On a recent talk show centered (with a transcription provided by Dengeki) on Final Fantasy XV, Hajime Tabata, the director for the game, has taken his time to address some of the widely spread concerns that erupted after the last bit involving the “one-button” combat.
We’ve compiled the questions here in a more reader-friendly format:
He was asked a number of questions regarding the game, but most important were those regarding the system. The E3 Trailer from 2013 was addressed as being in a sort of test space, and not actually using the environment from the real game. Therefore, not everything that was included in that trailer actually remains.
However, a big point in the interview is that Tabata said that everything that was in the trailer, save the character switching, will be in the real game. The jumps, free running, short teleports, etc.—it’s all there. Character switching has been removed because it would be too difficult to manage all of the characters from a design perspective. Tabata sayd the character switching mechanic was pulled in order to make the battle system as interesting as possible.
Tabata also addressed the battle system. It would appear that hitting the attack button does pull a standard attack combo. However, this can be hanged by holding down a direction. In addition, the attack button may change the action depending on the situation—a specific example he gave would be counter-attacking after a well-timed guard.
Equipping a large number of weapons is also still in the game, and to sweeten the deal, each weapon has a number of techniques that can be used as you wish during a fight. This should make the battles more interesting than just an attack button.
Tabata also responded to general concerns of whether the game is casual or not. He said that while the controls may be casual, but the game as a whole is not. He also teased more information about the co-op attacks, mentioning that they require precise timing, and that you can do the one after the other—they aren’t one-off attacks. He also said they would like to hold a news stream in November.
And last but not least—jumping is confirmed.
There was another fun tidbit from the interview with Tabata—he finds the Final Fantasy XV Car Driving meme absolutely hilarious. We touched upon it a bit in our previous article, but he liked it so much that he even provided high quality templates to make your own memes with:
Final Fantasy XV is currently in development for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and a playable demo for the game is going to be available to those who purchase Final Fantasy Type-0.
