The 2013 one was a fake trailer. It was made up of Versus scenes they had at the time, and target render "gameplay" put together by Silicon Studio. It only served to announce that Versus has been changed to XV.
Final Fantasy XV SPOILER THREAD
- Thread starter Kagari
- Start date
The 2013 one was a fake trailer. It was made up of Versus scenes they had at the time, and target render "gameplay" put together by Silicon Studio. It only served to announce that Versus has been changed to XV.
That's JF 2014
yeah time flies
No, Balls was right in this one. It was named Jump Festa 2015, but the event was held in Dec 20-21 2014.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jump_Festa
I too noticed there were quite a few CGI scenes removed from the game. Regrettably......
Dark_castle
Junior Member
So anyone knows who exactly is Ardyn? What was his motive for doing what he did?
roflwaffles
Member
Hows the fight with the dude with the white hair? I love his design.
DiipuSurotu
Banned
If you showed this final battle to a non-fan with no context, they'd think it's a tutorial battle at the start of the game :lol
So fucking true! They really botched it imo. My God is it bad.
XANDER CAGE
Member
Alright, given this game's status as Most Interesting Development History Of All Time I let curiosity get the better of me and poked around the leaks. Keep in mind, I am not a huge FF fan: I like FFI, II, VI, appreciate VII as a landmark release but don't particularly adore it myself, and I will cape for X-2 and XII any day of the week. By no means am I an expert.
I... like what they're going for with this ending, but from the looks of it, the execution is wonky as hell. That's to be expected, I guess, and I get the feeling that's gonna be the prevailing opinion in reviews and retrospectives in the years to follow. They tried. Given the development hell this game went through - the reboots, the engine troubles, the delays, the demo releases - there's definitely something I admire about just how much they went for it with some of this stuff. Man, the seams are obvious, though. The game has always looked like a mixed bag visually; incredible character models with terribly aliased hair, gorgeous vistas dotted with terribly simple foliage, etc etc. I was already aghast watching the Conan footage where they fight the giant turtle - which looks great! - and then it just up and disappears. They were still tweaking basic gameplay elements after releasing demos, so it was always fairly obvious the game was going to be duct-taped together in the end, but man is it apparent in the stuff I'm seeing here.
What on earth is that Leviathan scene? We go from a well shot, well lit conversation between two character to an awkwardly paced speech sequence full of dopey NPCs and flat camera work. Then there's a whole lot of loading. Then there's the fight itself, which... I'll have to play it myself to be sure, but it looks wonky as hell. The push and pull between narrative and gameplay here just seems so weird. JRPGs have often had hard barriers between "the game part" and "the story part" - especially in the PS1/PS2 era, where CG cutscenes were practically a reward for completing gameplay segments. Trying to merge the two is admirable, but looking at the Levi fight, I'm not sure fixed camera angles and repeated QTEs are the best way to do that.
Then there's the ending, which, devoid of full context for Ardyn, I can't really speak to the effectiveness of fully, but... ugh, it's SO CLOSE to being right up my street. I've always been a fan of one-on-one, intimate boss fights without any of the pomp or ridiculousness of most RPG battles. Dueling with Ardyn while he gives you his spiel is such a cool idea, but the gameplay looks so wobbly here, and there's something incredibly funny about this stripped-down duel still ending with Noctis fucking pummeling Ardyn to death with a dozen different kinds of weapons with cool camera angles. Even when this game is trying to show restraint, there's zero restraint.
