14 DAY TRIAL // A new video has appeared online, showing the Final Fantasy XV demo showcased at Tokyo Game Show 2014, consisting of a few minutes of gameplay footage from the highly anticipated game, complete with relevant commentary.
In addition to the video, some new details also emerged at TGS 2014, offering us a better picture of Square Enix's upcoming role-playing game, Final Fantasy XV.
The jump to next-gen prompted a change in direction
The game's director, Hajime Tabata, mentioned that the next installment in the long-standing Final Fantasy series was roughly 55 to 60 percent complete, and that it changed drastically after he was put in charge of the project around two years ago.
"This is not the exact same game. The director is different, and the platform was switched to the current gen. And because the platform has changed, there were things we had to re-evaluate, like what we can and cannot do or even what we have to do. The various circumstances are different," he revealed during an interview with Kotaku.
He also said that the recently revealed trailer was rendered almost entirely in-engine, showing the power of the proprietary Luminous Engine.
"The FFXV trailer was all in-game engine, except for the part with the spaceships flying. That was pre-rendered," Tabata informed.
Open-world elements and combat flow
The TGS 2014 trailer was meant to showcase the semi-open world, and the road trip atmosphere does a pretty good job of that. However, players won't have too much freedom on their hands, because the game is, after all, a narrative-driven adventure.
"If the game is totally open world, it kind of defeats what makes a Final Fantasy game Final Fantasy, which is the dramatic and cinematic storytelling. The game is balanced to ideally satisfy those fans who like traditional Final Fantasy storytelling so they can feel like they're following an epic story," Tabata explained.
The narrative flow is mirrored in the way the game plays, especially when it comes to the combat dynamic, that was crafted to further immerse gamers in the game.
"The controls aren't you simply press a button once for a single action to happen. Rather, they are a continuous flow of movements. It's more about the movements that are associated with the buttons and building upon them for actions through the combat system," the designer shared.
For the time being, Final Fantasy XV has no release date. It's coming to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One home consoles, and gamers will be able to get a taste of the title sometime in early 2015, in the form of a demo consisting of three to four hours of gameplay, bundled with the upcoming remaster of Final Fantasy Type-0.
