Final Fantasy XV review: An unmitigated treat for RPG-lovers

Dragging a revered games franchise into a 21st century landscape of open-worlds and instant action must be a thankless, even scary task – particularly when that franchise emerged in the late 1980s, hit its peak in the 1990s and had as its centrepiece a turn-based battle system.

But that’s precisely what Square Enix has attempted with Final Fantasy XV – generally known as FFXV – and near-miraculously, it has come up with an exemplary reinvention of the role-playing classic.

In common with modern RPG peers like the Witcher and Elder Scrolls games, Final Fantasy XV boasts an open-world (which is huge and packed with activities and side-quests), as well as a real-time battle system (although there’s an unnecessary sop to those forever wedded to turn-based systems of yore in the form of Wait Mode, which lets you pause the action and plan your approach).

FFXV review: What’s the story?

But the best news is that it does all that without also jettisoning Final Fantasy’s unique and very Japanese vibe. And a potentially confusing one if you don’t know the ins and outs of what Final Fantasy is all about.

• Final Fantasy XV: Everything you need to know

Final Fantasy XV’s action starts in Insomnia, capital of Lucis in the world of Eos. You play Prince Noctis, heir to the throne of Lucis, preparing to embark on a carefree road-trip in order to hook up with his betrothed, Lady Lunafreya of Tenebrae, which will end in their marriage and cement a peace treaty with the Empire of Niflheim.

Noctis jumps in his flash royal car, the Regalia, with his three mates Ignis, Gladiolus and Prompto. Gladiolus provides the muscle, the British-accented Ignis likes to cook, and Prompto is a keen photographer.

But soon, the slightly brattish foursome face a rude awakening: the Empire launches an attack on Insomnia, killing Noctis’s dad King Regis and stealing the Crystal, which is an incredibly powerful artefact placed under the care of the Kings of Lucis.

A massive, rambling quest ensues in which Noctis acquires his kingly powers, engages in various skirmishes with the Empire and its leading characters (who at times – suspiciously – appear to offer assistance to Noctis’s party) and overcomes countless hurdles as he attempts to make his way to the island city of Altissia.

Square Enix

That’s where Lunafreya awaits with the ring that will power up the Crystal and will perform a dangerous mission designed to bring Noctis the blessing of one of Eos’s six gods. From there, fully powered up, he will head to Niflheim and take on the Empire.

FFXV review: Missions, side quests and Chocobo

Story-wise, Final Fantasy XV offers everything that Final Fantasy devotees crave: its narrative is convoluted, full of twists, turns and changes of pace. It’s a modern epic.

Plus this time around, there’s a ridiculous wealth of things to do away from the main storyline. Including classic RPG dungeoneering, as Noctis battles through to tombs containing weapons that only a Lucian king can wield, as well as more mundane tasks such as bounty hunts and fishing.

Square Enix

If you want, you can jump on a Chocobo and ride randomly around the countryside, or carry out quests for people you meet in the game’s various cities.

FFXV review: Turn based or real-time battle?

Final Fantasy XV’s battle system, too, preserves the DNA of equivalents from old Final Fantasy games, yet for the first time feels sufficiently modern to avoid alienating those weaned on the likes of The Witcher.

Noctis has four weapon-slots, and switching between weapons is key. His special kingly weapons consume HP when he uses them, so it’s sensible to equip him with one normal weapon, so he can also wield magic in the form of elemental flasks (which basically operate as freezing, electrifying or flaming grenades).

Square Enix

When taking on groups of enemies, you can simply hold down the attack button and cycle through enemies, switching weapons for chain-effects, and carefully avoiding incoming attacks with a side-stepping Guard move. Or you can take a more carefully timed approach with your button-presses.

Manoeuvring yourself to get behind enemies under attack from another party-member brings a damage boost, and you can trigger special attacks from party members once you’ve been fighting for a while and a bar powers up.

