AzureFlame
Member
Can someone give me a reason why SE made Tabata director of a big budget mainline FF game? Did he prove himself before or something?
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Final Fantasy XV SIGGRAPH 2016 Tech Talk and Presentations
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Death Penalty
Member
If we're being brutally honest he made a couple of games with lukewarm to decent reception on handhelds before being given this project.
NoctisVsStar
Member
Good question, well here's his resume being a director (all handheld games):
1) crisis core
2) type-0
3) parasite eve the 3rd party
Apparently, he's a good manager and gets shit done in a timely fashion. It's worth noting SE came to him for the project.. In my eyes he hasn't proven nothing but since this is technically his first console game I'm curious to see how he does given the circumstances.
He can get games out fast.
Crisis Core is the best selling non Monster Hunter title for the PSP, maybe even the best thing to come out of the compilation of FF7 for them.
Type-0 is a successful spin-off for the series.
Nomura & Kistase thought well of him enough to direct Crisis Core and even Parasite Eve.
NoctisVsStar
Member
He was in charge of agito as well I think.
I personally think that Square was worried about the reception XV was going to receive so they put Nomura onto the FF7R project which obviously more people will be looking forward to and let Tabata finish up XV in a timely fashion. There was a strange conflict of interviews a couple of years ago when Square said they would not remake FF7 before surpassing it as a game, then they announced they would remake it. That lead me to believe they don't believe XV will surpass FF7 and that they were worried about their reputation being stained.
Death Penalty
Member
I feel like the bolded was probably the biggest contributor. Tabata himself even attributes his selection to his managerial and team-building skills, which suggests to me he's giving the business side of SE what they want out of this project. That is to say, cutting content necessary to get the game out in a real and prompt development time frame.
I personally think they had the right man for the job already in Nomura, but I've followed XV for a very very long time and think Tabata is managing to shape it into a worthy form.
You are talking as if all fans are unsatisfiable crybabies and as if it is just fans that are opinion leaders of whether a game is seen as bad or good in the general public.
Firstly, there are also many fans that welcome change if it is for the good of a series. Take me for example.
Secondly, it's not angry fans that dominate public opinion. It's gaming journalists and big sites like IGN, Gamespot, Eurogamer or well known Youtubers. They tend to be a bit more on the objective side. No one really cares if angry fans throw hissy fits in some gaming forum, their personal blog or their unknown Youtube channel.
It's Square Enix themselves that said mulitple times that FFXV will be the very first Final Fantasy for many and they were especially promoting the game for this audience. The Final Fantasy series has lost a lot of fans after the XIII triology, even Tabata admitted that. A FF game is now one among many RPGS out there and no longer the absolute epitome like in days of yore.
NoctisVsStar
Member
I mean Tabata had the guts to cut the opening of the game and remix it into a movie. The anime is backstory that isn't told in the game, I think i read somewhere the prompto ep of brotherhood is based on some old documents and Tabata wasn't going to show it in the game but akio ofuji said you should make it an animation.
Tabata is doing all this media crossing to tell the complete story, I guess Nomura wanted the sequel route to fit everything in game wise.
Vincent Grayson
Member
I think it's entirely possible that XV will surpass VII...not that anyone will ever admit it. It certainly isn't likely to usher in a new age of RPGs like VII did though.
GoldenCrow
Member
You think this looks more like Skyrim/Witcher rather than a JRPG?
That to me looks about as JRPG as you can get.
Nomura himself chose Tabata as his co-director. Tabata is exactly the type of director a huge project like this needed, especially because SE had a lot of catch-up to do after the PS3-era. He made huge changes to modernize the whole development process, removing unnecessary and stale hierarchies within the teams that formed over decades and weren't adapted for efficient, modern AAA development:
"The Final Fantasy XV team structure is flat. Theres none of the traditional hierarchy that you find in large-scale game development. If there are lots of report lines, I find that important information stops at the top, and people on the ground dont know what the issues are, or what key decisions have been made. I dislike that approach.
Instead, everybody has the right to pitch in with the decision-making and to help resolve the issues. We have some meeting rooms on the floor, but generally I encourage the team to meet in the open space so that everyone else can hear whats going on.
One of the policies Ive created for the team is that, even though each individual has different opinions, I want everyone to report to me about issues. I try to fix things immediately, rather than leaving them to fester for a couple of weeks. Everybody is free to report everything, and then fix it straight away."
