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FORTRESS (Final Fantasy XII Followup by GRIN) Concept Art Repository

R

Relaxed Muscle

Member
Kagari said:
It'd still be at the mercy of terrible management.
Click to expand...

Yeah, GRIN wasn't the best example of great western productivity with all those licensed cash ins. But I wish this saw the light, we'll probably will never get another FF game by a western developer.

(I still hope Obsidian would develop write and design a FF game)
 
K

Kagari

Crystal Bearer
Kintaro said:
I'm sorry but given the shit quality of the majority of Japanese IPs handled by Western studios this generation, I'm happy this was canned. For as bad as you guys think FFXIII is, this would probably have been worse.

Look at Grin's resume and tell me you had faith in this. That's like having faith in Double Helix.
Click to expand...

Lest we forget games like Front Mission Evolved...
 
Sub_Level

Sub_Level

wants to fuck an Asian grill.
Still can't get over Larsa being a dude.

MTS_adore184-483477-larsa1.jpg


She was my favorite party member and then I realized whoah...dude looks like a lady...
 
N

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Kintaro said:
I'm sorry but given the shit quality of the majority of Japanese IPs handled by Western studios this generation, I'm happy this was canned. For as bad as you guys think FFXIII is, this would probably have been worse.

Look at Grin's resume and tell me you had faith in this. That's like having faith in Double Helix.
Click to expand...

Plus we've already got Square Enix Westernizing the series themselves.

First Lightning Returns is an open world single character psuedo action RPG, and now FFXV is a regular ass open world action RPG with Uncharted-esque set pieces set in the modern world.

You can even drive a car around and shoot people in third person.
 
R

RangerBAD

Member
Kintaro said:
I'm sorry but given the shit quality of the majority of Japanese IPs handled by Western studios this generation, I'm happy this was canned. For as bad as you guys think FFXIII is, this would probably have been worse.

Look at Grin's resume and tell me you had faith in this. That's like having faith in Double Helix.
Click to expand...

Yup, this.

(Wrong quote before edit.)
 
O

Orayn

Member
The game we're never getting was a followup to the game that represented the direction the FF series should have taken.

0fQgAhZ.gif
 
Tevious

Tevious

Member
I remember seeing the combat demo video and thinking this game looked like an open world and more fantasy based Demon's Souls game. Now that I read the premise revolving around defending this fortress, I'm not sure if it'd have been all that great. It'd be nice to get something like what I described as a non-Final Fantasy title though.
 
U

Uncle Rupee

Banned
Honestly it doesn't look like Final Fantasy. Even the section with the Chocobo, it feels like they just threw a Chocobo into Dragon's Dogma or something.
 
O

Orayn

Member
Uncle Rupee said:
Honestly it doesn't look like Final Fantasy. Even the section with the Chocobo, it feels like they just threw a Chocobo into Dragon's Dogma or something.
Click to expand...

You could say this about any Final Fantasy from VII onward iven the way the series has jumped around between different settings and art styles,
 
B

Black Door

Banned
Y2Kev said:
Does not really look like FFXII from the concept art.
Click to expand...

It looks like every western RPG released from 2008-2010. Note how they erased any hint of cuteness or lightheartedness in the designs (especially old geezer moogle, yeesh.) Gotta chase dat Skyrim/Cawadoody money
 
B

bernardobri

Steve, the dog with no powers that we let hang out with us all for some reason
Toth said:
This does not feel anything like Final Fantasy XII but it would have made an awesome FF Tactics game for the PS2 era.
Click to expand...

Heh, suits in S-E said the same, yet every asset was based upon Final Fantasy XII art & visual elements.

OP: Great collection, thanks for sharing this compendium.
 
Jawmuncher

Jawmuncher

Member
I'm going to say it ,Grin was taken from us far to early. Aside from Terminator Salvation which was rushed to coincide with the film. Both Bionic Commando and Wanted were really solid efforts. Hell Bionic Commando was amazing and definitely one of the higher quality titles from Capcoms 3rd party shenanigans (talking about both rearmed and the "reboot").

I feel if they would've been given the time to work on this fully it would've surprised a lot of people in a good way. Grin along with Propagnada games are my most missed devs this gen.
 
D

Dolphin_Butter

Member
I like some of the art and I really, really love that released music track, but the way it's pitched almost sounds like Dynasty Warriors. Maybe I read that wrong.
 