But Noctis’s key attack is his Warp-strike, which allows him to teleport to designated points, then fly in with a devastating blow. You can also cycle from enemy to enemy with Warp-strikes, and the technique offers a great means of recovering from damage yet still delivering frequent major attacks.

A way into the game, Noctis acquires another attack which brings all of his kingly weapons into play at once, but it takes a long time to charge up, so you generally preserve it for key moments, such as finishing off bosses.

Square Enix

The battle system may sound complex, but in practice, it isn’t especially so. It’s certainly more understandable than Final Fantasy’s old turn-based systems, and leaves you feeling much more in control. When you nail a string of attacks, it’s vastly satisfying, and using all the attacks of which your party is capable at the right times requires a pretty strategic approach.

FFXV review: Skills tree

Elsewhere, Final Fantasy XV impresses in many ways. Eos looks amazing – the Venice-like Altissia, for example, has benefitted from some stunning environmental design – and it’s a classic fantasy-world, full of endearing little quirks, lore and surprises.

Square Enix

You can set the Regalia to drive automatically from point to point (or fast-travel at the cost of a few Gil, the game’s currency). You can even shop for crucial potions while driving. Chocobo are constantly available to rent, and Noctis’s fishing mini-game is pretty tidy. Camping at designated sites is rewarded too: you can only level-up when resting, and Ignis cooks status-boosting meals.

You also earn Ascension Points (AP) with which to buy new skills and uprated stats for the entire party: the skills tree is absolutely massive, but sufficiently well organised that you soon get to grips with it.

As Final Fantasy XV moves towards its climax, the chapters become shorter and opportunities to meander around off the beaten track become fewer, but the narrative compensates by becoming ever more epic.

Square Enix

By any standards, Final Fantasy XV is a very long game – even if you speed-run just the main elements, you’re looking at well over 20 hours of gameplay, and the cornucopia of side-missions and quests available easily doubles that. Like all the best open-world RPGs, it’s the ideal winter game, in which to immerse yourself for weeks rather than venturing outside into the real world.

FFXV review: The perfect modern version?

To argue that Final Fantasy XV is perfect, mind, would be idiotic. Firstly, there will be those who stubbornly prefer the format of older iterations; secondly it has flaws which never quite become deal-breakers, but which do sometimes niggle.

In the more manic battles you sometimes have to work the camera furiously (particularly when seeking a Warp-point), and occasionally the cut-scenes and dialogue lapse into tweeness (a common failing of Japanese games). One of the later boss-battles, too, is surprisingly lame (although plenty of others are satisfyingly tricky and exhausting).

Square Enix

There’s a slightly baggy feel to its open-world at times, too, as you often find in games with a lot of underlying systems churning away. Plus we found the odd glitch, such as a feedback loop when Ignis was trying to turn the Regalia around and got stuck against a barrier, necessitating reverting to the last save (frequent saves are a must).

But there’s nothing you feel you can’t live with given the game’s ambition and scale.

Verdict

It’s fair to say that Final Fantasy XV had a rather troubled inception. It was first trailed in 2006, as Final Fantasy Versus XIII, and originally mooted for the PlayStation 3. Yep, all that time ago. 

Then Square Enix decided FFXV would become the basket into which it would put all its eggs and, a full decade later, it finally emerges as an instalment of the franchise which has the tools, lore and heft to inspire similar devotion to the likes of the classic Final Fantasy VII.

FFXV also leaves Final Fantasy, as a franchise, utterly refreshed and ready to do battle with rival RPGs in the future. For Square Enix, it represents the biggest punt in the company’s history. But that punt has paid off. For FFXV is an unmitigated treat for RPG-lovers.

Apple Tells NHTSA That Companies Entering Auto Industry Should Get the Same Rights As Establishment

Last week, Apple wrote a letter to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration telling it that “new entrants” to the auto industry should get the same rights as the established companies in the industry, reports Venture Beat.

