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[Chiggs]

I just started playing this on Friday and I'm about 6 hours in. Story seems hilariously inaccessible since Kingsglaive is almost required viewing to understand it. Graphics are also clearly last-gen in so many ways, and the 4k resolution really hammers that point home.

And yet, the game still seems to work despite the flaws. It could have been a whole lot better, but it also could have been a lot lot worse.

My strategy guide arrived today and its production values are pretty nice.

Alright. HOLY SHIT.

I got a PS4 Pro today. Jesus Christ guys. It's night and day on my 65" 4K/HDR Samsung. Like, WOW. On Lite or High, it's just plain fucking beautiful now. Game honestly seemed borderline ugly at times on my OG PS4 - you could see the jaggies/aliasing creeping everywhere and the general lack of color. The game is practically luminescent now.

Fucking wow.

I've toggled between the two different modes and I am not nearly as wowed by the difference as you are.

 

[Shift Breaker]

I'm...really not going to look forward to chapter 13, am I?

Ah well, still got ages to go from here. One of the sidequests has already spoiled that I'm going to

Spoiler

Altissia

, although It's probably only a minor spoiler at best. Just wasn't expecting to see a sidequest location point to the edge of the map so soon.

Anyway, time to get on with the plot. The rest of chapter 3, here I come!

 

[Hobbes211]

Hi GAF,

I'm kinda in side quest overload in Chapter 3. I'm level 38 I believe, and I've only done one story quest in Duscae. Is there a real risk in overlevelling I should be concerned about? I've been wondering if I should just burn through the story and then come back and do the side quests. I've also tried saving up XP so as not to over level myself, but as I completed a story quest, it decided to make me rest at 2x EXP... I really wish there was a way to convert quest xp to gil or something.

 

[Tyaren]

Graphics are also clearly last-gen in so many ways

Can you elaborate in what regard the graphics feel last gen to you?

 

[Parmadillo Marshmallow]

Alright. HOLY SHIT.

I got a PS4 Pro today. Jesus Christ guys. It's night and day on my 65" 4K/HDR Samsung. Like, WOW. On Lite or High, it's just plain fucking beautiful now. Game honestly seemed borderline ugly at times on my OG PS4 - you could see the jaggies/aliasing creeping everywhere and the general lack of color. The game is practically luminescent now.

Fucking wow.

Yeah the difference between High and Lite is negligible to my eye, and with the frame pacing issue makes Lite a no brainer, but HDR is a game changer.

 

[Magnus]

I've toggled between the two different modes and I am not nearly as wowed by the difference as you are.

Yeah the difference between High and Lite is negligible to my eye, and with the frame pacing issue makes Lite a no brainer, but HDR is a game changer.

Wait what?

Haha, read what I said again.

I'm talking about the difference between how this game looked on my TV on the OG PS4 and now on the Pro.

Lite/High/HDR is a smaller set of differences for sure (though wow, HDR is gorgeous). What I'm saying is, just booting this game up on the Pro without even fiddling with in-game settings, it looked stupidly gorgeous compared to how it looked on my OG yesterday.

 

[Relaxed Muscle]

I do not get the chapter 13 hate. I really think that's ridiculously short-sighted to think that way, just because it's not what you'd expect. Especially when:

Spoiler

-It starts you off with a whole new school of seriously overpowered magic
-It's basically the Draklor Laboratories dungeon. Its not THAT long.
-It makes perfect sense thematically to have you start a stretch of game stripped of all your shit and friends.
-And you get all your shit back before the end of the dungeon anyway.

And you even get to keep that new school of magic and Royal Arms as prizes...

Games are allowed to try something new from time to time. If they listened to you all, we'd have three games to choose from and everything out there would fit into one of those molds.

