The king of JRPGs, a series that has helped us experience so many wonderful journeys, meet amazing and interesting characters has had its new release Final Fantasy XV make its way to the realm of PC Gaming. Final Fantasy XV is finally available on Windows PCs in all its glory with all the DLC and updates and not to mention, the added graphical fidelity thanks to Nvidia that makes the experience more immersive and the world more life-like.
Final Fantasy XV deviated from the fundamental of all its previous games which had turn based combat to an Active Battle System. This was a great move with the addition of the “Wait Mode” which as the name suggests, allows you to pause the combat to take a breather while also letting you plan out your next attacks, spells and pretty much all your moves akin to the Turn Based Combat system of the previous entries in the series. But be warned that this Wait Mode is timed so you can’t just dilly dally, you have to know what you want to do and how so you can execute your moves to perfection.
The PC version of the game benefits from the addition of all the DLCs including Chapter 14 of the game and the various updates that the consoles versions have recieved. This means that the PC version is in a way the definitive version of the game with a lot of its wrinkles and kinks ironed out to provide the PC players with a game where a lot of the early complaints are not there anymore. Along with the addition of game content the PC version of the game has the benefit of being on the PC. It is not held back by hardware and the game can be pushed to its limits in terms of framerate and visuals. The framerate is not capped to 60 which means that you can push it further and use your 75Hz, 120Hz or 144Hz monitors to get a buttery smooth experience but that won’t be easy because this game while being stunningly gorgeous also requires you to have the appropriate hardware to be able to push it.
Nvidia has also added a plethora of Gameworks options to enhance the visuals of the game to give a realistic look and feel to the game. Nvidia uses a technology known as the “Hybrid Frustum Traced Shadow” technology to increase the shadow resolution of both, the elements of the world and your player character. This tech is really impressive and gives very precise shadows. To further enhance the shadow of the objects like hair, clothes and grass etc, Nvidia has introduced “Voxel Ambient Occlusion” which provides the best AO on any platform that the game is available on. This gives object shadows almost life-like accuracy.
The open-world of the game is filled with grass and other sorts of foliage so Nvidia decided to further enhance the already amazing foliage with what they call “Turf Effects” which makes the grass and foliage dynamic, which means that it reacts realistically to the wind and to people walking through it. These huge grassy lands and foliage filled world is inhabited by a number of monsters, including everyone’s favourite creature, the Chocobo. Nvidia has brought to life what was originally envisioned by the designers of these creatures to give these beasts the fur they deserve with the use of “HairWorks”. This gives the creatures thick, flowing hair that dynamically reacts to what is happening in game, be it the wind, enemy attacks or just movement. And finally, Nvidia uses what it calls “Flow” which is a real time fluid, fire and smoke simulator to give realistic effects that are honestly, so pleasing to watch because of how good it looks.
Besides the Nvidia specific improvements, the game benefits from the increased resolutions that are available, increased draw distances, 4K textures and also HDR10 support. If you have a modern PC capable of running modern titles, Final Fantasy XV will have no problem running and if you have a system that’s an absolute beast, you have a plethora of options to make your game look like one of the best open-world games currently out there. Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition is truly, the definitive edition of the game and quite frankly is the best way to experience the fantastic fantasy world of Final Fantasy XV.
