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Final Fantasy XV Judgment Disc demo out now on JPSN & JP Xbox Store

It's about pacing and reward for exploration I guess. It can make or break the game.

I just hope some actual cutscenes for randomly met NPCs / sidequests and not just mob hunts from restaurants for the whole "exploration".

Yeah, we'll see. I'm already bummed about the thin main scenario.
 
It's about pacing and reward for exploration I guess. It can make or break the game.

I just hope some actual cutscenes for randomly met NPCs / sidequests and not just mob hunts from restaurants for the whole "exploration".

They voiced and had cutscenes for a sidequest about feeding a cat of all things. I think it'll be fine in those regards.

As far as exploration is concerned, I have the same hopes. I've noticed that even outside of the side dungeons, therew a few NPC and objects that the demo won't let you interact with beyond a message of not being able to do whatever in this demo. Wonder if they're triggers for sidequets/scenes that'll be in the full version.
 
Yeah, we'll see. I'm already bummed about the thin main scenario.

Is this based on the Edge article or the leaks?

I tried to avoid as much spoiler stuff as possible, mainly because I feel so obligated to enjoy as much of this game as possible.
 
Personally I really don't mind te emptiness. I still had that itch to explore and find a.bunch of stuff and I often stopped the car just to get a treasure or an ingredient that I saw on the mini map.

Honestly Liede reminds me a lot of the Okanagan Desert back when I went there a few years back. Vastly empty, only a few places to see and explore, otherwise it was a desert. Mind you, I still expect similar emptiness in the other regions, but I honestly thing this isn't a problem.

I do honestly think that because we only had the main scenario and some hunt to do, it feels even more empty than it will feel when the game launches.

Idk I guess what I'm trying to say is that I like it :P
 
Just crashed on me :(

Also it's really boring reading threads about FFXV on this site, it's just endless gripes about the graphics and a few pixels being off, jeez.
 
Personally I really don't mind te emptiness. I still had that itch to explore and find a.bunch of stuff and I often stopped the car just to get a treasure or an ingredient that I saw on the mini map.

Honestly Liede reminds me a lot of the Okanagan Desert back when I went there a few years back. Vastly empty, only a few places to see and explore, otherwise it was a desert. Mind you, I still expect similar emptiness in the other regions, but I honestly thing this isn't a problem.

I do honestly think that because we only had the main scenario and some hunt to do, it feels even more empty than it will feel when the game launches.

Idk I guess what I'm trying to say is that I like it :P

I also like it, I also did with MGSV where the world was "empty". Also Arma 3 is the same way and it's one of my favourite games. I like space to play, simple as that.

Some people just want a theme park with something behind every corner, so I guess these types of worlds aren't really for them :p
 
Patches have made QA's job easier.

Erm...

Two points I'd counter with -

The accessibility and convenience* of day-1 (and beyond) patches, being automated nowadays, means development schedules can get away with larger scopes, which means protracted dev cycles. I'm willing to bet majority of the games out today would be a little more conservative in scope without that safety net. This leads to protracted development cycles compared to the alternate timeline without patches, which means QA works longer on a given project.

*Not saying that patching is new to this/last gen. Heck, PC games like Diablo 2 and Quake 2 had patch timelines years long. But it wasn't automated, you'd have to be aware of them via news sites (official and otherwise) and manually apply them.

Second point being finding bugs is one thing. Finding the cause, and additional testing (often very, very iterative) to make sure they're actually gone is another.

I wanna give you a hug.
 
Huh? He's saying the HQ mode is actually 4k checkerboard rendering from 1800p. O:
I thought it was 1080p. It doesn't look like such a high resolution at all.

Unless lightweight mode is also at that resolution, I wouldn't believe that.

I can't tell for sure what is the rendered resolution, but it's the same in both modes.

And mere comparison shots with the regular ps4 kinda prove it to be 1080p but heh.


Edit :

There is NO WAY in hell this is as shitty as MGSV.