Spoiler

- Death is efective against the goblins but not everything else. You can kill the zombie soldiers with the evade attacks, but takes to long and is NOT fun at all.The combat system is one of the best things in the game and they take you away that.Taking the stealthy approach is even worse, because stealth in this game is crap.
- The dungeon is quite bad designed, way worse that the other dungeons in the game, and is visually bland, with the same looking corridors everywhere.
- If you just didn't have your friends it would be ok, because they actually are a detriment to the combat system most of the time. Stripping the combat system was a poor idea.
- That was never a problem or a complaint


If you don't think that's bad, what about the shitty jumpscares that happens like 30 times in the whole chapter? Or that very poor attempt of giving you a Nemesis-like monster, who barely have the same effect, since he's not that powerful and basically he easily dissapears? All this drags for several hours, including a very shitty puzzle game, but that's actually the less shitty part of the chapter.

Is the worst chapter in a FF ever. Yeah, not even XIII falls that low.

 

[names2hard4you]

I've toggled between the two different modes and I am not nearly as wowed by the difference as you are.

Wish I also took Lite mode shots here to serve as comparison, but I can safely say High mode is quite the looker. Posted these here yesterday, when I got to Duscae:

 

[UpDownLeftRight]

So how do I get back to Altissia from Lucis? I've got a lot of xp to bank and don't want to waste it by resting but I'm not sure what else I can try?

 

[cpp_is_king]

I just got this Analzye Technique on Ignis and it says it automatically scans for weaknesses at the start of each battle. How does this work? I went into battle and nothing different seemed to happen. Where do I find these weaknesses?

 

[Shahadan]

So how do I get back to Altissia from Lucis? I've got a lot of xp to bank and don't want to waste it by resting but I'm not sure what else I can try?

Umbra can send you directly to altissia

 

[Chiggs]

Can you elaborate in what regard the graphics feel last gen to you?

Character models are especially last-gen. That Dave guy early on, for example. He looks really, really last gen.

Game is a mixed bag visually. Some of the creatures and environments are incredible, but other aspects not so much.

Wish I also took Lite mode shots here to serve as comparison, but I can safely say High mode is quite the looker. Posted these here yesterday, when I got to Duscae:

That's quite pretty.

Wait what?

Haha, read what I said again.

I'm talking about the difference between how this game looked on my TV on the OG PS4 and now on the Pro.

Lite/High/HDR is a smaller set of differences for sure (though wow, HDR is gorgeous). What I'm saying is, just booting this game up on the Pro without even fiddling with in-game settings, it looked stupidly gorgeous compared to how it looked on my OG yesterday.

I see. I have HDR on and it does look nice.

 

[UpDownLeftRight]

Umbra can send you directly to altissia

Ah gotcha. For some reason I thought the prompt came after resting.

 

[Dimmle]

The dungeons in this game are excellent in a very classic FF sense. The design gets a lot of mileage out of new aesthetics, simple set pieces, and traversal mechanics.

 

[Griss]

Wait what?

Haha, read what I said again.

I'm talking about the difference between how this game looked on my TV on the OG PS4 and now on the Pro.

Lite/High/HDR is a smaller set of differences for sure (though wow, HDR is gorgeous). What I'm saying is, just booting this game up on the Pro without even fiddling with in-game settings, it looked stupidly gorgeous compared to how it looked on my OG yesterday.

The thought of buying a pro and seeing some of the scenery in this game with all of those advantages is the one thing keeping me from feeling like I wasted my money.

 

[DrBretto]

Spoiler

- Death is efective against the goblins but not everything else. You can kill the zombie soldiers with the evade attacks, but takes to long and is NOT fun at all.The combat system is one of the best things in the game and they take you away that.Taking the stealthy approach is even worse, because stealth in this game is crap.
- The dungeon is quite bad designed, way worse that the other dungeons in the game, and is visually bland, with the same looking corridors everywhere.
- If you just didn't have your friends it would be ok, because they actually are a detriment to the combat system most of the time. Stripping the combat system was a poor idea.
- That was never a problem or a complaint


If you don't think that's bad, what about the shitty jumpscares that happens like 30 times in the whole chapter? Or that very poor attempt of giving you a Nemesis-like monster, who barely have the same effect, since he's not that powerful and basically he easily dissapears? All this drags for several hours, including a very shitty puzzle game, but that's actually the less shitty part of the chapter.