That was Wada, the former president, who said "not until we surpass FFVII". The new president Matsuda came in 2013 and apparently had a different view on it. The development of FFVIIR started around a year before the troll announcement of the FFVII PS4 port in late 2014, so around the time when Matsuda took charge.
CrimsonSquall
Member
Pause. There's a Wait type mode in a ton of FF games whatchu mean
Death Penalty
Member
I was a lot more excited for Tabata's involvement when I knew Nomura was still involved and before I played Type-0. It can be argued that a more sensible man like Tabata was necessary but I think the truth of the matter is that Tabata simply didn't have the credentials to solely direct a Final Fantasy mainline and that his appointment as sole director was very odd. It seems like more of a business decision than a creative decision, and I would prefer Nomura's slow and great dev style over Tabata's fast and decent.
The more I see of XV these days though the more I think my doubts about Tabata may be unfounded, at least partially. He makes some odd choices but I have a lot of faith in the game I see coming together with each new showing, even if it's not exactly what I wanted. My inner Final Fantasy fanboy taking over, maybe.
The more I see of XV these days though the more I think my doubts about Tabata may be unfounded, at least partially. He makes some odd choices but I have a lot of faith in the game I see coming together with each new showing, even if it's not exactly what I wanted. My inner Final Fantasy fanboy taking over, maybe.
You are talking as if all fans are unsatisfiable crybabies and as if it is just fans that are opinion leaders of weather a game is seen as bad or good in the general public.
Firstly, there are also many fans that welcome change if it is for the good of a series. Take me for example.
Secondly, it's not angry fans that dominate public opinion. It's gaming journalists and big sites like IGN, Gamespot, Eurogamer or well known Youtubers. They tend to be a bit more on the objective side. No one really cares if angry fans throw hissy fits in some gaming forum, their personal blog or their unknown Youtube channel.
It's Square Enix themselves that said mulitple times that FFXV will be the very first Final Fantasy for many and they were especially promoting the game for this audience. The Final Fantasy series has lost a lot of fans after the XIII triology, even Tabata admitted that. A FF game is now one among many RPGS out there and not the absolute epitome anymore like in days of yore.
I think that's a very nasty perception of what I said.
Square saying new people will play the game isn't a lie, I only said it's kind of ridiculous to think that the majority will be like that given how immensely popular the series is. And Tabata admitting he has an opinion on something like that doesn't mean that the old fans won't return for this game despite ignoring XIII sequels.
I don't, but my point was that I don't think Square thinks it will dethrone FF7. Given how they retracted a very concrete statement they made about its development.
The trailers yeah but the gameplay not so much! Running through wide areas in a fantasy game will bring Elder Scrolls to mind. FF meets TES.
Ah. What does this tell us?
GoldenCrow
Member
After playing FF games since 6 originally released on the SNES and every numbered game apart from FF11 I have only just learned this now after reading the battle systems page on the FF wiki (and your post highlighting the fact).
artsi
Member
Basically Tabata threw away the Japanese corporate seniority system and did it the western way, best man for the job gets the position (as it should be).
CrimsonSquall
Member
I only mention this because I always liked playing at my own pace so I always had wait mode on, especially in hard bosses in FFXII
Well, you claim many will consider it the "worst FF" just because of changes and that many will be "pissed off", because SE doesn't pander to them alone anymore and that many people dislike open world games, when apparently everyone also hated the tube levels and no-show of cities in FFXIII before. (By the way, FFXV is not even an open-world game.)
To me that are crybabies that are also unsatisfiable.
Exactly. FFXV's game world is basically just a prettier and bigger overworld like we know it of older FFs. Fans should actually love it if they know what's good for them.
Over world is not open world! I said that at a glance anyone could look at a FF(like FF7) and know it was a JRPG, when people see this they might think Witcher or Skyrim before FF.
No I did not. And how in the world isn't FFXV open world? They advertised it as such.
Over world is not open world! I said that at a glance anyone could look at a FF(like FF7) and know it was a JRPG, when people see this they might think Witcher or Skyrim before FF.
Even if what you say is true, how is that a "bad" thing for the game success? Both W3 and Skyrim sold more than any FF.
CrimsonSquall
Member
You're right, Noctis just screams Western RPG from head to toeOver world is not open world! I said that at a glance anyone could look at a FF(like FF7) and know it was a JRPG, when people see this they might think Witcher or Skyrim before FF.
No I did not.
