I believe it has to be in relation to the monster too, so "back" could be any direction if you aren't locked and tracking the target.

It's not as smooth as I would like, but I'm getting the hang of combat, and learning how to link some nasty combos.  It's all a matter of timing and precise (or lucky) stick movement.





Yeah, the only music I heard was the "Stand By Me" during the intro, and the music that the car plays while driving.

Though Prompto once sang the traditional FF battle victory music after a fight.

ETA: the first part of this:

^^ he also sang the Chocobo riding music for me when we were near the chocobo stables.

Liking it so far..

Level 35 now. The story missions currently are only around level 25 though because I keep getting sidetracked with side quests.

The game's wonderful. Story and gameplay is solid. The first time I used Summon to defeat a boss... holy shit!

My only gripe is the lack of customization in regards to weapons, accessories, and clothing. There's almost no choice in what weapons your buddies should equip.

I just watched Kingsglaive, the movie that shows what happens in Insomnia during Chapter 1 of the game.  

Very entertaining.  They did an especially great job with the characters and the voice acting.

The movie is pretty solid, though some "shakey cam" detracts from the experience.  It's also very fast-paced, so it's hard to follow at times if you're not paying close attention.  

8.5/10 if you're a fan of this type of movie and/or a FF fan
6/10 if you're not

Interesting story, very different from the 'normal' FF we're used to.

I'm currently at the second base.

ETA: Haven't tried Wait Mode yet. But there have been a few times where I'm mashing the button the screen has told me to push and it ain't working...

Wait mode helps with combat tremendously, not only just for being able to take your time and plan your moves, but also because you can scan the enemies and identify their strengths/weaknesses.

As for the button prompts: if you're referring to blocking, you have to hold the button.

whenever it shows a button prompt you have to hold it. The only exception is when there is a circular gauge around it, then you mash it. I highly recommend wait mode, it can be a little clunky sometimes but it makes some of the later fights much more manageable since for some of the fights getting an appendage break is pretty much mandatory to be successful. Also, I highly recommend investing into the airstep branches, especially once you get the wyvern lance, it'll make for some almost infinite airborne chains.


Overall liking the game, I wish a few things were more polished or different but overall it is an order of magnitude better than XIII. I'm all aboard the hype train for VIIR since they'll use the same engine and mechanics which should free a lot of coding time up for optimization and gameplay tweaks. The only major gripe I have is chapter 13. Won't throw out spoilers, but it was very reminiscent of shinra hq from VII so I can see where the inspiration came from, but it was one of those where you can tell what they were going for so it made the fact that they really missed the mark that much more obvious. Holy shit it just dragged on and it was aggravating. I was level 49 going through it so it was cake, but fuck it wasn't fun. What they did immediately after was genius though. For anybody that isn't that far or hasn't picked the game up, be sure to do whatever you want to do in the open world before you hop on the king's boat because the story gets extremely linear after that. The first half of the game is pretty open which probably turns some traditional fans off, but the second half gets very old school final fantasy very quick.


edit: Also, another friendly tip, which is easy and also hard to miss at the same time, *SPOILERISH STUFF FOLLOWS!*, DO NOT get rid of the first rusted bit you find, and if you pick up a sturdy helixhorn DO NOT SELL IT! The "A better engine blade" quest line is how you get Noctis' ultima weapon, you can get it pretty early game and it makes a lot of the fights in the mid game much easier. Also, if you do any of cid's weapon upgrade quests and he tells you to wait for him to work on it you generally have to do 3 quests or hunts and he should give a call saying it's ready, if the 3 quests doesn't trigger it then just rest of the night and that should do it.

double edit for the completionists: You can easily miss some of the royal arms, be sure to track them all down in the first half if you want all of them, some of the side dungeons aren't easy to find if you're just blowing through the story.

what kind of crap is this. I bought a copy from the PS store downloaded it ,launched it...can't click new game and tis telling me it has like over 300 minutes to install o.0

You can do the fight stuff.

It's interesting how important ascensions are. To go from barely being able to take out level 60 boss monsters to destroying level 120 bosses is super interesting. The right ascension nodes are way important. 

I haven't played much recently but after checking the FFXV SubReddit, I'm really amazed at what people are capable of doing in this game. I'm only like level 36 and have so much to learn.

Once you understand the system it becomes a very easily exploitable one without being over the top exploitable.

Hitting level 99 took me a long time but to say that I was doing it wrong was an understatement.

ETA. The last dungeon you do in the game is very rough. No items. Enemies that have instant kill attacks. Awful ally AI.

Sounds like I have some research to do before I develope my ascensions any further or whatever they are called

Do not get the XP ascensions. Waste of points.

They seriously have a winner with this game.  It is probably my game of the year.  The developers appear to have taken some things from other successful games like GTA V, MGS V, and Assassin's Creed.  I love the banter between the characters.

I've done almost everything to do in the game. Hardest hunts, the hard mech, adamantoise, mystery dungeons, all but one weapon found, only a few recipes left, some fish left, max level, most ascensions done, platinum...

I want more. This is the best FF I've played. It is tied with FFT at this point.

When I finally figured combat out it was a blast.

I've never cared about a cast of characters this much in my life. All the reveals. The food change at the camp really got me. Home boy being from somewhere else? Oh man. The final camp scene. The picture choices!