Is the worst chapter in a FF ever. Yeah, not even XIII falls that low.

You know there was another spell you're missing there, right?

You're really not helping the case against people being hyperbolic about this chapter, BTW.

 

[Parmadillo Marshmallow]

Are there additional ingredients that can make a spell higher than 99?

 

[Relaxed Muscle]

You know there was another spell you're missing there, right?

You're really not helping the case against people being hyperbolic about this chapter, BTW.

The other spell, sucked, it would let randomly foes alive for some reason.

Most people shares my criticism, with the whole chapter. So...yeah.

 

[DrBretto]

Are there additional ingredients that can make a spell higher than 99?

More elements add more, as do the items you combine them with. I have seen as high as 323, but I didn't want to waste whatever rare item I was looking at for it.

 

[Vic_Viper]

Im in Chapter 5 just doing a bunch of random hunts and exploring. Found this dungeon in the far left of the map called The Rock of Ravatogh. Its an above ground dungeon where you climb this mountain trying to get to the peak, fighting Bees and Wyverns along the way. So I got to a camping spot mid climb and then found this huge open area with Dragon Eggs on the top but the Boss never spawned!? Ended up back at the bottom after this huge slide sequence.

Is this dungeon part of a story sequence or something? Did I do something wrong? There is another path that I didnt take about 2/3 of the way up, about to try it but otherwise not sure what I needed to do.

 

[names2hard4you]

That's quite pretty.

It's honestly for scenes like these and that supersampled, super crisp IQ that I can't help but play on High mode. Once you play for an hour or two, going back to Lite feels like a little bit of a downgrade visually. Framepacing doesn't bother me much, but when it is fixed I hope Pro folks that are affected turn it on and get to enjoy this beautiful game. HDR on top would be so good, if only I had a screen that had it lol.

 

[AgentLampshade]

So uh... Chapter 14:

Spoiler

why exactly was there a ten year timeskip? Why did Noctis end up in Angelgard?

I can roll with any explanation, but if basic questions like "why am I here? How did I get here?" go unanswered, I'm afraid the game has a lot to answer to.

I enjoyed chapter 13, because it (eventually) made sense. I wasn't left questioning why I was there or how I got there.

 

[DrBretto]

The other spell, sucked, it would let randomly foes alive for some reason.

Gonna disagree.

Spoiler

I found it worked pretty damn reliably, at least there. And looked awesome to boot. And the dungeon itself, again, pretty much exactly Draklor Laboratories. No better or worse than a lot of RPG dungeons out there.

No offense, but you're being hyperbolic about it. It may not be everyone's favorite, but this "worst thing ever" crap is pure unadulterated hyperbole. It wasn't even the worst things in THIS game. (That would be

Spoiler

JERED

)

 

[edgefusion]

So about a late-game summon:

Spoiler

Shiva doesn't snap her fingers during her ulti!? Literally unplayable, 0/10, preorder cancelled.

 

[ShadowSoldier89]

I didnt find chapter 13 much worse than the rest of the game. Taking a bad combat system and limiting it really wasnt much of a bother. It was super easy throughout, and definitely dragged on

Spoiler

Once you get the sword it goes quickly enough, evade with ring > swap to sword and swing twice > swap to ring and evade, worked on basically any enemy. You can also just run away from large enemies and prep the triangle spell. Dont bother ever using Death

Chapter 9 was worse, but at least went by much faster. It was still the jankiest and dumbest shit i've ever played.

 

[Relaxed Muscle]

Gonna disagree.

Spoiler

I found it worked pretty damn reliably, at least there. And looked awesome to boot. And the dungeon itself, again, pretty much exactly Draklor Laboratories. No better or worse than a lot of RPG dungeons out there.

No offense, but you're being hyperbolic about it. It may not be everyone's favorite, but this worst thing ever crap is pure unadulterated hyperbole.

