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New Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV screens

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D

Dark_castle

Junior Member
PSY・S;205062503 said:
"Anime style when done with class"

what does that even mean
Click to expand...

It means anime style that was created with sophisticated or highly stylized approach, films from say, Studio Ghibli.
 
G

Green Mamba

Member
NoctisVsStar said:
10 years this game has existed in some form and people are now bothered by the aesthetics.

uF9MjJo3QIaijySXC4iL_Confused%20Christian%20Bale.gif
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It's almost like people's aesthetic preferences change over the course of a decade. XV attaching itself at the hip to decade old art is only going to hurt it.
 
B

Balls

Banned
Green Mamba said:
It's almost like people's aesthetic preferences change over the course of a decade. XV attaching itself at the hip to decade old art is only going to hurt it.
Click to expand...

The people who are so bothered by the aesthetics probably don't even play jrpgs or japanese games in general.
 
K

Koozek

Member
Setsu00 said:
I'm willing to give Tabata a chance (mostly because I enjoyed Crisis Core and Type-0), but I have to say that I'm kind of annoyed by him and FFXV's marketing. FFXIII may have been controversial, but the game does have its fans and you cannot deny that it's at the very least beautiful to look at. That doesn't mean that you constantly have to bash the game indirectly whenever you get the chance. This point is admittedly directed towards Square Enix as a whole

FFXIV had a bad launch, but it was actually able to establish itself within the MMO genre despite having a monthly fee and is now a genuinely great game. And yet you have Tabata proclaiming that "Final Fantasy hasn't been great lately" in nearly every interview these days. Statements like this push me even further away from the brand.

This doesn't go even into the debacle surrounding him taking over as the game's director and his numerous lies regarding the changes made to the game since its rebranding as XV. I just don't get the feeling that Tabata is being sincere.
Click to expand...

He didn't bash FFXIII or its developers, he just talked about the realities of its troubled development and working environment, which even its own dev team reflected on critically after release, see this official post-mortem. Don't be naive and mad if someone talks frankly about stuff like this going on behind-the-scenes. Yoshida was critical and brutally honest about FFXIV 1.0's development, too, when he took over, just read all the interviews with him around that time.

I enjoyed the FFXIII-saga for what it's worth, but there's no denying that it was an absolute mess development-wise, "lacking a shared vision" (in their own words) even until a year before release (!) when they had to make the demo that came with the AC Blu-ray, which forced them to finally create an actual vertical slice of the game.

Tabata even made sure to say that FFXIII obviously wasn't supposed to turn out the way it did, but it was the result of a problematic environment at SE in general during that era, starting around FFXII's development actually, which had many troubles, including the departure of the original director midway through development, and it was delayed several times arriving two years later as planned.

Also:

And regarding your last point about him lying about the changes, it's clear as day if you followed every interview and article that they tried everything to condense a likely convoluted story spanning multiple games, which was Nomura's idea originally, to just a single game while still staying faithful to the original material as much as they could. If you choose not to believe them and assume they're lying then that's your choice, I guess. Falk, who works for SE on FFXV, had a good post regarding this:

Falk said:
Alright, I guess now that the thread is sorta winding down instead of going at approximately 5 pages a minute, I'd chip in my own two cents. Without getting too far into things I shouldn't be talking about, do remember that Nomura's style during the mid/late 2000s is to make trailers or video pieces on concepts that are freaking cool, and then integrate them into the game's plot later.

In some cases, like the Secret Movies of Kingdom Hearts, it results in some exceptional scenarios and unbelievable levels of hype. If you're not aware, Another Side, Another Story, KH's secret movie was made prior to fleshing out the story of KH2, and Nojima had to write in the quotes present in the trailer after that fact*. Several key details (har har) were changed from that movie to how it was implemented in-game in KH2 and Chain of Memories, e.g. the keyblades involved. (Get it? Keyblade? Key details? Har har)

While The Gathering was obviously more fleshed out, even it had some elements changed by the time it was fleshed out into Birth By Sleep, KH2FM's secret movie, e.g. Xehanort's design.

* "Another side, Another story..." was meant as more of a concept trailer, showing whatever ideas Tetsuya Nomura had for a sequel at the time; it was not meant to be taken as an actual part of the storyline for the games. Kazushige Nojima, the scenario writer, explained that, after the story for Kingdom Hearts II was written, he had to go back and find places to put in the seemingly random quotes found in both "Another side, Another story..." and "Another Side, Another Story [deep dive]".
Click to expand...

It is entirely possible that key elements of the Versus XIII trailers might have been changed even if the project had remained as Versus XIII. While Nomura and Nojima undoubtedly would probably have weaved everything, from the party invasion to Stella and her exact characterization as it had been presented, it into their overall narrative, the existence of those scenes, as they were, were not yet indicative that an entire story had already been completely set in stone utilizing those scenes.

I think honestly, this is one of the gifts Nomura and Nojima have - being able to write in his ideas into a narrative that doesn't break under its own weight when taken in small slices e.g. Kingdom Hearts. When a slightly different set of people took the helm, the decision to find ways to include these smaller concept pieces into the overall narrative becomes a harder one, because if not done correctly it will be at the expense of the game itself, and a disservice to Nomura.

