Unboxing [UK]: Final Fantasy XV - Deluxe Edition (PS4)

It took a long time in development, but Square Enix have finally released the game. I picked up my copy at a midnight launch so here it is!

Final Fantasy XV is a Japanese Role Playing Game and the fifteenth main instalment in the Final Fantasy franchise from Square Enix. XV is the first game in the main series to take the Action Real-Time RPG approach instead of the classic Turn-Based RPG the previous games were known for. Square have done Action RPGs before, with Kingdom Hearts being the most notable of the bunch.

The development for XV is what makes this game stand out among the rest in the franchise. Back in 2006, XV was announced under the name Final Fantasy Versus XIII and had a pretty dark tone to the story. The team behind Kingdom Hearts were behind the game's development and had originally planned to be released as a PlayStation 3 exclusive alongside the other Fabula Nova Crystallis titles; Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Agito XIII. Eventually the plans had changed; XIII was made multi-platform and Agito XIII re-branded into Type-0 for the PSP instead (and later on outside Japan with the HD remaster for PS4 and Xbox One). A Final Fantasy portable game with the Agito name was released in the same universe as Type-0 for mobile (with plans for the Vita being cancelled sadly) but it's Japan only.

For Versus XIII nothing was known until 2013 when it was announced at Sony's E3 conference that the game had been rebooted as Final Fantasy XV - with most of the characters and story kept in as well as it's game-play, while the rest was redone. Along the way the Kingdom Hearts creator Tetsuya Nomura stepped down from the director role in order to focus on Kingdom Hearts III and Type-0 director Hajime Tabata took over to help speed up the game's development. The engines were also changed during its development as the Crystals Tool engine caused issues with Versus XIII's progress, and was thus switched to a Luminous Studio engine which supported DirectX11, thus allowing the game to be ported onto Xbox One.

I also picked up the Collector's Edition Official Strategy Guide and received a free poster thanks to retailer GAME 

So yeah, this is a pretty hyped up title in the series. The game had three demos released; Episode Duscae, Platinum and Judgment. The first was exclusive to Type-0 owners, the second was made available to everyone with an original story-line attached to it, while Judgment was exclusive to Japanese owners but covered the final build of the game's first chapter. These demos helped the developers make changes and additional features based upon the feedback given. Final Fantasy XV does offer English, Japanese, French and German audio options with English text among many others. Remote play for Vita is also supported.

Day 1 patch is 9.41 GB and the install is 5.774 GB. The base game as a whole will take up just over 43 GB of space.

This Deluxe Edition is basically the game in a steelbook case. Since I have the steelbook for Type-0 I wanted to match them so I selected this edition. The contents of the Deluxe Edition includes the game, additional downloadable content and the CG prequel movie Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV. The prequel movie is available on its own for those who are only interested in that. Since I picked up the game via retailer GAME, there is also an additional game called A King’s Tale: Final Fantasy XV which is a 2D retro style side scroller (available standalone also).

Final Fantasy XV Base Game

Format: PlayStation 4 (also on Xbox One)

Version: UK/Europe

Exclusive: No

Local Players: 1

Online Players: 0

Resolution: 720p/1080i/1080p

HDD Space: 43.48GB

Trophies: Yes

A King's Tale: Final Fantasy XV

Format: PlayStation 4 (also on Xbox One)

Version: UK/Europe

Exclusive: No

Local Players: 1

Online Players: 0

Resolution: 720p/1080i/1080p

HDD Space: 2.06GB

Trophies: Yes

Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV Blu-ray Specs

Languages: English, German, Russian, Spanish (Castalian), Polish

Audio: DTS MA 5.1 [English, German], Dolby Digital 5.1 [Polish, Russian, Spanish (Castalian)]

Video: 1080p HD Native 16:9

Region: A B C

Subtitles: English, English SDH, Danish, Estonian, Finnish, German, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Russian, Spanish (Castalian), Swedish, Turkish, Ukranian, Polish

Subtitles Locked: No

Discs: 1

Final Fantasy XV is available for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.