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[USGamer] Hajime Tabata Reflects on Transformation of Versus XIII to Final Fantasy XV

Mesoian

Member
I've seen enough of gaf and other sites to know people would have, it's not that hard to see they would.

I wonder if those people would ever be happy with what FF15 is or will be or could have been.

This game was put on such a pedestal for so long that regardless of what the game was, there would be very vocal people who would never be happy with it. IMO - it would just be one more thing to complain about.

Cutting Cor from the main party was the right call, too -- dude would've cramped the "bros on a road trip" aesthetic pretty hard.

Like Iris did.
 

Ferr986

Member
He's right. People got too ridiculously attached to Stella. People would complain no matter what they would do with her... Although people also complained because she got removed lol
 

JayEH

Junior Member
Cutting Cor from the main party was the right call, too -- dude would've cramped the "bros on a road trip" aesthetic pretty hard.

He could have worked as an early party member that dies and helps the rest of the bros grow stronger. Go all the way anime.
 

kennyamr

Member
After playing... and finishing both Type-0 and XV, I gotta say, Tabata is a director that ship games. I'll give him that.

That's all the credit I will give to him.
 

Sayad

Member
Luna is up there with the worst 5 things about FFXV, just behind Chapter 13, Leviathan fight and the train trip. Not that I think Nomura can do any better.
 

Mesoian

Member
After playing... and finishing both Type-0 and XV, I gotta say, Tabata is a director that ship games. I'll give him that.

That's all the credit I will give to him.

Ha.

I will say, Tabata has a fetish for poor endings. He doesn't just like them, he rolls around in them.

Are you talking about the orphanage shit?

On top of
"Is Squall dead?"
stuff.

FF8 sucks. Hate that game so much.
 

Squire

Banned
Versus always struck as ideas and potential more than being anything concrete, yes. The idea that FFXV is finished is LOL though
 

JayEH

Junior Member
After playing... and finishing both Type-0 and XV, I gotta say, Tabata is a director that ship games. I'll give him that.

That's all the credit I will give to him.

Square could use more people who can ship games in reasonable time.
 

Ydelnae

Member
"versus xiii was an unfinished product that was abandoned and xv is an unfinished game sold at retail so I would say we accomplished something"

Hajime Tabata, an interview.
 
After playing... and finishing both Type-0 and XV, I gotta say, Tabata is a director that ship games. I'll give him that.

That's all the credit I will give to him.

Ha.

I will say, Tabata has a fetish for poor endings. He doesn't just like them, he rolls around in them.

Don't forget the absence of care for lore and plot holes.

Edit: wrong stuff below. I checked out of this game after I thought Tabata said Ifrit things.

"Tabata, can you tell us more about Ifrit and his background beyond the game?"

"I'm not aware of those details."
 

yunbuns

Member
Don't forget the absence of care for lore and plot holes.

"Tabata, can you tell us more about Ifrit and his background beyond the game?"

"I'm not aware of those details."

Wasn't that a mistranslation that got spread around and it turned out he didn't actually say that?

I mean, the point is, even if you choose to believe any of these theories, the endgame of FF8 is still dogshit. No matter what you pick, that ending is still terrible because it really factors into almost nothing that happened in the game. It's a hard curtain on a 40 hour story for the sake of having a hard curtain on a 40 hour story, it sucks.

Say what you will about 15's ending, at least it's definitive.

I mean I can respect someone not liking a game but this is completely false and almost sounds like you didn't pay attention to anything in it but whatever.

Bleh even if it was, still worst FF game to me.

Didn't you only play the beginning? :/
 

Mesoian

Member
That was hinted at throughout the game though.....

Also you all know Squall is Dead is just a theory like Rinoa is Ultimecia right?

I mean, the point is, even if you choose to believe any of these theories, the endgame of FF8 is still dogshit. No matter what you pick, that ending is still terrible because it really factors into almost nothing that happened in the game. It's a hard curtain on a 40 hour story for the sake of having a hard curtain on a 40 hour story, it sucks.

Say what you will about 15's ending, at least it's definitive.
 

Ydelnae

Member
Don't forget the absence of care for lore and plot holes.

"Tabata, can you tell us more about Ifrit and his background beyond the game?"

"I'm not aware of those details."

