Noctis will be the ONLY playable character in FFXV

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There was a live stream this morning where the team addressed more information they didn't have time to at the Tokyo Game Show. Director Hajime Tabata confirmed that Noctis will be the only playable character and you wont be able to switch between the other characters in Final Fantasy XV.

There you go: you wont be able to switch characters and you will only be limited to Noctis. They decided to do this due to complications Square Enix was having with the multiple character switching. They stated it was easier to focus on a one-character design. They plan on making this battle system unique to Final Fantasy XV. When asked if the battle system will play more like Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy Type-0, Square Enix said that at first it started off more like Kingdom Hearts, then certain features brought it more in line with Type-0 but now Final Fantasy XV's battle system has become its own thing entirely.

Tabata went on to apologize on behalf of Square Enix about the misunderstanding on the Playstation Store about the ability to switch characters.

What do you think? Does the battle system interest you? What about it's influences from both Tabata's Type-0 and Nomura's Kingdom Hearts?

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Originally Posted by fat_moogle

Well that's kind of disappointing, but I can deal with it. No Ignis fire combo for me :(

Oh well.

Also, I'm with Taiga. Doesn't really make much sense when we get so many playable characters in Type-0.

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To add to this further I have a feeling that maybe Nomura was making XV too similar to Kingdom Hearts battle system and maybe that's the reason why he was kicked off of the game. So that when KHIII does release it won't be like a XV clone. Or now FFXV won't be a KH clone. Whatever way you want to look at it.

do what the westerns do and add a combat pause button :D!

did they say anything about the manual mode?

I like the idea of a brand new battle system, but I'm pretty disappointed in the lack of multiple characters in a main FF entry. That's one of the things that turned me off of Lightning Returns.

In a MMO or game like Mass Effect, it's different because you are creating the character's look, abilities, and personality from scratch. YOU are the hero rather than playing the hero character. I have to assume you will have a lot of control over Noctis's abilities but I doubt you'd get much control over the rest of him. So the success of FFXV will really come down to if Noctis is a good character or not; you're stuck with him either way. It's a big risk for SE.

Hoepfully Noctis is a more dynamic character than Lightning.

I'm getting less and less excited about this game with every new bit of information we're getting.

With the heavy use of single player controlled characters with A.I. partners in the genre that we've seen for the last oh... eight years or so, I'm not really bothered by this. It is a shame they couldn't make everyone playable because it probably would have felt like Xenoblade where every character played differently but as I said, since we've had party control kind of stripped from us for the last generation, I'm not terribly surprised or even annoyed.

'party control stripped from us last generation' -> mentions Xenoblade in the same paragraph....?

Obviously you can't micromanage in an action RPG, but as you mentioned with Xenoblade there are still games that let you change the PC and allow for different play styles. I don't see it as being 'stripped from us'. SE is just lazy.

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Originally Posted by Del Murder

'party control stripped from us last generation' -> mentions Xenoblade in the same paragraph....?

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To be fair, you are incredibly limited from designating what your party does in combat when not directly controlling them. As opposed to say FFX where you control every characters action every time. It's still a strip down. :p

I don't care even slightly as long as the systems are still engaging. Here is a brief list of some of my other favourite games where you have primary control over one character:

- Kingdom Hearts
- Mass Effect
- Metal Gear Solid
- Crisis Core
- Deus Ex

The list goes on. Frankly I should probably include all the 'Tales Of' games in there as well, because while you can switch to whoever you like there, how often does anyone play as the spell caster or the healer or the really slow guy with rubbish combos? Most of the time you just stick to one favourite for the whole game. There is no shortness of incredible games with single controllable player characters, so I'm happy to judge it purely on how interesting that character is and how successful the systems behind him are.

I'm okay with it. Still depressed I can't gun down enemies with Prompto.

Luckily we got better news like mp being drained if you hold down the defend button. We got a jump button. We have a name for the crystal swords thing "phantom sword" and it looks super cool. Plus short warps, anddddddd timing and directional button use for attacking. Sounds so much better.

Man I'd love for a game that reused the FFX or FFX-2's combat systems. They were the best.

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Originally Posted by Del Murder

Man I'd love for a game that reused the FFX or FFX-2's combat systems. They were the best.

