Queen's Blood (Final Fantasy Thread)

[Ruki]

At least the other games PRETEND to be more RPG like.

[TKz]

And other Final Fantasy games haven't?

The good ones weren't action RPG's at all. So there's that.

[TKz]

And other Final Fantasy games haven't?

I know, double post, but man, what FF's even were "action" RPGs?

All I can think of is Crisis Core (which I kind of love) and Lightning Returns. I guess you can kind of argue that XIII and XIII-2 were, but they were still way more in line with a traditional JRPG battle system than something like Kingdom Hearts, which actually was an Action RPG. Other than the first two examples, I think XV will be the first that's closer to an Action RPG than a traditional turn based RPG. And even then, from the demo released with Type-0, it seems like it does a really good job at keeping elements from the traditional system whilst doing it's own thing.

And yeah, man, the XV demo kind of sold me on XV. Like, they better tighten that game the fuck up before release because holy shit it drops to like 15-20fps at times... but the combat felt pretty rewarding and interesting. I'm hoping the boss fights are way less scripted than the Behemoth was for the most part, too.

The only two things I'm really worried about are just how large the game actually is - the demo area is great, but ideally I'd want the game to feature a fucking ton of areas that size with a different variety of landscapes... and the story, which yeah, kind of seems like typical anime bullshit so far. I'm pretty bummed out that the only female characters are a sex object Cid and a kidnapped princess too, I kind of figured fucking Final Fantasy of all franchises would've picked up on the way mainstream media is starting to branch out. But I guess we are talking about a Japanese dev, after all...

[Benji]

Type-0 isn't main series, I'm fine with it being different. Naming the non-ATB games differently is all I really wanted from them.

[Avenged Probably]

YES! The postman just came! I shall report soon with thoughts on both Type-0 and the XV demo

[ZJ Penn]

First impressions of the XV demo are not good. Have switched to Type O and gonna give that a try.

[TKz]

TYPE 0 HAS AN OVERWORLD GUYS

10/10 GOTY 2015

[Avenged Probably]

Loving Type-0 so far.

I will say the only annoyances so far have been graphical and I guess that's down to it being a PSP remake. It looks lovely, but little things like hair/clothes being static where I'm used to PS4 games having that stuff 'blow in the wind' or whatever. No big deal. Also, the mouths don't move with the English, but there's not that much spoken stuff so far.

I didn't think I cared, but running around on the old style world map is making me very happy.

I thought 14 characters was too many, but after having a quick read of each bio and chatting in the home area you start getting to know them a little which is nice. The really nice thing about 14 characters? Grinding does not get boring. It is the one thing I despise about JRPGs and I'm actually having a blast doing it for the first time ever. You can control any character and they all do different stuff.

[Ruki]

So, besides being action RPG-y....what's Type-0's deal? Any cool systems in the game?

[TKz]

It's got a pretty cool battle system, but fuck me, there's just so much fucking motion blur. It's disorienting. Camera kind of sucks.

I think it'll turn out to be worth the asking price once I've had time to sink my teeth into it, though.

[Avenged Probably]

How far are you? I'm just about to start the first proper mission.

I've seen a lot of people complaining about the motion blur... weirdly it doesn't bother me, which is strange because I sometimes feel nauseous as the camera rotates during the 'synchronisations' in Assassin's Creed.

I like that in some of the random battles you get the option of hanging around and waiting for more enemies. You can keep repeating and they get harder each time.. you know it's time to 'retreat' when a wave ends up taking out more than half of the squad.

[probablyoliver]

Granted I've not given it much of a chance just yet but I'm not sure I'm digging Type-0 all too much. The combat's super fun but everything in between is kind of a drag and the motion blur is giving me the mother of all headaches.

[apsham]

The game doesn't come with the option to turn off motion blur? Ack, that sucks. It's the first thing I check for when I start up something.

[Liam]

Yeah, it feels a little bit like there is too much going on for my eyes to really take in.

Enjoying it still, but hard on the head.

[Whisper]

As someone who hasn't played many Final Fantasy games since 10, though I did enjoy the combat in my brief periods with 12 and 13, would you guys recommend type-0? It looks like I would enjoy it, but just wondering how it plays and what the longevity is like?

[probablyoliver]

As someone who hasn't played many Final Fantasy games since 10, though I did enjoy the combat in my brief periods with 12 and 13, would you guys recommend type-0? It looks like I would enjoy it, but just wondering how it plays and what the longevity is like?

I'd say it's certainly worth checking out. It's a little dated and actually looks more like a PS2 game than something from the current gen but that's just because it's a fairly basic port. As I've mentioned already, the combat is super fun and having a world map is ruddy wonderful, but it's certainly not without it's flaws. I'm still very early on in the game (still on chapter 2) but I'm starting to enjoy it a little more than I did at first.

There's a few really weird design choices, like the map of each area is horrible with no actual indication of where you are or where you're going, the camera is quite jarring and the motion blur means I can't really play it for more than an hour at a time without getting a headache. There's a lot of characters (even by FF standards) and getting to know each one is a bit of a pain. They also seem to be holding back on what the story actually is, instead of easing you into things it just kinda throws a whole bunch of lore onto you and expects you to figure it out. But hey, it's quite fun at least and definitely worth trying out.

Personally I'd suggest going in with low expectations and knowing first and foremost that it's mostly an inconsiquential side-project and not a main series Final Fantasy.

[TKz]

At this point, the most I can recommend it really is if you're someone that's going to play it via Remote Play on a Vita. Because then you can probably excuse the fact that it's 100% a portable game, right down to the core design choices like the areas you visit being a set of 6-7 tiny maps with a few enemies on them that all look the same.

It's a fucking shame in a lot of ways. I could look past all of this for a Vita/PSP game due to console limitations. But on the PS4, it feels like a cheap port, thrown together and used as an excuse to sell a demo. So many little changes that could've been done if they'd cared to that would've made it feel a lot more worth the money. Get rid of the motion blur, tighten up the insane loading screens, tie all those rooms together a bit better without the load screens between them. It could probably mostly be sorted in a patch, but Enix being Enix, I highly fucking doubt they'll bother. They've got their money now.

Something that bothers me that probably was in the original game is that this game doesn't remotely fucking bother trying to explain a majority of the systems. It'll be like, one line of text in a pop up that never shows up again. And the line will barely explain what you'd use it for it. There's so much on the menu that I look at, despite having finished all the tutorials, that I still have no idea what it means.

[probablyoliver]

Got the platinum on Type-0 just now. You'd think this means I have at least a basic understanding of the plot or the characters and what the game was actually about.

Nope. Nada. No idea.

[Avenged Probably]

Welcome to every Japanese game ever that wasn't originally designed for a Western audience.

Although to be fair, I just finished chapter four and it's all making sense to me. I mean, I guess there's still plenty of time for it to go "full Final Fantasy" and end up being random as hell with a baffling ending that makes no sense

[probablyoliver]

Oh you have no idea.

But yeah, the story's fine up til a point. It's a little convulted and disjointed, but it's easy enough to follow. And then chapter 8 happens and good lord, it's ridiculous.