Originally published on Trevor Trove on March 30, 2016
Despite the accidental release date leaks earlier in the day, I was excited to watch the Final Fantasy XV Uncovered Event. Admittedly, a huge part of that lies with the fact that Tim Gettys and Greg Miller of Kinda Funny were hosting. Despite Final Fantasy VI and IV holding the titles of my favorite games, I have been increasingly frustrated with Square Enix offerings as of late. The demo Episode Duscae even topped my Worst of 2015 list. But maybe I should just abandon the idea of Final Fantasy XV being the classic Final Fantasy I miss and embrace that they’ve taken the franchise into a more action-heavy direction. I still have my daily fix of Final Fantasy Record Keeper. And one thing tonight is for certain, the ridiculously drawn-out 10-year development of this game is finally nearing a close. So let’s talk about tonight’s event.
The evening kicked off with Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of the Final Fantasy series, sharing a few words on what the series means. Unfortunately, the director of the show was overzealous on his cuts and camera angles so the Twitch viewers couldn’t read the English translation as it was projected alongside Sakaguchi-san’s Japanese vocals.
Up next, a sizzle reel featured a lot of the games beautiful visuals. Highlights that got the crowd pumped were a Titan summon, the first Chocobo, and a shot of the guys pushing their presumably broken-down car along the road.
Greg Miller and Tim Gettys made their appearance with a faux-Kinda Funny Reacts to the trailer we just watched before the silky-smooth voice of Dave Fennoy told them to get on with the show.
A 2D-rendering of Final Fantasy mainstay Yoshitaka Amano’s design was converted a 3D rendering. This was one of the first leaks I saw this morning when it leaked as a Chinese commercial. Amano-san was then applauded in the audience.
A pre-filmed Nobuo Uematsu segment was included. Despite not composing the music for Final Fantasy XV, he has high expectations for the game’s soundtrack.
The trailer at the top of the show featured a cover of “Stand by Me” and Greg and Tim revealed that the cover was performed by Florence and the Machine
Some jokes made about Gamespot revealing the release date earlier in the day.
Some gameplay videos played. “Adventure” showed off calling a chocobo to ride around the map. “Drive” showcased time in the car, featuring a Final Fantasy radio with songs from past games featured. First-person driving was also shown off. “Battle” showcased the some combat, battle against a Behemoth with AI smart enough to run away when it was in danger, and lastly a bit more of the Titan summon shown in the trailer.
The event’s director then triggered one of the translation mics so I couldn’t make out an entire segment which appears to have been talking about the environments, since that’s the video they followed the bit up with. The sizzle video showcased a lot more beautiful vistas, world design, lighting, and the like. The whole time, I was thinking that my theory of this game taking forever because Square-Enix is obsessed with beautiful visuals is on point.
Tim walked the audience and Greg through the main characters. Which segued into an announcement of a 5-episode anime introducing the backstory of the characters. Brotherhood: Final Fantasy XV Episode 1 is available now. All episodes will be released prior to launch.
This announcement led into a trailer for a feature-length CGI Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV film.
Square-Enix is partnering with Audi to make one (1) car. That’s weird.
Lena Headey (Cersei in Game of Thrones) appeared to promote the movie and announce that she is voicing Luna in Kingsglaive. She also showed/announced Sean Bean as King Regis and introduced Aaron Paul (Jesse of Breaking Bad) to discuss playing Nyx. Headey talked about having just wrapped recording her lines. Paul talks about having just started recording yesterday and about Square-Enix having been at work on it for three years. No surprise there as this is most likely just recording the English dub/localization. The movie will be released digitally for streaming and download prior to the game’s launch.
Up next a showcase of some of the Final Fantasy XV mini-games which looked suspiciously like phone games…because they will also release Justice Monsters Five as a mobile title prior to launch.
Another one of the days’ leaks followed: a demo featuring Young Noctis in a “dream world” playable (say it with me) prior to launch. It will feature an exclusive Carbuncle summon that can carry over into the main game, if played. They showed off some live gameplay. The game looks quirky with the ability to attack using a squeaky mallet, shoot fireworks, and turn into random monsters. The Platinum Demo: Final Fantasy XV launches tonight.
Tim made a great point that it’s pretty cool that the game is getting all of this expanded universe content right out of the gate, whereas something like Final Fantasy VII had to wait many years before Square Enix revisited it. Even if I don’t enjoy it the game, it’s great that the people who do will have so much extra content to enjoy.
Greg, Tim, and Dave Fennoy then took a few minutes to showoff the Deluxe and Ultimate Collector’s editions of the game that will be available for pre-order starting at 9pm Pacific tonight.
Hajime Tabata, Director of Final Fantasy XV comes out to wrap up the night with a formal September 30, 2016 release date and with a “one last thing” “uncovering,” showed off another story and gameplay trailer (with the final reveal that the car doubles as the airship).