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Last week, Geekster was invited to test out the first five hours of the current build of Final Fantasy XV on PS4 in The Netherlands. Obviously, we couldn’t refuse the opportunity to play the long-awaited game. With our pens in hand, we began our first real steps through Eos and the epic road trip of Noctis, Ignis, Prompto and Gladio. In order to keep the experience fresh for you, we will give no story spoilers. We will rather focus on the gameplay, mechanics, graphics and sound. Our play session gave us a predominantly positive feeling, although there were obviously some big and small negative points. We have no idea how much will be changed in the final version, especially now that the game has been pushed back until the end of November. It speaks for itself that there will be more gameplay options after the first hours than the ones we encountered. Before we begin giving all the details, we will sum up our general impression in the expandable box right below this paragraph. Afterwards, you can read an overview of the different parts of the game in the order in which we encountered them while playing. There is much to tell, so join us on our road trip throughout the first five hours of Final Fantasy XV.

Final Fantasy XV preview: The good, the bad and the ugly Positive: One of the main goals of the game, the feeling of being on a road trip, has been totally achieved: you drive from one interesting spot to the next or the next resting spot, stay the night in a trailer or hotel or camp in the wild. You eat, take photos of interesting views or have pictures taken automatically by a friend, and later watch the pictures that have been taken during the day. You see other travellers (including families with children) and listen to random (or sometimes the same…) dialogues between the main characters or the other travellers.

Some locations are breathtaking.

Combat can be very simple or very stylish and more complex, you can chose for yourself (however, simply holding the attack button won’t get you through the toughest fights).

The music is top-notch and the radio with FF-music is a very nice touch.

The voice acting is excellent, the characters are developed and each have their own distinct personality, and the emotions are convincing.

Once the game is loaded, everything plays very fluently and you don’t have to load again (unless you choose to do so yourself or you activate a special warp option).

You can save anywhere, except during battles or in certain locations. Negative: The game has some pretty long load times (once again, fortunately only when starting a new game, when you have to reload or when you use one of the warp to another place-options).

If you don’t stop anywhere while on the road, it can be possible to have nothing to to for minutes on end except watch the environment and optionally holding R2.

There is no real difference between driving yourself or being a passenger.

You can’t skip separate dialogue lines, only the full cutscene (and you can’t even always skip them).

There were some bugs, ranging from some audio skips to some strange visual filters (which all disappeared after reloading the game).

The camera sometimes could be difficult during fights in smaller spaces.

The first steps

You can choose whether you want to drive to the next story location, quickly do a side quest first or just take some time to enjoy the environment before you go.

How do you start your journey through Final Fantasy XV? The first hours contain quite a bit of story and at least one big surprise, but that’s something for you to experience yourselves. After the opening cutscene, you are given control over Noctis and you can start the core gameplay of Final Fantasy XV: the road trip. This consists of stopping at an outpost or rest stop, seeing if there are interesting things to do nearby, fighting monsters, eating, shopping, sleeping and moving on. You can choose whether you want to drive to the next story location, quickly do a side quest first or just take some time to enjoy the environment before you go.

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Before long, Noctis and co visit the first rest stop, where they have a few options. For example, they could talk to the cook (or tipster) of the roadside restaurant in order to get information on available hunts, buy food or have points of interest (havens to camp in, parking spots, outposts, treasures, elemental energy, ingredients) marked on their map. During the conversations with party members or NPCs, you are sometimes given dialogue options. At the end of the day, or when you want to upgrade your characters, the four friends can sleep in a trailer, in their own tent or in an expensive hotel (the first hotel Noctis found cost 10 000 gil!). Trailers and hotels cost money, but offer better bonuses than sleeping in your tent. When camping in the wild, Noctis and Gladio can train together (an excellent way to see if you are up to the challenge of a certain level). When the characters go to bed, their EXP is applied and they can level up. If they have used their special skills (fishing for Noctis, survival for Gladio, cooking for Ignis and photography for Prompto), these can level up as well. Afterwards, you can watch Prompto’s photos and just, like on a real road trip, decide which ones you want to keep (max 100).

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Don’t forget to buy gas, since it is not pleasant to be stranded in the middle of nowhere without some

As real adventurers, the foursome can buy weapons or rent chocobos (which aren’t available during the first few hours). Some weapons can be improved in exchange for materials. Finally, the four friends can have their car, the Regalia, looked after by the local mechanic at larger rest stops. Don’t forget to buy gas, since it is not pleasant to be stranded in the middle of nowhere without some (you’ll have to either push your car really slowly or have it towed, which involves long load times and which takes you to an earlier rest stop, sometimes way back in the opposite direction).

