Video: Watch 40 mins of Final Fantasy 15 on PS4
See combat, hippy dinosaurs and a boy band.
Square Enix has, in a live stream, given us our best look at Final Fantasy 15 yet: 40 minutes of gameplay from the Episode Duscae demo running on PlayStation 4.
The Episode Duscae demo features the Duscae region in FF15, and codes to download it will be be included in limited editions of Final Fantasy Type-0 HD. Those codes will be redeemable from 20th March.
This is the first time we've seen FF15 running on PS4. The extended footage we saw in November was Xbox One gameplay, and it didn't feature any combat.
Here, however, there's plenty of combat. The phantom weapons, which can be switched between in a heartbeat, are put to good use.
FF15 has real-time combat unlike Final Fantasy 13. There are similarities to the Kingdom Hearts series in that regard, owing KH director Tetsuya Nomura taking the FF15 reins.
According to Gematsu, the demo should last approximately three hours and it features a day/night cycle with a day lasting about 45 minutes. Players won't have access to the car, however, as it's in the shop while the gang raises money for repairs.
Players will cash in their XP at camp sites, a little like Dark Souls' bonfires. At these camps players can cook and give their party different buffs depending on what they make. Food-related buffs will weaken over time, so setting up camp becomes very important. Leaving a camp site also progresses the timeline forward until the next morning.
Gematsu also noted that reaching zero hit points doesn't automatically give you a game over. Instead it puts you in "critical condition," at which point a meter starts depleting. When it's empty it's curtains for you, but while it's draining you can use items or have your teammates heal you.
Sadly, save data from the demo won't carry over into the full game, though Square Enix is considering giving demo players some sort of bonus, but this hasn't been set yet.
Final Fantasy 15 director Hajime Tabata noted that the game is roughly 60 per cent finished. The full game is expected to run at 1080p/30fps. It will also have nifty weather effects that haven't yet been implemented in the demo.