We need a prequel with Auron taking Yuna's father to fight Sin.
Would buy.
We need a prequel with Auron taking Yuna's father to fight Sin.
I'll back you up. I love FFX-2 and look forward to the HD version.
I'll back you up. I love FFX-2 and look forward to the HD version.
(And before anyone says, "Bu-bu-bu-Jpop! Bu-bu-bu-dresspheres!", I got a kick out of that stuff too, so away with thee!)
I'm not the biggest Final Fantasy fan on this board, but I actually preferred FFX-2 to FFX.
I find all of the "fashion model" talk about FF characters to be pretty funny in hindsight considering the main characters of XV are actually fashion models.
Ayami Kojima's not Hideo's wife. Also, she can draw badass when she wants to:
In an interview, she once said she loves drawing older men.
This looks great, would love a FF with this artstyle and just crazy shit happening so they can be even crazier with the art. Current FF artstyle is incredibly boring.
Let's boil it down even more, 'Is anyone tired of this Japanese series looking Japanese?"
Let's boil it down even more, 'Is anyone tired of this Japanese series looking Japanese?"
Pretty much.
Screw that. I hope these games stick even stronger to their guns. I really do not want a second coming of that "Japanese companies having an identity crisis and westernizing their games" trend. If people don't like how FF looks, they should just play something else.
yes there is, it even had a jpop song in it. Squall was modelled after jpop star Gackt and Rinoah looks like your typical jdrama pure girl. Even cell sports a typical year 2k millennium tribal tatoo on his disgusting face.
oh, and every single one is young and handsome.
If they could find the artist for Terranigma, I'd love to see him take a crack at it. I believe his name was Tatsuo Hashimoto
Hmm for some reason I thought that was Kojima's wife, but regardless, she is an excellent artist.
Square needs to let the artist from the Saga series do the art for one of the next FF's. They already got Hamauzu for the music.
It costs SE more to contract with an outside freelancer, they can save money by just handing the design work to their internal employees.Man I thought this thread would be boring and everything and people post such awesome art in it!
Waaah
why can't SE release something from these guys?
Or can anyone actually hire these guys to make some games?
I mean really anyone!
I knew one of those charts was way off when I saw the US NPD numbers for FF13, but I didn't know there were 2 versions floating around. He should put dates on those charts.Someone is already running it here on GAF:
XIII and XIII-2 are so terrible that hundreds of thousands of copies have been returned since July "according to NPD".
These charts are very conspicuous and people have quickly clung to them as gospel without ever questioning their veracity.
We all appreciate anyone who wants to help, but I'd rather it not be with fake numbers (we already have that covered on another website).
I get that after all why use Nomura for chara design otherwise.It costs SE more to contract with an outside freelancer, they can save money by just handing the design work to their internal employees.
Let's boil it down even more, 'Is anyone tired of this Japanese series looking Japanese?"
Are you sure?If they could find the artist for Terranigma, I'd love to see him take a crack at it. I believe his name was Tatsuo Hashimoto
Look at Nomura's take on characters like Mickey or Pete, who look equally overdone.
I think in the present day, unless the 'creator' (composer/designer/writer) is a big name with a lot of history with the company, SE doesn't contract with them. That's why Kazushige Nojima, Nobuo Uematsu, Yoshitaka Amano are still having their names tacked onto a lot of FF things, but Tomomi Kobayashi is hardly as known so they wouldn't contract with her even if her art presents a different style that could be refreshing for Square games. I think short of having a high level director/developer guy ask specifically for certain artists not in the SE stable, it's unlikely you'll get a specific artist style.I get that after all why use Nomura for chara design otherwise.
The thing is that Romancing Saga designer was a Squaresoft employee, no?
Or was he/she a contractor Kawazu took a liking to?
Is it really that simple, though?Let's boil it down even more, 'Is anyone tired of this Japanese series looking Japanese?"
Excuse me for ranting, but here are my musings.
My problem with FFs art style is that the medium has changed, not necessarily the art or design itself.Jury's still out on that, although it doesn't look good tbqh. =P
With pre-FF7 games, all you had were tiny blobs of pixels shaped vaguely like LEGO people. The game was clearly a representation of what went down "for real", so just like when reading a book, my phantasy filled out the gaps. For that reason I liked Amano and "his take" (heh) on the universe, because character pictures aside, what actually happened in the game and how people looked was pretty much up to my imagination.
Fast forward to the 3D era, and more importantly, the FMV era. There is no wiggle room there. This is no longer viable to be experienced using the "book approach", since the frequent cutscenes and comparatively high level of graphical detail (as well as improved animation and whatnot) prohibit any individual "perspective" to events and characters. It leaves very little to the imagination: You get what you see.
And, from my last attempt to return to the universe with FF13/14, I don't care for what I see. I need my wriggle room, and I am no longer being given one. I find the stories and characters as they are presented to me insufferable and annoying, awkward and ridiculous, uninteresting and unrelatable. And they may have been the same back in the day, who knows. I probably just didn't know or notice, back then.
Getting more to the point now.
I also hate overengineered and obviously impractical stuff. My mind screams at me constantly when they are on screen (and - see above - they are). KISS is one of my favourite design principles, and practicality one of my highest rating aspects.
This problem only appeared because more powerful machines allowed for more polygons and thus more freedom for designers, leading to some sort of vicious circle where artwork would become increasingly flamboyant because the artists can run wild, as they are prone to. It's that streak that makes them artists, after all.
Also, I got older, moreexperiencedcynical, and less willing to put up with bullshit. I can't identify with designed-to-be-young characters anymore, and I have no interest in cookie cutter antics.
