FFXV demo footage

[Eric]

Radical departure from traditional Final Fantasy gameplay, but considering it wasn't intended to be a mainline title I'm not surprised.

That being said, it looks pretty damn great.

I do wish Japan would step their game up when it comes to streaming, I don't understand why it's so hard for them to put together decent streaming equipment when I can buy a set-up for like $200-$250 and have 1080p/60FPS streams lol.

[Replay]

Dammit, Square, stop teasing me with notions of the re-rise of FF greatness.

[Julius Seeker]

I have noticed that a lot of people jumped out off the hype train when they saw the drop in graphical fidelity. Suddenly people aren't as excited anymore. Did Square wake up and realize they actually have to release this game and therefore can't take until 2023 to finish the art (the projected date of the release when after 9 years of development, the head of the project said they were around half-way there). It might be that the younger Final Fantasy fans really only do care about the fidelity of the graphics. Square should really just get some artists to do real fantastic art work; otherwise, just hire a team of engineers that can transpose real photography from Japan into their game, and at least don't half ass it. Also, Square needs to go back to Final Fantasy 10, at least, and re-examine what they had their, because that is the ladt time they had an interesting battle system.

So it seems the hype-train loaded with "fans" around the internet has been derailed, but that 2023 Lexus Convertible sure as hell isn't.

[Eric]

I have noticed that a lot of people jumped out off the hype train when they saw the drop in graphical fidelity. Suddenly people aren't as excited anymore. Did Square wake up and realize they actually have to release this game and therefore can't take until 2023 to finish the art (the projected date of the release when after 9 years of development, the head of the project said they were around half-way there). It might be that the younger Final Fantasy fans really only do care about the fidelity of the graphics. Square should really just get some artists to do real fantastic art work; otherwise, just hire a team of engineers that can transpose real photography from Japan into their game, and at least don't half ass it. Also, Square needs to go back to Final Fantasy 10, at least, and re-examine what they had their, because that is the ladt time they had an interesting battle system.

So it seems the hype-train loaded with "fans" around the internet has been derailed, but that 2023 Lexus Convertible sure as hell isn't.

Whoa what? I haven't heard that, the game still looks incredible, Square's Production value is always top notch, and the game is going to release @ 1080p(I think only the demo is 720p). I sincerely doubt they've actually been working on this game for 9 years. Still don't expect it until 2016.

[Replay]

It does indeed look pretty hot. They may be using PBR (physically based rendering) on some of those light effects.

[Oracle]

They need to take this shit back to the pre-FF7-type worlds (worlds from the MMOs would be good, too). You know, where the characters wore actual fucking armor in a fight, vs. relying on sweet tats and perfect hair for protection :p Oh yea, castles and shit, too.

[Eric]

They need to take this shit back to the pre-FF7-type worlds. You know, where the characters wore actual fucking armor in a fight :p

I think Final Fantasy IV was the last one where the characters actually wore armor!

[Oracle]

They need to take this shit back to the pre-FF7-type worlds. You know, where the characters wore actual fucking armor in a fight :p

I think Final Fantasy IV was the last one where the characters actually wore armor!

5, 6, 9 (and the MMOs). [Edit: and completely forgot about 12. Seems I'm raging towards some very specific installments of this series ]

And I'm talking at least in the inventory. I'm sure the armor equivalent in this new FF will be something like charm bracelets or promise rings :p

[Eric]

They need to take this shit back to the pre-FF7-type worlds. You know, where the characters wore actual fucking armor in a fight :p

I think Final Fantasy IV was the last one where the characters actually wore armor!

5, 6, 9 (and the MMOs). [Edit: and completely forgot about 12. Seems I'm raging towards some very specific installments of this series ]

And I'm talking at least in the inventory. I'm sure the armor equivalent in this new FF will be something like charm bracelets or promise rings :p

Oh you meant in the interface hehe. I just look at the character models.