Looking awesome dosn't make it fun. And this dungeon is worse that the one you mentioned, because of all the added systems into it, which I detailed earlier. The fact that the design is undewhelming at best (and that the dungeon itself is very bland looking), is just the topping of the shit cake that is the whole chapter.

Is seriously the most annoyed and bored I have been on a FF game. Like I said, several people shares similar opinions that mine. The chapter is mostly disliked for a reason, the different levels of dislike may vary, but is a bad chapter.

Spoiler

Jared was bad, but wasn't gameplay, and gameplay blunders has a bigger impact on me

 

[sora87]

So... I might wait for the 60fps patch to do all the post game stuff, give me something to play when it comes out

 

[DrBretto]

Looking awesome dosn't make it fun. And thi dungeons is worse that the one you mentioned, because of all the added systems into it, which I detailed earlier. The fact that the design is undewhelming at best (and that the dungeon itself is very bland looking), is just the topping of of the shit cake of the whole chapter.

Is seriously the most annoyed and bored I have been on a FF game.

See, when someone says something "looks nice to boot" that "to boot" part means that that's not the primary consideration, it's an added bonus. Don't twist my words.

I disagree. And that's because I played it myself. It wasn't anywhere near as bad as you're making it out to be. Like I said earlier, I was sitting there in chapter 12 having a ball, getting mentally prepared for this horrible, terrible chapter 13 only to realize I was already half way through chapter 13 and didn't know it.

 

[Ralemont]

The only problem with Chapter 13 is that it goes on for way too long. I didn't find it a pain or problem to get through at all.

 

[DrBretto]

The only problem with Chapter 13 is that it goes on for way too long. I didn't find it a pain or problem to get through at all.

Yeah, I would totally agree it could have been a bit shorter.

 

[Tyaren]

I've toggled between the two different modes and I am not nearly as wowed by the difference as you are.

 

[MissDeviling]

The dungeons in this game are excellent in a very classic FF sense. The design gets a lot of mileage out of new aesthetics, simple set pieces, and traversal mechanics.

The dungeons are amazing. Not too long, at least not the main game ones up to ch. 5 from what I can see. Beautiful designs and monsters to go with them.

 

[Clear]

Spoiler

- Death is efective against the goblins but not everything else. You can kill the zombie soldiers with the evade attacks, but takes to long and is NOT fun at all.The combat system is one of the best things in the game and they take you away that.Taking the stealthy approach is even worse, because stealth in this game is crap.
- The dungeon is quite bad designed, way worse that the other dungeons in the game, and is visually bland, with the same looking corridors everywhere.
- If you just didn't have your friends it would be ok, because they actually are a detriment to the combat system most of the time. Stripping the combat system was a poor idea.
- That was never a problem or a complaint


If you don't think that's bad, what about the shitty jumpscares that happens like 30 times in the whole chapter? Or that very poor attempt of giving you a Nemesis-like monster, who barely have the same effect, since he's not that powerful and basically he easily dissapears? All this drags for several hours, including a very shitty puzzle game, but that's actually the less shitty part of the chapter.

Is the worst chapter in a FF ever. Yeah, not even XIII falls that low.

Errr...

Spoiler

1. Death's kinda meh, but the R1+triangle attack one-shots everything up to the Iron Giants and cannot be interrupted once it starts charging properly. Provided the MT knights aren't facing you you can even start to charge as they are attacking.

2. You get a sword half way through the chapter. At which point the ring becomes a secondary method of attack. There's no need for stealth either after the beginning.

3. If you keep getting grabbed its because you keep walking over bodies, which you don't have to do. If you see a downed MT's head moving, its a grabber.

4. You can drive the Ravus off temporarily by using Death on it.

 

[Relaxed Muscle]

See, when someone says something "looks nice to boot" that "to boot" part means that that's not the primary consideration, it's an added bonus. Don't twist my words.

I disagree. And that's because I played it myself. It wasn't anywhere near as bad as you're making it out to be. Like I said earlier, I was sitting there in chapter 12 having a ball, getting mentally prepared for this horrible, terrible chapter 13 only to realize I was already half way through chapter 13 and didn't know it.