And that's what I'm worried about, I guess. I would love to be wrong, but the pacing of this game seems jacked up. Everything is The Biggest Coolest Thing Holy Shit Fuck Listen To This Choir Wow!!!!!!! all the damn time, and it's exhausting. I feel pummeled just watching those two boss fights back-to-back; if they're all like that (and judging from the footage I've seen out there of Titan, Bahamut, Ifrit, etc) I feel like I'm gonna be drained before I even hit the halfway point of the game. It's not that any of those scenes are individually bad (I mean, they could be, and the Ardyn one sort of is, but I digress) and more that as a whole, it's too much. This story was pitched as an intimate tale about brotherhood and sacrifice yadda yadda yadda, and it just seems to turn the knob up to 11 immediately. Shit, I know it was played for a joke, but even that Conan fight with the big ol' tortoise feels like this. Sure, "oops the tremors turned out to be a giant tortoise" is a funny gag, but then you still fight it while The Movie Trailer Orchestra fuckin' belts out another banger for your earholes. It almost feels like separate teams were all given separate boss design assignments and each erroneously assumed they were working on the finale.
I wish half the amount of effort and care that went into these elaborate scenes had gone into more emotional scenes. If all of your boys die off screen, that's ridiculous. I wish the side quest NPCs had more life to them than stiffly standing in place like Sonic 2006 quest givers. I wish the combat was as meticulous to control as the animations are, but after playing the demos I'm pretty sure that's not the case. I wish the pacing had been more carefully planned out, and not just all epic all the time. All this sucks because there's a lot here I want to love. The character driven road trip story sounded great on paper. Killing off multiple major characters is cool and bold and I love a good downer/bittersweet ending, but there's so much goofy stuff in the way.
I'm really, really curious what the general consensus is going to be with this game. The way the game mashes together incredibly high-concept ideas with clearly strained production values - seriously, the diorama city in those summons? People are going to notice - almost makes it feel like a Cavia game. It's just that Cavia games are 1. way, way, way lower budget in actuality than FFXV and 2. underneath all the jank, there's often something really unique and cool in those games. I'm hoping that when all is said and done, that's true of FFXV too, but... I'm really worried.
I... like what they're going for with this ending, but from the looks of it, the execution is wonky as hell. That's to be expected, I guess, and I get the feeling that's gonna be the prevailing opinion in reviews and retrospectives in the years to follow. They tried. Given the development hell this game went through - the reboots, the engine troubles, the delays, the demo releases - there's definitely something I admire about just how much they went for it with some of this stuff. Man, the seams are obvious, though. The game has always looked like a mixed bag visually; incredible character models with terribly aliased hair, gorgeous vistas dotted with terribly simple foliage, etc etc. I was already aghast watching the Conan footage where they fight the giant turtle - which looks great! - and then it just up and disappears. They were still tweaking basic gameplay elements after releasing demos, so it was always fairly obvious the game was going to be duct-taped together in the end, but man is it apparent in the stuff I'm seeing here.
What on earth is that Leviathan scene? We go from a well shot, well lit conversation between two character to an awkwardly paced speech sequence full of dopey NPCs and flat camera work. Then there's a whole lot of loading. Then there's the fight itself, which... I'll have to play it myself to be sure, but it looks wonky as hell. The push and pull between narrative and gameplay here just seems so weird. JRPGs have often had hard barriers between "the game part" and "the story part" - especially in the PS1/PS2 era, where CG cutscenes were practically a reward for completing gameplay segments. Trying to merge the two is admirable, but looking at the Levi fight, I'm not sure fixed camera angles and repeated QTEs are the best way to do that.
Then there's the ending, which, devoid of full context for Ardyn, I can't really speak to the effectiveness of fully, but... ugh, it's SO CLOSE to being right up my street. I've always been a fan of one-on-one, intimate boss fights without any of the pomp or ridiculousness of most RPG battles. Dueling with Ardyn while he gives you his spiel is such a cool idea, but the gameplay looks so wobbly here, and there's something incredibly funny about this stripped-down duel still ending with Noctis fucking pummeling Ardyn to death with a dozen different kinds of weapons with cool camera angles. Even when this game is trying to show restraint, there's zero restraint.
