FFXV: new info[chocobos, rare weapons, parry system, camping

All this stuff comes from Jump Festa 2015

New trailer in English:

Battle system is looking faster and much better animated now.

A shit ton of jaggies everywhere though.

Same trailer as the one above but this time in Japanese:

More new details:

Here’s a summary of what we learned:

• The giant golem shown in today’s trailer was Titan. Originally he should have been in the Episode Duscaedemo, but they decided to remove him to avoid spoilers, because he plays an important role in the story.
• The demo will include a working summon, and it’ll be quite powerful.
• The demo will have dual languages, with voice acting both in English and Japanese. Tabata isn’t sure if it’ll be possible to do the same with the retailer version due to the presence of the other European languages, but he’d like to release an edition with all the languages included.
• There’s no loading screen when leaving and entering towns. The team would like everything to be seamless, but that’s still in the works and Tabata-san isn’t sure if it’ll be possible. Episode Duscae will be fully seamless.
• In towns you can go shopping and sleep in hotels like in Final Fantasy games of old.
• Characters will need to rest once in a while, or suffer penalties. Not sleeping also blocks your ability to level up.
• You can keep on going three days without sleeping, and each day is 60 minutes in real time, with 40 minutes of daylight.
• Food grants beneficial buffs. You can either cook it at campsites or buy it in shops and market stalls. Sleeping regularly helps those effects last longer.
• You can ride trains to travel from one location to the other. You can also move freely and explore the interior of the train as it travels.
• The new character Cindy is very important for the gameplay and supports the protagonist, even if she’s not one of the main characters. She will be included in Episode Duscae.
• There is magic, but showing it is not a priority for now. The team is working on the core system. Magic will be introduced when everything works properly.
• Initially only Noctis was supposed to use magic, but they’re changing that, as it wouldn’t be interesting. Everyone in the party will be able to use magic in some form.
• The capital city of Noctis’s country is called Insomnia.
• The “dog cam” shown in the town gameplay video isn’t actually in the game. It’s just a way to show the town without spoilers. The town itself is named Restarg.
• You’ll hear NPCs talking and chatting with each other when walking around the town. The city will look better in the final version of the game.
• The town showcased is not the biggest in the game, and won’t be part of Episode Duscae.

http://www.dualshockers.com/2014/12/20/final-fantasy-xv-and-episode-duscae-get-an-airship-full-of-new-and-jucy-information-at-jump-festa/

Famitsu scan:

FFXV it's looking like it will set a new standard for JRPG's and most likely RPG's in general too.

I'm getting hype again.

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*Update

Here are the details, via Sokuho@Hokanko:

Luminous Studio

• The current version of the engine is version 1.40. When the Episode Duscae demo launches, it will be at 1.50. The final version of the game is planned to be 2.00.
• There are about five million polygons per frame, witch each character made up of at max 100,000 polygons. The inner hair alone has about 20,000 polygons, which is five times the previous generation.
• Character models have around 600 bones, which is roughly 10-12 times greater than what was seen last generation.
• Data capacity for textures is also much greater than before.