You're free to disagree. As I said, many people disliked the chapter, which is a testament of it's quality.

 

[GwyndolinCinder]

You know, as much as I hate chapter 13 as well, I really really enjoy the boss fight near its end. Probably the most exhilarating and challenging boss outside of the penultimate final boss in the game.

This is kinda true, but kinda goes to say how bad the bosses are in this game.
Well not necessarily the bosses, more how the bosses interact with the game play mechanics.
The most challenging part of bosses and arguably the only challenging party, is when bosses do a room wide aoe that kills your entire party, but you can dodge with a warp strike.
Dont think

Spoiler

Ifrit

was challenging at all,he was half badass/ half "wait is there a gimmick i'm missing, or does this take forever".Still fun though.

 

[AgentLampshade]

The only problem with Chapter 13 is that it goes on for way too long. I didn't find it a pain or problem to get through at all.

It was easy until the

Spoiler

Ravus boss fight. His crazy one-hit kills used up my elixir stock.

 

[PshycoNinja]

XII definitely takes the right mindset. Personally, I LOVED the gambits and made a game out of micromanaging them and laying off the controller as much as possible. But, that's not for everyone.

XIII takes a different mindset, too. You have to pretend you're more like the leader issuing out basic commands rather than controlling the game itself. It's actually really fun once you get the hang of it.

I need to finally play the KH games, but I'm waiting for HD remakes or something.

There were moments in both those games where I got into the follow of things but...didn't find it engaging(?) if that makes any sense. But I can totally see why people would love those combat systems.

Yeah. I am a big fan of KH for making me feel cool. I am glad they evolved the system as much as they have from KHI.

 

[Ralemont]

It was easy until the

Spoiler

Ravus boss fight. His crazy one-hit kills used up my elixir stock.

That fight took awhile but I used a shield for the one-hits and it made things pretty easy.

 

[Parmadillo Marshmallow]

More elements add more, as do the items you combine them with. I have seen as high as 323, but I didn't want to waste whatever rare item I was looking at for it.

I didn't even realize you could mix elements. Thanks.

 

[DrBretto]

There were moments in both those games where I got into the follow of things but...didn't find it engaging(?) if that makes any sense. But I can totally see why people would love those combat systems.

Yeah. I am a big fan of KH for making me feel cool. I am glad they evolved the system as much as they have from KHI.

It totally makes sense, yeah. I feel like both of those combat systems just target certain types of gamers, so they end up being polarized. Couldn't fault anyone for it.

 

[Shahadan]

You know, as much as I hate chapter 13 as well, I really really enjoy the boss fight near its end. Probably the most exhilarating and challenging boss outside of the penultimate final boss in the game.

I cheesed him with

Spoiler

Death, lol. After a while he falls down and is "vulnerable" and takes a lot of damage. I just had to heal my dumb friends who stood near him while he was charging his instakill.

That was rather boring but still more interesting than attacking all over the place and barely damaging him

 

[GwyndolinCinder]

There were moments in both those games where I got into the follow of things but...didn't find it engaging(?) if that makes any sense. But I can totally see why people would love those combat systems.

Yeah. I am a big fan of KH for making me feel cool. I am glad they evolved the system as much as they have from KHI.

Alot of turn based/13 system engagement comes from the planning concepts of attack and defense, optimizing your time etc. I know this isnt for everyone, but its great fun for me.

 

[Sapientas]

I do not get the chapter 13 hate. I really think that's ridiculously short-sighted to think that way, just because it's not what you'd expect. Especially when:

Spoiler

-It starts you off with a whole new school of seriously overpowered magic
-It's basically the Draklor Laboratories dungeon. Its not THAT long.
-It makes perfect sense thematically to have you start a stretch of game stripped of all your shit and friends.
-And you get all your shit back before the end of the dungeon anyway.

And you even get to keep that new school of magic and Royal Arms as prizes...