And that's what I'm worried about, I guess. I would love to be wrong, but the pacing of this game seems jacked up. Everything is The Biggest Coolest Thing Holy Shit Fuck Listen To This Choir Wow!!!!!!! all the damn time, and it's exhausting. I feel pummeled just watching those two boss fights back-to-back; if they're all like that (and judging from the footage I've seen out there of Titan, Bahamut, Ifrit, etc) I feel like I'm gonna be drained before I even hit the halfway point of the game. It's not that any of those scenes are individually bad (I mean, they could be, and the Ardyn one sort of is, but I digress) and more that as a whole, it's too much. This story was pitched as an intimate tale about brotherhood and sacrifice yadda yadda yadda, and it just seems to turn the knob up to 11 immediately. Shit, I know it was played for a joke, but even that Conan fight with the big ol' tortoise feels like this. Sure, "oops the tremors turned out to be a giant tortoise" is a funny gag, but then you still fight it while The Movie Trailer Orchestra fuckin' belts out another banger for your earholes. It almost feels like separate teams were all given separate boss design assignments and each erroneously assumed they were working on the finale.
I wish half the amount of effort and care that went into these elaborate scenes had gone into more emotional scenes. If all of your boys die off screen, that's ridiculous. I wish the side quest NPCs had more life to them than stiffly standing in place like Sonic 2006 quest givers. I wish the combat was as meticulous to control as the animations are, but after playing the demos I'm pretty sure that's not the case. I wish the pacing had been more carefully planned out, and not just all epic all the time. All this sucks because there's a lot here I want to love. The character driven road trip story sounded great on paper. Killing off multiple major characters is cool and bold and I love a good downer/bittersweet ending, but there's so much goofy stuff in the way.
I'm really, really curious what the general consensus is going to be with this game. The way the game mashes together incredibly high-concept ideas with clearly strained production values - seriously, the diorama city in those summons? People are going to notice - almost makes it feel like a Cavia game. It's just that Cavia games are 1. way, way, way lower budget in actuality than FFXV and 2. underneath all the jank, there's often something really unique and cool in those games. I'm hoping that when all is said and done, that's true of FFXV too, but... I'm really worried.
Hahaha what?
F0rneus
Tears in the rain
Is there a strong female character in FFXV? Luna was supposed to be strong. We were supposed to join her battles according to Tabata....No such thing. Again, after seeing the ending...the story would have been stronger if it was just Noctis and Luna. At least IMO. I'm a sucker for romance.
A lot of the preview impressions of the early parts of the game are the opposite - that there's not much story with the focus being on the bros.
I think it's natural that spoiler discussions, for a title '10 years' in the making, that broke street date, are going to focus on the most bombastic parts of it all. The ending because, well, it's the ending, and Leviathan since it was the focus of the FFXV rebranding in 2013.
That's what people want to see. No one's interested (well, relatively speaking) in banter while driving around, random sidequests, quieter character moments, etc.
Not that I'm saying pacing issues, whether meta or moment-to-moment direction, wouldn't be a problem when analyzing the game as a whole, mind you.
So, no bros? I mean I'd love a spin-off game based on the Omen trailer lol
F0rneus
Tears in the rain
Game kind of screams Metal Gear Rising action, with just the two of 'em. Ardyn fight fits so well with Monsoon's theme lol. I'd legit pay for that.
XANDER CAGE
Member
I dunno, what are you counting as "strong" here? I've only seen the Leviathan cutscene but she certainly seems strong there - forced into a bad position by another strong-willed character (also a woman) but certainly no damsel in distress. Pushing that gun out of her face is a nice touch.
I won't disagree if you think she should be in the game more, but I mean, as presented she seems fine imo.
This is true but man the Ardyn fight seems ruined by ridiculousness. I get that this is a common thing in a lot of Japanese media and isn't a sin specific to FFXV by any means but I wish they would've made up their mind on whether they wanted to have an intimate duel or a rock and roll laser battle.
F0rneus
Tears in the rain
I was really hoping she'd join the party at some point. I mean FFXV's a jrpg at heart. With how they were selling her, I was legit expecting a warrior princess. Some chick who'd be wrecking monsters, and that we'd be joining her fights.