Having spoken to multiple staff members over the past year, what I can say that when they are following Nomura's original vision as much as possible, it's not simply just PR speak. They -are- doing all they can to respect the world and characters that Nomura created. Aesthetically, it's still a fantasy based on reality. Noctis still is crown prince of a family of sword summoners. The combat still is based on capitalizing on that fact. It's still an action-based open world Final Fantasy. The game still is at its core a road trip story. Nojima's plot is still largely intact.

I think the way Tabata handled this announcement was spot-on. It needed to be done sooner rather than later, especially as the marketing campaign for the game itself launches next month, and rampant speculation then would have led to a much bigger fallout than the current situation.

I will say that when I myself found out about the changes (can't say how or when, for obvious reasons), I was a little disappointed, having been someone who also followed Versus XIII (and Somnus, omg) since the start, but FFXV at this point should be judged on its own merits, based on everything that has been revealed from E3 2013 onwards, and I've definitely taken to the world, characters, and story.

Writing off the current female characters in the narrative just because they haven't been really focused on in marketing material up to this point, and just because they aren't what was shown in Versus XIII, does the plot of FFXV a disservice. That much I feel comfortable saying.

edit: bad@speeling.
Click to expand...
 
Zoe

Zoe

Member
Green Mamba said:
It's almost like people's aesthetic preferences change over the course of a decade. XV attaching itself at the hip to decade old art is only going to hurt it.
Click to expand...

None of the fashion or hairstyles have gone out of style. Luna is actually more trendy now.
 
B

Brentonp

Member
Koozek said:
He didn't bash FFXIII or its developers, he just talked about the realities of its troubled development and working environment, which even its own dev team reflected on critically after release, see this official post-mortem. Don't be naive and mad if someone talks frankly about stuff like this going on behind-the-scenes. Yoshida was critical and brutally honest about FFXIV 1.0's development, too, when he took over, just read all the interviews with him around that time.

I enjoyed the FFXIII-saga for what it's worth, but there's no denying that it was an absolute mess development-wise, "lacking a shared vision" (in their own words) even until a year before release (!) when they had to make the demo that came with the AC Blu-ray, which forced them to finally create an actual vertical slice of the game.

Tabata even made sure to say that FFXIII obviously wasn't supposed to turn out the way it did, but it was the result of a problematic environment at SE in general during that era, starting around FFXII's development actually, which had many troubles, including the departure of the original director midway through development, and it was delayed several times arriving two years later as planned.

Also:

And regarding your last point about him lying about the changes, it's clear as day if you followed every interview and article that they tried everything to condense a likely convoluted story spanning multiple games, which was Nomura's idea originally, to just a single game while still staying faithful to the original material as much as they could. If you choose not to believe them and assume they're lying then that's your choice, I guess. Falk, who works for SE on FFXV, had a good post regarding this:
Click to expand...

Thanks, Koozek for always having the best FFXV posts!

Falk works on the game in some way?? I don't know how I never realized this. Knew he may have been an industry or SE insider but didn't know anything beyond that.
 
K

Koozek

Member
Brentonp said:
Thanks, Koozek for always having the best FFXV posts!

Falk works on the game in some way?? I don't know how I never realized this. Knew he may have been an industry or SE insider but didn't know anything beyond that.
Click to expand...
Thanks :3

Yeah, already worked on Lightning Returns or the recent Kingdom Hearts remasters as an audio/mixing/recording engineer, see:
http://vgmdb.net/artist/14345

Falk said:
JZKU2nbl.jpg


Shimomura-san is a very fun person to work with.

From one of the recording sessions for Duscae/trailers.

Also a better representation of I look like when not a zombie

Also that hat is a gag gift from our pianist partially because it has a 'record' button on it (ha ha ha)
Click to expand...

:D
 
F

Falk

that puzzling face
Guess I should mention that I'm neither Square Enix JP nor Square Enix NA staff, my opinions are my own, yadda yadda.

/end disclaimer
 
C

Crossing Eden

Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Balls said:
With the downfall of the Japanese console game industry which is now dominated by western games, people have become so accustomed to generic white protagonists that anything different is considered bad now.
Click to expand...
I'm sure that we can just ignore the reception to Mafia III, Indivisible, and Michonne just to name a few recent examples. Or the fact that Franklin was the favorite character of many of GTAV's players and reviewers. Or any of the great female protagonists announced at e3 last year, yea no no, gamers just want "generic white protagonists." There is literally no other reason to criticize the design of the FFXV cast. None at all. Why is racism accusations your defense mechanism? Honestly. I'm saying this as a minority, either come up with some citations, or stop. Because it's fucking asinine. You've done it on way too many pages of this thread.
 
W

wanders

Member
It's too bad the monster designs aren't consistent with the game's.

Those Ahriman don't look like modernized Amano designs.
 
S

Setsu00

Member
Koozek said:
(Long post)
Click to expand...

I understand that. I may have actually misremembered what Tabata said about XIII, but then again there was this segment at Uncovered where Sakaguchi was indirectly deriding Toriyama and XIII. Granted, this wasn't Tabata, but someone at an SE sponsored conference. I guess that may have rubbed off on Tabata in my mind.