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Buying food, gasoline, weapons or items is rather hard in the beginning for our four friends, seeing as their money purse is completely empty. Therefore, they quickly start their first hunt, for which they have to eliminate a number of enemies (or one really big one) in a nearby area. Hunts are rewarded with gil, items and stars (to improve your hunting rank and get harder hunts) and immediately make us think back to the similar hunts in FFXII. They were one of the most fun diversions from the main plot in that game as well. You can replay hunts, but you wil only receive a fraction of the original reward when doing so. Some hunts have certain extra conditions, such as only being possible during the day. Every hunt (and quest) shows which level it is meant for. Finally, Noctis and co can only accept one hunt at a time.

If you are in a dungeon, you can warp back to the beginning with the press of one button and without load times, which is really convenient.

Time to start the hunt itself. While the characters run towards the correct area, you quickly discover one of the changes to the mechanics: the stamina bar. It was invisible in Episode Duscae, and it wasn’t present in the Platinum Demo, but the actual game will require you to pay attention to your stamina. You use stamina to sprint (but not to jump or roll). If you let the bar run out, you will have to wait until it has recovered a bit and you won’t be able to sprint OR jump OR dodge for a while. Stamina is also used when you warp to a higher spot during a fight (such as a tower) and you want to hang there for a moment, which isn’t possible indefinitely. The areas are large, and it seemed to us as if our stamina (even after upgrading it) ran out very quickly. Renting chocobos seems the way to go for larger trips throughout the environment!

A second big change is the minimap, which shows icons for the points of interest, red circles for your enemies and the direction of your current goal. It helps you not to get lost in immense environments. By pressing L2, you open the Map menu, where you can put waypoints on the big version of the map, and where you have a couple of options to make travelling through the large areas easier. You can return to your car automatically (however, be prepared for long load times), have your car brought to the road closest to you for 100 gil or have the car towed to a previous rest stop for the same price (and long load times!). If you are in a dungeon, you can warp back to the beginning with the press of one button and without load times, which is really convenient. The distances you have to run can be very large, but unfortunately you are unable to warp (like during combat) to get through the environment more quickly.

While traversing the land, you can find ingredients, treasures, elemental energy and more. Of course, you can also be attacked or attack innocent herds of peaceful animals yourself.

Combat

A fight can look very dynamic or really boring, it depends on your own play style.

Fights are more fun than in Episode Duscae, partly due to some gameplay changes, partly due to the slightly more zoomed-out camera (which still wasn’t optimal in smaller spaces). Combat is accessible and fluent. You can hold the circle button to constantly attack without tactics, but that “strategy” won’t be enough for the tougher fights. A better and more fun idea is to constantly change weapons (with a simple press of the corresponding d-pad button), warp out of the way, perform warp strikes, occasionally cast magic, perform link attacks (automatically), attack enemies in the back, let your friends use their skills, … A fight can look very dynamic or really boring, it depends on your own play style.

A couple of large changes since the previous demos concern Noctis’s three friends. You can have Prompto, Gladio and Ignis execute their learnt skills by pressing R1 and selecting the skill. Afterwards, you only have to press one extra button (it was always the circle button) to have Noctis finish the attack his friend started. However, this can’t be done infinitely. On the left side of the screen, there is seperate bar which slowly fills up during fights. You need a third of this bar to have a character do a skill, and by using these skills, your friends improve them as well. In any case, it is a nice addition to the combat system. The second big change is that link attacks are different now. Instead of having to activate a large golden circle on the ground and having to do a quicktime event afterwards, Noctis and friends now perform these attacks automatically. If there are still larger Episode Duscae-style link attacks in the game, they were not available the first hours.

Blocking (for which you get a prompt) seemed to depend strongly on your timing or button input, seeing as Noctis sometimes dodge rolls instead of blocking attacks (both commands respond to the square button). Another new aspect: sometimes there is a guest party member! Noctis also found a mounted gun at one point, which he used to mow down many enemies. All this gave us multiple tactics to use to successfully get through a fight, meaning we weren’t meant to just hold down the attack button. After fights, you are graded on your offense, defense and stealth, and it is perfectly normal if at least one of those scores is low (while it is difficult to be stealthy if you just attack monsters in a field, you can instantly warp kill unaware enemies in other fights).

In order not to make it too easy, every danger state means your max HP is lessened until the end of the fight.

We met a number of mainly typical Final Fantasy foes, together with a couple of newcomers: goblin, imp, mesmerize, flan, reapertail (scorpion), ronin (think Yojimbo’s design in FFV), sabertusk, iron giant, imperial soldier, magitek armor, garula, anak (a cross between a deer and a giraffe), bloodhorn (a kind of large rhino), daggerquil (flying bird pests), sahahin (more crocodile-like than before), and arachne (a giant spider).

