So Final Fantasy XV has been announced at E3 and I am psyched. There has been the original announcement trailer and a battle gameplay first look video:
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3xKbPooKAo
Battle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBilT83Uq4A
ok, so going to try analyse this....
first of all its extremely cinematic, hopefully there's not too much scripting in when and where battles will take place. Since there's a scene where the characters are falling does that mean it would be on a time limit? I know they did it with Baren Falls on FF6 but that was just via background animation. The scene where 2 of the characters grab the Iron Giant's sword just makes me think of the trigger commands from FF10.
It looks like there's a lot of physical attacks going on, and the menu in the bottom left corner is very small and only has 3 options, none of which are "Magic" or "Abilities". They are "Warp", "Attack" and "Link-Form"... strangely, "Attack" isn't at the top of the list as it always has been (other than FF13 where it was "Auto-____"). There is no cursor but things do flash up, so I'm guessing they're maybe assigned to buttons? There isnt any sub-menus opening up so is it seriously just those 3 options? Also, what could "Warp" and "Linkform" actually mean? To the right of the menu there's a bunch of icons of weapons. Maybe it means that the game focuses a lot on changing weapons during battle to switch between different fighting styles like Dress-spheres (FF10-2) or Paradigms (FF13). Since there is a lot going on with what appear to be little choice or actions taken during batle, it could possibly mean that this game focuses a lot more on the importance of customising (like FF7, 8, 12) more than in the moment quick-thinking on-the-spot (like FF4, 13). If the action itself truely is simple, then I hope it is more customisation based. However the weapon icons hint that the fast-paced stuff could also be interesting enough
Let's talk about number of characters, this clip shows 3 characters in a party, even though this doesn't necessarily mean it's the party-limit, a limit of 3 has been standard since FF7 (exception being FF9) so it's most likely 3. The trailer at E3 showed 12 character portraits at the end. If there are 12 playable characters then that is a lot for a modern day FF game. considering:
(biggest party size/all playable characters)
FF1: 4/4
FF2: 4/10
FF3: 4/4
FF4: 5/12
FF5: 4/4 or 5 (depending on how you look at it)
FF6: 4/14
FF7: 3/9
FF8: 3/6
FF9: 4/8
FF10: 3/7
FF12: 3/6
FF13: 3/6
FF15: 3/12?
FF15 having 3/12 would be the biggest "amount of patry-sized groups" (which would be 4) than FF6 (which has 3.5). Despite not having more total unique combinations since 12c3 < 14c4 (maths stuff), this still leads to a lot of potential for an interesting party formation system like how FF6 does. This is where the customisation options come heavily from forming the teams rather than the individuals. Also this could lead to some pretty interesting customised party-splitting. Of course it's too early to call, there might be little option in that regards but the potential is there.
Last thing I want to comment on for now is the stats in the lower-right corner. You have your 4-digit numbers, which will be the health, pretty standard. The white lines most likely represent health too in percentage form, since there is no "/xxxx" written next to the health it makes sense that it would be. The main character has another bar even though the other 2 dont. This could be because the other characters dont use that stat, but most likely its a feature used for the "Leader" of the battle. Its blue so it could be MP, but why would only one character have MP? Of course this really is just speculation, FF6 started out with only a few characters having MP. I do suspect however it is there because it is the "Leader", the character you control and since the game looks pretty fast, I'm guessing that like FF13, you have more control over one character compared to the other 2. This is interesting, in that in adds another layer of depth in a sense by, having you assign a leader that would indicate more party set-ups. What's also interesting though is how the bar uses dots. Could this mean that whatever this bit of data is, is more discrete and less continuous?
Overall my biggest concern really is just how cinematic it all looks. I know games are more cinematic these days but back when your characters would stand in a line taking turns with menus, it really made you feel that YOU were in control. I'm perfectly fine with having less control if the system does follow the "think quick!" style. I'd really need to see the menu screen to have more of an idea. But anyway, these are just some thoughts I had from this little info we have so far. Regardless, I am psyched.
