The Final Fantasy XV trailer that Square Enix presented was relatively short. What we got to see were a couple of environments that Noctis ran through (what looked like a mountain, a grassy field, and a swamp) along with a very brief glance at a battle with a Malboro. The Malboro is a recurring enemy in the Final Fantasy series starting with VI and is known in many incarnations to inflict multiple status ailments to the party. What occurred in this trailer didn't get to show that off. Basically Noctis and his friends walked into a swamp, the Malboro spawns from underneath Noctis sending him into the critical state immediately, the AI party members inflict a few blows and then a jump cut to the Malboro casting Bad Breath and Noctis getting KO'd resulting in a game over. This trailer showed gameplay at least I have to give it that, but it was certainly lacking in the gameplay shown. There was just running and no real chance to look into the system of the combat. It all ended way too abruptly. I'm not sure why they decided to show this off when it didn't look like a complete trailer. Square Enix definitely needs to step it up when it comes to their promotional material. That makes for two bad trailers in a row.
Mirror's Edge Catalyst also made an appearance at Gamescon and the game looks to be better than ever. The game looks visually impressive and retains the simple geometric style of the original. The free run platforming gameplay looks just the same, but there are some differences. When performing a roll it looks like their is less shake and disorientation and the red colored objects that highlight the path you should take look to be gone. The removal of the red colored objects I find as an improvement as it encourages players to look more carefully around when trying to find routes and with the removal I expect a more open ended level design. The game now also includes take downs which switches to third person when performed. There was also a noticeable lack of gunplay in this trailer. There were enemies that fired at Faith, but she did not pick up any guns herself after taking down the guards.
Away from gameplay, Faith has received a new voice actress which I find worse than the previous. Her voice sounds I'm not sure how to explain it, but she sounds very fake to me and not entirely into the role she's playing. The dialogue isn't really much better than in the original though, but at least the eSurance-like cutscenes are gone and replaced by cgi scenes. Overall this trailer had me pumped to get my hands on the game.
On the other side of things, Gamescon also gave us a demo for the upcoming and anticipated Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. This thirty minute long demonstration focused on the base management of the game. You can construct and fully design your Mother Base which houses Big Boss's Diamond Dog staff. Your base is a tool for support during the story campaign. It houses R&D, combat, and support. Your is fully explorable and is full of dozens of features. You can visit your dog DD, listen to conversations from soldiers that may or not give information for missions, take showers, obtain anime posters, take part in training sessions, and a lot more. The mother base is quite extensive and dedicating time into it will make things a lot easier during your campaign as it can provide you with vehicles, weapons, reinforcements, and air strikes.
There is also an online component called FOBs (Forward Operating Bases) that function as online mother bases. With the case of FOBs they can be attacked and robbed from players online. You will be given a notification for this while you're in a mission and you can either ignore it and hope that you're staff can handle it or you can go and attend to it yourself. When you choose to participate in a defense of a FOB raid you it's you cooperating and moderating your security so you can take out the intruder. These battles were demonstrated to be heavily intense and for the raider to be very difficult and stealth focused. It was also revealed that you can have a friend defend your base in your place while you're away.
This game is shaping up to look quite layered and heavily refined. It's just a shame what had became of Kojima and Konami as a whole. This game looks like a contender for game of the year.
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