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Fabula Nova Crystallis: Final Fantasy XIII Media and Information Thread

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Has anyone gone back and watched the earliest trailers for the game? Lightning leaps over her enemies.. She trips enemies.. She flies through the air spraying bullets across multiple enemies.. in a manner that resembles a CG scene! And this is supposed to be during a standard battle sequence. It doesn't really look like that now.

Do we still have this level of quality but with more realistic gameplay camera angles? Could this type of cinematic battle be for a specific scene, perhaps early in the game, to introduce lightning's battle techniques, before going to a more relaxed camera style for typical battles? Or do we have...... Downgrade total? :P
 
BocoDragon said:
Has anyone gone back and watched the earliest trailers for the game? Lightning leaps over her enemies.. She trips enemies.. She flies through the air spraying bullets across multiple enemies.. in a manner that resembles a CG scene! And this is supposed to be during a standard battle sequence. It doesn't really look like that now.

Do we still have this level of quality but with more realistic gameplay camera angles? Could this type of cinematic battle be for a specific scene, perhaps early in the game, to introduce lightning's battle techniques, before going to a more relaxed camera style for typical battles? Or do we have...... Downgrade total? :P
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I think that was more of a showing off of the engine, but I bet that scene is early on in the game, since it is just Lightning on her own. I don't know if she casts Gravija or whatever it is that makes the enemies fly around her. She also can't stop time in-game.
 
Kagari said:
$529 from NCSX... before shipping. But shipping was only $11 for me.
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I just tried to put in an order, but on the final page the total included a "Surcharge" of $20. Did you get charged that as well in addition to shipping? I'm located in CA by the way.
 
charsace said:
Please, I'm not the only person that enjoys gaf meltdowns.

I'm getting this game, but don't have high hopes for it since SE really hasn't made anything great since FF9. 12 could have been special, but people stepped in and ruined it.
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Agreed, i love a good old fashion gaf meltdown. I still get warm feelings when i visit some of the older threads.

I cannot wait for Versus to be announced for 360, or even better, for the direct sequel to 13 to be announced for Ds.
 
Seda said:
I agree as well. For someone like me, who understands no Japanese.

For me, even if the English VA was terrible, (Which its not), Poor English Voices > Japanese with English subs.
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I feel the complete opposite regarding poor English dubbing versus exceptional Japanese voiceovers with equally competent English subtitles. For international movies, it is always the default and preferable choice to have the original actors' voices with English subtitles (examples: Volver, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon), and that's how I would prefer SE did the English version of FF13.
 
lorddarkflare said:
Agreed, i love a good old fashion gaf meltdown. I still get warm feelings when i visit some of the older threads.

I cannot wait for Versus to be announced for 360, or even better, for the direct sequel to 13 to be announced for Ds.
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Meltdowns are meltdowns. They can be funny to read through. However the whole 'I want X to happen for the meltdowns/lolz/drama' has become a tired, played out meme.
 
Jommy said:
I feel the complete opposite regarding poor English dubbing versus exceptional Japanese voiceovers with equally competent English subtitles. For international movies, it is always the default and preferable choice to have the original actors' voices with English subtitles (examples: Volver, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon), and that's how I would prefer SE did the English version of FF13.
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I know that somehow people think that keeping the work in its original state is preserving it, but something is definitely lost.

The mere fact that you are not native means that you lose so much, so i prefer dubbing done so that the angle that the creator was going for is effectively replicated.

Example: Anise from Tales of the Abyss is supposed to sound cute, but to the average American gamer, she would be hella annoying, so it makes sense that when she was dubbed, someone chose an actress who was cute in a more western way.
 
Die Squirrel Die said:
Meltdowns are meltdowns. They can be funny to read through. However the whole 'I want X to happen for the meltdowns/lolz/drama' has become a tired, played out meme.
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Hardly a meme, i(and others) really want X to happen. Have you seen some of those threads, they are AMAZING.
 
Aokage said:
Of course you do, but at what cost? Until Japanese developers see the benefit of spending the money and doing completely separate animation sets for both languages, you're going to get halfway compromises like this.

It's worth noting, though, that the Japanese voice talent is also performing to a fairly rigid structure, set down by the motion capture actors. Their diction can't deviate significantly from what was set down on the mocap stage... yet they manage to do a much better job.

(But then again, seiyuu probably have a heck of a lot more experience compressing their line readings into specific snippets of time...)
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And you're going to play that off as a fair comparison. I don't think so.