That's my take on why the "visual identity" now matters when it did not before, and why modern FF games as a whole no longer interest me. The designs per se haven't changed in any meaningful manner, I think.
Is it really that simple, though?
I mean, just like with western art, there's art that some people like and some don't.
For example, I hate the macho aesthetics of Gears of War, yet I love the visual design in BioShock.
I don't like anorexic, pale, effeminate-looking, characters with heavily styled hair and weird, fashion-inspired, clothing with chains, belts and zippers. I don't like immature youngsters that try to be sexy by being half-naked in battles and I don't like animu-style designs.
I don't like these:
Yet, I like these:
Final Fantasy VII
Panzer Dragoon Saga
Order of Ecclesia
Vagrant Story
Bravely Default
I don't want Final Fantasy to stop looking Japanese at all, and suggesting that feels a little racist to me. There's plenty of anime and manga that look completely fine.
Like, let's talk about what might be the origin of "hero with a ridiculously huge sword", Berzerk
Or Record of Lodoss War
Or Slayers
Arguably, yes, those are all "old" anime and manga from the late 80's or early 90's. But they still carry what could be considered "Japanese designs" - it's just they don't look like they stepped out of a Katy Perry music video.
Final Fantasy characters look too "perfect" now. Too glamorous. Glamor is not an inherently Japanese thing.
Like, let's talk about what might be the origin of "hero with a ridiculously huge sword", Berzerk
tis bullshit
they want to XV/Versus to have a old school FF feel. .......
2D ARTWORK IN THE MENU's IS THE KEY!
You're asking too much of S-E.
They just aren't capable of Berserk-level greatness.
You're right about everything. None of my fellow current FF hater brothers were there to support me and I was all alone, being called everything in the book (nah they were somewhat civil), but yeah it pisses me off (in a joking way). I know I was right, while some may care more than others, nobody comes to FF to see a Kia Optima or every day real world settings. I want to see something exotic and something I have never seen before from a different perspective of enginuity. I want to see machinery powered by mako, mana, ether, esper, magic, not an everyday Hyundai that looks like it runs on 92 octane. And I don't have time for an MMO nor is that a replacement for a one time fee, story and character driven, single player RPG. Not even close.This kind of "quoting" gives a really strong vibe that you were "losing" the argument, and now you're mad. Also makes you sound condescending as hell.
We have Demons souls for that. Not to mention, FF is going for a totally different vibe than Berserk.
I think there is some Gackt dna in Squall as well but that's up for debate.Sorry but I don't get this at all, Squall was modelled after River Pheonix, and Rinoa is European, they wanted her to look 'cute' not drop dead gorgeous, I think they pretty much nailed it. VIII is one of the least Japanese Final Fantasies, in terms of art direction and character design.
I don't see why having a young cast is so bad? They were a bunch of teens in school after all, it made sense for that game. I also don't get how FF VIII started the 'Jpop fashion model' look. The look they chose for that game hardly carried on into IX, or X, or XII, so it's not exactly been recycled over and over in later games.
It costs SE more to contract with an outside freelancer, they can save money by just handing the design work to their internal employees.
I knew one of those charts was way off when I saw the US NPD numbers for FF13, but I didn't know there were 2 versions floating around. He should put dates on those charts.
The only publicly available number for FF13 is about 1.3 million for first month of sales, there's no way it can climb to 2.5 million over 3 years.
honestly you wont get anything from final fantasy other than a highly focus tested, demographic pleasing look. It's just the nature of the business. These games cost to much to make. I appreciate that some people like Nomura and it's obvious he's tried to mix it up over the years but his technique really is style over substance and I think anyone with a trained eye for graphic design acknowledges this.
Honestly the character designs are my only real gripe with the mainline final fantasy games. I love the gameplay. I love the settings and the monster design. I adore their more experimental work like x-2 and i thought XIII was a bold distillation of the formula.
I thought XII character wise was a solid effort to change things up visually, but obviously there was pressure from higher ups to not deviate to far from what was considered a 'successful' formula. Too bad. I think FFXIV's characters are great, too bad we'll never see that kind of variation in the main single player games. It's always gonna have that realistic, pretty faced expensive haircut look. too bad in my opinion.
Rinoa's appearance tends to look different multiple times throughout the game so I can see how someone would find her more asian than european. However, I think saying she looks like an ideal pure girl is wrong and that she bears no european resemblence is too. For example, an actress that heavily resembles Rinoa is Camilla Belle who is European(I think? even if not, she is white).I think there is some Gackt dna in Squall as well but that's up for debate.
Rinoa might "be" european but she looks exactly like the typical ideal well brought up jdrama pure girl. The way she looks is pretty much ideal japanese waifu material(for japanese men) and yes she does look japanese (and not euro at all). I don't actually mind her as I do like 90's japanese beauties such as Nanako Matsushita.
Honestly I don't mind the character designs in FF8 so much, I think squall and edea are very well designed, I don't like it that all the characters are handsome and I would have preferred some age variation.
It's apparent to me that FF8 took a step toward mainstream jpop and was heavily influenced by contemporary jpop fashion and celebrities.
No. Fuck Nomura.
Why are people so desperate to deny FF XIII's success? SE's money comes from shipped units, not those sold, and even then, there's no reason to believe it couldn't have sold an additional 1.2 million in 3 years.
Seems like Square-Enix has made it clear that this is what Final Fantasy will look like for quite some time.... and honestly, I've been sick of it for years
Why do people expect franchises to age at the same rate people do? You grew up, Final Fantasy didn't. Deal with it.
It's not even about "growing up". It's probably fairer to say, "Your tastes changed, Final Fantasy didn't".