Yeah armor would be nice for variety. Finding Genji armor and the like was always fun back in the day, when the series turned 3D it seemed like they put more emphasis on weapons.

[Oracle]

I'd like character models to be altered more by equipped armors in new FF games, too. Not just weapons.

[Eric]

I'd like character models to be altered more by equipped armors in new FF games, too. Not just weapons.

Now THAT hasn't happened outside of the MMOs right?

[Oracle]

I'd like character models to be altered more by equipped armors in new FF games, too. Not just weapons.

Now THAT hasn't happened outside of the MMOs right?

Don't believe so.

[Flip]

FFTactics? Hmm, maybe they didnt change..

[Oracle]

FFTactics? Hmm, maybe they didnt change..

Character models changed depending on the class you set them as - same as FF5.

[Julius Seeker]

I don't see the point for custom characters without multiplayer functionality that requires some sort of avatar,

[Julius Seeker]

I have noticed that a lot of people jumped out off the hype train when they saw the drop in graphical fidelity. Suddenly people aren't as excited anymore. Did Square wake up and realize they actually have to release this game and therefore can't take until 2023 to finish the art (the projected date of the release when after 9 years of development, the head of the project said they were around half-way there). It might be that the younger Final Fantasy fans really only do care about the fidelity of the graphics. Square should really just get some artists to do real fantastic art work; otherwise, just hire a team of engineers that can transpose real photography from Japan into their game, and at least don't half ass it. Also, Square needs to go back to Final Fantasy 10, at least, and re-examine what they had their, because that is the ladt time they had an interesting battle system.

So it seems the hype-train loaded with "fans" around the internet has been derailed, but that 2023 Lexus Convertible sure as hell isn't.

Whoa what? I haven't heard that, the game still looks incredible, Square's Production value is always top notch, and the game is going to release @ 1080p(I think only the demo is 720p). I sincerely doubt they've actually been working on this game for 9 years. Still don't expect it until 2016.

Really? All I had to do was read the comments under the video you posted, and also on neogaf.

You have to admit the video doesn't look very good compared to earlier ones. It is artistically bland. The gameplay also looks to move very slowly, and the car is on rails, you can't even drive it around, which is bad because running around looks very slow.

That one 1.5 second clip you have of light effects flashing in a dark location is not really representative of the rest of the video.

To me the game still looks like it requires a lot of implementation still. I do recall reading recenty that the current guy in charge of development say it was only 50% complete. The car should be driveable, the battle system looks incomplete, and characters need to be able to run faster,

[Eric]

Really? All I had to do was read the comments under the video you posted, and also on neogaf.

You have to admit the video doesn't look very good compared to earlier ones. It is artistically bland. The gameplay also looks to move very slowly, and the car is on rails, you can't even drive it around, which is bad because running around looks very slow.

That one 1.5 second clip you have of light effects flashing in a dark location is not really representative of the rest of the video.

To me the game still looks like it requires a lot of implementation still. I do recall reading recenty that the current guy in charge of development say it was only 50% complete. The car should be driveable, the battle system looks incomplete, and characters need to be able to run faster,

Youtube comments are cancer, get yourself checked out for reading them. I haven't seen that on neogaf short of sarcasm and and I have looked. :p http://www.neogaf.com/forum/search.php? ... d=30263827

I haven't even seen that argument or complaint on any major blogs or websites, if there was a downgrade or people thought the graphics looked awful you'd hear about it. Graphical fidelity is one thing people have no problem bitching about this generation. see: Watch Dogs, Forza 5, Assassin's Creed: Unity.

Do you really want to drive that fucking car? Really? Then engage in battle and hop out, and finish the battle and hop back in? When has a ground based vehicle ever been fun to drive in any FF game short of the convenience of never having to fight a random battle. The movement speed is about the same as any JRPG I've ever seen.

The gif is actually from this video



You're welcome to your opinion about the battle system, I think it looks great, but then I'm a fan of Kingdom Hearts so I know I'm bias in the JRPG Action department.