In the end IMO, Luna is a fridged girl. She's there for Noctis to hate Ardyn as a plot point, and I'm a bit crushed about that.
Have you seen FF7:AC. The way they start dueling through the ruins while ignoring the laws of gravity is completely the same haha.
BossDarkseid
Member
It would have been cool to get her as party member, even temporarily, no doubt. Having obviously not played the game myself yet though, I'm not sure I agree she's a fridged girl because it seems like they actually give her and Noctis backstory and a relationship so her being a vessel for Noctis to hate Ardyn feels a little more earned than if it was just "So here's this no name princess you must marry for peace. She died...." but I guess it is semantics in a way.
She could have been done in a better way, we can obviously agree on that. Given how people talk about the execution of the ending it feels like XV tries to do some cool things, some new things for the series and doesn't always pull them off...which I suppose is the fate of a game in development so long.
Edit: The romance aspect seems kinda sweet because while typically I'd eyeroll...its been so long since I've played a game with it in it feels nice.
I can't really speak for Ardyn since the video we have of the boss being rushed through on easy might not represent his full moveset and/or how he's balanced, but I didn't really see it as playing to the strengths of the duel boss setup. Also, the Leviathan boss kind of reminded me of a slower, larger Echidna - just with the crucial difference of not being fought with regular gameplay. Still, I don't think either looks particularly bad from what we've seen - they seem adequate for an ARPG.
My favourite thing from the Ardyn battle is the little animation of him kicking Noctis while he's down, it's so petty. The Armiger duel and finishing sequence left me a little cold as well - context could help, but you're right that the down-to-earth, low-key elements of the finale and the huge, bombastic aspects kind of work against each other; instead of being used to create a cohesive whole.
F0rneus
Tears in the rain
Frankly, I rewatched the ending earlier, and I was legit weeping like a baby. So in a sense they did right by their story. Luna's place in the story works IMO. I was just hoping she would be more. I mean....I was hoping for some DLC in some way...despite all my doubts about Tabata haha. But I guess no such thing is possible. Iris is my last shot lol! Moogle sledge GO!
Yeah...after all my only gage of the gameplay, is the game on Easy. Even then, I think it looks fabulous. I think I'll be enjoying the hell out of these final battles. Not just the glorious OST. But the tougher gameplay. Streamer rushed through the thing, which made me think the game was rather short. Now I know better.
XANDER CAGE
Member
Yeah, I hate that kind of thing. I get that's more of a taste issue but I think it really is at odds with the more down-to-earth stuff in the rest of the Ardyn fight.
F0rneus
Tears in the rain
Original Yazmat kind of took days to defeat, so I'm really hoping it's that long. For the crazies haha. Maybe I'll do it. Depends lol.
poipoipoi9
Member
Yazmat let's you save in between fighting. I hope Adamantoise let's you do the same.
Although the real thing I want is for some hidden weapon in the game that lets you kill him instantly. A raid boss in a single player game is unacceptable.
I could do that fight if I can leave it and then come back to it if it doesn't regenerate health.
F0rneus
Tears in the rain
I'm expecting a level 99 fight only. and that it'll last hours. I don't think it'll be Yazmat long, but man....a trophy would be nice!
poipoipoi9
Member
IIRC a gold trophy is attached to this. Even at lvl 99 Yazmat still took a few hours.
I mean since Tabata said it'd take three in game weeks to kill it, maybe he'll reward astute players who advance the system clock by three weeks? 10 hours is absurd and I highly doubt anyone aside from hardcore fans would even go through with it.
Wasn't there raid bosses in the FF MMO that legitimately took 24/7 days for entire teams to kill?
I can see this being true.
Chiggs
Gold Member
I watched the clip and now I am really worried.
Going by precedent, that means the name of the moves are "power of light" and "you're dead meat" right?
anyone?
i'll show myself out
Even having watched most of the story i am still confused. Many things are not explained, even the supporting characters, are not developed good enough.
