MULTI Final Fantasy XV Demo Walkthrough (Releasing on March 17th)

BumperJumper

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Jul 27, 2010
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Final Fantasy XV director Hajime Tabata plays through the demo and provides details about its combat system and exploration.

Video
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– The demo footage omits story segments because of spoilers.– The time to complete Episode Duscae is longer than previously expected, with about three horus to complete the scenario.
– The digital version of Type-0 HD in Japan is 6100 yen, and will have a 2-month window to redeem the Episode Duscae demo.
– Footage from the Xbox One version was shown, starting with the party wandering around Duscae and engaging in combat.


– Demo footage shows different locations at different times, Noctis jumping over terrain, dashing, and vaulting over obstacles.
– Footage then switches over to the PlayStation 4 version.
– A new version of Somnus with violin plays on the demo title screen, the title screen will change based on the time.
– Walking around Duscae, Noctis can wade into the water – but not as far as in the final game.


– A red flash in the center of the screen signifies nearby hostile enemies. Not all enemies are immediately hostile.
– Noctis can jump with the Cross button, dash with the L3 button, and use weapon abilities with the triangle button.
– The square button is used for co-op attacks, which can come after parrying enemy moves.
– You can hide from enemies if there is cover, and you can revive your allies if they fall.


– You can open a battle menu to use items, the world around you will freeze as you take your time to select.
– You can also open Noctis’s equipment menu and change weapons; different weapons have ranks and abilities.
– Story markers will highlight your quest direction – in the demo you can hunt a behemoth named Smoke Eye for a reward.
– You’ll need to collect money to repair your car, though the car is not available to drive in the demo.


– A travel menu can be used to fast travel between locations you unlock such as campsites.
– At night, fearsome monsters come out. Goblins appear and attack the party, Noctis is poisoned.
– Suddenly an enemy airship descends on the party and a troop of android soldiers attack.
– It’s not game over if Noctis’s HP is 0 and his friends can’t revive him. If he can flee or heal before a red gauge runs out, he can continue the fight.


– At a campsite, we see Ignis prepare food with various buffs.
– After you eat, you can gain experience points you’ve collected. The party levels up on this screen.
– The classic Final Fantasy victory jingle plays when after you’re done in the camp menu.
– Back on the trail of the Behemoth, Noctis can use his swords to warp high into the air to avoid damage. Ranged attacks can still hit him though.


– The Phantom Sword attack and co-op moves aren’t fully unlocked for the demo, as they will eventually be very powerful as you progress.
– The party encounters Smoke Eye, a behemoth blind in one eye. This is advantageous to defeating him.
– Episode Duscae won’t be full HD 1080p/30fps, but that’s the goal for the final version.
– A weather system isn’t in yet because effects of rain have not been completed.


– There’s more to do once you complete the demo’s scenario.
– Save data doesn’t carry over to the full game, but perhaps there will be a bonus if you have a save data from the demo.
– The gigantic adamantoise seen in previous trailers is not in the demo, but in the full game.
– The demo’s conclusion will have story elements. Tabata guesses the final game’s development is about 60% complete. Some parts are more finished than others.

Question and Answers

Game Over - You get a game over when Noctis is unable to battle. Even if your HP drops to 0, it doesn’t mean you aren’t able to battle. First you are in a “critical condition” status. In critical condition, a red gauge is displayed and if that gauge runs out, you’ll get a game over. Before the gauge depletes, you can use items or be healed by your companions. If you heal, you’ll be fine.Frame Rate - The demo doesn’t run at 1080p and 30 frames per second. Full HD is planned for the final version.
Scope - Is the full version map of Final Fantasy XV 10 to 20 times the size of the trial version’s? Tabata says, “I honestly don’t know (laughs).”
Weather - The weather will not change in the trial version. Weather changes are planned for the full version.
Weapons - The normal weapons you regularly use in battle are completely different than the Phantom Sword summon weapons. When you start the demo, you have regular weapons and those won’t increase, but you can obtain the Phantom Swords. The Phantom Swords are scattered around on the map, and you obtain them by searching. This is one of the extra elements outside of the story line.
Cooperation - There is only one co-op move in the demo. The co-op moves are really strong. It disrupts the balance because they are gradually learned through growth.
Side Elements - Side elements of the demo include searching for the Phantom Swords, as well as additional side elements that unlock after you reach the ending.
Data Import - There will be no data importing from the demo to the retail version. However, it’s possible Square Enix will give players some sort of bonus for having the demo save data.
Adamantoise - You won’t be able to battle the Adamantoise in the demo version. This is an element that’s being incorporated into the story.
Airships - Regarding airships, they have not been abandoned. Tabata says he’ll talk about it more after the demo version is released.
Ending - The ending of the demo touches on the story of the retail version.
Development Status - The full version is 60 percent complete. It might not seem like too big of an increase from the game’s 55 percent completeness at the Tokyo Game Show, but the fact is it’s progressed a lot. Since the progress of game development isn’t finished up uniformly, there is a possibility it will increase quite a bit seemingly at once from here on out.
World Map of the Demo



Final game will have about 20 to 30 times the size of the world map in the demo.