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Well except for the parts where the design team dropped the ball like the easy difficulty/matching game combat, or all the stupid time wasting transformation sequence/sphere grid skill unlocking nonsense. ;)

Hype down with about 95%. It's mystifying how, as consoles got more and more powerful, entries in the main series became less and less complex in terms of customization of characters and fighting. Maybe if they focussed less on pretty graphics... I miss the old days of turn-based party combat. At least then we had parties and multiple characters to control and manage. All this trout of flashy and fast paced action combat that seems to have the entire genre in its thrall is such a dissapointment.

Bah

Give me Final Fantasy IV on Steam, keep your single-player numbered entry

This might sound weird, but since they're heading away from the RPG route and going more the way of action games, I'd really like to see them use the gameplay style of the Lego games. Yeah, the Lego games.

It'd be nice to switch between characters with a button, and be able to use different abilities for each character. The characters you weren't using would be AI.

Boo! Bring Back Roles Playing Games. :p

But seriously, while it is disappointing, I will as ever wait and see if it works for this game or not.

...I was always under the impression this was going to be the case since the first trailer released after it was renamed from Versus to XV. I don't think they ever showed a point of view from another character, they were just there. Helping. I presumed it was going to play very much like how Xenoblade would have, if you only had control of Shulk. Because that's exactly what it looked like to me. I guess something was mis-stated online to counter that, but I never heard or saw it, so I'm not sure how so many people thought there was going to be a party system in a real-time action game. So this doesn't bother me at all. It really just confirms what I thought (for some reason) was obvious

I think this game is just gonna be a total snore.
Male only party, can only control Noctis...

Not interested.

Don't have a problem with it, don't get the negative and surprised reactions. It's Kingdom Hearts. Kingdom Hearts was a lot of fun.

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Originally Posted by Psychotic

Don't have a problem with it, don't get the negative and surprised reactions. It's Kingdom Hearts. Kingdom Hearts was a lot of fun.

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Funny, and here I thought we were getting a Final Fantasy game.

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Originally Posted by Elpizo

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Originally Posted by Psychotic

Don't have a problem with it, don't get the negative and surprised reactions. It's Kingdom Hearts. Kingdom Hearts was a lot of fun.

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Funny, and here I thought we were getting a Final Fantasy game.

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The point of that was that this game can be a fun FF game without switching characters. The Last Story was a fun Final Fantasy without switching characters :monster:

Why even bother calling it a Final Fantasy game at all, then, would be the next logical question.

Why not bother?

Honestly, it's not bad. You still have your party that will do things but you just directly control Noctis as your in game avatar. Since there is no break away combat, every thing is seem less between exploring and fighting. Not allowing you to run around as other characters has been a thing for a while. You'll occasionally switch who your main avatar is but like with FFX, you're tidus. Same thing but they also don't transition it during combat since they don't break away.

I don't have an issue with it.

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Originally Posted by The White Wizard of Fynn

Why not bother?

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Money would be my first guess. The Final Fantasy name still sells, so I guess that's why they stuck to it.

What I find unclear still: Noctis being the only playable character, means we will also only be able to customize him? Equipment, stats and the like of the other characters will be out of our hands as well?

I THINK it's more like he's the main avatar and the one you directly control. As mentioned before, you probably have a gambit like system for the others. From my impression they had the guarding, attacking, and jumping in but it was too hard to jump form character to character to perform all those. So by having Noctis as the only one who can do it and the others get possibly a settable AI then it'll be easier to manage by the player.

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Originally Posted by Elpizo

Why even bother calling it a Final Fantasy game at all, then, would be the next logical question.

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Why call FFVII a FF game when the series has always been 2D? Why call FFXIV or XI a Final Fantasy game when it's online? The series has always changed and adapted with the direction gaming has taken.

One controllable character is not some ground breaking step for Final Fantasy that pushes it into Not Final Fantasy territory. When you think of why you like FF is it because of the exciting gameplay, the wonderful music, the groundbreaking graphics, the superb stories or is it because you can play as more than one character? You barely "play" as other characters in previous FFs anyway, which is why I don't get the reaction this has provoked.

If it's out of fear that the battle system is going to suck, sure, that's a possibility, but it's unrelated to this news. KH and LR both proved you can have a challenging and interesting battle system controlling just one character. It might be a bad battle system, it might be a good one, but either way the number of characters you control isn't going to be a key factor in the quality of the system.

^^^ agreed.