I mean, they talk about themselves a lot, but maybe i am more the traditional guy who wanted much more cutscenes for supporting characters.
About Ardyn motivations he explains them during Chapter 13, but they seem weak to me, or i didn't understand enough. It only seems Ardyn Izunia is not his real name, but it's Ardyn Lucis Caelum. His motivations seems to be just revolving about revenge.
About the shift from Chapter 10 onwards i don't particularly mind it, but there will be people who whill dislike it, a lot. It's a completely different setting that can be quite linear.
All things considered i don't see the game being a proper return to form, it's a return to FF XII quality, at most. As in, it's a good game but flawed. Still better than FF XIII.
In FF XV you have enough freedom to move, explore, read documents here and there that add to the lore, there is much more interaction with the world, and that's important in a Jrpg world.
I mean, they talk about themselves a lot, but maybe i am more the traditional guy who wanted much more cutscenes for supporting characters.
About Ardyn motivations he explains them during Chapter 13, but they seem weak to me, or i didn't understand enough. It only seems Ardyn Izunia is not his real name, but it's Ardyn Lucis Caelum. His motivations seems to be just revolving about revenge.
About the shift from Chapter 10 onwards i don't particularly mind it, but there will be people who whill dislike it, a lot. It's a completely different setting that can be quite linear.
All things considered i don't see the game being a proper return to form, it's a return to FF XII quality, at most. As in, it's a good game but flawed. Still better than FF XIII.
In FF XV you have enough freedom to move, explore, read documents here and there that add to the lore, there is much more interaction with the world, and that's important in a Jrpg world.
GwyndolinCinder
Member
Coming to the realization, i'm just buying the game to get it over with now.
Yabberwocky
Member
That pretty much summarizes my feelings on what I've seen of FFXV, too, especially when it comes to story and presentation. Like you mentioned, I was always one of those people who personally found the CG scenes in FF to be a nice little reward. (It got me through some lulls in FFXIII, lawd.) I know what they're going for with the Leviathan and Ardyn boss scenes, but I'm not sure if the issues outweigh the interactive advantages. I think Platinum Games have managed to achieve the right combination of snappy, interactive gameplay with a cinematic presentation, but they've understandably had a lot more experience.
Even though I'm frustrated by a lot of elements of what I've seen of the game, props to Tabata and BD2 for getting the game finished and released. I shudder to think of how exhausting the dev process behind all this has been. I hope poor Tabata gets a nice, long vacation and many cold beers.
I won't go into the discussion too much until the full game is out (well, that's kind of a lie after writing a few paragraphs later!), but Luna still sadly feels pretty fridged to me. They've tried to alleviate it somewhat by making her aware of her impending doom, and that she will knowingly sacrifice herself for Noctis - but that just feels like a bit of justification for the story beats, really. The fridge-ing is even worse in some ways because her character revolves around Noctis, which FF on a whole has surprisingly managed to avoid with its female leads. I feel like FFVII was the last one in the mainline games that was similar in role, with Tifa for Cloud. I feel like Luna plays an almost Serah like role in FFXV, as Serah was just a plot device to push Snow's and Lighting's motivations, and Serah getting ice cubed set the ball rolling for the main cast. (I'm trying to be hopeful, but I'm guessing Luna will have about the same amount of screen time that Serah did in FFXIII. Lots of flashbacks for Serah in XIII, too.) Luna has a bit more relevance and agency, at least, with her role as the Oracle + awakening the Astrals.
I was also a bit disappointed at the ending when Regis talks about Luna 'doing well to deliver the ring to Noctis'. After the absolute hell she went through, and her role as the Oracle, that's what she gets a mention for, delivering a ring? Obviously the ring was very important, but I also feels like it summarises the point of her character in both FFXV and Kingsglaive in a nut shell. A plot device primarily, character second. I know it's not fair to judge too much before the game is entirely out, but I feel like there is very little that can be added that changes the reality with the story beats of Luna's character.