Apple points out that established car manufacturers do not have to pursue exemptions to the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards when attempting to test cars on public roads due to the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act. New entrants in the auto industry, like Google and others, are not granted the same right under the FAST Act.

The Cupertino company argues that the best way to maximize safety benefits for autonomous vehicles, ensure fair competition and encourage innovation is for the NHTSA to amend policy to state that seeking exemptions isn’t necessary for internal development vehicles on public roads.

The other half of the letter, which is dated November 22, addresses the Federal Automated Vehicles policy and a proposed data sharing program. “Apple agrees that companies should share de-identified scenario and dynamics data from crashes and near-misses,” the letter says. “Data should be sufficient to reconstruct the event, including time-series of vehicle kinematics and characteristics of the roadway and objects.” Apple also points out that data sharing should not come at the expense of privacy, and that companies should invest resources to protect the “individuals’ fundamental right to privacy.”

In October, it was reported that Apple was abandoning its car plans “for now.” After numerous layoffs and reassignments, the remaining members of the Apple Car team were said to be focusing on autonomous systems. Dozens of employees are also working on a car operating system in Canada. The letter was signed by Apple VP of Product Integrity Steve Kenner, who used to be Ford’s Global Director of Automotive Safety. It’s not known when Kenner joined Apple, as his LinkedIn still lists Ford as his employer.

Related Roundup: Apple Car
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Apple VP of Special Projects Paul Deneve Removed From Leadership Webpage

Apple this evening updated its executive profiles page to remove Paul Deneve, suggesting he is no longer with the company or has left the executive team. Hired in 2013, Paul Deneve served as Apple’s vice president of special projects, reporting to Apple CEO Tim Cook.

Paul Deneve came to Apple from luxury fashion house Yves Saint Laurent, where he served as CEO. Deneve, who joined Apple as it was working on the Apple Watch, also worked at several other luxury fashion labels like Courreges, Nina Ricci, and Lanvin.

Paul Deneve’s executive profile, which has now been removed from Apple’s website.
During his time at Apple, Deneve had a hand in marketing the Apple Watch. He was involved in projects like the massive floral window installation at Selfridges, and worked alongside Apple’s head of retail Angela Ahrendts getting the Apple Watch in high-end boutiques around the world.

Deneve’s LinkedIn page has not yet been updated and continues to list Deneve as a vice president at Apple.

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The Game Awards 2016: All the new game trailers unveiled, in one place

This year’s Game Awards are done and dusted, but if you didn’t catch the show live, no worries.

Pocket-lint has gathered up every new game trailer that premiered at The Game Awards 2016 and listed below. We’ve also included a 4K stream of the actual show, in case you feel like watching the whole thing for yourself. Also, if you’re unfamiliar with The Game Awards, we got you covered there, too. Here’s everything you need and want to know, in one place.

What are The Game Awards?

The Game Awards is an annual awards ceremony to honour “outstanding artistic, technical and gameplay achievements” in the video game industry. It is guided by an advisory board that includes the executive leadership teams from Activision, AMD, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Nintendo of America, Rockstar Games, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Telltale Games, Ubisoft, Valve, and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.

This committee selects 29 video game media organizations (see list here) that nominate and subsequently vote on the video games in several categories. The advisory board is not involved in the selection of nominees or winners. It learns of the winners at the same time of the public. 

When are The Game Awards 2016?

The 2016 awards ceremony was held in Los Angeles on 1 December.

Who won at The Game Awards 2016?

You can see this year’s full list of winners across all the categories from here.

Can you stream The Game Awards 2016?

Yes. Although the three-hour-long show has ended, you can still watch the stream online, whether that be from Twitch, YouTube, Xbox Live, PlayStation, or some other source. You can see the full list of available streams from here.

We’ve also embedded a 4K one below.

Did any trailers premiere at The Game Awards 2016?