[Oracle]

I don't see the point for custom characters without multiplayer functionality that requires some sort of avatar,

The point is a more diverse, complete, and pleasing game (to me). I want to SEE that cool fucking armor I just got from a secret boss.

[Replay]

I agree with Oracle that the systems which realistically change your character's appearance are the best. They are also, unfortunately, by far the hardest. The amount of artwork you have to do is a multiple of the base artwork for any character.

[Eric]

Does Lightning Return's count for changing armor?! Don't we all just love Lightning? Anyone? >.> <.<

[Julius Seeker]

You know what, I was talking about something completely different than what you guys were. I am actually all for variety in the sorts of clothing characters wear. That definitely is an improvement.

And fair enough Eric, that other video looks a lot better, with the flashing fight stuff in the darkness and all. I'll just say my comments are largely in response to the first video, which to me looks like a really depressing farm from Russia devoid of anything I would consider artistically inspired. They walked around for 45 minutes, and it was very very slow compared to all other RPGs I have played since maybe Final Fantasy 12 - and maybe some MMO RPGs. Other single player RPGs with opened up worlds, like Xenoblade Chronicles, are much better paced than what is shown in that video. They only got in 4 battles during those 45 minutes, so it's not like it would be a hassle to drive around during that time. GTA probably has a lot more getting in and out of cars than 4 times in 45 minutes. I don't really see any good reason for having the car on the rails, and not allowing players to take it where they need to go.

On one hand, I can buy that maybe Square just wanted to demo the game using its most boring looking area so the rest of it looks exciting. On the other, I just can't help but to think that somehow Square is going to mess this one up one way or another like they have every single mainline FF game since FF10.

Square said they didn't want to remake FF7 because it would take them 5 years to do that - meanwhile, this game has been in development for a decade. Maybe the decade is what they needed to get a new game done right?

[Replay]

Re: the lighting - AAA games are migrating to use something called physically-based rendering.



It's very difficult to understand unless you have a degree in computer graphics, but the essence of it is this:

Last generation, texture mapping generally involved a few different maps: diffuse, bump, normal, and specular.

The problem with this pipeline is that "diffuse" maps, intended to be a "base color", actually generally had a lot of lighting baked in already. For example, if you had a piece of metal that was dark under most lighting conditions, it was assumed that this was because the metal's base color was pretty dark. Often times, however, it isn't, and the color was actually dark because a relatively saturated base color had a very low ability to reflect light.

So the new hot thing in texture mapping is stripping ALL pre-baked information from the diffuse map, leaving something called an albedo map, which represents a fairly "pure" color that then depends heavily on several new, additional maps in order to appropriately lighten or darken the material.



Specular maps have also been split up into gloss/metalness/roughness maps. It turns out that in the real world, something like water is not actually highly reflective (believe it or not), but it IS highly glossy.



That is a child's explanation of it, which depends heavily in its more technical form on "surface microfacets" and a lot of calculus that makes handling Schrodinger's triple integrals look like a viable pleasant afternoon by comparison. Those interested can read more here:

http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-theory
http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-practice
http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-conversion

[Replay]

(I apologize for the sizes on those images, but clearly BBCode traditional image resizing is off the table here.)

[Replay]

Anyway, the upshot is that PBR engines do environmental lighting, reflectivity and roughness very well.

No longer are materials simply "reflective" or "not reflective". Everything generally has some degree of reflectivity or gloss - meaning that rough metal, mud, and so on will shine dimly and realistically - and the light bends appropriately around roughness on the material surfaces.

Here is a rather nice demo of a PBR engine; you can expect most AAA titles will look like this in another decade.

[Eric]

This demo is great, I like the feel of the game.

It does however have some performance/frame rate issues, I imagine/hope they'll get ironed out before the game finally releases(Or just put it on PC with a PROPER port where I can safely ignore the console peasantry!)