Let's share our first (spoiler free!) impressions!

[Psychotic]

I know some members here have already beaten the game, but for those of us who have just got the game I thought this would be a nice place to put down our thoughts about some of the little touches, fun moments and any gripes we have without the risk of any spoilers. I've been playing for an hour or so and I'm having a good time so far!

• The relationship between the four main characters is really enjoyable and believable, I enjoy their chemistry a lot.
• You can buy and play soundtracks from other FFs to play in the car? smurfing sold. Cruisin' the highway with Man With the Machine Gun playing
• I love that Prompto takes pictures of things! That's such a neat little way to document the journey.
• I do NOT like that it grades my stealth and defence in the battles because I don't believe in either Offense is consistently an A+ ranking... defence and stealth? Ah, not so much.
• The story is really minimalist, isn't it? Blimey, just straight in there. Feels very un-FFy! Well, recent FFs anyway.

[Psychotic]

I met a cat and now me and the cat are besties. Game of the year? Game of the year. Or at least tied with Stardew Valley I guess.

[Fox]

About 7 hours played and very little story so far. Lots of hunting.

You know, I would rather a turn based combat system as I such at this one, but it is still fun to use. That combat mechanics are not what makes this game feel slightly off to me. No, the issue lies with the open world. The more I play the convinced I am that the open world was a mistake.

I'm thinking back to the events of FFVII: Reactor 1 > 7th Heaven > Reactor 5 > Church in the slums > Aerith's house > Wall Market > Don's Mansion > Sector 7 Plate and so on. Each beat of the story leads into the next beat of the story.

Here we have "Eh, one of these missions might progress the story if you like. Oh, but you're not at the recommended level for that mission, so you might want to do some hunts first!"

So as fun as this is, I'm struggling to engage with any of the events that are happening because there are such looooong stretches between anything of note actually happening. Oh, and as cool as it is that I've got the FFVIII soundtrack on the radio, I would rather the game rely on its own soundtrack instead of nostalgia for the good ol' days.

[Sephiroth]

I'm thinking back to the events of FFVII: Reactor 1 > 7th Heaven > Reactor 5 > Church in the slums > Aerith's house > Wall Market > Don's Mansion > Sector 7 Plate and so on. Each beat of the story leads into the next beat of the story.

Exactly.

[tony12]

Quite honestly I think people need to really really love open world exploration in order to get very much out of this game. I don't have a ps4 so I have been watching a playthrough off of youtube but after a few hours of gameplay that I have watched (have to admit I fastforwarded through parts of it because it is simply that boring) seem to be about 95% open world exploration, 4% combat, and 1% story.

I honestly don't even know any of the names yet of any of the four main leads that you start out with. They don't really talk much at all to each other besides your standard 'let's go' type of lines when they are running through the countryside. No real cutscenes to develop and let the player get to know them and the world they are living in.

There is this girl that came into the story after a while. Not sure exactly what her name was but you might as well call her Aeris because it sounds a lot like Aeris. When she first appeared I thought the game might actually get into some story development, but nope, she pretty much is just there to lead the character around town (guess the other characters needed a coffee break or something). Most development I could find out about her was that she seemed to be a childhood friend of the main character.

I stopped after she left the game and the other three characters (the ones you started with) came back and the group just carried on with their explorationary ways.

It really seems like Square is about ten to fifteen years behind the norm with their game development. These types of games and stories were fun back in the '90's and early '00's but these days where we have games that have practically movie quality stories these Final Fantasy releases just seem really, really, really, outdated.

[Fynn]

About 7 hours played and very little story so far. Lots of hunting.

You know, I would rather a turn based combat system as I such at this one, but it is still fun to use. That combat mechanics are not what makes this game feel slightly off to me. No, the issue lies with the open world. The more I play the convinced I am that the open world was a mistake.

I'm thinking back to the events of FFVII: Reactor 1 > 7th Heaven > Reactor 5 > Church in the slums > Aerith's house > Wall Market > Don's Mansion > Sector 7 Plate and so on. Each beat of the story leads into the next beat of the story.

Here we have "Eh, one of these missions might progress the story if you like. Oh, but you're not at the recommended level for that mission, so you might want to do some hunts first!"

So as fun as this is, I'm struggling to engage with any of the events that are happening because there are such looooong stretches between anything of note actually happening. Oh, and as cool as it is that I've got the FFVIII soundtrack on the radio, I would rather the game rely on its own soundtrack instead of nostalgia for the good ol' days.

Honestly, that format is reminding me so much of FFTA and Xenoblade Chronicles, which I adore. Yeah, I think I'm gonna be fine

[Big D]

Thanks to this thread, and the reactions generally (both fan and media) I think I'm sold. Having seen Kingsglaive and Brotherhood, I have enough background that I already know and care somewhat about these characters and their world, which is likely to help, based on reviews to date.

A lot of the specific criticisms seem to boil down to "it's not like every other FF" or "I had to figure things out for myself, therefore it's bad", which actually bodes well based on what I'm looking for in a game.

[Aulayna]

It's "okay."