I am also completely aware of Nomura's writing style and realize that this comes with a lot of problems. However, that was not what I was criticizing about Tabata. Tabata repeatedly dodged the question regarding Stella when it was obvious that she was replaced with Luna. Instead, he and his team decided to dance around the issue in order to reassure the fans. Avoiding an answer may technically not be a lie, but it's certainly not a sincere way to handle the issue.
 
SilverArrow20XX

SilverArrow20XX

Walks in the Light of the Crystal
Those aren't Ahrimans. Probably some kind of Verminkin. I'm going to assume the article writers are misinformed. Otherwise, Kingsglaive is simply designing monsters incorrectly.
 
D

DeSolos

Member
The movie uses performance capture which was done by Western actors to the English script. BUT the performance capture actors were not the same as the voice actors, so the English version is dubbed as well.
 
W

wmlk

Member
They completely avoided the uncanny valley with those facial animations. They're animated/cartoony enough to do that.
 
B

Balls

Banned
Crossing Eden said:
I'm sure that we can just ignore the reception to Mafia III, Indivisible, and Michonne just to name a few recent examples. Or the fact that Franklin was the favorite character of many of GTAV's players and reviewers. Or any of the great female protagonists announced at e3 last year, yea no no, gamers just want "generic white protagonists." There is literally no other reason to criticize the design of the FFXV cast. None at all. Why is racism accusations your defense mechanism? Honestly. I'm saying this as a minority, either come up with some citations, or stop. Because it's fucking asinine. You've done it on way too many pages of this thread.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry did I offend you? I think it's a bit naive to deny that some people may not like the characters because they look "too anime" or "too jpop" aka just another way of saying too Asian.
 
C

Crossing Eden

Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
DeSolos said:
The movie uses performance capture which was done by Western actors to the English script. BUT the performance capture actors were not the same as the voice actors, so the English version is dubbed as well.
Click to expand...
ADR isn't a dub. That is way less uncanny valley looking than I was expecting.

Balls said:
I'm sorry did I offend you? I think it's a bit naive to deny that some people may not like the characters because they look "too anime" or "too jpop" aka just another way of saying too Asian.
Click to expand...
Yes I find it offensive, especially as a minority myself. Dude what i'm about to type may shock you but Anime characters in the majority of cases aren't what asian people look and act like. That includes FFXV's cast! FFS if more games had more Eastern aesthetics, as in, places that took place in Japan with characters that look less like dolls and more like actual people who live there gamers would be all for it. Just look at how much a large contingent of GAF enjoys Sleeping Dogs. And know, your post didn't imply "some people." You keep making generalizations about everyone who doesn't like the 3d anime look of the characters as much as you. Again it's fucking asinine and straight up ridiculous considering the look of the cast. Notice, how absolutely nobody has said any issue about the city Insomnia itself, which is the based on a Japanese city. Gee I wonder why, oh that's right, because people don't have a problem with asian protagonists in a fucking triple A title, more like people have issues with the specific designs of the cast themselves and just maybe might prefer the look, (Costume design especially) of the film's cast. How fucking hard is it to understand that notion without some weird ass mental defense mechanism where "uh uh, you guys just don't like the way asian people look!" Pay attention to what people are actually posting in the thread. The ebonics shit in that overwatch thread, THAT's racism. So is this. Meanwhile, this thread was the reaction to Mafia III's story trailer.
 
M

MagnaderAlpha

Member
DiipuSurotu said:
Wait these are supposed to be Ahrimans??

PgRb.jpg
Click to expand...

They could be a "new" take on Ahriman, but in a game that is taking so much classical nods in the monster design department, I would've preferred something more like the older Ahriman look. These look more like, well, spider crabs with bat wings. Some don't even HAVE wings, actually. I'm wondering if that is just a "speculation" on the writer's part because at first glance, that's what they thought when seeing the wings? They could just be a original type of enemy unique to FFXV.
 
Go_Ly_Dow

Go_Ly_Dow

Member
Shiiiit, at the beginning of the Luna's VA vid you can see vague snippets of her talk with Nyx.....it most definitely seems like the same location in which Noctis and Stella were supposed to meet.
 
B

Balls

Banned
Crossing Eden said:
ADR isn't a dub. That is way less uncanny valley looking than I was expecting.


Yes I find it offensive, especially as a minority myself. Dude what i'm about to type may shock you but Anime characters in the majority of cases aren't what asian people look and act like. That includes FFXV's cast! FFS if more games had more Eastern aesthetics, as in, places that took place in Japan with characters that look less like dolls and more like actual people who live there gamers would be all for it. Just look at how much a large contingent of GAF enjoys Sleeping Dogs. And know, your post didn't imply "some people." You keep making generalizations about everyone who doesn't like the 3d anime look of the characters as much as you. Again it's fucking asinine and straight up ridiculous considering the look of the cast.
Click to expand...

Why does it have to take place in Asia for there to be asians? You do realize there are Asians living in places all over the world right? Jeebus.
 
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