Basically, it's a compromise. It will never be as good as it could be. Right? Because I think we've already seen many projects that started in english and turned out great. I know this game has the added complexity of starting in a different language, but I'm not here to give free passes (especially after FF XII's translation, though that probably had a strong script from the beginning.) It needs to stand up against natively-voiced works. Really that goes for any region.

If the costs are too high? Fine, don't dub the thing at all and save yourself the headache.
 
Yasae said:
And you're going to play that off as a fair comparison. I don't think so.

Basically, it's a compromise. It will never be as good as it could be. Right? Because I think we've already seen many projects that started in english and turned out great. I know this game has the added complexity of starting in a different language, but I'm not here to give free passes (especially after FF XII's translation, though that probably had a strong script from the beginning.) It needs to stand up against natively-voiced works. Really that goes for any region.

If the costs are too high? Fine, don't dub the thing at all and save yourself the headache.
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Actually, XII was almost single handedly the work of Reeder and Smith(and there team of course). But otherwise i agree.
 
I finally decided to watch the recent 7 minute video with English voice acting.
The game looks gorgeous but the story is going to be horrible. There was enough horrible dialogue in those seven minutes to make me want to hurl. Almost FFX laughing scene bad.

Kinda makes me sad because FFXII was awesome in that regard.
 
Danielsan said:
I finally decided to watch the recent 7 minute video with English voice acting,
The game looks gorgeous but the story is going to be horrible. There was enough horrible dialogue in those seven minutes to make me hurl. Almost FFX laughing scene bad.

Kinda makes me sad because FFXII was awesome in that regard.
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slap yourself.
 
Yasae said:
Really?

So tell me why that can't happen again?
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Yeah, think about it. The characters are generally dull, the story pretty straight forward and uneventful and the dialogue stagnant and barely moves character development.

Yet despite all of that, The faux-Victorian sounds completely functional and realistic, the speech patterns of different characters are directly related to their backgrounds, the dialogue is rife with imagery and allusions. And the freaking Occurians speak in pentameter, and do not sound dorky doing it.

Then we have the lore presented in the different weapon descriptions, quests and Bestiary, that shit is better than the lore of just about every other main FF, and i would be willing to defend that in court.

Either XII was the work of a schizophrenic mind, or it had three groups of people working on it.
 
Danielsan said:
I finally decided to watch the recent 7 minute video with English voice acting.
The game looks gorgeous but the story is going to be horrible. There was enough horrible dialogue in those seven minutes to make me want to hurl. Almost FFX laughing scene bad.

Kinda makes me sad because FFXII was awesome in that regard.
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Am I in some alternate reality where JRPGs have grade A dialogue and fancy "high art" stories?

Honestly guys, these comparisons are getting ridiculous. It's like you're standards have gotten so high you can't differentiate between diarrhea and an undercooked cake.
 
cosmicblizzard said:
Am I in some alternate reality where JRPGs have grade A dialogue and fancy "high art" stories?

Honestly guys, these comparisons are getting ridiculous. It's like you're standards have gotten so high you can't differentiate between diarrhea and an undercooked cake.
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Oh, we can tell the difference. But is it so wrong to criticize them for not striving for better? Or do you prefer a mediocre experience, so long as it's a JRPG?
 
lorddarkflare said:
Yeah, think about it. The characters are generally dull, the story pretty straight forward and uneventful and the dialogue stagnant and barely moves character development.

Yet despite all of that, The faux-Victorian sounds completely functional and realistic, the speech patterns of different characters are directly related to their backgrounds, the dialogue is rife with imagery and allusions. And the freaking Occurians speak in pentameter, and do not sound dorky doing it.

Then we have the lore presented in the different weapon descriptions, quests and Bestiary, that shit is better than the lore of just about every other main FF, and i would be willing to defend that in court.

Either XII was the work of a schizophrenic mind, or it had three groups of people working on it.
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They should have a XII sequel set entirely in one of the cities.

Closer proximity to people at all times would make it harder for the game to be a vapid chore.
 
HK-47 said:
They should have a XII sequel set entirely in one of the cities.

Closer proximity to people at all times would make it harder for the game to be a vapid chore.
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Ohhhhhh, come now. It would take so much more than that.

But it would be a step in the right direction.
 
Odious Tea said:
Oh, we can tell the difference. But is it so wrong to criticize them for not striving for better? Or do you prefer a mediocre experience, so long as it's a JRPG?
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I prefer a story that isn't boring. What do I find boring? FFXII. What do I not find boring? FFVII-X. Am I the oddity here since I'd rather play a game about a rag tag team of misfits trying to save the world than a political satire filled with messages and subtleties?
 
cosmicblizzard said:
I prefer a story that isn't boring. What do I find boring? FFXII. What do I not find boring? FFVII-X. Am I the oddity here or do I just not give a shit if something is a high art story filled with messages and political satire or if it's about a rag tag team of misfits trying to save the world?
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Well I didn't find FFXII boring(actually its one of my faves) ,but I did find VII, IX, and X's stories to be really entertaing and fun.