M

MagnaderAlpha

Member
Black Door said:
It looks like every western RPG released from 2008-2010. Note how they erased any hint of cuteness or lightheartedness in the designs (especially old geezer moogle, yeesh.) Gotta chase dat Skyrim/Cawadoody money
Click to expand...
I think that's the problem that I had with it. Artstically, outside of the natural areas(mountains, forests..), the locations look nothing like they belong in Ivalice, and neither do the character/costume designs. Trying to connect this, artistically, to the other Ivalice games(especially with the heavy Yoshida art influence) is like letting Tetsuya Nomura head the art direction for the next Elder Scroll game, set in the same world but "re-envisioned" with belts, zippers and J-pop flair.
 
D

DJIzana

Member
My god... why can't Square Enix make more games with environments like these?

What the heck! This looks AMAZING. Granted... the game DIDN'T look amazing but they clearly had some good ideas aesthetically!

tU6Dvr8m.jpg
Click to expand...

jZ9Yxwym.jpg
Click to expand...

What I wouldn't GIVE to see more games that have an art style like this announced at this years TGS...
 
C

childplease

Banned
What are the chances of SE ever putting a main FF game set in Ivalice and have it include the exact same combat mechanics that FF12 had ?
 
B

BocoDragon

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
You shouldn't have bet on Grim.

But honestly..... a plan to outsource FF spinoffs to western devs in 2009 might have preserved the reputation of the brand.

I think they should try again. I think the myth that the Japanese developers are special and magic must have died under the weight of the XIII games. Keep the art and story Japanese, if you'd like to preserve the flavor, and hand the raw development over to a Western studio(s) for the occasional side entry.
 
koji kabuto

koji kabuto

Member
childplease said:
What are the chances of SE ever putting a main FF game set in Ivalice and have it include the exact same combat mechanics that FF12 had ?
Click to expand...

I really love the battle system of FFXII but i think SE will never do it again, probably too complicated for the average joe?
 
A

APZonerunner

Member
DiipuSurotu said:
Unfortunately, Motomu Toriyama (of all people...) confirmed in 2011 that the game "won't be released" and was "suspended":

http://www.videogamer.com/xbox360/f..._fantasy_xii_spin-off_fortress_suspended.html
Click to expand...

Yeah. As I understand it the concept was passed to two other studios after GRIN, though. Square Enix wanted this project to work. We've only ever publicly heard the GRIN side of the story of the final days of this project at that studio, and I've been led to believe that there's a bit more to it than we know.

Ultimately I believe (speculation on my part here) that FF13 is probably what killed this game. By the time GRIN had caved and it'd been pushed from there to another studio and then another, the release time frame would've been such that an FF12 sequel would've been a conflict of interests with the push on 13. That, plus quality problems - but the latter can be ironed out; nothing can be done about the former.

I actually asked FF overlord/Brand Producer/Series Exec Producer/Boss Shinji Hashimoto about this last month. He wouldn't talk about Fortress specifically, but was kind enough to at least give some additional info on his perspective of a Western FF in general. The gist of what he said that a Western FF isn't off the cards or out of the question, but it'd need to be the right proposal from the right studio. So Fortress is long dead, but the base concept of a Western take on FF may one day live. http://www.rpgsite.net/interviews/4...-with-final-fantasy-producer-shinji-hashimoto

The biggest problem with this game was always that it didn't begin life as an FF12 sequel. It began life as a general nordic sort of fantasy game, and when Wada visited GRIN about some other potential projects, he loved it and wanted to absorb it into FF. That was one of the things, then, that led to its ultimate downfall - Square being paranoid it "wasn't FF enough" and so on. I think had the game begun life as an FF rather than been adjusted into one, it might have survived.
 
S

show me your skeleton

Member
to be fair to the artists involved, it seems like the majority weren't told this was a final fantasy project at all & were forced to re-design a lot of the work when notified:


The only thing i can say to us , concept artists, defence is that, we did not even know what game/brand it was until the very last two months or something before grin went bankrupt (I have no idea what grin's decision behind this was). So we had been working several months without any proper art direction just doing something "fantasy:ish". And in the end they finally told us what we were doing, and said "Now we have to remake everything, and make it look more like... "
Click to expand...
- tony holmsten
 
F

Flipyap

Member
Kintaro said:
I'm sorry but given the shit quality of the majority of Japanese IPs handled by Western studios this generation, I'm happy this was canned. For as bad as you guys think FFXIII is, this would probably have been worse.

