Final Fantasy XV

For most of your adventure, you are in control of Noctis. Playability of other characters is mostly reserved for their own respective DLCs or during combat.

 

Movement around Eos can be achieved either by foot or car. Later points in the game allow fast travel, and the map opens itself up through progression of the main story. In the beginning, your car is effectively glued to the road, regardless of player input; however, later upgrades to the Regalia can unlock the ability to go off-road.

 

Upgrading requires the use of AP - A passive currency you gain through normal gameplay. The amount gained depends on which activities you decide to do throughout the day. The skill tree is required to unlock additional character perks, skills and even grants the ability to play as one of your allies during combat.

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This game introduces real-time combat mechanics - a departure from the traditional turn-based combat from prior games. You can pick your targets out carefully and exploit their weaknesses with the time-based system, freezing time whenever Noctis isn’t moving, or just get right in the enemy's face and experiment with different combos.

 

Depending on where the player faces the camera, Noctis can phase warp to specific locations, leaving a blue trail behind him. This, put together with real-time combat, creates a feeling of satisfaction as you swiftly move around to different parts of the map and unleash a devastating flurry of attacks in conjunction with well timed parries and dodges, making you feel incredibly powerful with this ability alone that forms a smooth transition between traversal and combat.

 

During mid-combat, one of Noctis’ friends can be controlled if the ability has been unlocked to do so. Each feature their own separate style that can break up the gameplay of the usual combat mechanics:

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• Gladiolus

​Has no magic abilities, but makes up for it with pure raw strength that can devastate any opponent on the receiving end of his wrath.​

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• Ignis

Focuses use on magic, exploiting the enemies weakness with more focused strategy on analyzing them more closely and unleashing a flurry of well executed attacks once identified.

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• Prompto

Uses gun combat over close ranged physical attacks. Prompto does best to chip enemies' health from a distance while his friends keep the attention drawn away from him.

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Your allies can be managed with various weapons, skill sets and what items are assigned to them - throughout the game, more options will unlock, leading to various different combos occurring that randomly occur during combat sequences. Holding down the dodge button will have Noctis phase through enemy attacks, and dodging at just the right time allows you to parry and stun the enemy temporarily. Dodging and phasing drains MP which must be replenished regularly during combat - if you run out of MP, Noctic becomes vulnerable and unable to do anything, prompting you to take cover until it eventually restores itself.

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Located around campsites and within certain caves are either containers or rocks with magical properties. Noctis can absorb and use these to cast powerful spells in the form of magic grenades. For further enhancement, the magic can be brewed with various different items for a much more powerful effect. Your allies are not immune to this however - friendly fire is very prevalent and will momentarily paralyze them if caught within the blast radius.

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Ingredients can be found in various locations around Eos - they can be bought in shops or found laying around for Ignis to cook up during camping and grant temporary buff stats the next morning. Food with a heart icon has a much greater effect for that particular character.

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Included with the PC launch comes the Online Expansion DLC - Comrades. In this mode, you customize your own character and fight your way to claim back the land that has been taken controlled over by evil monsters. To do so, you need to restore electricity to neighbouring cities and villages via an electrical grid in collaboration with other players. Comrades occurs parallel to the main story. As of June 24th, 2020, online functionality has since been discontinued, but it is still possible to play Comrades with AI.

 

It’s recommended that you finish the main story first as Comrades contains major late-game spoilers.