I don't really go into a jrpg expecting the Departed, Oldboy, or The Prestiege. When I want something like that I'll watch something like that. I go into a jrpg looking for fun adventure story that's not dumb, has engaging characters, and has a sound story with actual themes. For the most part FF games have done that where most other JRPGs have failed. Was FFX a deep deep story? No! but it still had enough depth and entertainment for me to consider it a good story. Maybe some parts are stupid but I dont notice them because the game is mostly sound. Unlike say something like Code Geass where there so much stupidity that its hard not to notice.

So I expect XIII to be the same. Sure the story isn't going to be something great. But its going to be a fun popcorn pop story that hopefully I wont notice the stupidity because I'll be having to much fun. And when I play a FF game thats the kind of story I'm in the mood for. When I want something with a lot more depth. I'll read The Great Gatsby or turn on The Godfather. But the point is I'm not always in the mood for those things.
 
cosmicblizzard said:
Am I the oddity here since I'd rather play a game about a rag tag team of misfits trying to save the world than a political satire filled with messages and subtleties?
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yea i prefer saving the world too
 
cosmicblizzard said:
I prefer a story that isn't boring. What do I find boring? FFXII. What do I not find boring? FFVII-X. Am I the oddity here or do I just not give a shit if something is a high art story filled with messages and political satire or if it's about a rag tag team of misfits trying to save the world?
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While you may be an oddity, what you're talking about is just personal preference. What I was arguing was that excellently written dialogue what you refer to as "high art" tends to lead to a superior product.
 
cosmicblizzard said:
I prefer a story that isn't boring. What do I find boring? FFXII. What do I not find boring? FFVII-X. Am I the oddity here since I'd rather play a game about a rag tag team of misfits trying to save the world than a political satire filled with messages and subtleties?
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Vagrant Story exists, your point is moot. And just so you know, it's technically a Final Fantasy game.


Oh and XII had a plot that wasn't finished, so equating your boredom to political satire probably isn't quite right.

Can we get back to XIII?
 
Rahxephon91 said:
I don't really go into a jrpg expecting Oldboy or The Prestiege.
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I don't know about you, man, but I sure go into jRPGs expecting melodramatic character motivations that barely make any sense and far fetched ridiculous plot-twists!

Bullshit hypnosis and HOLY SHIT, CLONES aren't really that different from even the goddamn EVERYTHING WAS A FUCKING DREAM crap from FFX.
 
Kagari said:
Not really. If you got one early enough, you can play all your PS2 RPGs on it, as well as the ones that were still coming out (P3, P4, etc).
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:lol

You can't count PS2 games as part of a PS3 game lineup. That's really stretching.

And that depends because now you can get all the RPGs that were on 360 sans those two on PS3 or PC...
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Okay? And PS3 doesn't have those two games, which makes the 360 J-RPG lineup better. I'd rather not do system war crap, but it's silly to try and argue 360's J-RPG lineup is not better than PS3's, even if it's only by a few games.

It actually just goes to show that the genre in general this gen is no where near what it was on PS2 or PS1.

Except it's not. Or maybe you've neglected to do some research. Both systems have an equal amount of RPGs now, and the PS3 has even more coming in 2010.
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As duckroll said, it's been the best choice for RPGs for most of this gen. If things are just now changing a little, then fine. But that doesn't change that for most of the PS3's lifetime, 360 was the better choice for RPGs.


duckroll said:
Hey, if I say today that FFXIII would be coming out on the 360 in Japan, and that Versus would be on the 360 too, some people might still say I'm crazy!
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What do you think the odds are of that happening? I think it's pretty likely.
 
Odious Tea said:
While you may be an oddity, what you're talking about is just personal preference. What I was arguing was that excellently written dialogue what you refer to as "high art" tends to lead to a superior product.
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Just not in the case of FF XII.
 
omg rite said:
What do you think the odds are of that happening? I think it's pretty likely.
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Versus going multi-platform? Rather likely. S-E releasing FFXIII in 360 in Japan? Why would they do that? :lol
 
Rahxephon91 said:
I don't really go into a jrpg expecting the Departed, Oldboy, or The Prestiege.
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And this is my problem. Everyone wants these games to be like that. I got news for all the movie buffs out there. I did not find one of those 3 movies entertaining. I saw each one in theaters and was bored to tears by all with the exception of Prestige which kept my attention for a little bit.