Look at Grin's resume and tell me you had faith in this. That's like having faith in Double Helix.
Click to expand...
Okay, I'll take a look at it.

Bionic Commando Rearmed - one of the best retro remakes and a great modern 2D game on its own
Wanted: Weapons of Fate - licensed shovelware with surprisingly solid mechanics
Bionic Commando - it had deeply flawed mission design, but it has the BEST grappling hook/swinging mechanics, it only needed even the blandest open world setting and it would be one AMAZING toy
Terminator Salvation - well, yeah...

Grin's games were a mixed bag, likely due to the number of projects they took at once and how little time they had to develop them, but the studio had huge potential. Every Grin game I tried actually had really solid core mechanics.
The thing that made this different from other Western takes on Japanese properties is that it would be an original game set in a known world, not a sequel in a well-defined series (which usually also happen to be defined by their clunky/outdated design, so... yeah, good luck making a new Dead Rising that feels shitty in just the right way).
It would probably end up being kinda broken in some significant way, but it certainly would be an interesting thing to behold. What's there about its cancellaton to be happy about? At worst, it would be something you could easily avoid and it wouldn't affect the future of (a dead sub-series in) a franchise you like.

So yeah, I'd have more faith in this than I would in Square's in-house attempts at making action games (now THAT'S one hell of a resume).
 
Yoshichan

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
This looks... amazing...
 
K

Keasar

Member
Flipyap said:
Okay, I'll take a look at it.

Bionic Commando Rearmed - one of the best retro remakes and a great modern 2D game on its own
Wanted: Weapons of Fate - licensed shovelware with surprisingly solid mechanics
Bionic Commando - it had deeply flawed mission design, but it has the BEST grappling hook/swinging mechanics, it only needed even the blandest open world setting and it would be one AMAZING toy
Terminator Salvation - well, yeah...

Grin's games were a mixed bag, likely due to the number of projects they took at once and how little time they had to develop them, but the studio had huge potential. Every Grin game I tried actually had really solid core mechanics.
The thing that made this different from other Western takes on Japanese properties is that it would be an original game set in a known world, not a sequel in a well-defined series (which usually also happen to be defined by their clunky/outdated design, so... yeah, good luck making a new Dead Rising that feels shitty in just the right way).
It would probably end up being kinda broken in some significant way, but it certainly would be an interesting thing to behold. What's there about its cancellaton to be happy about? At worst, it would be something you could easily avoid and it wouldn't affect the future of (a dead sub-series in) a franchise you like.

So yeah, I'd have more faith in this than I would in Square's in-house attempts at making action games (now THAT'S one hell of a resume).
Click to expand...

I think GRIN could have pulled something off. The black marks on GRINs resume were the movie license games and from what I understand, unless you get complete free reigns to work on a license (Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay) it is usually going to suck and be horrible because of the influence movie business people have on your design. Bionic Commando, flawed in many ways had still a ton of potential had it taken a slightly different direction.

I really wanted to see what this game would have become. :(
 
D

doemaaan

Member
DiipuSurotu said:
A programmer who worked for GRIN and goes by the pseudonym "Vim" on his blog describes his contribution to Fortress as follows:

After Bionic Commando I got to work one month on this final project at Grin

The core game was about you and a small group of loyal soldiers defending the fortress against a army invading from the sea. They had ships and monsters in endless supply and you had to keep your troops morale high and move around the fortress and defend key areas of it as the enemy attacked. Between attacks you could travel inland and explore some form of ancient temples or something.
Click to expand...

I love the Ivalice Alliance and when news hit the web about SE pulling the plug on a console follow up to FF12, one of my favorite games of all time, I was extremely disappointed. However, after reading a lot of this information and seeing the concept art, I'm not surprised SE cancelled it. I definitely don't get a FF vibe, much less an Ivalice vibe, after reading the OP. I've still got my fingers crossed for more Ivalice, but I want it done right. I think SE would have to be responsible for developing the game.

As for GRIN and this project, I wouldn't mind seeing it as a new IP. They got some pretty creative stuff here, so it's a shame it's gone to waste.
 
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