Final Fantasy XV

• Battles against huge enemies are carried out in the same fashion as standard battles, but there will be some exclusive party co-op ctions for the bigger fights.
• There will be several mini-games, including fishing.
• Restalm (we called it Restaru, then Restarg, we were wrong twice – it’s hard to play by ear sometimes) is being made in the image of the Bahamas.
• Right now, the ropeway in Restalm cannot be rode. We might add the ability to ride it if there is time to do so.
• The development team wants players to get a feel for the world and find it relatable not just through sheer visuals, but also through the characters.
• In town, you can stay in hotels or go shopping.
• NPCs in town are controlled by AI, and you can talk to them.
• Restalm is a main town in the first half of the game.
• Cindy shows up in different places throughout the game. Something happens with her at the start that shakes her up and gets her moving around.
• While she’s not deeply involved in the story, she’s relevant because of her profession as a mechanic.
• Players will have to fight Summon Beasts in order to be able to use them.
• Summon Beasts in the game are a symbol of the power of stars. Only Noctis can actually summon them.
• Combat-wise, the plan is holding down a button will start a set combo, but timed button presses are what will enable coordinated moves with other party members.
• To parry enemy attacks, you have to match the timing of their strike. This is intended for expert players.
• Magic isn’t what consumes MP, nor is the system akin to the Draw system Final Fantasy VIII had.
• MP is consumed by using special actions, such as dodging and warping.
• Weapons are equipped several at a time, with one main weapon. The main weapon has a corresponding ability, and it’s also possible to switch the main weapon during combat.
• Combos are automatically formulated based on which weapon is currently being utilized out of the ones being equipped.
• Abilities aren’t separate from a weapon’s given category and there are also weapons that have no abilities at all. Apparently not unlike what was seen in Captain Tsubasa 5, a game that Tabata apparently worked on back in the day.
• Rare weapons that can be acquired from dungeons and other sketchy areas could potentially have some hack-and-slash aspects to how they’re used. The Phantom Sword, which floats in midair, will also be acquirable as a special weapon.
• The battle system from the demo is planned to be fully featured.
• After the Tokyo Game Show this year, the systems going into the demo were slightly changed as a result of fan feedback.
• Players will also be able to run around in areas such as the mountainous areas where the Behemoths roam.
• In the full version, you’ll be able to rent Chocobos.
• Camps are inherently designed to be a safe haven, making them ideal headquarters when setting out to explore new areas.
• There are bonuses that come with cooking ingredients purchased in towns and cities. You can also get ingredients off monsters in the wild.

http://gematsu.com/2014/12/final-fantasy-xv-detailed-famitsu#MfGqO8gmq50x6hH7.99

*

The lack of exploration really bothered me about XIII. Among all of it's problems that one was particularly annoying. The lack of adventure was so apparent. I sincerely hope they follow up with their word. Towns in FF are important hubs which apart from helping with the story establish culture and atmosphere and break up the grinding. Taking out everything resembling freedom, making all the areas one long corridor, shops and save points being reduced to globes, just one endless grind with boring, sullen or whacky characters and a stupid story made XIII one of the biggest flops in history. To have that heritage, foundation and budget and to throw it all away was astonishing.

Looking forward to XV.

Damn. The HD version of Xenoblade Chronicles X is looking really good.

I shall buy it on PC.

6(8?) packs + cleavages ahoy!

SE going all in that "sex sells" spirit hehe :P

dog cam? really?

Not yet, not yet. We've yet to see the awesome mechs! :D

nice trailer, we got to see towns and stuff.. i hope they'll show us summons soon

Sounds interesting enough, I want to believe :P

looks great. first ff game im looking forward to. hopefully the combat system is more real time action than jrpg

"Cid-ney".........

Oh.....I see wut you did there, SE.

Mark my words, this game is gonna flop if Dog Cam doesn't end up in the final game.

It looks incredible though. I'm really hoping this hits its mark after all these years.

Although I enjoyed FFXIII, I'd be a fool to not agree with what you're saying here. :P It just made for a different Final Fantasy experience really, one that it's no surprise a large majority didn't enjoy.

Square has burned me too much with the shite that was 13, 12 , and 10x2, don't even get me started on the shitty sequels 13 got.

However gotta admit the game looks like it could be decent.

Hope it doesent stray in action more than rpg, its an rpg game not action.

Does Cidney's cap say "fan service station" or "full service station" ? If it's the former then it's 100% accurate.

@faizanhd: Literally every main character so far screams "fan-service". Like I said, SE is going all in with the "sex sells" approach. However, aside from that, the game looks legit! :)

13 left such a bad taste in my mouth. They owe me a good game goddamnit!

Fortunately, this is looking quite good so far.

God, I hate the characters already... The voice acting isn't great either.. Uncharted spoiled me big time, but isn't that what to be expected from big games anyway?

Looks great, but, FFXIII was pure garbage from what i played, and seems to be the general opinion from FF fans. Plus people jizzed over that, sooooooo.

Waiting for reviews before getting excited.

And Cidney's clothe are just..........................eh.

More info (from Kotaku):

Titan

Host: (reading fan question) "The Titan is huge! Can players use it? Will it be that size when players summon it?"

Tabata: Did I say it was a summon?

Host: Anybody can tell that that's Titan.

Tabata: I guess so. Well, that... That's Titan. And it's a summon, and we're planning on it being usable at that size, but with summons in XV – you saw them fighting Titan [in the trailer] – you have to fight them like that, or you obtain them in other ways. Basically, you're going to obtain them through different methods.