At this point, we are lucky we are getting it. They could have canceled it (like blizzard did with their 9 yr old moba) and made another game called 15.

Also, we probably shouldn't forget, this used to be a side-story, it was never meant to be a fully fledged mothership title. I'm glad they're not making ridiculous changes that weren't in the original vision just to fit it into some arbitrary set of criteria to make it's naming more justified by the fans. If them following whatever visionary path their trajectory is already on gives me a better more fleshed out and fully realized game, then I'm all on board for whatever they had planned. If they have to make compromises and shoe-horn in mechanics and characters then things start to fall to poop. I kinda remember rumors of things like corporate interference being one of the reasons FFXIII got all weird. They tried to do so many things, and had no clear idea how to mix them together and it got all messed up and things had to be thrown out while others were put in and you get a monstrosity that more resembles Frankenstein's monster than a fully realized work of art. I could be wrong, but either way, I think it's best something like that doesn't happen to this one. I'll let them make their game how they want and judge them based on what they tried to achieve, not on what I want them to achieve. Their story and character development will be strictly critiqued. If they can pull those off and get a competent battle system going, then anything else is just gravy. I don't need a party to enjoy a game. I don't even need a party to enjoy an RPG

I think we've all got our own criteria on "what a Final Fantasy can be" that has evolved over the years. In my opinion though we need to allow ourselves to stay open minded about this stuff; as long as it works and it's a really good game, then should we call it something else just because the game mechanics have changed? Yes I would like to see the franchise return to its roots every now and then - the last time it really did this was FFIX which, as we all know, was the best in the franchise. But that also doesn't mean it's not OK to push at the perceived boundaries and try something different.

So maybe I'd like FFXVI to try something a bit more traditional; some kind of turn-based system and full control over the entire party. But I don't think that's all Final Fantasy can ever be. Mechanics are just mechanics, they're not the be all and end all of any game. What really matters, at least to me, is how the game makes me feel while playing it. And this is why I'll still defend FFXIII from a certain amount of its criticism, because for all its flaws (and there were many, let's be clear on that) it still felt like a Final Fantasy to me. I still got invested in the world, invested in the systems, invested in (at least a couple of) the characters and choked up a bit at the ending. To me, those feelings - the sum of all the game's parts, whatever they may be - are what I use to determine if something is a worthy Final Fantasy game, rather than a checklist of approved game mechanics.

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Originally Posted by Fox_

- Kingdom Hearts
- Mass Effect
- Metal Gear Solid
- Crisis Core
- Deus Ex

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One of these things is not like the others,
One of these things just doesn't belong,
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?

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Originally Posted by Elpizo

Hype down with about 95%. It's mystifying how, as consoles got more and more powerful, entries in the main series became less and less complex in terms of customization of characters and fighting. Maybe if they focussed less on pretty graphics...

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Final Fantasy always had pretty graphics, though, and the gameplay in a lot of the old games were still good. I don't think a primary focus on graphics is why they're moving in this direction. I think those things are handled by a different team, anyway.

Maybe Square Enix should use the current graphic, stop improving it and focus more on the gameplay. If the graphic that makes switching party member or character difficult, maybe they should downgrade the graphic a bit and focus on the gameplay. If the graphic isn't the problem, well, just make other part member playable Square Enix.
If it isn't going to happen, that just means it's more like Kingdom Hearts battle system in Final Fantasy theme or universe. Although I enjoy playing Kingdom Hearts 2 in PS2 emulator. I just hope their plan about the unique battle system for Final Fantasy XV works out. But I don't mind with it's current battle system. As long as Square Enix have plan to release it on PC too :D
But this is my opinion :)

And in the screenshot there are four HP bars, which means three party members (other than Noctis) are active or available. Does that mean all party members will follow Noctis, not three like the past Final Fantasy? (Although Final Fantasy 1-2 or 3 has more than three party members active, I think)
(SPOILER) And yeah I know, Serah and Noel are the only playable character in Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Lightning is the only playable character in Lightning Returns.

I do hope Square Enix put PC logo too.
And CO-OP support.

Honestly, my main concern is still whether the story is going to be any good.

And if the English VAs are going to take it seriously, or just phone it in.

It's a like a giant joke
Badum-noctishhh

Sorry

I think its fine
Lightning returns was just fine
Mystic quest was just fine