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Final Fantasy Creator Hironobu Sakaguchi Comments on FFXV and Tabata's Future Project

recursive

recursive

Member
Philippo said:
100% agree with this post.

The tools, conditions and enviroment for developing a great game are finally there, and both Tabata and SE at large learned a lot from XV's mess in terms of managing a big project.

I only hope that the upper highs of SE won't push too much for a "westernized" game in terms of design.
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They had a good opportunity to learn that with 14. Seems in general SE struggles with big projects.
 
J

Jeels

Member
I don't want Tabata on mainline FF. Put him in his own 'Type' series so I can go ahead and ignore those games.
 
F

Fourth Storm

Member
That's pretty awesome they go out for drinks commonly. I wan't aware Sakaguchi and Tabata were so close. It's kinda heartwarming to know that in a very indirect way, the Gooch is still involved in Final Fantasy.
 
L

Lothar

Banned
DarkLordMalik said:
Yoko Taro was also the director of Drakengard 3 and Nier, both of which were critically panned games. He just needed a good team with a clear vision that he achieved with Platinum and he finally made a great game.
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Nier reviews were just absurdly wrong and it took a while for reviewers to catch up with the common perception.
 
M

Meowster

Member
Like him or not, we are stuck with Tabata now that his game is likely to outsell XIII. Same reason we are stuck with the insane Toriyama because X and XIII sold a huge amount too. At least both can release their games in a timely fashion.
 
D

dramatis

Member
ArkhamFantasy said:
The way people talk about FFXV you would think its a 60 metacritic game that was forgotten about in a week, also some mental gymnastics about Sakaguchi being forced to praise a game that he secretly hates? lol
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To be frank, between November 2016 and July 2017,

Nier: Automata came out, showing how action combat is really done, on a budget and on time.

Horizon: Zero Dawn came out, showing how devs new to the RPG genre can exceed expectations.

Breath of the Wild came out, showing how open world in a longtime franchise can be fantastic if you have direction and design.

Persona 5 came out, showing how having a clear vision can add to and enhance an existing formula, and also make a solid story that is relevant to the times and not mired in a mass of its own confusion.

Stormblood came out two weeks ago, showing how an FF can be done fabulously today, with a story that executes the plot of a character growing into the responsibility of leadership much, much better than 15 did.

FF15 certainly hasn't been forgotten in a week, but it has been exceeded by all these games that came out rather shortly after it. It's been half a year since it came out, and its design template is from the early 2010s. People have already moved on to brighter, more exciting ideas.
 
R

Relaxed Muscle

Member
ArkhamFantasy said:
The way people talk about FFXV you would think its a 60 metacritic game that was forgotten about in a week, also some mental gymnastics about Sakaguchi being forced to praise a game that he secretly hates? lol
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I always knew this was gonna be another XIII case, which had a warm welcome by fans waiting for it so long, but after the dust settles all it's faults were finally apparent.
 
A

Arkeband

Banned
dramatis said:
To be frank, between November 2016 and July 2017,

Nier: Automata came out, showing how action combat is really done, on a budget and on time.

Horizon: Zero Dawn came out, showing how devs new to the RPG genre can exceed expectations.

Breath of the Wild came out, showing how open world in a longtime franchise can be fantastic if you have direction and design.

Persona 5 came out, showing how having a clear vision can add to and enhance an existing formula, and also make a solid story that is relevant to the times and not mired in a mass of its own confusion.

Stormblood came out two weeks ago, showing how an FF can be done fabulously today, with a story that executes the plot of a character growing into the responsibility of leadership much, much better than 15 did.

FF15 certainly hasn't been forgotten in a week, but it has been exceeded by all these games that came out rather shortly after it. It's been half a year since it came out, and its design template is from the early 2010s. People have already moved on to brighter, more exciting ideas.
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This is really on point, and I'd even add that Persona 5 proved that turn based mechanics aren't a thing of the past.

Hopefully DQ11 puts the last nail in that hot take's coffin.
 
M

MaverickHunterAsh

Member
AlexFlame116 said:
Sometimes I'd honestly like to see some of you posters here get tasked to try to salvage years of content into one game and see what comes out. I'm sure it will be an easy task.
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Well said. This cuts to the heart of things right here.