Host: I see.

Tabata: And, well, talking about Titan, we actually wanted to put it in the demo and let players actually use it and talk about that.

Hote: Yes.

Tabata: Unfortunately, it turns out Titan is a summon that plays a rather important role in the plot, so we're putting a different summon in Episode Duscae to show players what happens when you tame one or when you use one. So we're putting the prototype of the summon system in the demo, so I hope people can actually try it out and see what it's like.

Host: So, Titan will not be in the demo?

Tabata: No. But we have a different summon prepared.

Host: And you can summon it and use it in battle?

Tabata: Yes.

Host: I see.

Tabata: We selected a summon that isn't integral to the story, but is still flashy and put that in the demo, so I think people will be rather surprised.

Towns

Host: (reading fan question) "Seamless towns! So will the entire game be seamless?"

Tabata: Before we talk about the towns being seamless, the town looked pretty good, right?

Host: What did everyone think about the town?

*audience applause*

Tabata: Thank you. So you see the characters approach the town in their car and they get out and enter the town, so that part is all seamless. But as to whether the entire game is seamlessly connected like that, that's what we're trying to do in development, but it may turn out that for important places there will be loading. But in terms of what's offered in the demo, everything is seamless, so you can get the feel that this entire world is connected.

Host: I see. Speaking of which, what can you tell us about that town? The name and such.

Tabata: Well, the name of the town is Resukarunu, and it's actually fairly close to the area in the demo.

Host: So it's in the Duscae region?

Tabata: The Duscare region. And it's actually a very important town that has something to do with Titan that we showed earlier. And it's big. But it's not the biggest town. So there's a lot of information in that town, so you can't go there in the demo, but I do want people to see what sort of town it is, so I'll probably release some information separate from the demo.

Host: In towns, in standard RPGs, you can go shopping, or rest in an inn, or gather information, right?

Tabata: Yes.

Host: Can you do all that in towns [in Final Fantasy XV]?

Tabata: You can do all of it.

Host: I see.

Tabata: It's not an "inn" so much as a "hotel."

Host: Well, yes, with those graphics

Tabata: You can rest in hotels, have meals, go shopping, and other events will occur.

Battle Location

Host: (reading fan question) "Don't the battles always seem to take place in the same locations?" You know, I've noticed that, too.

Tabata: Me too. The reason is very simple. The first locations you saw were the most developed.

Host: I see.

Tabata: The other [locations] aren't that well developed yet. They'll gradually get more detailed, so please give us a little more time.

Camping

Host: (reading fan question) "You said 'you have to sleep at camps or you'll face debuffs' and it keeps me awake at night wondering what you meant."

Tabata: Do people know what a "debuff" is?

Host: "Debuff" is gamer lingo. Basically what you would call a "bad status."

Tabata: An abnormal status.

Host: Yes.

Tabata: The way it works is, if you don't sleep for long periods, you don't get a negative status – rather it's the opposite. "Buffs" are statuses with positive effects, and you stop getting those. Basically, things like increased spirits or feeling good or other added bonuses stop getting applied if you don't sleep for long periods of time.

Camping is one of the base features of XV. It's a world where time passes from morning to night, so in order to have Noctis and the others who inhabit it be more than just puppets, but living characters players can feel empathy towards, if you have them remain awake all the time, I thought it would be more effective if that was a bad thing.

Host: I see.

Tabata: Also, not only by making camp and eating do you get positive effects, but you gain experience points through combat, right?

Host: Yes.

Tabata: By resting, those experience points get converted to levels. So camping is actually very important, which is why I said what I did – although I don't remember if I used the term "debuff" or not.

Host: I see. So, you gain levels by sleeping, which means if you don't sleep, your levels don't increase. So, this is an action RPG, so if players wanted to try to a low-level playthrough, all they have to do is not sleep.

Tabata: Yes. Players who don't want to increase their levels should avoid sleeping.

Host: It's like a sweatshop.

Tabata: But I mentioned earlier that Cor is not in his 20s, but Noctis and the others are young men, so they can probably go about 3 days without sleeping. But if they were to go, say, 5 days or 10 days without sleep, they would never be in top condition.