 

CerebralTiger

Expert
Apr 12, 2007
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Wow! Given the enormous scale, these are some might fine visuals. Probably the most graphically impressive seamless open world RPG I've seen so far.

Can't wait to get my hands on the demo (and, yeah, Type-0 I guess :p).

There's a really nice breakdown of the gameplay on GAF (credit to DarkLordMalik for some of the gifs). Copy/pasting it here:

The following is an analysis of the gameplay shown off in the Active Time Report by Hajime Tabata on 20th Feb, 2015. To note, I do not understand Japanese, and thus I have no idea what Tabata explained in the video. However, I have used translated information from various sources. If you have some corrections, please share.


Controls: (PS4)
Left Stick: Movement
Right Stick: Camera
L3: Dash (Characters will auto climb obstacles in dash mode)

X: Jump
|_|: Attack (hold or mash for combo)
O: Warp
/\: Weapon Ability

L1: Guard (Consumes MP, signified by blue light)
R1: Lock on

L1+R1: Initiate Phantom Sword
R1+O: Shift Break (Ex Ability)
L1+X: Shift Avoid (Ex Ability)

Dpad Left/Right: Switch between main weapon special abilities

Unused so far:
R2:
L2:

You can watch this video which shows these basic controls in action:

http://youtu.be/0BjgVETH6S8?t=14m57s


HUD:
The bottom right UI shows character names and HP, buffs/ailments, the MP bar, and critical condition warning. The bottom left shows weapon ability, its MP cost, total MP available at the time, and the player's current action.

In the gifs below, the different coloured HP bars mean the following:
White HP bar: The white bar shows default HP for the characters.
Red HP bar: The red bar shows HP that will recover automatically via idling/cover (unless you are on 0 HP).
Black HP bar: The black bar shows the HP that cannot be recovered (unless you use potions).

Now, when Noctis reaches 0 HP (white bar), the red bar of HP remains. This isn't gameover, but only actions he can perform are run around, or use items to heal into white HP. Gameover occurs when Noctis's red HP reaches 0.
If one of the ally character is at 0 white HP, Noctis can run up to him and recover his health. Other ally characters can also cast "Cure" etc to heal allies.

After the battle ends (or you flee), everyone is revived from critical condition and the red HP automatically recovers into white HP.


Battle Menu:
The battle menu can be opened at any time (even during a battle). This allows the player to use items, equip weapons for Noctis and the party, etc. In the demo, you won’t be able to change the rest of your party’s equipment however.

Guard:
Guarding works by pressing or holding down the Guard button. This lets Noctis automatically evade enemy attacks, but it consumes MP. MP, however, only gets consumed when an attack is evaded. This means one can hold down Guard while idling to avoid blindside attacks.

Idling and Cover:
When not performing any actions, Noctis's HP and MP recover at a slow rate. HP and MP will recover while the player is standing still, moving, dashing, or even holding down guard.

If Noctis is really struggling though, he can take cover behind objects (rocks, trees etc) and this will highly speed up HP and MP recovery. The cover mode can be started by walking up to a rock, and pressing the L1 (guard) button. Also, the HP and MP will recover at a similar rate when Noctis is warped to a high location and out of enemies' range.

Warp:
Warping involves locking on to enemies or terrain based points and then warping to them via the Circle button. Warping costs 25 MP per warp. The examples of warps can be seen below:

There is also another type of warp that can be performed when you don't have any target selected. This short warp lets you travel a small distance in front quickly. This can be useful to reach an ally that is in critical condition, or to just get away from a group of enemies.

Attack:
Pressing the attack button lets Noctis execute a single sword strike. Holding down the button or pressing the button multiple times will execute a basic combo. You can also jump and press attack to perform aerial attacks.

When enemies are in a weaker state, attacks start doing more damage (critical hits). This can be seen below:

Weapons:
Noctis being a weapon summoner, the game has lots of weapons that can be obtained and set up in menu to perform various actions. These are the weapons available in the demo that we know so far - Avenger, Blood Sword, Partisan, Wyvern Spear and Zweihander. Most of these weapon have special abilities and support abilities. For example, Blood Sword comes with HP drain special ability, along with MP Recovery Attack++ and Automatic Recovery+ support abilities.

In the demo, you can set different weapons for: Break, Rush, Slash, Counter and Raid.

BREAK: The first attack in the combo. In the video, the player has Avenger set as the Break weapon. Avenger has no abilities, but is a quick weapon and has balanced stats.