I do really like Luna and Noctis as a couple (or really, the idea of them as a couple), and I think it's refreshingly cute that Noctis seems even more smitten with her than she with him. I guess with Squall/Rinoa, Zidane/Garnet, and Yuna/Tidus, we spend a lot of time seeing their relationships build. I don't mind having love interests that know each other prior to the story starting, but because of the small amount of time that Luna appears in the game, they've had to do a lot more telling than showing with their relationship. Even if there are flashbacks, or if Noctis spends a lot of time with Ghost!Luna after her death (please don't, I don't want Unchained Melody/Ghost flashbacks), I still can't imagine how it wouldn't feel comparatively a bit shallow.
A positive is that Luna doesn't feel as damsel in distress-y as she did in Kingsglaive. Props to the English version, too, as Amy Shiels did a wonderful job with the Leviathan scene and the confrontation with Ardyn. Darin De Paul is a bit of a force of nature, and I felt like Shiels easily held her own.
I'm really interested to know where Ravus and Gentiana were when Ardyn was pontificating and shanking Luna. Ravus was also in Altissia, wasn't he? I saw a screengrab with him and Ardyn. Ravus and Gentiana, you have failed terribly with protecting Luna. You're beyond fired. The Ravus/Luna interactions were my favorite part of the Judgment trailer, so I imagine her death isn't going to help those not-so warm and fuzzy feels that Ravus has towards Noctis and his family line. (...which, come to think of it, also gives another character plot motivation due to a fridged Luna. Sigh.)
A stream of the final chapters if anyone wants to have a look
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aks7SG8JB40
He is approaching Altissia now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aks7SG8JB40
He is approaching Altissia now.
SaniOYOYOY
Member
it would be interesting to know about public's opinion about this game, I do think last fight and ending will be polarizing tho.
my bet is after this ff brand in mainstream eye will return to what it is before the damage done by 13+vanilla 14
Squenix japan will be even healthier. DQ builder is amazing, nier looks incredible, KH3 is fine and we will get more announcementafter 2.8 drops
.7re tho... thats when the fun starts again
my bet is after this ff brand in mainstream eye will return to what it is before the damage done by 13+vanilla 14
Squenix japan will be even healthier. DQ builder is amazing, nier looks incredible, KH3 is fine and we will get more announcementafter 2.8 drops
DONT YOU DARE KILL EVEN A SINGLE ONE OF OUR BUDDY THERE LIKE TABBY DOES HERE NOMURA
So pretty. <3 Altissia especially at night.
Maintenance
Member
Finally some real spoilers.
What a garbage ending, holy shit. After Type-0 and 3rd Birthday people still tried to believe that Tabata had any chance to make this good, what a shame.
What a garbage ending, holy shit. After Type-0 and 3rd Birthday people still tried to believe that Tabata had any chance to make this good, what a shame.
poipoipoi9
Member
I personally found her VA to be much better than her Japanese counterpart. And actually the English VA (Gladio and Ravus aside) is pretty good.
Seems like it lets you go back and do sidequests?
Nobody tried them yet.
Impulsor
Member
That doesn't mean its good.
It just means the Japanese VA is worse.
I mean, I watched a bit of the Leaviathan scene and wow.
I do enjoy theVA in general though. Even Gladio. Luna is just, ughhh. So unnatural and forced.
poipoipoi9
Member
Fair enough, but I still believe her performance is quite believable. And yes, her Japanese VA is much worse. (She sounds like a child in that one, even Iris sounds older than her)
Looks like Shimomura's been playing a lot of Skyrim lately.
Looks like Shimomura's been playing a lot of Skyrim lately.
poipoipoi9
Member
Leviathan appears to be clipping through a few of the buildings in that fight.
Z
ZombieFred
Unconfirmed Member
I am not going to lie but this looks absolutely horrible battle wise.
Who thought this would be fun to do?
Who thought this would be fun to do?