Last month, Square Enix released a demo for Final Fantasy 15 — titled Episode Duscae. This wasn't just a teaser for fans, it was a bigtime feedback exercise for the game's developers, and in this 90-minute video, director Hajime Tabata goes over 15 key complaints about the demo, one-by-one.
Tabata doesn't equivocate or blame the audience; he promises fixes. On specific requests, he even promises specific inclusions for the final release, such as a minimap (complaint No. 7). The top complaint (or at least, the first mentioned) concerned the lock-on targeting command. Tabata acknowledged that many players weren't using lock-on correctly because of poor instructions from the game, and promised a fix there, too.
More general complaints, such as difficulty spikes in the battles, or "it's too monotonous," got expansive answers. Tabata said the team is looking at shortening the length of battles to alleviate the sense of grind, adding difficulty levels (there were none in Episode Duscae) and even adding controller remap options to help keep players involved and interested.
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If you don't speak Japanese and don't have 90 minutes to read subtitles, Eurogamer provides a point-by-point summary of the complaints and responses from Tabata and marketing manager Akio Ofuji. Additionally, a good chunk of this video (up to the 19:19 timestamp) covers a long survey players were asked to complete. (The text of that is in English.) The survey's answers also will go into refining Final Fantasy 15.
Final Fantasy 15 has yet to receive a launch date (or even year). It's being developed for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