Host: At TGS, you said one day in the game was about 30 minutes in real time, right?

Tabata: Yes.

Host: Is that still the same?

Tabata: It's currently about an hour. We'll probably tweak it a little more before the demo comes out, but we're in the middle of balancing the game between the length of each day and leveling.

Host: I see.

Tabata: Up to about 2 weeks ago, it was a little longer, but it's currently about 1 hour. Daytime is about 40 to 45 minutes and the rest is night. Something like that.

Host: So, saying you have to sleep [in the game] doesn't mean you have to sleep every day, but that you'll be fine for a few days without resting.

Tabata: Yes. In fact there are some placed where you have to keep fighting for multiple days.

Trains

Host: (reading fan question) "A train? A train?" I'm not sure if this is a question.

Tabata: Did you notice [the train]?

*Section cut because Tabata accidentally drops his earpiece receiver*

Tabata: Well, there's something of an event in a train – it's a very snowy scene in the trailer.

Host: Yes.

Tabata: That's not just an event scene, but somewhere in the world, there's a place that you get to by train.

Host: So it's something you ride? It actually moves?

Tabata: Yes. Not only that, but you can move freely inside the train. I don't know if everyone's taken trips on a train before, but there is a scene where they go by train.

Cidney

Host: (reading fan question) "Cidney-tan."

Tabata: I'm sorry, what am I supposed to answer there?

Host: Well, just who is she?

Tabata: Ah. Well, her name is "Cid"-ney, so that should give you an idea. But in terms of who she is to the player, well, she isn't integral to the story, rather she's integral to the player's adventure – she's a mechanic who supports your travels. What she works on, you can probably guess [from the trailer]

Host: That's who she is.

Magic

Host: (reading fan question) "You haven't shown much magic, but what's going on?"

Tabata: Magic has been delegated to the later stages of development. To be absolutely honest, there is a prototype of course, and the battle system has been made, and we'll be brushing up the graphics before releasing the final product. So for combat we make the basic system, brush up the graphics, and what we do next is add all the different actions that occur in battle, so at the moment, the magic looks kind of disappointing. That's why we haven't shown it yet.

Host: So it's just that the look hasn't been completed yet.

Tabata: Yes, and before the magic, we made a prototype summon, and players will be able to try that out first. So magic will probably come after that. The brushing up.

Host: I see.

Tabata: Also – I'm not sure if I can say this – in the world of XV, Noctis is the only one who can use magic.

Host: Yes.

Tabata: He's the only one with magic abilities. But as a game, having only Noctis be able to use magic doesn't really work, so we're implementing a rather unique system so that everyone in the party can use magic.

Language

Host: The English language trailer was released, but will the Japanese version of the game contain English as well?

Tabata: This is about the full game?

Host: This is about both the full game and the demo.

Tabata: Well, the demo is going to be released globally all with the same content. The reason for that is, basically with the languages, for the audio, we've got the Japanese and English voice tracks, and for subtitles, not only do we have Japanese, but we have English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish. And for the final product we'll probably have more, and we actually have all these languages ready, and we can fit all these in the ROM data. The demo is relatively small in size, so the demo will contain everything. But for the full game there's the issue of size, and scheduling which we need to clear in order for it to contain everything, which is what I want, but if [the full game] comes out and it doesn't have everything, just assume 'he couldn't do it.'

Host: That's your homework. So the demo will contain both English and Japanese tracks and all the subtitles.

Tabata: Yes.

Host: And for the full game, it depends on how far you can go.

Tabata: It's not just me. It depends on how far the entire team can go to make a universal game, or if we'll have to have region-specific versions. Basically, we're aiming for a multi-regional game.

Sounds pretty damn cool! Hype!

Looking real good. Love the draw distance and the frantic style open world fighting. Similar to XenoBlade. Hopefully everything comes together in a great package. I can see why it's taking so long to make. Look at how big the towns are. Lot of work. I wonder how many GB this game will take up?

Holy shit they turned Cid into a chick.

I'm actually ok with this.

You want to know how badly SE has fucked with my head over the years?

When I clicked on the topic and saw this first pic, I thought to myself "Is this a chick or a dude?...betting on it being a dude." Then I scrolled down further and saw bewbs. I don't know what to believe anymore.

