Scottjay01

@pompouspizza: Also one last note on story side of things, I really unintentionally did allot of the open world quests and bountys and what not before I think Chapter 8 I want to say. So when they game closed me off for a while to have a a meater story I didn't feel like it was forced on me as I'd had quite a big fill of that stuff before hand, unlike some other impressions I read where I think they didn't do as much of that early onward and then felt locked in for a bit until you can go back basically.

So yeah if your enjoying that stuff yeah I'd recommend getting as much of your fill so then your ok when your closed off a for a bit.

@pompouspizza:No worries bro, I couldn't tell you off that bat on that one but it does sound about right. I focused more on combat, teamwork and techniques. I'm guessing those are in recovery? When it came to health I was loving that you and the guys could just pick each other up if you got to each other in time so I never really thought I needed a health up.

But yeah I think hover over what you like and get what you think is best.

@pompouspizza: Yes you can really really mess around if you put items into the mix, during my time though I just made what ever was the highest level sometimes that would result in the first bomb being different to the second one I threw!

Magic is my one regret in this game, I noticed more and more that the Weather has an impact on what you use! But I was almost done with the game at the time I would like to experiment more with the magic but yeah try dumping stuff together and see what happens lol at one point I botched my throw in the opening hours and electrocuted my whole party!

I assume after your sleeping/camping your using your AP points when you have them to upgrade all the stuff on your grids right?

@pompouspizza: Yes you need to camp and rest to cash in your XP and level up, Also eat food the stat boosts from eating are very beneficial .

Also I completely forgot to talk about Magic in this game, Magic is used by combining the 3 elements of fire, ice and lightning with items into a Bomb of sorts which you can check the final level and stats before creating, resulting in extremely useful thing to use if you run into enemies your not ready for.

I remember fighting 2 level 37 enemies at night and was about to die until I made a bomb of level 66 with all 3 elements and a potion threw 2 of those and damn was it a great get out jail free card haha.

@pompouspizza: Yeah, although please keep in mind that I knew allot about this game even when it was VersusXIII so there were aspects & stages that I wanted it to retain before Hajime Tabata fully took over the project, so I've been trying to push that feeling of what could have been away and not have an already colored opinion of it.

That said I'll try and keep this brief with as little spoilers as possible! Overall I'll start by saying it is the best Final Fantasy game to come out since XII (I know many will think that's not hard but still at least rest assured no fear of a XIII here) One thing I was very happy with was the Japanese Voice cast is selectable ,I would recommend this as it is more enjoyable, Square aren't Atlus when it comes to their English dubs.

There are 2 Control schemes The first is the default new one or number 2 which the button layout is that of FFXV Episode Duscae,This is great for doing mid weapon switching combos (I thought that was a great little addition)

The story I'm not going to lie, I watched the Kingsglave movie and Brotherhood Anime pretty much a day or 2 before I played this, so I felt allot more connected to what I was doing especially when the story really kicked in later. Outside of that I don't want to go into the story but even though my feelings before playing this, I will say the package of Brotherhood, Kingsglave and the Game I enjoyed very much, more than I thought actually.

The 4 main Characters become very likable over time, there are some really great scenes between them and some quests that flesh out their bond which becomes very interesting because they're just 4 best friends most of the time but there is this underline tone of we have to protect Noctis.

They do a good job of coloring the world on your adventure, as you go through towns and dives or stores there will be things like radios or NPC's talking and if you hit the prompts to listen in you hear about stuff that is happening in different parts of the world as your on your journey, this was especially enjoyable as I'd just watched Kingsglave so it made the events that are meant to be running parallel to each other work really well.

Combat is not a hack and slash if you take the time to learn it, Noctis can juggle through up to 4 weapons at a time which you can switch through mid combo and string together huge damage dealing moves, as you raise your skills you open up things later on that can lead to things like you soaring in aerial combat which is fantastic. Your 3 Bro's AI is very good in combat and are constantly linking up double team (or more) moves with you. Back attacks are the way to go!

You can also set a combat action for each of your 3 bros on L1 which you can activate in battle as you please, for example, I had Ignis to throw his daggers against a group of soldiers we were fighting, he hits about five of them then by timing my presses of O Noctis warps cutting down each of them. Later one I got to a much harder boss fight and I swapped out that command for a new one for Ignis where if the 4 of us were getting pushed to far apart, I'd hit L1 and choose Ignis to activate a regroup where the 4 guys rush back together in a sold line (This is very useful if one of you are low on HP)

I mentioned tombs in a previous post, these are very important as going through each of these you will get a weapon of the Royal Arms. There are 13 of these in total to get and activates the ability to use the awesome Armiger mode, If you saw any trailers of this game its all the weapons that surround Noctis's Body they protect you from harm but also allow you to pull of some spectacular combat Below the text is a lil gif i found of a look at just having only 4 of the 13 (Please note those enemies weren't meant to fight back)

As you go through towns or pit stops there will be restaurants, diners, hotels and inns, that by talking to them will add a bunch of side objectives and monster bounty's to the map which you be able to find items, weapons, car parts and what not.

Music in this game when used is superb especially for the mid and final boss fights!

That's all I can think of atm with out hitting any spoilers and Story wise I always think it's important for someone to experience that type of thing first hand.

@ripelivejam: Yeah I had earlier access to it from the start of this week, so I hunkered down and outside of going to the gym and sleeping all I did was FF XV

Without spoiling it, it's more like the last quarter, the story gets really moving but saying that again before say the final few events, you can go back into the open and explore, really though better to do allot of that stuff before going there as it has benefits going in to the later part of the game. Also there are few things you can only go to Post game which is cool.

@pompouspizza: No Prob bud, Also they tell you about the weapon tombs and and later base infiltration (Both after the first 2 or 3 are optional but do them all especially the tombs! You get fantastic Weapon rewards for tombs and the bases extra boss fights)

If thats spoilery sorry ill use tags if anyone thinks thats appropriate.

Tip : Explore and do side quests, Tones of awesome weapons and car upgrades are around! Give the big gravity/portal gun to prompto he'll fire it and suck enemies even huge ones into it while you and the others can put a beat down on them.