FFXV wasn't perfect by any means, but Tabata did a stupendous job pulling together Nomura's unfinished scraps of Versus XIII into a strong game (if not a strong story). This game never would have come out in any form if not for Tabata. Nomura's a visionary and I do love a lot of his work, but he can't finish games for the life of him and really needs a producer - or a director with a more producer-like mentality, like Tabata - to rein him in.

Can't wait to see what Tabata can do with full creative freedom, unhindered by having to salvage leftovers from someone else's failed vision.
 
M

Mythos

Member
I don't know what to think of Tabata to be honest. Type-0 was terrible, but that Ending... FFXV was better, and i love it, world is nice, battlesystem (could be modified) was also nice, Chars (existed before) were really good, i loved their friendship, antagonist was awesome (existed before him), story was... Well, it had a lot potential, but it was so bad executed, like really bad.

I kinda wish to see another mainline FF from him, just to see what he could do from scratch and with a good dev team, but on other side, i fear to get another game from him where it's half done.

Ito would be great for another mainline game. Just no more Toriyama, i just can't with this guy.
 
L

LiquidSolid

Member
ArkhamFantasy said:
The way people talk about FFXV you would think its a 60 metacritic game that was forgotten about in a week, also some mental gymnastics about Sakaguchi being forced to praise a game that he secretly hates? lol
Click to expand...

FFXV is a solid 7/10 game to me. It's a fun game to play and mess around with but looking at it with a critical eye, the characters are weak (the female characters near non-existent), the story telling is outright horrible and the battle system is a mess. It just isn't a great game.

I still can't believe the Adamantoise made it into the final game, it's probably one of the last things people do in it and it makes the battle system and camera look SO bad.
 
K

kromeo

Member
MaverickHunterAsh said:
Well said. This cuts to the heart of things right here.

FFXV wasn't perfect by any means, but Tabata did a stupendous job pulling together Nomura's unfinished scraps of Versus XIII into a strong game (if not a strong story). This game never would have come out in any form if not for Tabata. Nomura's a visionary and I do love a lot of his work, but he can't finish games for the life of him and really needs a producer - or a director with a more producer-like mentality, like Tabata - to rein him in.

Can't wait to see what Tabata can do with full creative freedom, unhindered by having to salvage leftovers from someone else's failed vision.
Click to expand...

The game needed another 2 years of development, not necessarily Tabata's fault though
 
mortal

mortal

Gold Member
He said pretty nothing we don't already know in that interview. I doubt Sakaguchi would speak candidly and honestly about his peer and the game in an interview.
 
ULTROS!

ULTROS!

People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
I wonder if FFXVI will have new blood. Will be interesting if FFXVI will be directed by the guy who did World of FF (Hiroki Chiba).

DarkLordMalik said:
The only thing good about Toriyama is that he has been involved in many mainline FF games. He is nowhere 'leagues' better than Tabata but definitely carries more experience for a mainline FF.
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I'd say Toriyama is a great cutscene director. See FFX (and maybe FFXIII, hey the cutscenes were decent!). But storywise, lol.
 
K

kromeo

Member
ULTROS! said:
I wonder if FFXVI will have new blood. Will be interesting if FFXVI will be directed by the guy who did World of FF (Hiroki Chiba).



I'd say Toriyama is a great cutscene director. See FFX (and maybe FFXIII, hey the cutscenes were decent!). But storywise, lol.
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I'm not sure if he or Nojima was the main writer for X but it had an excellent story
 
D

dramatis

Member
MaverickHunterAsh said:
Well said. This cuts to the heart of things right here.

FFXV wasn't perfect by any means, but Tabata did a stupendous job pulling together Nomura's unfinished scraps of Versus XIII into a strong game (if not a strong story). This game never would have come out in any form if not for Tabata. Nomura's a visionary and I do love a lot of his work, but he can't finish games for the life of him and really needs a producer - or a director with a more producer-like mentality, like Tabata - to rein him in.

Can't wait to see what Tabata can do with full creative freedom, unhindered by having to salvage leftovers from someone else's failed vision.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, Tabata and FF15 pale in comparison to the other, more successful turnaround of FF14 by Naoki Yoshida.

The comparison lies not between Nomura and Tabata, but between Tabata and Yoshida. When you have a direct comparison at the same publisher/developer, then it becomes obvious who has actual ability and who was overambitious.
 