That was a mistranslation from the Ultimania guide and that quote didn't even belong to Tabata, even if it leaked along with his interview thing. What it said is that in the world of XV, the legend of Ifrit and what happened are unknown by humanity.
 

notaskwid

Member
You guya keep on waiting and Tabata-sama keeps on winning.
Smell ya later nerds

AthleticAssuredBonobo-size_restricted.gif
 

Squire

Banned
XV is a finished game, though.

It's finished when it's convenient to say so, but they'll keep working on it, adding in things that should've been there to start, if that's the more preferable line. It all depends on who Tabata is talking to and what he's being asked. Consistency be damned.

At this point, I think more highly of Motomu Toriyama than this guy.
 
Don't forget the absence of care for lore and plot holes.

Edit: wrong stuff below. I checked out of this game after I thought Tabata said Ifrit things.

"Tabata, can you tell us more about Ifrit and his background beyond the game?"

"I'm not aware of those details."
Now this quote is being attributed to Tabata while originally I heard something similar from Nomura regarding this quote and it was fake.
 

Minamu

Member
Why do you say that? Instead of leaving Stella in the game they decided to replace her completely since she obviously wasn't going to be the same character.
I think the reason given is very odd. I think people are more disappointed with what they did get, than with what they didn't get. Regardless of how she was changed in the story and gameplay, I don't understand why that would require a new name and face. That's far more work than just reworking the story and leaving the assets as is.

What about it doesn't make sense? What people expected Stella to be like from the early concepts and trailers would've been completely different from the new Stella they would've gotten in FFXV (fortunately, we now know what her role in the original Versus plot would've been and it indeed was completely different). There would've been backlash anyway if they kept the name for FFXV - "Why wasn't she bad-ass and why didn't Stella fight Noctis!?".
Given that the rest of the game we got is vastly different from what Versus was intended as, changing Stella into a different character is fine. Stories and character intentions etc change all the time, so people's perceptions of Stella based on the trailers shouldn't be on the devs' mind in my opinion, that's how you write yourself into a corner. Me personally, I don't care that the character itself is different from the inital concept, what I don't get is why that requires a different 3D model, especially based on how little Luna content there is in XV. Seems unnecessary, is all. There are probably reasons why the artist changed her face and all, but the reasons given don't add up as logical to me.

They could've simply officially said that yeah, the story from Versus is way different now and we're doing our own thing. They kinda did multiple times, but why that justifies changing a character name doesn't make sense to me. They didn't change Noctis' look or name, and he's very different from the original concept as well I'd wager. Given how little there actually existed of Versus and how little we truly knew of its story, if they'd kept the name and created a different story path for her, very few would probably be none the wiser. I want to point out though, I don't personally care about the new name or the change itself, I just don't understand their reasoning for doing it in the first place.

Long post is long, slow evening at work :lol

TLDR: Rename Luna to Stella, and change her physical appearance. Nothing about XV would be different -> the change feels oddly unnecessary to me. The reasons given in interviews are not making up for this discrepancy :)
 

Ray Down

Banned
I bought FF7 on PSN and still haven't played it, what makes you think I would ever play FF8.

Will play if you reject Carrot and follow Pudding.
 

Burbeting

Banned
They should have scrapped all of Versus, and gone with a new game instead. With Nomura on FF7R, people would have been less angry.

Also the amount of "Why wasn't Luna called Stella" posts is pretty weird. It would have been a lot more harsh PR problem if Stella name was used for Luna's role.
 

bigol

Member
Tabata about DLC and cutscenes patch:

It's not that users have an incomplete version of the game and that we're filling in the gaps now. Rather, we've already released the complete version of the game, and what we're doing is simply enhancing that experience for people, or providing different styles of play for characters.
 
Tabata about DLC and cutscenes patch:

It's not that users have an incomplete version of the game and that we're filling in the gaps now. Rather, we've already released the complete version of the game, and what we're doing is simply enhancing that experience for people, or providing different styles of play for characters.

Coughs *bullshit
 

sackninja

Member
There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams – not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart....

This always feels relevant when talking about FfXV
 
"Complete game"...right. I'm sure you would have liked to actually finish it Tabata, but I know I would never want to call something obviously incomplete, "complete", and would just try to avoid using the word at least.
 
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