RUSH: Rapid fire strikes in the middle of the combo. The player has the Blood Sword set as the Rush weapon. It has the special ability of HP drain (gif below shows it in action).

SLASH: The last hit of the combo, which deals a significant amount of damage. The player has the Partizan set as the Slash weapon. Partizan has Heavy Thrust as the special ability (shown in gif below). Tabata highly recommends using heavy weapons as the finisher, like the Partizan. Heavy weapon on Finishers will stagger even slightly larger enemies.

COUNTER: The weapon set here will decide how Noctis counterattacks on successful parries. The player has the Wyvern Sword set as the Counter weapon, which has Jump as the special ability (show in gif below).

RAID: The weapon set here will get used when the player jumps and presses attack in mid air. The player has the Zweihander set as the Raid weapon, which has the special ability of ignoring enemy defence (see gif below). Tabata clarified that Aerial Attacks are moved to the last part of development since they are among the easiest so the demo wont include too much aerial combat.

Different weapons have different speeds, weight, range etc, and so it is important to think about which weapon works better where.


Parries and Co-op Attacks:
Some enemy attacks can be parried and countered. In the gif below, the UI element that shows a small arc with three lines signifies that an attack can be parried. The guard button (L1) is used to initiate the parry, and then the Attack button (Square) has to be timed when the counter prompt comes up.

Parries can also chain into Co-Op Attacks. Notice that Square gets pressed twice, first to initiate Prompto's/Ignis's hit, and then for Noctis's swipe.

The co op attacks can only be performed if an ally character is close by when you parry an enemy. Tabata has shared that the co-op moves are really strong and that there is only one co-op move in the demo. It disrupts the balance because they are gradually learned through growth.


Phantom Sword:
This is a special ability that Noctis can activate at max MP with the press of L1+R1. This ability allows Noctis to summon all his Phantom Sword weapons at the same time. When activated, MP starts depleting at a constant rate until it reaches 0. During this time, all abilities cost 0 MP, so they can be spammed.

The normal weapons you regularly use in battle are completely different than the Phantom Sword summon weapons. When you start the demo, you have regular weapons and those won’t increase, but you can obtain the Phantom Swords. The Phantom Swords are scattered around on the map, and you obtain them by searching. This is one of the extra elements outside of the story line.

There are two aspects to Phantom Sword - Defence/Idle or Offense.

When defending or idling, the phantom weapons start circling Noctis creating a barrier that reduces/negates enemy attacks.

When attacking, the barrier disappears and the swords start attacking the targeted enemy one by one from above. Each phantom sword falling on the enemy deals damage in addition to the damage Noctis is dealing with his moves.

Noctis also gains the ability of Shift Break (R1+O), which essentially are small warps to close in on enemies. He also gains Shift Avoid (L1+X), but that does not get used in the video, so its purpose is unclear at this stage.

(Note: Even though these shift moves have corresponding buttons, I think they happen automatically. For example, if you are far from an enemy and hold down the Attack button, Noctis will automatically perform Shift Breaks until he gets closer to the enemy. I think so because the basic attack button is held down when Noctis performs the Shift Break. Another point to note is that beside the emblem (Akyueshiro) is a left and right scroll marker, which means there might be even more powers for the actual game.)

And if I'm not forgetting anything, that's pretty much it. Hopefully this makes you a bit more prepared for Final Fantasy XV's combat in the upcoming demo.
 
Last edited:

BumperJumper

#VitaBros
Jul 27, 2010
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Type-0 wasn't really that great. XV looks pretty promising though.
Type-0 is more promising than XIII though. So it doesn't matter. We are finally getting a new FF after a long time and since we are coming off from XIII, Type-0 should prove to be better.
 

Gintoki

Seasoned
Oct 28, 2009
2,781
1
43
Left Pakgamers
Looks amazing. I'm still pissed at the fact, that they changed Stella's design, as shown in the E3 2013 trailer. I want her Versus XIII design back.

and only 60% complete? Only 5% increase from last year. I guess we would be seeing this release in late 2016.
 

Gizmo

Expert
May 6, 2009
12,863
2
42
Lahore
Type-0 is more promising than XIII though. So it doesn't matter. We are finally getting a new FF after a long time and since we are coming off from XIII, Type-0 should prove to be better.
It's better than XIII but isn't really saying much. Type-0 mwill feel especially bad to you if you're the kind of person who likes to be told a complete story that makes sense during the first play through of the game. The game really goes full retard during the last chapter or so.
 

CerebralTiger

Expert
Apr 12, 2007
19,839
5,868
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Islamabad
Type-0 wasn't really that great. XV looks pretty promising though.
Yeah, I probably wouldn't have considered getting Type-0 if it hadn't been for the FFXV demo tie-in. I wish they'd make the latter available as an individual digital purchase on PSN/XBL.
 
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