It was really emotional for me. It reminded me of my band so much.

The combat is very hard to master. You can just hold attack down and destroy everything through most of the game but it's not very fun.

The greatsword us what got me to understand the combat system. It has the most obvious tells for chains as the chains are based on momentum. If you are far enough, fight an iron giant with it and practice using momentum to dictate your next swings.

Each weapon type excels at something. The sword is good for aerial attacks, the spears for fast sweeping chains, the greatswords for slow sweeping chains, the daggers for dodging every attack, the gun for vulnerable enemies, the gear weapons for group attacks and status effects. The Bioblaster is strong.

I've also found that just holding attack down and only adding directional inputs when I needed them was the best way to play. 

The main thing I forget to do is use their abilities. I can usually warp strike and dodge and parry fine but I always forget to use the abilities except for the one Ignis heals you

The entire story can be beaten that way along with most of the content. The last two mystery dungeons force some changes in your play style, particularly the last one. It becomes very Dark Souls.

I feel like the warp mechanic is something that the area has to be built for in order to use properly. The military bases, as an example.

Most combat is done on a 2d plane although there are some killer things you can do with spear and sword switching in the air.

I really hope they add some super late game content that's harder than the final dungeon. 

Regroup is great. Think of the 3 characters like this: 

Gladio: Damage (if you break the limit on his attacks they do insane damage).

Ignis: Spellcaster (buffs and heals with damage involving spells).

Prompto: Debuff. His piercer and anti daemon ability are insanely good. In fact, piercer is my most used ability.

If I use Umbra to go back in time, can my characters become stronger for the present?  I am at what I assume is the end dungeon and it would be nice if I can go back and level up a bit more.

Yep. Everything comes forward with you.

You can continue your game after you beat the final boss. In fact, a lot of content opens up only once you've done this.

Just beat the final boss at level 44 and about 33 hours of playtime. not sure if I will go back replay for some of the other stuff but a couple of things that left me kind of
Click To View Spoiler

Click To View Spoiler

Click To View Spoiler

Im level 45 and about to head to the "Disc" in Chapter 4.  I'm a little over leveled but then again this is typically how I play games like this.  I try and do everything before moving forward in the main story.  The big thing for me now is that I'm waiting on Cid to craft my engine blade III.

Noct uses a gun in that scene. The Prompto point is very important. The marriage happens in Bahamut's realm.

Slow it down. It sounds like you missed a ton.

You don't need the DLC to figure it out. There's a movie that goes along with the game but you don't need to see it to understand what's going on. The scene were Prompto and Noct are sitting on top of the hotel is the start of that story arch. I guess some of you didn't see it.

That was a very good game.  One of the best.

Gladiolus DLC set to release March 28.  

"The DLC pack will also add on special armor called the Magitek Exoskeleton. These items will allow the party to be completely invincible for thirty minutes, but the catch is they can only be used once a real-world day."

https://www.technobuffalo.com/2017/01/31/final-fantasy-xv-gladiolus-dlc-dated-for-march-super-crazy-power-ranger-suits-too/

Also Chapter 13 is getting a revamp:

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/195782/20170203/here-are-all-the-things-coming-soon-to-final-fantasy-xv-revamped-chapter-13-episode-gladio-and-more.htm


In related Final Fantasy news, Square release a new image for FFVII Remake:

I've been a life long SE fanboy, but that prompto thing was a fumble, no other way around it. I did see the hotel scene you are talking about but that little bit of side banter in no way does justice to what could have and should have been a much bigger story arc. Honestly it was my favorite game of last year. The only reason I'm critical is because there were some story elements that could have been HUGE but they either left them out because of the development struggles of the game (I think some of this was confirmed, or they plan on charging for some of it down the road (very likely). I feel like I got my money's worth and have no problem paying for DLC on this one, but they should have fleshed out the main story and left side things for DLC. They had some pretty major stuff that they're obviously adding in as DLC later on, that's BS.

I don't really understand. The Prompto thing isn't really a major plot point and it's resolved in about the same level of importance that it was placed in the game. I can see how you'd want more of that plot, but it really isn't a big deal. Dude feels out of place, talks about it with his friends, they're cool with it. There are a lot of other hints in the game about how he feels out of place, much like you get a bunch of hints about what is going to happen to Ignis. Gladio is the only one that doesn't have any big hints about what happens to him, other than him saying he has to handle something once in a blue moon while you're out running around the world.

The way they set gladio's thing up makes more sense though. Gets his thing done, comes back. Prompto's thing makes almost no sense whatsoever. I know it was hinted at but even so the specifics still came out of left field. At the time gladio's little plothole felt like a placeholder for dlc. Prompto's felt like they gutted other parts of the story that would have made sense but decided to leave that tidbit just for giggles. Different strokes for different folks and what not, but I'd rather have no explanation for Gladio's disappearance and have them fully flesh it out in a dlc episode instead of the bullshit curve ball that was prompto

THis is why I'm mainly a retrogamer now.

Haven't owned a new console since PS2/Xbox and play mostly old school stuff on PC/emulators/my classic systems.

FF died to me after X, though I was lukewarm on X and hated IX.  I will admit, since the relaunch of XIV I really like it though I detest MMOs.  It just has too much content from the great FF games of the past and has a very FFT feel (one of my all time favorite games) due to sharing some staff from that game.