After three days in Los Angeles, Final Fantasy XV’s Altissia looks like the perfect getaway.
I’ve never played a Final Fantasy game before and until yesterday I had no intention of doing so. Mostly it’s down to the number. XV? Much too daunting. Too much back story. Or so I assume.
However, yesterday I attended an E3 demo of Final Fantasy XV, presented by director Hajime Tabatam, and in the space of twenty minutes I was completely won over.
The presentation focused on three elements that Tabata boldly insists will refresh the RPG genre. In a nutshell they boiled down to having a wide open world (yup, another one), new combat mechanics (which do look interesting) and a true sense of adventure and companionship with your party (now we’re talking).
But what really won me over was the design of the world. I’ve seen a lot of big open spaces this week and in the main they have either replicated the real world, like Watch_Dogs 2’s resplendently glorious San Francisco, or a wilderness of some kind, in Ghost Recon Wildlands or Horizon: Zero Dawn, for example.
In Final Fantasy XV we have world in which one location looks like the american mid-West, complete with diner and gas station, another like neo-Tokyo and – in Altissia – a city that’s a mash-up of Venice and The Phantom Menace’s Theed.
And just look how beautiful it is! The blend of the familiar and alien looks like nothing else I’ve seen in a game this week.
So, I’ll be buying Final Fantasy XV, and I’d really like to take long weekend in Altissia too.
“Mostly it’s down to the number. XV? Much too daunting. Too much back story. Or so I assume.” Each FF game 1 – 14 are their own separate stories, with different characters and worlds in each game, not one long, continuing story.
Haha, we popped that in as a joke; partly to see if people were paying attention, but also because everyone looks at Dan like he’s a crazy person when he tells them he’s not played a Final Fantasy game before, and it’s fun to make up nonsensical reasons and see if they believe them 🙂
I’ve been playing games for over twenty-five years and never really picked up on that. They need to do a better job at communicating it I think as, from a distance, the whole series looks extremely dense.
That said, excited to be getting on board with this one!