Already looks like the best FF game.

looking good

I really hope it does. FF13 is selling way better than expected on PC + the FF14 fanbase. SE should do it at launch

I have a sneaking suspicion that the game is still gonna suck. Don't ask me why, I just get that feeling. I hope I'm wrong though.

@walloftruth@daious

I'm rather convinced that it'll release on PC guys :) As Daious mentioned, they're happy with FFXIII sales and I for one, think it was only released to test the waters in the first place.

release date - 2017

This looks like the best FF in years. It looks like they are finally giving us what we want and fixed the complaints we had before.

However, since all game journalists have an agenda, the game will be slammed for being "too sexist" and filled with "misogyny". I am already cringing at the future reviews. Good thing I don't care about reviews anymore. This will be a day one buy and the best FF since FFX.

Selling way better than expected? What does that really mean? Expectations were in the basement, and they've had to do multiple steam sales for the game.

Maybe they made some money considering they put no effort into the port job, but I'm willing to bet the next gen console FF13 trilogy still performs better despite the install base. And that's why SE treats console as priority. I suppose a port 4 years later isn't out of the question.

As of december, it was patched and it is now a decent port. It looks and runs very well (much better than than the original versions).

Regardless of how low expectations were, they were high enough that SE chose to port the game in the first place, so good results are good.

Looks promising so far. Let's hope it lives up to all the promise... although that might be difficult to do, since rarely has a game come out of development hell to become a great game, with the exception of Resident Evil 4. This could go the way of RE4... or Duke Nukem Forever.

Final Fantasy 15 actually looks pretty dope. Kind of like it's building on the shit from FF12, wonder what the upgrade system will be lack.

I'm definitely more interested in this game now after this trailer. The story seems interesting, as it seems like they are trying to outrun something. I hope this comes to the PC platform. If not, I'd just have to settle with picking it up for my PS4.

The graphics look really good, although this trailer revealed lots of jaggies. But, i'm just being picky :P. Looks good to me.

I hope they don't mess it up. Game looks great so far.

lol I only notice this till you brought it up and yea im ok with this as well. I like the look.

Thats japan in general dude lol.

Final Fantasy is good at trailers. I'll admit this one has me more interested.

I hate all of the characters though.

in b4 ******** "you can't use a sexy woman in a game"

This trailer pretty much raised my hype to a whole new level. I can't wait for this game.

@Krelian-co:

We'll keep an eye out for these "boogeywomen" of yours, Krelian.

just wait a couple of days for the feminazis to start making their dumb articles and start complaining, you heard it here first.

Oh great, another unplayable Cid. And the cleavage feels so forced its not even sexy. Theres no way Anita allows that character to see the light of day anyway.

Doesnt really matter because its obvious this is another story driven NOT character driven Final Fantasy loaded down with overwhelming George Lucas special effects.

It never ceases to amaze me that people put in charge of a video game that costs tens of millions to develop can fail at the absolute basic levels of story and gameplay design.

don't care about the game except for Luna ^_^

Again, why is sasukay is the main character?

@Krelian-co:

Criticizing a design choice is nothing new on the internet. Though I suppose neither is overreacting to it, if all the "********" talk is anything to go by.

me too. At least how they look. lol

Yes her clothing is really shitty but what do you mean the story will not be character driven? That their existence is not important? That they will not grow and evolve through the game? Because there is a point to why all the main cast are males and friends. According to old Nomura interviews their relationship is central to the story-line and to how things will unfold.

Criticizing a design is all well and fine but that's not what femnazi's like Sarkeesian do. Anita wants to prove that video games in combination with pop culture (of which video games are part of of-course) can encourage a change in the behavior of the masses to make them adopt misogynistic tendencies. That's why she absolutely loathe games like Bayonetta to the point she's making a video by the name of "Fighting **** Toys" just to slander it to oblivion. The evil known as Bayonetta, a game that flopped in sales and it's on the least popular console, must be eradicated before it turns more people into myopic rape-apologist sexist shitlords!

And she might be right when it comes to children just like Jack Thompson with violence, all he wanted was to prevent M-rate games from getting in the hands of children, but adults can discern reality from fantasy. Sexist people I doubt they are like that because of video games or movies and more to do with the environment in which they were raised.

SE is back baby!