Yes. Many trailers premiered during the event, and there was some big news as well. Here’s a roundup of all videos:

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Demo

Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition

Rocket League Starbase Arc

Death Stranding:

Warframe

Telltale’s Guardians of the Galaxy

Dauntless

Lawbreakers

Halo Wars 2

Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment

Prey

Walking Dead: A New Frontier

Mass Effect: Andromeda

Halo Wars Definitive Edition

Want to know more?

Check out Pocket-lint’s Games hub for related news.

Hulu now offers 4K, starting with original shows and 20 Bond films

Hulu has begun offering 4K streams for Xbox One S and PlayStation Pro owners.

The US-based streaming services has announced that starting 2 December anyone with the latest generation, 4K-capable Xbox and PS systems can stream a selection of shows and movies in Ultra HD at launch. Netflix and Amazon Video, which are Hulu’s biggest rivals in the States, already offer an impressive slate of 4K content, so the number of titles Hulu is offering right now seems pretty slim. That said, 007 fanatics will be thrilled.

• How to watch 4K Ultra HD content on TV and online

Hulu is streaming 20 James Bond films in 4K. But other than that, Hulu is only offering its original series in 4K. That includes shows like 11.22.63, The Path, Chance, etc, none of which are award-winning critically praised productions. Hulu has a lot of catching up to, especially with Netflix just announcing that it has enabled offline downloads. But where Hulu scores big-time is that has a huge catalogue of cable TV programming.

We’d love to watch South Park, Family Guide, The Daily Show, Designated Survivor, Bob’s Burgers, and many of the other hit TV shows it offers in 4K. Hopefully it’ll hustle and get that in order. In the meantime, we don’t mind watching some Bond while drinking martinis (shaken, not stirred).

Republican congressmen question value of asteroid redirect mission

A pair of Republican congressmen, both of whom sit on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, contacted NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on Tuesday, requesting more information from the space administration about a recent report supporting the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM). The ARM program aims to intercept a near-Earth asteroid, grab a boulder from its surface using a robotic spacecraft and then coax said boulder into a stable orbit around the moon where it can be studied at leisure by future manned missions.

Reps. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the HCSST, and Brian Babin (R-Texas), chairman of of the HSST space subcommittee, made the request because they reportedly feel that the incoming administration should be “unencumbered” by decisions made by the current one — like what they want to do with the ACA — and has access to “honest assessments” of ARM’s value rather than “farcical studies scoped to produce a predetermined outcome.”

Specifically, the pair questioned a November 16th report which proposed that performing this mission would close five “strategic knowledge gaps” (SKGs), or subjects that NASA has said it needs additional experience or technologies in before it can continue its space exploration plans. These SKGs include everything from how to limit a crew’s radiation exposure during round trip missions, how many such missions a crew could complete before radiation exposure becomes an issue or how to even land on and collect materials from the orbiting boulder. What’s more, these are SKGs would be answered with the completion of the baseline ARM mission — we could close another eight knowledge gaps (out of NASA’s total of 27) with subsequent follow-up missions.

“This report is an important step in identifying ways that ARM will be more scientifically relevant as we continue mission formulation for the robotic and the crew segments,” Michele Gates, program director for ARM, wrote in the November 16th statement. It was this conclusion with which Reps Smith and Babin are taking umbrage. The two argued that NASA has set a “bizarrely low bar” for the role ARM would play in closing these SKGs, citing that NASA itself had previously questioned the need for the ARM mission.

The ARM program was already under assault from the GOP before Smith and Babin’s letter. The House’s version of the 2017 FY appropriations bill includes wording that would force NASA to fully defund the ARM program. Furthermore, the two reps wrote, “the next Administration may find merit in some, if not all, of the components of ARM, and continue the program; however, that decision should be made after a full and fair review based on the merits of the program and in the context of a larger exploration and science strategy.” Funny, coming from an administration that has already announced that it plans to dismantle NASA’s Earth-study programs and defund “politicized” climate change research.

Source: Space News