14 DAY TRIAL // Final Fantasy got some fresh HD screens for us to enjoy while waiting for Square Enix to finish making the game, and the level of detail featured in them is astounding.
If the company manages to have the game look this good and still be playable, it's going to be a significant contender in the next-gen arena. Square Enix released a video showing gameplay footage from the upcoming entry in the long-standing role-playing game franchise at the recent Tokyo Game Show, and it's a real head-turner.
Hopefully, it's not just a vertical slice meant to build hype, and won't disappoint like Ubisoft's Watch Dogs did, with a similar trajectory of showcasing pre-rendered exciting footage, and then disappointing by the final version of the game not living up to people's expectations, in spite of the fact that it actually looks pretty good.
In any case, the new screenshots are taken from the same areas that the trailer was recorded in, showing pretty much the same stuff at a slightly different angle, just enough to tell that they're not direct screengrabs from the trailer.
It's been a long time coming
Final Fantasy XV was initially announced back in 2006, part of the Fabula Nova Crystallis mini-series, and has undergone a lot of transformations since then.
Many people thought that the project had been scrapped completely before Square Enix announced that the game was indeed coming out sometime in the future, with a change in direction, with Hajime Tabata taking up the baton from Tetsuya Nomura.
Among the changes is an overall focus on making the game more accessible to casual players. The team has noted that they aim to keep the depth that Final Fantasy fans have come to expect from entries in the series, but to also enable newcomers to easily experience the content.
This means that in Final Fantasy XV, players will no longer have to tie their fingers in a knot around the controller in order to pull off complex combos, with the focus being less on frantic button-mashing and more on natural and elegant motions, with the game engine choosing the right action when player input is registered.
Final Fantasy XV is coming to the Xbox One home console from Microsoft and the PlayStation 4 entertainment system from Sony, sometime in 2015.
For the time being, we have Final Fantasy Type-0 HD to look forward to in March, 2015. The remake of the classic PSP title will come bundled with a code that will enable buyers to try out the upcoming Final Fantasy XV demo, which will be announced at a later date.