I had more fun in Duscae and this demo than the entire MGSV playthrough ... And that was the game deprived from its actual content.
 
Thin main scenario? If that's the case then it's like Xenoblade X then?

This is what Edge said about it: "The elevation of supporting characters is designed to appeal to fans but it's been done at the expense of a strong plot."
 
Let's not take one preview as gospel, especially for those who didn't for the dozens of previews of the earlier sections.
 
Let's not take one preview as gospel, especially for those who didn't for the dozens of previews of the earlier sections.

The few ones that "critique" make more loud noise over the dozens that praise. It's the nature of the beast luckily I ain't the type whose guided by reviews and such. I can tell when I'll like something from a far.
 
I saw that shot and thought of this.... I know it does not look that bad, but that terrain reminded me of this voxel masterpiece (Outcast).....
F4Vdn2I.jpg

lmao, Dat hyperbole XD

After playing the demo I don't really think they needed to make an "open world" section. We'll see how the final game plays out but right now it's really empty and suffers from the "big just to be big" problem.

I agree with you at 100%, I don't think FFXV is doing something with its open world, it's just for the sake of being one and that's sad because it'll bring nothing gameplay wise, I hope it's not a Gran Pulse kind of area when it gets boring after 1 hour on it.

To be honest, I'm more interest about the second half of the game, the non open world one, I've seen so much this area in so many videos and coverage that I can't stand it anymore and I hope I'll pass it fast when the game will come out, they put too much of the same area in marketing and I'm fed up...
 
This is what Edge said about it: "The elevation of supporting characters is designed to appeal to fans but it's been done at the expense of a strong plot."
Lets not kid ourselves. Edge preview is vague as fuck. The previewer even talked about the ending while he later confirmed he only played the first 14 chapters. He also stressed it was strictly a preview while it reads like a review.

Better wait for other impressions from those who have an actual full copy.
 
This is what Edge said about it: "The elevation of supporting characters is designed to appeal to fans but it's been done at the expense of a strong plot."

This is what importers said about Xenoblade X before it's release...

Japanese devs should just stay away from open world games ffs.
 
Lets not kid ourselves. Edge preview is vague as fuck. The previewer even talked about the ending while he later confirmed he only played the first 14 chapters. He also stressed it was strictly a preview while it reads like a review.

Better wait for other impressions from those who have an actual full copy.

But there's only 14 chapters in the game? 14 + chapter 0 = 15?
 
Let's not take one preview as gospel, especially for those who didn't for the dozens of previews of the earlier sections.

The few ones that "critique" make more loud noise over the dozens that praise. It's the nature of the beast luckily I ain't the type whose guided by reviews and such. I can tell when I'll like something from a far.

Get a dozen previews praising the story and one comes along that says they like the story but had a small critique and everyone loses their minds.

¯_(ツ)_/¯
 
lmao, Dat hyperbole XD



I agree with you at 100%, I don't think FFXV is doing something with its open world, it's just for the sake of being one and that's sad because it'll bring nothing gameplay wise, I hope it's not a Gran Pulse kind of area when it gets boring after 1 hour on it.

To be honest, I'm more interest about the second half of the game, the non open world one, I've seen so much this area in so many videos and coverage that I can't stand it anymore and I hope I'll pass it fast when the game will come out, they put too much of the same area in marketing and I'm fed up...

Really don't think that's right. Lots of people in the first-five-chapters previews praised the world, and the way it goes all in on the road trip. Having those big open maps to drive through might allow for a sense of scale and journey you wouldn't get otherwise. And there are definitely secrets scattered about and incentive for exploration it sounds like. The optimal ratio of time spent wandering/amount of stuff found will be different for everyone, but plenty of folks don't like packed theme-park worlds. I loved finding out of the way places in SotC, and a big part of that was how meaningful it felt after the wandering.
 
I really enjoy open spaces that lead to dsicovery of dungeons,areas,cities.

I think the open world can give you a sense of place and awe that you cant get otherwise.

