Last week, Square-Enix announced a giant multimedia blitz around the upcoming release of Final Fantasy XV.
An anime series, a CG movie, and the release date were all unveiled at a
big event, but the biggest news was the release of a completely new
demo that’s available to anyone with a PS4 or Xbox One. Unfortunately,
it’s disappointing in nearly every way.
If you move through the demo at a steady clip, there’s about
30 minutes worth of activities on offer. There are a few hidden objects
here and there to keep you occupied, but this “Platinum Demo” is fairly
light on content. And considering that it prominently features pressure
pads throughout the world that can change the time of day, turn you
into an animal, or spawn a vehicle, this is much more of a tech demo
than a vertical slice of the game. A more traditional game demo is
locked behind the purchase of Final Fantasy Type-0 HD — a remastered version of a PSP game.
We weren’t pleased with the clunky character movement or the
ultra-boring tasks in this demo, but at least this gives us a good look
at the tech Square-Enix is working with. The folks over at Digital
Foundry have analyzed the demo
running on both platforms, and the results are troubling. Both versions
are running at a dynamic resolution, and neither one is particularly
impressive.
The Xbox One demo fluctuates between 1568×882 and 1360×768, but it’s mostly hovering around 1408×792. On the PS4,
a full 1920×1080 is possible in some environments, but it was seen
dropping down to just 1568×882 at some points. Typically, it’s sitting
at 1600×900.
Depressingly, the dynamic resolution doesn’t help maintain
frame rate stability. Dipping down into the low 20s is pretty standard
here, and it even drops as low as 15 frames per second. The PS4’s frame
rate is slightly better, but it seems to suffer from a frame-pacing
issue that makes even 30fps footage look choppier than it should.
We wish we could say that those are the only technical
problems, but that’s not true. Thanks to the highly flawed anti-aliasing
solution, there are some really ugly moments here. Not only does it
cause very heavy-handed blurring in some situations, but it often fails
to handle the hair properly.
At times, this seems like a PS3 game, not a PS4 release, and
it’s easy to understand why. Sure, this console generation is a bit
anemic, but this game is substantially uglier than many of its
contemporaries. The bigger issue is that Final Fantasy XV has
been in development hell for about a decade now, and the internal engine
being used for this game has caused major problems. In fact,
Square-Enix has licensed Unreal Engine 4 for other projects like Kingdom Hearts 3 and Final Fantasy VII Remake to prevent further setbacks.
With all that being said, there are some redeeming aspects
of this demo. The lighting is legitimately impressive, and it delivers
better-looking dynamic shadows than most other games on the market.
Certain parts of the Platinum Demo look incredible, but those high
points are hard to appreciate when everything else is crumbling around
you.
Remember, we’re still about six months away from the final release,
so it’s still possible that the most glaring problems can be fixed. You
definitely shouldn’t pre-order this game, but it’s unfair to write it
off completely. Let’s wait and see how the full game pans out before
passing judgment.
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