Ever since Final Fantasy VII, the RPG series has been punctuated by non-interactive, pre-rendered cutscenes. But Final Fantasy XV's action combat built with next-gen power will let players play though the game's dramatic moments, director Tetsuya Nomura told Sony in a PS4 video (translated by Gematsu).
"Since the beginning of 3D graphics, Final Fantasy has largely used pre-rendered movies, but what’s different about this new hardware is that it allows you to direct what has previously been pre-rendered and make it real-time," Nomura said. "For this reason, even in considerably dynamic scenes, the player can still control their character."
Nomura said a leviathan attack scene shown in E3 trailers previously would have been the domain of Visual Works, Square Enix's film production team. But in FFXV, players will control the battle through sky and sea in real time.
"Because this game is action-based, we’re doing our best to stay away from situations where the character doesn’t have control. Enemies and allies alike will move around, and fighting within the speedy progression of battle is what makes this Final Fantasy different from previous installments."
That said, attacks and abilities will still be represented on screen with numbers popping up left and right--just with less menus.
