I feel like I've been waiting my whole life for Final Fantasy XV to finish being developed. No really, I was around 14 when the game was first announced. In fact, I don't think it was all that long after Final Fantasy XII had come out. It has been that long that my memory is quite foggy on the whole thing. I remember my friend from school called me when he got his copy of XII, and we spoke very briefly and excitedly on the phone for a few minutes; "Omg, I know it looks soooooo good." We knew that we both wanted to hang up though, I mean we wanted to play this game so bad!


The same friend was super excited about Final Fantasy Versus XIII too, we watched the trailer one night back on the good old days of MSN.

"OMG."

"I know. Man it looks so good"

"What are all of those swords?"

"I don't know but it looks so amazing it's going to be fantastic."

We kept the hype up for the next year. At 15, we would talk more about what was happening in real life than what was going on with the development of Versus XIII, which boy I fancied, how that girl so wasn't good enough for him. Gosh. Slowly, we were over Versus XIII, only ever really sharing the odd tidbit of info that appeared on Wikipedia.

Cue being 16, and the announcement of Final Fantasy XIII - WHAT? Lightning WASN'T going to be in Versus XIII? Was Versus XIII going to be the boy version? We'd be puzzled about it and talk for hours, again, on MSN about this game. We both fell in love with Vanille when she was announced as a character, and then Fang.... The Shiva BIKE? What the hell are they thinking, the Queen of Ice is not a bike...

I remember all of these conversations quite clearly because my friend and I really bonded for 2 years over Final Fantasy. It was after I saw that his MSN avatar was that of an upside down Yuna falling from Bevelle at her Wedding. "Omg you like Final Fantasy?" and that was that. We were friends.


You're probably wondering where all of this is going; well, unless you've been hiding under a rock, you will know that the amount of Final Fantasy XV information that has come out this last week is insane. 8 long years of nothing - and all of a sudden a flurry of information we can hardly keep up with. This is all great, but I feel like my hype-train died a long time ago. Maybe it's because my Final Fantasy friend and I aren't as good friends anymore, and now seeing all of this new information about the game - and how different it looks to those original concepts - maybe I just don't feel interested in it because it stings my nostalgic memory of it.

It seems that some of our Eyes On members have similar feelings on it too... I've been scouring the comments on the forum this week for varying views about the bombardment of news.


Quote Originally Posted by ToriJ
"I wish I could get excited about the game, I really do. But as it stands I just can't. Maybe when the game is out and it proves to be as good as they're selling it, but until then it's not happening. I don't have as much faith in Square as the rest of you seem to have."
Quote Originally Posted by Sephiroth
It is not good to announce projects that probably only consist of the overall ideas, some artworks and a trailer while it is not done yet for a good deal and while the probability of remaking a good deal of it in between is there and that for sure is one of the reasons, it should not be like this. Making big games needing time is obvious but then I need to plan properly and I am sure such a faux pas will never happen again as Final Fantasy XV mustn't need another 8 years - except they begin with development early but do not announce it at that time.
Quote Originally Posted by Del Murder
I'm excited to hear about the camping stuff and the weather effects. I like those little details. Of course, like Lightning Returns showed, even if you have a bunch of cool gameplay elements it really doesn't make up for bad writing and flat characters.
Quote Originally Posted by Hannibal_Khan
I'm effin hyped. Demo can't come soon enough.
Quote Originally Posted by FFFFsephychibi
Is it also a little weird that he's suggesting they can't implement everything that was originally designed because the hardware and software got... better? That doesn't make sense. It sounds like the game has been stripped of fun mechanics for graphical quality
Quote Originally Posted by Psychotic
What the smurf are they actually doing?
Quote Originally Posted by Bolivar
I'm concerned, from the recent trailer and the comments in the interview, that they're focused on shipping a title with a high artistic and graphical standard, rather than putting their heads together on how to make a really awesome role playing game.
Quote Originally Posted by shion
I am very disappointed by the lack of female playable characters. When I look at a game, that's one of the main things I look for and I have shot down a good number of games because they had no playable ladies. This has dropped my hype about 80%
Quote Originally Posted by Edge7
So, this game's been a pretty controversial one. In between the all male boy band cast, the focus on action over turn based combat, the modern setting, the "road trip" feel of the game; it really feels like this shouldn't be a main series title.THAT BEING SAID, I CAN'T HELP BUT GET SUPER EXCITED FOR THIS GAME.
Quote Originally Posted by Freya
Writing all these news bits has me excited again. I just hope it isn't another 8 years.

It seems that some of us are quite cautious and disappointed, and most who are optimisic are cautiously so. By what we've seen this week. Square Enix have a lot riding on this game being a big success. If it isn't THE GREATEST FINAL FANTASY OF ALL TIME EVER, then they're going to lose a lot of fans for good. But then again, they could win us all back with Kingdom Hearts III.