When your HP reaches zero, you enter the danger state. To be healed, you can hope for your friends to help you or you can use an item yourself (which you can also do when not in the danger state). Simple potions heal you for half of your max HP and are extremely cheap. After a couple of hours of play, I bought 99 of them for a pittance. Hi-potions fully heal you. In order not to make it too easy, every danger state means your max HP is lessened until the end of the fight. After combat, you can reap the rewards in the form of items and EXP. In order to enjoy the latter optimally, Noctis has to find a spot to sleep first.

Character progression

It will still take a while to upgrade all four characters, since AP is shared between them!

Characters earn EXP, AP, and each have one unique skill. EXP is used to level up (and so get better stats). Although you get it after a fight or quest, it is only applied when you go to sleep. AP is used to improve your skills in the Astralsphere in the Ascension Menu. Every character has its own Astralsphere, a literal skill tree. You can choose what to specialize each character in. The more specialized, the more AP it costs, but you can specialize a single skill pretty quickly if you really want due to the generous amount of AP you get. During the first hours, every Astralsphere had about 15 upgrades per character, which didn’t seem like a whole lot, and we don’t know whether or not the Astralsphere gets expanded during the rest of the game. However, it will still take a while to upgrade all four characters, since AP is shared between them! You have to think carefully and decide which character you want to upgrade with which skill. AP is received by leveling up, as a quest reward, after certain conversation options, by training with Gladio or by correctly executing strategies (small gameplay goals during certain fights, for example attacking an enemy in the back or activating a friend skill within a minute).

Here is a short list of the possibilities per character to develop or improve skills:

Astralsphere per character Noctis: dodge, airstep, chain/link attacks, more accessories/stamina, libra/scan with extra bonuses, decoys after warping Prompto: photos during combat, healing, crit up, equip machinery, firearm and machinery skills Gladio: equip shields, greatsword and shield skills, guarding, emergency recovery, accessories Ignis: equip polearms, dagger and polearm skills, recovery, imbue magic, libra effects

Seeing as there are many weapon skills in this tree apart from a couple of magical options, it seemed time to check out how equipment and magic works in this game.

Equipment and magic

Now, magic is more like a very powerful and very good-looking final trick up your sleeve.

Noctis gets 4 weapon or magic slots, which correspond with your d-pad, his friends each get two. Noctis can use all weapon categories, the others start with only one mastered weapon. Everybody gets at least one accessory slot and can change attire. The latter also applies during cutscenes, not only during gameplay. Try to have everyone wear casual outfits sometimes, it’s rather funny. There are a number of weapon categories: swords, greatswords, daggers, firearms, shields, polearms, machinery (hilariously big weapons like an auto-crossbow) and royal arms (which cost mp to use, can only be used by Noctis, and are powerful).

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Magic is divided into Fire/Ice/Lightning/Wild. Wild magic was nowhere to be found during the first hours, but the option was there in the menu. You equip magic like you equip weapons and are able to use it once during combat. This can pack a punch (and the very powerful -ga versions can harm your characters as well), but you should aim well or use lock-on, or you might mis your foe, wasting precious resources! To use magic, you first have to absorb elemental energy (or get it from enemies), with a maximum of 99 per element. Absorbing elemental energy in the field often gave a lot of it, so you will reach 99 pretty quickly.

Afterwards, you can craft magic and put it in your flasks, of which we had three during the first hours. Once these were full, it was impossible to delete them before using them (there was an option for it, but it didn’t respond) in a fight. Up to 49 energy is the normal version, up to 98 is the more powerful -ra version and 99 is the very powerful and impressive -ga version. Or you can mix different elements. You can then combine all this with an item to get an extra effect (like healing). When you use magic in a fight, you can immediately equip another flask, but you can only use it after half a minute or so. If you really wanted, you could cast magic, open the menu in the middle of combat, slowly craft new magic, equip it, exit the menu, run around and avoid all enemies for a while and then cast your magic, but to us that seems like a really boring way to play. Now, magic is more like a very powerful and very good-looking final trick up your sleeve.

Since we had upgraded our characters, bought equipment and mastered the magic system, it was finally time to move on and climb into Noctis’s beautiful, seductive car.

The Regalia

When you drive yourself, you can’t leave the road or crash into other cars (no matter how hard you try).

The fifth main character in this game is your car, the Regalia. This luxury vehicle will bring you from one spot to another. Noctis himself can either drive it, or be a passenger while Ignis drives. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of difference between both options. When you drive yourself, you can’t leave the road or crash into other cars (no matter how hard you try). You can only accelerate, brake, reverse, make a u-turn or pick the correct direction at a crossroads. Often, the only gameplay is simply holding R2, which is a bit disappointing. Well, you could suddenly brake in order to annoy your teammates a bit. Being a passenger does not mean that you can skip the trip itself and use it as a kind of fast travel option. You still have to sit there while Ignis drives all the way. In that case, you see in advance how long this will take in real-time and there is also a bar at the top of the screen that show your progress during the ride. While driving, there are multiple camera options and when it rains, the roof automatically raises. Finally, it is a real shame that you cannot open the large map menu when in the car. You have to exit the car before you can access that menu.

