Can you (or someone else) summarize what he changed? I am curious how many changes were made to suit Tabata's tastes or reading of the market and how many were made by necessity because the original vision was (a) incomplete or (b) non-functional. Or were you also referring to changes Tabata has made to his own version of the game?
- Demon worshiping got removed, they said it would upped the rating otherwise.
- Fabula Nova Crystallis elements were mitigated.
- Versus was a spin-off consisting of multiple parts, that would end in a cliffhanger, and probably had a convoluted, experimental story a la Nomura. Parts of it got rewritten so it had broader themes and fitted in one single game.
- Ability to switch control of party members got removed.
- Stella got renamed Luna, her role and purpose probably changed, but we knew very little about her.
- All character designs got updated because modern consoles allowed them to have much more details.
- Tabata reformed the team in something that could actually handle AAA workflow, it was a mess before.
- Tabata started an ENG localisation process real-time with JP development because he didn't want there to be much delay between the JP/ENG release.
People should know that any game director doesn't make changes because he/she feels like it, but because they have to be done or because of limitations.In FFXV's case the game getting a 18+ rating would damage sales/promotion greatly, and they wanted to make one game, not a trilogy. I'm also sure Tabata wanted to stick to a story that was simple, and incorporate WRPG gameplay elements proven to work. They want their sales.
Only thing Tabata really changed was the way they promote the game, with frequent updates, ATR, Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/... and information drip-feeding. A double edged sword combined with them showing frequent PC gameplay. They should've only broken their silence earlier this year, instead of back in TGS 2014, way too early.
I have some faith in Tabata, I'm not going to praise him like some genius team leader, but neither am I going to praise Nomura. I feel like Tabata gets a lot of hate with people thinking things would be so much better if Nomura was still leading this, and I definitely don't think that would be the case.