks are like their go-to attire. The villians are totally JRPG though.

 

[Turin]

The clothing is literally the most un-Western thing in the game.

I could see a western celebrity dressing like them. Noct is just wearing shortened cargo pants(capris) with a short sleeve field jacket.

 

[Koozek]

All black is indicative to what in your opinion?

Ah, thought you meant the clothing design itself, not just their being black.

 

[Blackleg-sanji1]

I could see a western celebrity dressing like them. Noct is just wearing shortened cargo pants(capris) with a short sleeve field jacket.

I'd honestly wear Noctis outfit his pants are just jogger shorts essentially, swap the boots for some black vans perhaps and I'm good to go. Prompto on the other hand tho

 

[Koozek]

As far as I can tell Noctis and his kingdom are the only ones in "realistic" clothing or close to it. Everyone else are straight up jrpg

NPCs in Lestallum and Altissia dress normal:

 

[Damsung]

I could see a western celebrity dressing like them. Noct is just wearing shortened cargo pants(capris) with a short sleeve field jacket.

I thought that too until I saw someone wearing the actual clothing. I mean -maybe- a Jpop star would wear this in a music video but I doubt anybody in the west would dress like this.

 

[YankeeDonB]

So do we know how the open world is being handled in terms of content? Side quests and main quests obviously but please kill me if this does a ubisoft and completion is required to "pick up xxx items across the map". Best case scenario I'm looking for is a witcher 3, and even then you had many areas that called for completion of boring tasks.

Spoiler

I only ask because I am completing this game, but I need to know if I need to set a month of my life or 40 years of it.

Most of Tabata's comments have been pretty clear that they are NOT structuring it like an Ubi or Bethesda open world.

That said, Duscae demo did have a few random item collection "quests." Don't know if those are indicative of the whole game, but certainly the focus has been on more meaningful side quests (involved monster hunts a la XII, character-building side content like fishing or photography).

Just based on apparent size of world though, I'm not sure a month will be adequate for full completion! That's not how I play games though. E.g., in W3 I turned off map markers and ignored random/non-story side content (e.g., monster nests, treasure dives) unless I stumbled across it. Game was almost perfectly structured and paced when approached that way.

 

[Koozek]

I could see a western celebrity dressing like them. Noct is just wearing shortened cargo pants(capris) with a short sleeve field jacket.

I'd honestly wear Noctis outfit his pants are just jogger shorts essentially, swap the boots for some black vans perhaps and I'm good to go. Prompto on the other hand tho

You need a reminder of how that stuff looks on real people

Spoiler

Okay, maybe with less ridiculous hair it would look a bit less silly.

 

[Blackleg-sanji1]

NPCs in Lestallum and Altissia dress normal:

Don't all NPCs dress normal period? Tho I guess I did say only Noctis kingdom so fair enough

You need a reminder of how that stuff looks on real people

Spoiler

Okay, maybe with less ridiculous hair it would look a bit less silly.

Alright if Nocts jacket wasn't leather I'd wear it lol. And I said take out the boots for vans. Prompto is a lost cause tho

 

[Koozek]

Don't all NPCs dress normal period? Tho I guess I did say only Noctis kingdom so fair enough

Well, from what we know. Maybe in Solheim or Niflheim they dress more medieval or so.

 

[Turin]

You need a reminder of how that stuff looks on real people

Spoiler

Okay, maybe with less ridiculous hair it would look a bit less silly.

I was just about to say the latter. lol

I still maintain Noct just looks like someone who'd shop at Hot Topic in the mid 00's(sans the gloves and boots). I've seen weirder tbh.

 

[Blackleg-sanji1]

I was just about to say the latter. lol

I still maintain Noct just looks like someone who'd shop at Hot Topic in the mid 00's(sans the gloves and boots). I've seen weirder tbh.

I bet you can find everyones outfit in either hot topic,h&m and forever 21men lol