Over world is not open world! I said that at a glance anyone could look at a FF(like FF7) and know it was a JRPG, when people see this they might think Witcher or Skyrim before FF.
No I did not.
Overworlds were basically just technical limitation for a full open world. The difference now is everything is seamless with a real-world 1:1 scale. You can still restrict gameplay and force linear gameplay within an open world, i.e Behemoth quest in Episode Duscae.
Vincent Grayson
Member
Yeah, it's not exactly crazy from a business standpoint to ape some elements of two of the best selling RPGs ever.
That it wasn't necessarily SE contradicting themselves or admitting failure by indirectly implying that FFXV would not be good enough, and rather just a change of thinking when a new president came in that didn't see FFVII as something untouchable that had to be surpassed first to be remaked.
Besides, this reason was probably way more pivotal:
Blackleg-sanji1
Banned
It's not a bad thing for success but some people won't be happy with it. Even the dev team didn't want to do it!
That's really not true. Overworlds are a replacement for open worlds, there were 3D open world games long before FF7 came out for instance. JRPGs just typically have over worlds with random encounters, this game has an open world with real time action combat. It's very different.
Maybe someone would think it's GTA or Sleeping Dogs then, since he's wearing real threads. The game at a glance doesn't look like FF was my point.
Tabata said more than enough times it isn't fully open world. The way you are guided through the world and the story is still pretty linear. It's all just very wide.
I also remember the guys over at Gameinformer, who got to play the first couple of hours of the game, mentioning that it didn't feel fully open world to them. You musn't expect a Witcher 3.
GoldenCrow
Member
Over world is not open world! I said that at a glance anyone could look at a FF(like FF7) and know it was a JRPG, when people see this they might think Witcher or Skyrim before FF.
No I did not. And how in the world isn't FFXV open world? They advertised it as such.
It isn't fully open world btw just very large interconnected areas that will be accessible based on the story.
But if you look at specific areas in 12 and 13 specifically Ozmone Plain and Gran Pulse they don't look dissimilar to Duscae at a glance.
He was the only one they didn't send to the janitor's office and had made a game in the last 10 years xD
But seriously, i think because he was able to lead a team and simply get a game out ASAP, while giving Nomura space to work on other projects they trusted him more with like KH3(with Tai Yasue) and FF7R.
Im sure it still felt like shit for NOmura to have to come to that meeting where they were dropping him from development, but i think it was the best decision to make
Vincent Grayson
Member
It isn't fully open world btw just very large interconnected areas that will be accessible based on the story.
But if you look at specific areas in 12 and 13 specifically Ozmone Plain and Gran Pulse they don't look dissimilar to Duscae at a glance.
It's fully open world. How is it you think the flying car works?
It's just not open world in the traditional "here's 100 icons" sense. It's more akin to older FF titles, save that the overworld is just the world and there's no weird scaling. I believe Tabata has even said that the game (much like old FF titles) will have lots of open, empty spaces, rather than being packed full of things to do at every turn.
Most open world games aren't fully open world too, they're still open world though. I think only Elder Scrolls gets close to being fully open, GTA/Wticher 3 and other games lock areas away from you until the story gets there.
The difference is that those games are not seamless in any way and they're about 5 bazillion times smaller than FFXV. Nobody would say they were open world in any way and those are tiny parts of the otherwise very narrow games.
Nope, it's completely seamless. It's just not "open-world" in the sense of what everybody knows from Ubisoft games, Skyrim etc. It's not littered with hundreds of markers or collectables and you can't go anywhere you like from the start of the game. It's still a linear story progression that opens up new locations step by step, but at the end of the game you can fly through the whole game with your airship/car seamlessly.
Just because you "run through wide areas" in XV as you said doesn't make it more like Elder Scrolls. My point is you "ran through wide areas" in older FF games too. And yes, there was no way they were going to make a seamless open world FFVII at the time that matched the pre-rendered visuals of the game's more linear segments. No one mentioned anything about combat, we're talking about game and world exploration, in which case FF is actually one of the few game series where a seamless open world actually makes sense for the modern era.
"Running through wide areas in a fantasy game will bring Elder Scrolls to mind. FF meets TES."
GoldenCrow
Member
But looking at them you wouldn't know the rest of the game is linear they look pretty much in keeping with open world games of their generations as well.
