New combat style and switching
Oh, baby, it’s tidbit time. Over in the Final Fantasy XV forum, the development team has addressed some questions about the scale of its cities and changeable difficulty settings.
First, Planner Ishikawa Tomonori, on the city of Altissia: “Altissia has many and varied locations, such as multiple cafes, ship-bourne market places and parks etc. The city is of a considerable scale, to the extent that even the developers sometimes get lost there!
“The player is free to take a leisurely walk around the complex maze of streets, or ride the gondola to see the sights and there is also added enjoyment to be had looking for restaurants to visit!
“You are bound to encounter some unique characters when exploring the city streets.”
Final Fantasy XII was the last in the series that gave me a sense of wonder as I casually walked about Rabanastre. It felt lived-in, like a real city, compared to Final Fantasy XIII‘s colder environments. So I’m down for a nice city to explore, especially if “looking for restaurants to visit” is an actual thing to do.
But all that exploration doesn’t have to be languid shuffling about. Lead Level Designer Terada Takefumi says large buildings and rooftops will have various warp points to enable quicker traversal.
“The warp ability that lets you teleport instantly to high up locations is a vital part of Final Fantasy XV’s battle system. The ability to use multiple warp points in a strategic manner is especially prevalent in the game’s large scale battles over urban terrain. It is not just the buildings though, and we have also created exciting aerial battles with flying foes and gigantic boss enemies, so watch out for those.”
The last tidbit comes from Lead Game Designer Takizawa Masashi, answering to the possibility of difficulty settings, the equivalent in Final Fantasy XV being, “a system where you can switch between different battle modes.” The “switching system” came via feedback from the Episode Duscae — maybe the surprising amount of respondents who felt the game was too hard?
“By having this ability to switch modes, we want to make it so that both players who like action oriented, technical gameplay and also those who want to fight at a slower, more relaxed pace can all enjoy the combat in their own style.”