A

AlexFlame116

Member
Just keep exploding blitzballs and NTR out of any and every Final Fantasy and I'm okay with Nojima being the writer.
dramatis said:
The comparison lies not between Nomura and Tabata, but between Tabata and Yoshida. When you have a direct comparison at the same publisher/developer, then it becomes obvious who has actual ability and who was overambitious.
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How about we just don't compare at all? Must everything be compared???
 
ULTROS!

ULTROS!

People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
I know Sakaguchi dissed on FFXII but didn't he diss on FFXIII too?
 
1

120v

Member
ULTROS! said:
I wonder if FFXVI will have new blood. Will be interesting if FFXVI will be directed by the guy who did World of FF (Hiroki Chiba).
Click to expand...

imo it's definitely time to pass it off to new talent. only issue is nobody outside of tabata and toriyama are surely able to manage the gargantuan production FFXVI will likely be. flipping the coin to an "unknown" would be taking quite the gamble
 
M

MarkusRJR

Member
Honestly I'm totally fine with Tabata doing FF 16 as long as someone is there to prioritize storytelling along with some good editors. Every Tabata game I've tried has terrible storytelling and I can never get invested in it.
 
D

DrunkShogun

Member
Ffxv wasn't an easy game to make after how long it had been revealed and the added pressure that comes from that. The game isn't perfect but it came decent enough which says a lot thinking about the game a few years ago. Can only hope Tabata looks beyond sad ending equals strong finale. I'm almost expecting the usual tragedy in his next game.
 
D

DarkLordMalik

Member
DrunkShogun said:
Ffxv wasn't an easy game to make after how long it had been revealed and the added pressure that comes from that. The game isn't perfect but it came decent enough which says a lot thinking about the game a few years ago. Can only hope Tabata looks beyond sad ending equals strong finale. I'm almost expecting the usual tragedy in his next game.
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Nomura's ending trope

Cool shit that doesn't make any sense until sequel

Tabata's ending trope

Makes you cry and aim for emotional end

Toriyama's ending trope

Must have Lightning cameo
 
A

AlexFlame116

Member
DarkLordMalik said:
Nomura's ending trope

Cool shit that doesn't make any sense until sequel

Tabata's ending trope

Makes you cry and aim for emotional end

Toriyama's ending trope

Must have Lightning cameo
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What if they all made a game together? Would it have an ending that was sad and emotional but also extremely confusing and won't be explained until the sequel (maybe) and then after the credits feature Lightning with some new armor holding a rose and reading Loveless approaching the main cast?
 
Falchion

Falchion

Member
Hopefully the next project doesn't have a solid many development struggles as XV, even though it was a very good game.
 
H

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
Let Matsuno handle the world, story and characters while Tabata takes care of everything else.
 
T

theofficefan99

Junior Member
No. Stop making excuses for everything regarding this game. And Tabata has a terrible track record and a lot of his nonsensical mistakes from Type-0 carried over to XV.

Somnium said:
He said pretty nothing we don't already know in that interview. I doubt Sakaguchi would speak candidly and honestly about his peer and the game in an interview.
Click to expand...

This. There's even a FFXV and Terra Battle crossover, FFS. But this isn't surprising coming from TC.
 
K

KZXcellent

Member
Wild Card said:
So are they still updating FFXV? I don't want to play it until they uh.. are done patching the story into the game.
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The last time they patched story into the game was a few months ago, they released a small 30 minute section to elaborate on the game's 13th chapter.

Updates now on the story-front are DLC Episodes apart of the season pass. Every other update are gameplay improvements and small events. If you want to jump in and experience everything it'd be best to do that in December when the final story-related DLC is released.

You know, until they announce another season pass or something.
 
S

Slater

Banned
Somnium said:
He said pretty nothing we don't already know in that interview. I doubt Sakaguchi would speak candidly and honestly about his peer and the game in an interview.
Click to expand...

Do you not remember him ripping into Kitase and calling him a shit producer live on the uncovered stream?
 
cj_iwakura

cj_iwakura

Member
Ahasverus said:
Tabata deserves to make XVI from the ground up. Versus XIII was unsalvageable.
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He still managed a cohesive game. It just lacked a proper fleshing out.

I got it at launch and don't feel ripped off, quite the opposite. I'm glad they're putting in work.
 
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