I'm only a few hours in and the bros are already recycling the same voice clips over and over "man sure is hot" "take off your jacket then" "this place is sultry" "yeah" - and the fact Cindy says her voice line every single time you go back and forth in a menu when modifying the Regalia is ... infuriating. Oh and some of the dialogue just seems so out of place - middle of the night, getting smacked up by some Goblins "this place is nice" "sure is." Wat?

Voice acting gripes aside, the combat is good - though it rapidly flips between being fun and downright infuriating. The camera is still the worst enemy of the combat system, but it's come leaps and bounds since Episode Duscae and feels a little more responsive than Platinum Demo. However there's still too many occassions where I'm holding down Square when the prompt comes up, have plenty of MP, yet still get twatted by whatever attack is coming.

I think open world will be the death of the game for me in the long-run, I have a huge issue with open world games in that I'm afraid I'm going to miss something, so I have to canvas literally every crevice, nook and cranny - and FFXV makes this even more of a chore by forcing me to go and camp every night to avoid getting rekt by an Iron Giant. This is doubly confounded by the FF series history of having items you could easily miss and never have the opportunity to pick-up again, so my worries of "missing something" are like tenfold.

I can't really speak much to the story, as I'm still in Chapter 1 after about 6 hours of play. I only just went to the Quay before I stopped for the night last night (shows how much exploring I did). Speaking of which I decided to head back to Insomnia, found a dungeon near the blockade, went in, discovered everything was lv45+ and I got destroyed - that was rad!

Right now my feelings tend to alternate from "this is fun, I'm enjoying it" and "eh, this is pretty bland." I'll binge over the weekend and share some more thoughts then.

I guess to flesh it out more than "okay" - the game has some interesting ideas, some of them are a lot better executed than others, it's just not falling together into a compelling package for me right now.

(I smurfing love Prompto's photos though! And fishing is surprisingly fun too.)

[Fynn]

If it makes you feel any better, apparently you can always go back and get stuff you may have missed earlier. No such thing as a point of no return in this game, from what I heard.

[Fox]

I think open world will be the death of the game for me in the long-run, I have a huge issue with open world games in that I'm afraid I'm going to miss something, so I have to canvas literally every crevice, nook and cranny - and FFXV makes this even more of a chore by forcing me to go and camp every night to avoid getting rekt by an Iron Giant. This is doubly confounded by the FF series history of having items you could easily miss and never have the opportunity to pick-up again, so my worries of "missing something" are like tenfold.

I'm on Chapter 5 and my recommendation to you for the open world is this: only do hunts (and maybe one or two other quests if they happen to be easy), just to get you to the recommended level for the next story quests. The vast, vast majority of side content in this game is bog-standard awful fetch quests.

Today I'm enjoying the world a bit more; I have chocobos to ride and I can powerslide them! Also I can name my chocobo and dye her feathers and things like that, which is nice. Apparently you can get things by racing them but I haven't found how to do races yet. I still suck at the combat but it's getting flashier, even as my skill level remains the same, which is nice. I have at least gotten better at picking the right weapon for the right time, which is good.

As much as I miss a properly fleshed out magic system, I do like how you are encouraged to use your items. I'm using Elixirs in normal fights, and I even used a Megalixir on a hunt! The days of hording all my items and then never actually using them are long gone. I really like the regenerating HP vs maximum HP mechanic.

I have multiple techniques for my entire team but I don't like how I can only equip one at a time for them. The first technique they each have is some kind of "do awesome damage" ability, but then the second one is "do some kinda debuff". Which just isn't as appealing, so I've kept everyone with their defaults.

[Jinx]

It sounds like they tried to make an MMO.

[Psychotic]

It sounds like they tried to make an MMO.

Yeah, I'd agree with that. It feels like a single player MMO in many ways.

[Fynn]

Same holds true for FFXII, Xenoblade Chronicles, etc. A lot of JRPGs are made using that style nowadays.

[Jinx]

Just because it happens a lot doesn't mean it's a good thing.

[fat_moogle]

Play time: 7 & a half hours.

Currently on: Chapter 2 (beginning of)

Verdict: I'm enjoying it so far. There are some gripes that have been mentioned above such as the constant repeating of dialogue by the four as they're wandering around. Because I played the judgement demo I haven't really got anywhere new as I played through the first chapter already, minus the side quests which weren't included. They're a standard affair, again that's been mentioned above. I've been doing them all though to gain the extra EXP, AP and items. I've also been doing the hunts as well to get the gil and rewards. I'm currently level 11 but I've amassed about 7000 exp which I haven't rested yet to level. I got thousands of EXP for slaying a cactuar which I came across! So once I've levelled I'll do some more hunting before moving ahead to the next story quest.

The combat in this game feels so smooth, but I've still yet to master dodging properly. I don't think it helps that I haven't used ANY of my AP yet to help improve this. The Ascension board is overwhelming as there's so many different areas which you need to consider to spend them on. I'll start spending some points when I play the game again tonight.

I'll be sure to give some updated impressions once I've had a chance to play more.