Odious Tea said:
While you may be an oddity, what you're talking about is just personal preference. What I was arguing was that excellently written dialogue what you refer to as "high art" tends to lead to a superior product.
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What do you consider excellently written dialogue? Something that feels "real"? Something that isn't filled with cheese and drama? All of this is subjective. I know I'm not the only one that would choose these kind of stories over the supposedly "well written" stuff. Calling something a "superior" product is pointless when talking about personal preference.
 
7Th said:
Versus going multi-platform? Rather likely. S-E releasing FFXIII in 360 in Japan? Why would they do that? :lol
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This.

cosmicblizzard said:
What do you consider excellently written dialogue? Something that feels "real"? Something that isn't filled with cheese and drama? All of this is subjective. I know I'm not the only one that would choose these kind of stories over the supposedly "well written" stuff.
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Drama can be done without cheese.
 
cosmicblizzard said:
I prefer a story that isn't boring. What do I find boring? FFXII. What do I not find boring? FFVII-X. Am I the oddity here since I'd rather play a game about a rag tag team of misfits trying to save the world than a political satire filled with messages and subtleties?
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It was not the "political satire filled with messages and subtleties" that made FFXII's story less fun than it should have been. It was the poor pace, the underdeveloped concepts, the inconsistent narrative, among many other storytelling issues that were originated by the fact that its main writer left the story in the middle of the development and some random guy with less storytelling skills and a completely different writing style had to substitute him and fill in the plot.

In fact, anything "filled with messages and subtleties" should be by definition more interesting than something that is not, as that's almost synonimous to quality, IMO.
 
Fimbulvetr said:
Drama can be done without cheese.
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Never said it couldn't. Just saying some cheese every now and then isn't a bad thing if it's presented well. Hell, MGS4 was filled with cheese and I found myself tearing up on more than one occasion.
 
7Th said:
I don't know about you, man, but I sure go into jRPGs expecting melodramatic character motivations that barely make any sense and far fetched ridiculous plot-twists!

Bullshit hypnosis and HOLY SHIT, CLONES aren't really that different from even the goddamn EVERYTHING WAS A FUCKING DREAM crap from FFX.
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To be honest, I was looking at my shelf and that was one of the movies I saw so I listed it. Yeah I seriously disappointed that they took a cheap way out with Hugh Jackman's part. Still like the movie though and in the end it still goes along with the movie and how they both kept sacrificing something.

But yeah I personally find FF games and some jrpgs to have pretty ok stories.
 
Odious Tea said:
Oh, we can tell the difference. But is it so wrong to criticize them for not striving for better? Or do you prefer a mediocre experience, so long as it's a JRPG?
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According to some people here, JRPG must stick to genre conventions cause "thats what I'm used to." Also because games have to be stupid or something and cant have layers or any sort of nuance.

Layers...what bullshit.
 
Lack of cheese doesn't make good writing. Good writing is just writing that doesn't feel awkward or forced. A good writer is supposed to be smooth, like a good lover; everything else is secondary.
 
lorddarkflare said:
Yeah, think about it. The characters are generally dull, the story pretty straight forward and uneventful and the dialogue stagnant and barely moves character development.

Yet despite all of that, The faux-Victorian sounds completely functional and realistic, the speech patterns of different characters are directly related to their backgrounds, the dialogue is rife with imagery and allusions. And the freaking Occurians speak in pentameter, and do not sound dorky doing it.

Then we have the lore presented in the different weapon descriptions, quests and Bestiary, that shit is better than the lore of just about every other main FF, and i would be willing to defend that in court.

Either XII was the work of a schizophrenic mind, or it had three groups of people working on it.
Click to expand...
I dunno, IX has a ton of lore as well...
 
Grivenger said:
It was not the "political satire filled with messages and subtleties" that made FFXII's story less fun than it should have been. It was the poor pace, the underdeveloped concepts, the inconsistent narrative, among many other storytelling issues that were originated by the fact that its main writer left the story in the middle of the development and some random guy with less storytelling skills and a completely different writing style had to substitute him and fill in the plot.

In fact, anything "filled with messages and subtleties" should be by definition more interesting than something that is not, as that's almost synonimous to quality, IMO.
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Yeah, I know all the issues the game went through in production. I should've specified that I was talking about story focus in general rather than any specific game. Some people just find cut and dry save the world stories more entertaining than complicated plots involving politics and social commentary.
 
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