Final Fantasy XV at Jump Festa 2015: new trailer and gameplay details

Get a look at the mechanic Cindy and the town of Restarg.

Square Enix debuted a new trailer and gameplay details for Final Fantasy XV at Jump Festa.

The city showcased in the trailer is called “Restarg.” Director Hajime Tabata describes it as not one of the game’s biggest cities, and it has a major connection to the titan shown in the trailer. Both the titan and Restarg will not be accessible in the Episode Duscae demo included with early copies of Final Fantasy Type-0 HD. The entirety of the town is seamlessly connected, though Tabata can’t confirm whether it’ll be viable to do for game as whole. Here, players will be able to stay at hotels, where they can rest and eat, as well as take part in various events. You’ll also be able to drive your car around.

While you’ll have your car to drive around the world, there are some places you’ll reach by train. You’ll be able to move around freely inside these trains.

Camping and resting is important in Final Fantasy XV. If you don’t sleep, you won’t get proper status aliments, and thus won’t be able to use buffs during battle. Resting at campsites is also necessary to level up. You can go at max three days without sleep before things get bad. Each day is about an hour in real time, with 40 to 45 minutes consisting of daylight. Making food and eating will confer beneficial effects. You can buy food at markets and then prepare it at campsites, which bestows buffs. Sleeping will help maintain those buffs longer.

You’ll fight summon beasts, but can acquire them by satisfying various conditions. To make up for the titan’s absence, in the demo players will be able to summon a summon beast with less story importance. It is apparently quite powerful and what it is will be a big surprise.

While we’ve seen a lot of swordplay so far, we have yet to see much magic. The reason for this, according to Tabata, is that the team has been more concerned with fleshing out the core of the battle system. Every time something new is shown off to the public, the team has to polish it so it’s up to snuff and at the moment magic is lower priority in terms of showing the diversity of combat moves and such. In Final Fantasy XV‘s internal lore, Noctis is only one that can use magic. But by way of a special system, party members will be able to use it as well so as to add variety to the gameplay.

The newly revealed mechanic character, who you’ll see in the trailer, is named Cindy. She doesn’t play a major role in the game’s story, but is important to the gameplay as a mechanic. She’ll also appear in the Episode Duscae demo.

Cor, who we saw in last year’s E3 trailer, will be able to join the party and fight. The party doesn’t have fixed members, so guests like Cor can join in. Cor isn’t a friend of Noctis’, but an advisor to Noctis’ father, the king. He watches over the group.

Both English and Japanese voice-overs are planned for the Episode Duscae demo, but multiple languages for the retail version could be problematic due to European languages and timing issues, Tabata said. He hopes, however, that they’re able to release a single SKU with all languages available worldwide.

Square Enix showcased both Cindy and the town of Restarg more in-depth via short gameplay videos. For the latter video, they used an NPC dog to bring us through the in-development town whilst avoiding spoilers. The background scenery where the dog decides to pee is apparently of big importance to story. When you’re actually walking around as Noctis, you’ll be able to hear NPCs talking and such as you get close to them.

Again, the Episode Duscae demo for Final Fantasy XV will be included with early copies of Final Fantasy Type-0 HD. But Tabata has plans to put out the Tokyo Game Show tech demo as a free download for those who can’t afford to get Type-0 HD right away. Details are scant, but it won’t arrive until after Episode Duscae.

Watch the new footage below.