Final Fantasy XV Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

Square Enix

Some clueless gamers weren’t impressed by Final Fantasy XV, with Conan O’Brien calling it a “a waste of time” in his preview. But fear not gamers, I come with good news. I got to play the first three hours of Square Enix’s upcoming epic, and it’s looking like a lot of fun.

Be warned, there may be some minor spoilers ahead.

Final Fantasy XV takes place in an open world called Eos. From what I could see, it looks to be a sprawling world, with plenty to see and do.

But before we get to the good stuff, there’s just one negative thing I have to point out. The real-time combat can be clunky. This is especially true with warping, a mechanic that lets Noctis, the royal protagonist, jump around to various points on the map mid-battle.

To perform a warp, you’re supposed to look at a possible warp point and hit circle (on the PS4), but sometimes, even when I’m staring at the warp point and hitting circle, instead of making the jump, I found Noctis blinking straight ahead instead into more monsters. It made the whole experience frustrating to say the least.

As with most Final Fantasy games, you don’t go at it with monsters alone. This time around, Noctis comes with three other AI-controlled buddies, Ignis, Gladiolus and Prompto, who he can team up with to perform special devastating combos. Like with many good modern RPGs, each partner performs a different role. Ignis is damage, Gladiolus is the tank and Promptus is the stupid range damage-dealer in your party that keeps running up to die instead of hiding in the backlines.

It may be that the combat system takes a while to get used to, but honestly, even after three hours I didn’t feel very comfortable with it. Then again, the game offers an extensive combat tutorial, which I didn’t get to finish due to time constraints.

Square Enix

But it’s not all about combat. Final Fantasy XV is really the big beautiful new world of Eos. You get a fancy convertible to drive around in, and you’ll need to, unless you want to walk everywhere (which I don’t recommend at all). You can also go off the beaten path to find treasures or just check things out, but the game doesn’t want you driving around at night because that’s when the scary demons spawn.

And spawn they do. I was less than 30 minutes into the game, driving around at night, and met an Iron Giant, which killed my party in two hits. Having learned my lesson, I made sure to rest for the night until I got a bit stronger, which leads me to the leveling up system…

Unlike most RPGs, which level up after you fight, you only level up in the game when you rest, and depending on where you spend the night (the swankier, the better), you get percentage bonuses to your earned XP. Of course, the nicer places that give you more XP aren’t cheap to sleep over, so you’ll have to find ways to earn money.

There’s a variety of ways to do this, mainly fetch quests, killing monsters or exploring the map for gems and ores. Leveling up gives you points you can put into various skills that affect combat and world exploration. You can chose to ignore the main story and do a whole bunch of side quests before finishing up, and you can also go fishing if you’re feeling up for it.

Square Enix

The story starts picking up after the first chapter, because that’s where the bad things happen to Noctis’ dad, the king of Eos. Noctis is now the new guy on the throne and inherits a power up. This was where I had to stop, because my allocated time had run out.

What I’ve played so far has convinced me this game won’t be like Final Fantasy XIII, which forced you to run endless linear corridors. As with most Japanese RPGs, there’s not much hand-holding, you’re pretty much left to your own devices to figure things out, which I like. I’m just crossing my fingers that the combat gets tighter further into the game.

Check back soon for our full review.