For Those Who "ONLY" Are Getting/Considering FFXV+XCX, Which Do You Think.....

[Salnax]

I am more of a Nintendo fan, but considering my love of certain Square/Square Enix titles, I am willing to give FF15 a shot.

1. I think XCX will have a bigger world, but not because of the whole "FF13 was linear" shpiel. First, the original Xenoblade already had a very big world. I have trouble finding the exact numbers, but based on the character movement speed and such, the original was possibly 25 or 30 square miles. The XCX devs said in August that they were aiming for a world about 5 times larger, a total of 125 or 150 square miles. For comparison, Bethesda open worlds are around 16 square miles, GTA 5 is 49 square miles, World of Warcraft is 100, and Far Cry 3 is 310 square miles. Considering how XCX has flying mech suits to travel in, this size makes sense.

I expect FF15 to be a step above Square Enix's previous games comparable games in terms of size, but other than FF14, they haven't really made many big worlds since the PS2 era. Unless Square Enix reverses their longstanding emphasis on presentation, a world ten times the size of an Elder Scroll game seems unreasonable. Sure, FFXV will have cars, but so did GTA3 with its 3 square miles.

2. I suspect that XCX may have a bit more stuff to do, but it will be a less densely packed world than FF15. Since I appreciate a denser world, point goes to FF15 here.

3/4. FF15's combat has not impressed me so far. It looks like an improved version of 2002's Kingdom Hearts combat, where one party member is controlled with a cast of significantly less important NPC allies. XCX looks somewhat similar, but seems to feature greater party control, deeper mechanics, and incorporates mechs both in and out of combat. Although I do love the Kingdom Hearts combat system, I don't think an open world is a good fit for it.

5. Based on what I know about the upcoming and prior games, Final Fantasy 15 seems like its trying to mix elements of fantasy, sci-fi, and espionage stories. The emphasis seems to be on people playing out their lives with a grand political backdrop, sort of like FF12. Although this sounds promising, I am slightly worried about the mafia-like family that the protagonist is part of. Final Fantasy has taken many forms, often successfully, but no FF game to my knowledge has ever been rated higher than "Teen." A "realistic" story about crime, politics, and war might not be well told simply because Square Enix would either ignore the darkest themes.

XCX does not seem likely to be extremely dark, but what I know of the story doesn't require it. There are warring aliens, a doomed homeworld, a new place to explore, and something does not want you to succeed. That is classic Teen-rated JRPG fare, and is such because it works well. Plus, the prior Xeno games did a good job of weaving in characters and themes.

One last thing: character counts. I generally prefer JRPG parties to be a bit limited in size, no more than seven. Any more makes it hard to develop each character enough to make me bother caring about them, either from a gameplay or a story point of view. FF15 may only have Noctis fully playable, but the emphasis seems to be spread across maybe a dozen characters of note. I expect XCX to have about 6, a better number IMO.

6. XCX is likely going to be somewhat longer to complete everything in than the original. The original seems to take many people about 60 or 70 hours to complete the main story and another 100 hours to do bonus content, so saying XCX will have 200 to 250 hours of content seems reasonable.

Final Fantasy titles vary a bit more. In total, the main series games after FF6 (7, 8, 9, 10, 10-2, 12, the XII trilogy) seem to take around 35 to 60 hours to beat the story, and may have 40 to 120 hours of bonus content. Even with the highest figures though, FF15 would only be on par with the original Xenoblade.

7. This one is hard for me to be fair about because I have a love/hate relationship with Final Fantasy enemies. I love to see old designs reimagined and remastered, but can get pretty irate about poorly done versions of classics. That said, neither game has shown enough enemies for me to judge them well. It seems that FF15 will have more realistic enemies, aka armed humans, while XCX will be ripping off Monster Hunter's wide variety of fantastic enemy designs. Neither are ugly, but I need to know more about the games' tones first.

8. XCX. I don't like Final Fantasy sidequests. Final Fantasy X was particularly bad, so I'll bash it. There was a sidequest where you dodged lightning bolts by pressing the X button at the right time. You do this minigame to unlock one of your character's best possible weapon. It makes your mage ridiculously powerful, so you want it. So, you start dodging lightning bolts, waiting a few seconds every time because the lightning bolt doesn't have a strict pattern. The problem is, to get the key item, you need to dodge 200 IN A ROW. If lightning hits you, you start all over. If you leave the area, you start all over. If you save the game, quit, and start again, you start all over, meaning you have to have a perfect run a half hour or so long. Best part: there is no counter. You have to keep track of whether you've dodged 175 or 177 bolts so far.

9. I'm guessing XCX, but I'd look forward to FF15's proving me wrong.

10. Maybe XCX, but probably neither.