So what can you do in the car besides driving? You can enjoy the environments you drive through and listen to conversations between your characters or to the car radio full of music from the previous games. This is pretty fun when you enter an area for the first time. On your minimap, the points of interest appear right next to the road so you know where and when to stop, which you can always do, whether you are the driver or the passenger. When stopping the car, you slow down and nicely park it a couple of metres down the road (so you should give the stop command a little bit in advance). In any case, it seems advisable to stop often or go on foot (or on a chocobo) during side quests, in order to avoid just staring at the car for a couple of minutes while you drive through familiar locations for the umpteenth time before you have reached the area where you can begin your hunt. Afterward, you can jump into the car and drive to the next rest spot.

your largest car expenses will be cosmetic upgrades and music

At rest stops, you can buy gas for 10 gil (whether your tank is almost empty or as good as full) or have your car repaired (but why was a mystery to us the first hours, seeing as you can’t crash it), but your largest car expenses will be cosmetic upgrades and music. There are also gameplay upgrades (like having your gasoline last longer), but the first of these was a quest reward (and we didn’t encounter any others). When customizing the Regalia, you can change the colour of the body, the interior or the wheels.You can also add decals and pick a suitable size and spot. For example, why not put a giant chocobo decal on your rooftop?

Minigames and side quests

After having visited a number of outposts, we learned there were also a number of small and large minigames in FFXV. For example, Noctis can play an arcade machine or darts (which is rather simplistic, as you only have to press X at the right time, but which can net you some AP and a photo by Prompto if your timing is perfect). He can also fish. This is a more complex minigame consisting of multiple phases. Your fishing rod has 4 components (line for durability, lure to catch different fish under different conditions, rod for defense and reel for attack), which you can buy in shops. First of all, you have to cast your line and reel it in bit by bit. When you see a fish, you should stop and hope it bites (or see it swimming away…). You then have to try to hook it (with a simple one-command quicktime event with your analog stick), after which you can try to reel it in. However, you’ll have to change between reeling it in and letting the line go slack for a bit to relieve tension.

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Apart from hunts, Noctis is also sometimes given a side quest by NPCs. The ones we encountered were simple fetch or delivery quests.

Visuals and sound



Every earlier FF offers between 10 and 15 tracks, both calm tracks as tracks with more action. You start with music from about 7 games, but you can find the other games’ music in stores (which was our first purchase in new locations).

Final Fantasy XV contains a number of different locations during the first hours, such as plains, caves, an ice cave, a waterfall, a swamp, a military base, a mine and even an extremely beautiful waterside resort. There are multiple weather effects, such as rain and wind (which made a lot of sand fly around in some spots) and these impact the clothes and look of your characters. Seeing as the weather is sometimes just boring and grey, it’s not always as nice to look at. The lighting in this game looks very nice, especially at night or in dungeons.

As expected, the music is very, very good. In cities it is happier (with some automatic variations on the current theme when you enter a certain zone), at road stops it gives more of a country feeling and when you have to sleep or eat, it is extremely upbeat. There were multiple fun tracks for fights, hunts and boss battles. Obviously, we have to mention the Regalia’s radio. If you switch it on, it plays music from the previous games (apart from some original tracks). Every earlier FF offers between 10 and 15 tracks, both calm tracks as tracks with more action. You start with music from about 7 games, but you can find the other games’ music in stores (which was our first purchase in new locations). This isn’t limited to the main FFs only, seeing as I found some Dissidia music. The tracks are straight from the OSTs and aren’t the orchestral versions played at concerts around the world (let’s hope they are available in the game!). When you leave your car, the music stops and then continues at the spot where it stopped when you want to drive on. The music is only reset automatically to the start of the song when you go to sleep.

The voice acting is of high quality. Every character has a unique own personality, and you can hear it in their voices. Those of you afraid that Noctis would be grim and moody all the time can rest easy: the prince also likes to laugh or joke now and then, and often joins in his companions’ banter or shows his interest in others. Obviously, there are some more heavy scenes, and there the emotions are convincing. Finally, the characters constantly comment on the world around them (however, sometimes you will hear the same dialogue twice, for example the characters often urge Ignis to let someone else drive for a change).

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Final Fantasy XV preview: verdict: Ready for the road

After having played the game for a little over five hours, we can’t wait until the end of November. Although we hope that some parts of the game will be expanded later on (for example, flying the Regalia certainly seems to make travelling back and forth to earlier spots more interesting), prospects for this game are still looking good. If the quality of the final product mirrors the one of this version, and if some persistent bugs can be solved, then FFXV has the chance to go into history as a great video game.

Final Fantasy XV comes out on PS4 and Xbox One on the 29th of November.