I really loved the open spaces between outposts in MGSV for example.Its a nice break between action sequences and builds up a sense of anticipation.
 
I like the different take on the open world its literally an open world not littered with things that will all show up on a map after you walk 500 ft(which people don't like that type of open world either so idk at this point). Than again I'ma fan of just walking around so I can see why it would turn ppl off?
 
Looking at it again on my laptop, the overall image does look quite a bit blurry. Still doesn't look all that different to be honest. Here's a similar shot from my PS4 for comparison.

6u5mAP1.jpg

yuck

i guess there were gains to be had when it was night time

does the PS4 still not allow uncompressed screenshots?
 
I don't really get the complaint that it's an open world for the sake of being one (for this particular game anyways), or that people are apparently that much irritated at the prospect of having a bunch of distance to cover because the (very pretty) world is so big. I mean, okay, I get it in terms of that being quite a bother to those who are tired of walking everywhere, but like... a well-done open world imo is supposed to be big.

Like... isn't that the whole point? Do y'all expect to just have cool monsters and/or hidden secrets and such just laying around every 5 steps you take? That would seem far more unrealistic, so I honestly don't really get it. For me personally, one of the delights in this demo alone is actually feeling compelled to walk around as much as possible, seeing what new monsters I can come across. Furthermore, we still have stuff like Chocobos and the airship to look forward to, so it isn't as if we're literally forced to walk around everywhere anyhow. If that were the case, then you'd have a much stronger case.
 
yuck

i guess there were gains to be had when it was night time

does the PS4 still not allow uncompressed screenshots?

The "issue" here is related to lighting when compared to the shot at night. During day time the light is coming from the outside, during the night noctis' face is being lit by a lamp in front of him inside the store. This is happening in all kinds of games. That's why the quality of the model seems so different in these two shots. This "phenomenon" is also happening in games like Uncharted 4 for example. Sometimes Nathan's model looks absolutely stunning during gameplay when close to the camera. From time to time though, when everything isn't falling in place (lighting, angle etc.) the model looks a lot less impressive - sometimes even "bad".
 
I don't really get the complaint that it's an open world for the sake of being one (for this particular game anyways), or that people are apparently that much irritated at the prospect of having a bunch of distance to cover because the (very pretty) world is so big. I mean, okay, I get it in terms of that being quite a bother to those who are tired of walking everywhere, but like... a well-done open world imo is supposed to be big.

Like... isn't that the whole point? Do y'all expect to just have cool monsters and/or hidden secrets and such just laying around every 5 steps you take? That would seem far more unrealistic, so I honestly don't really get it. For me personally, one of the delights in this demo alone is actually feeling compelled to walk around as much as possible, seeing what new monsters I can come across. Furthermore, we still have stuff like Chocobos and the airship to look forward to, so it isn't as if we're literally forced to walk around everywhere anyhow. If that were the case, then you'd have a much stronger case.

I don't even consider the area we got to explore all that large? Like, don't get me wrong--it was big enough and got me to play the demo for 5-6 hours before I literally ran out of stuff to do. Unless some of the later areas are much larger I'm going to be super happy about the exploration aspect. When I found the dungeon in the Ruins I was super excited to go check it out because it felt like I actually found something!
 
I don't even consider the area we got to explore all that large? Like, don't get me wrong--it was big enough and got me to play the demo for 5-6 hours before I literally ran out of stuff to do. Unless some of the later areas are much larger I'm going to be super happy about the exploration aspect. When I found the dungeon in the Ruins I was super excited to go check it out because it felt like I actually found something!

Same, I'm pretty excited myself, it's been awhile since I've played an open world game that I genuinely found compelling. If I ended up not liking this (or BoTW), then I probably would've stopped playing these type of games, because the fatigue was real lol

An ideal open world game imo gives you a compelling reason(s) to explore it, as well as a means of transportation (not just fast travel) to do so quickly. FFXV has both, so I'm satisfied.
 
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