Games are allowed to try something new from time to time. If they listened to you all, we'd have three games to choose from and everything out there would fit into one of those molds.

Everything about the chapter feels bad. Others have said it better in this and the spoiler thread, but I will try it too.

Spoiler

The gameplay is horrible and removes the best parts of the game. It's not fun to go through dozens of stealth corridors with annoying and repetitive jump scares. You also can't run for some reason. You spend about 2 hours dragging along this bland as hell place.
The Ring of Lucii is a neat trinket, not a fun one though and the novelty runs out fast. Death only works with the Globins at the start, Holy is very weak, making Altima pretty much your only real option. It has a awesome visual effect, but it gets boring. The problem is not the effectiveness of your gear, it's how annoying it is for the game to completely ignore the combat system it has to put something worse in it's place in the climax of the plot for hours.

Visually this is the worst place of the game. At the beginning you see glimpses of the Empire Capital, only to be thrown at these corridors with nothing on them. It's a complete break from open fields and visuals you've grown accustomed.

But for me the worst part is the plot. It's here that I finally realized how messy and disappointing the game's story is. The Empire's downfall, Iedolas abysmal treatment and "boss fight", these documents littered across the fortress trying to cover the holes the plot have, Prompto's horrible reveal (that comes out of nowhere and stays there), Ardyn's cheap and progressively silly provocations through the entire chapter. Felt like a giant slap on my face...

It's not hyperbole for me when I say it's the worst part of a Final Fantasy game. Can't remember any sequence that bad in the entire series, although I would love to be proven wrong.

 

[ShadowSoldier89]

It was easy until the

Spoiler

Ravus boss fight. His crazy one-hit kills used up my elixir stock.

that fight was easy, every time he goes to use any big attack just activate a partner technique for 15 seconds of invincibility, or click "Rescue" on an inevitably dying teammate for 3 seconds of invincibility. You can use this absolutely brilliant strategy on every large AoE in the game actually

 

[Mifec]

The time has come Dunkview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITfKaUFfx7g

spoilers after 3:40.

 

[gfxtwin]

Just got to chapter 9. Went from an open world landscape to what seems to be a gorgeous open world city. Is this what everyone meant when they said the games gets linear at ch. 9?

 

[Dimmle]

The dungeons are amazing. Not too long, at least not the main game ones up to ch. 5 from what I can see. Beautiful designs and monsters to go with them.

They're making the game for me. Every time I discover a new one I get this sense of elation that's pretty much my favorite sensation in gaming.

 

[Pachimari]

How does Ignis' Analyze work? Because I still don't know the enemy's weak spot after he uses it..

 

[Relaxed Muscle]

Errr...

Spoiler

1. Death's kinda meh, but the R1+triangle attack one-shots everything up to the Iron Giants and cannot be interrupted once it starts charging properly. Provided the MT knights aren't facing you you can even start to charge as they are attacking.

2. You get a sword half way through the chapter. At which point the ring becomes a secondary method of attack. There's no need for stealth either after the beginning.

3. If you keep getting grabbed its because you keep walking over bodies, which you don't have to do. If you see a downed MT's head moving, its a grabber.

4. You can drive the Ravus off temporarily by using Death on it.

Spoiler

1. Versus failed to me several times, and having to run until you get MP back, is even less fun that using evade, so I mostly used evade.

2. You are still stripped down of most combat mechanics, the weapon even has less combos and attacks than normal weapons. Is still not fun.

3. Sometimes there's no other option to go to the path of the bodies. Sometimes even if you tried to evade them, they still grab you, since the corridors are too small.

4. Ravus? And if you mean the daemon emperor, is just easier to run past him. The problem is that the whole intention of presenting you an invincible enemy that pursues you kinda falls apart when you run for 5 seconds to the next room and he dissapers. If you played RE3, you would knew how menacing and terrifying Nemesis is, the poor attempt to replicate it on XV is laughable as equally stupid.

 

[Jeels]

I want some dlc costumes before I keep playing. The ones they give at the beginning aren't enough.