Final Fantasy XV (PC / Steam) -> My Impressions

[TheMysterD]

ORIGINAL POST -- 03/04/2015:
Okay, I've been checking out the FF XV: Windows Edition Playable Demo on Steam. Some thoughts incoming.

So, combat feels way different from any major FF game that I've ever played. For the most part, it feels like almost everything here is in real-time and it feels like an action game. Honestly, it's a lot of fun, if you are into real-time combat and action games. What's interesting w/ your party of 4 here is you can actually hit the gamepad (or keyboard/mouse); call up their own special techniques; and it feels like you're doing old-school FF menus to let the game do the special skill, spell, or something. You can call up menus for weapons, items, hot-key them, and also switch b/t those when in combat. Of course, you can call up Inventory and all of that stuff too.

This game feels like also Skyrim and Final Fantasy had a baby, more or less. You have pretty much an open-world for you to explore and side-quests and treasures and things to find on your way, as the game-world resembles a road-trip across America. You can drive the car, once you get it and it rides just fine. Also, you can have one of the others drive during the day if you like, as well. At night, though - you have to manually drive it yourself (as Noctis).

I don't know much about these characters, as not much has really developed here in the hour or so that I played w/ the demo - but I do like the banter that seems to be going on quite often with them. It always seems fun, light-hearted, and interesting. The 4 of them seem to be the best friends & play well off each others' remarks, lines, and whatnot.

Questing seems, at least early on, like fetch quests here and there. Kill X this and/or that. Go to Y area(s). And they might even give you challenges to get extra EXP to do certain skills, moves, techniques, or whatever when doing a quest. So, that's cool - the challenges make things a bit more interesting here on these type of MMO-type of quests. You can save in some areas, but not all. You can save during some quests, but not at all times. You basically level-up at hotels/motels, outposts & other safe-areas. You also can get extra EXP boosts and bonuses, depending on where you save, which is interesting.

So, performance...this is the next story. I'm running an i7 950 Bloomfield; 16 GB DDR3 RAM; GTX 970; and Windows 7 64-bit. With almost everything on Average and like 2 settings on High (for filtering) at 1440p, it runs all over the place - anywhere from like 33 frames to 60 frames. It's all over the place at 1440p. So, I locked it to 30fps and it runs smooth as silk now. Even at Average settings, the game just looks great; they really seem to have the look & feel for a road-trip out in America down very well. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to run that great. It runs okay here basically, so far. I might mess around w/ some other settings and stuff - but there's a fair amount of settings and customization in the menus for graphics, so that's good.

So, there's my thoughts...so far. A lot to like so far, but I just wish it performed better on my PC.

EDIT - 3/5/2018:
A bunch more of thoughts, about FFXV.

While I do like FFXV Windows Edition Demo, I do also right now feel...it isn't much of a Final Fantasy game. At least not yet, anyways. Keep in mind, I only spent a little over 2 hours with it. Long-winded RPG's can take a while to get going and also show their entire hand, releasing all of their systems and mechanics to you. Hopefully, later on, it gets more FF-esque to me.

It does really feel like Skyrim & UbiSoft open-world games, and Final Fantasy had a baby - but, more so leaning right now towards the Skyrim and UbiSoft open-world game side...well, at least right now early on anyways.

I don't know how much better the storytelling and character development gets later on (does it get better?), but that stuff doesn't feel as complex and/or as interesting as even the early hours of FF13. The real-time combat feels more so like a mix of Batman: Arkham series (especially w/ the counters and parrying stuff) and some other action-RPG's, also. Sure, it's FF & has its own twists on things - but it doesn't feel like it's all FF entirely.

You do have going through menu's, inventories & whatnot - but that seemed like a very important part of the older FF's which often had turn-based combat or some kind of variation of that. I don't feel like I'm doing much of that here; at least not yet anyways.

Does the FF combat get more tactical when you get more skills behind the characters and whatnot? It feels like I'm barely using that, as is. Calling up techniques slows the game to a crawl or freezes it, feeling like a BioWare tactical pause or something of the sort - but with the other characters' not having much skills right now, it feels like it's lacking the tactical stuff of the older games. It's early on, so...this could get better once more skills are behind the other party members - so, I do hope it gets more tactical and deeper on this stuff.

EDIT - 08-31-2022:
I don't know why it has taken so long for me to get back to this & really try to get into this one, but I'm some 11.2 hours into this game. Well, maybe I can figure this out: it's probably the jarring changes to the FF formula, TBH. This is more of an open-world game with MMO-like & UbiSoft-like side quests; and it feels like it's trying to be more of an Action-RPG with mostly real-time combat; & it's not a Turn-Based JRPG. Though, if you can do well & stick to the main missions & story - yep, this is actually good Action-RPG type of story. The plot it good; the banter that is always on-going b/t the 4 characters is great; & the combat's a lot of fun - but it's not up to snuff with typical FF standards or so different from FF standards & expectations, that this all can be jarring.

In some ways, I wish this wasn't called Final Fantasy; maybe they should've called FF15 here instead say Final Fantasy Presents The Next Fantasy (or something along those lines) to signify they are doing something so different here...and then spin these type of games off into its own new series (called Next Fantasy or something), since it has really gone away from key stuff, expectations & baggage that comes w/ the FF brand. The plot & character doesn't feel as fleshed-out & as spectacular as some other older FF's and all - but it's still good here.

Regardless, sticking to the main missions here when I can (which seems easier to do, as I've gotten further along here); enjoying the excellent graphics quality on the the technical part and especially the artistic factor; and w/ also how well this actually runs on my desktop PC (i7 10700KF; 16 GB RAM; RTX 3070 with 8GB VRAM; 1 TB SSD; 2 TB HDD; W10 x64) and my new gaming laptop (R5 5600H; 16 GB RAM; RTX 3060 with 6 GB VRAM; 1 TB SSD; W11 x64) at 1080p here - yeah, I'm thinking that I'm coming around on this & starting to appreciate what this game is trying to do & what this actually is, even if it ain't a masterpiece. Regardless, it's still so far really good - and I hope it at least stays that way, if it ain't going to get any better than this.

[TheMysterD]

Updated this w/ a new Addendum on 8-31-2022.