In the case of Gran Pulse (which is probably bigger than the overworld in most FF games) the game was marketed around it as a large area in an even larger world. Well you witnessed the fallout from when that turned out to be the only area with freedom and comes late on into the game. FF15 is now essentially giving large amounts of freedom well we don't know much besides the Duscae area for sure which is in keeping with the main feedback from 10,12 and 13 that the worlds were too linear and the ability to explore was wanted.
I believe I was talking about how some people don't like the new presentation and made the example that, at a glance, FFXV looks and plays more like open world action games(TES, Witcher, etc) rather than a JRPG. The combat and exploration are intertwined on this subject. Theses people prefer older FF style instead of what XV is focused on.
"FF is actually one of the few game series where a seamless open world actually makes sense for the modern era."
What? It always makes sense for games to have an open world, that's just natural progression, but sometimes developers bite off more than they can chew because of inexperience or a lacking budget or even hardware constraints.
It's not a bad thing to be like western RPGs(and it is more-like them than your example), but some people don't like it.
YankeeDonB
Member
I think a 1-to-1 world will still feel plenty jRPG if 1. Progress in the first half of the game is largely linear with heavy story gating, and 2. The art and music during travel have a jrpg feel. XV seems it will deliver on both of those, and I suspect it might feel like a very nice updating of the old jRPG formula.
I for one am craving linear story driven experiences in large semi-open worlds, which is still rare.
I for one am craving linear story driven experiences in large semi-open worlds, which is still rare.
GoldenCrow
Member
I was talking about this a while back in another forum. I didn't see anyone in here noticing following: In one of the the gameplay videos they showed the complete map of Duscae and surrounding regions for a second and one could clearly make out white borders. Eos seems not fully traversable. It seems to be made up of a net of corridores and some more open areas, like the Duscae valley. I colored these areas green here:
Light blue is by the way the Duscae area we were able to explore in the Duscae demo. Looks so small.
It sounds to me like you're craving a Rockstar game! You described their open world games to a T. Did you mean to describe a game like this set in a fantasy setting?
For me the game would feel like a JRPG if there wasn't long boring stretches of travel for minimal gain and I was constantly going through progression. Open world games RPGS don't often do this right. Like if I play pretty much any JRPG I'm constantly in battle increasing my stats or finding chests, my brain chemistry is just having a blast doing this. In open world RPGs I'm bored because nothing enough is happening between story sections.
I think the first half of FFXV will be more open than the second half though, that seems to be when they focus on the road trip and stuff. Then the story's drama will pick up and pacing will be more focused.
dragonzdogma
Member
Isn't he in charged of also developing the luminous/ebony engine or whatever engine they are making along FFXV?
NoctisVsStar
Member
Engine related work is a separate team in charge of that. Here's a fun trivia julien Merceron was the technology director in the early 2010's when he was at SE during the early days of luminous engine. He later on helped with the fox engine. I believe he's currently at namco.
Yup, here are some interesting threads about his tech talk last year:
Julien Merceron (Namco) Explains How Agnis Philosophy Was Optimized For PS4
Julien Merceron explains why Luminous is only being used for FFXV (for now)
Don't think that was as much a criticism of 12. 12's world was brilliantly crafted in the options you had.
Garrett Hawke
Member
how will this work with the flying car? invisible walls? That's gunna suck if so.I was talking about this a while back in another forum. I didn't see anyone in here noticing following: In one of the the gameplay videos they showed the complete map of Duscae and surrounding regions for a second and one could clearly make out white borders. Eos seems not fully traversable. It seems to be made up of a net of corridores and some more open areas, like the Duscae valley. I colored these areas green here:
Light blue is by the way the Duscae area we were able to explore in the Duscae demo. Looks so small.
So can Toriyama.
Frankly, the FF Type-0 HD remake was worrying in many ways in regards to Tabata's director abilities. Tabata failed to make any signifcant improvement to the game to make it more palpable for consoles, wrote an incredibly disjointed story that required extensive review of the Crimson Codex to understand, and made many baffling design choices that severely limited the experience (i.e. reserve players not gaining EXP, the poor quest system, the uneven dungeon designs).
I think many people got a wrong idea about how the flying car works. There are still boundaries. I remember someone stating that you can't fly the car everywhere and you can't take off and land everywhere. Was it Tabata himself or were it the guys from Gameinformer in their podcast after playing the game for a couple of hours? I don't clearly remember where and when I heard it. But I remember that I thought, yeah, that fits to that restricted map.
Garrett Hawke
Member
so yeah, does that mean invisible walls? because that will be awful :/