This week, Square Enix showed the latest footage for Final Fantasy XV during Tokyo Game Show 2014, and also announced a change in director from Tetsuya Nomura to Hajime Tabata. More was shared during a recent NicoNico live-stream for the game.
Square say the upcoming “Episode Duscae” demo is set in the Duscae region of Final Fantasy XV. It will feature all kinds of different systems from the game that are still in their early stages, and will have enough content to play about three to four hours, with dungeon(s) to explore.
While Square did say that there’s about three to four hours of gameplay, they noted that this was assuming you choose to use vehicles while playing. Completing the demo without vehicles will take longer, as walking is slower than driving. It was hinted that there may even be some Chocobos to ride.
The demo won’t have any boss fights, but Square Enix said that there will be something even more impressive, which will have a huge impact on fans of the Final Fantasy series.
Coming back to the subject of transportation, you’ll get to drive a car yourself, but you could also let Ignis take control of the wheel as part of an auto-drive feature. There will also be random talk-events with Noctis and his buddies.
Just in case you didn’t notice, Square Enix also pointed out that they’ve changed Prompto’s basic expression and his hairstyle from last year’s E3 trailer.
The above footage clip demonstrates some of the graphics features for Final Fantasy XV, starting with a look at a little frog in rain. Certain parts with elevation difference will get puddles when it rains, and places under roofs will stay dry. Once the rain stops, things will gradually start to dry up as well. This also includes the characters’ clothing and their hair.
At around 1:50 in the video, the footage shows the place where Noctis and his buddies fought the Behemoth in the trailer from last year. For demonstration purposes, Square Enix’s demonstrators sped up the time to show what it looks like, but in the game, you’ll have a natural passing of time—morning, day, and night.
Square Enix also mentioned that the footage they’ve shown is what they’d consider to be at around 70 to 80% of what they’re going for. The demo is expected to be of a higher quality.
Next, they demonstrate some more battle action at around 3:38, where the Behemoth makes an appearance, with a side of Goblins. While they don’t go into much detail, you can see Noctis dodging enemies. This is part of the new system that lets you continuously dodge while holding down the block button. You can also auto-attack by simply holding down the attack button. T
The combat is more on the action side according to Square Enix, but it’s simplified, so you can pull off a bunch of different moves with relative ease.
Square also mentioned that the E3 trailer we saw from last year was created using a temporary development environment (likely meaning it was running on PC), where the intent was simply to show off the kind of game they wanted to make. Now that they’re working within their actual development environment, motions and other aspects of the game aren’t at their 100% complete stage, but they expect things to get much better over time.
As you may have noticed during the fight against Behemoth, Noctis pulls off cooperative moves with the others. This is also part of a combat feature that will be easy to pull off as long as you have allies nearby.
Square Enix will announce much more for Final Fantasy XV during their Square Enix Presents show, and they also plan to reveal a bunch of information during Jump Festa later this year.
Final Fantasy XV is in development for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. A demo will also be released for both consoles as
