Final Fantasy XV - General News Thread

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Verpic15

Balamb Garden Freshman
Mar 15, 2014
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Or this from the E3 '13 footage :p
I also considered about this. But isn't the invasion day and the peace treaty-signing day are the same? They might changed the date to 16th of May to match the release date maybe.:happy:

I think i saw an interview that the release date was already setted at that time.
 
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Noctis_Caelum

Chocobo Knight
Jul 15, 2014
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If you look at the jp version, you can see the same date, but also with the exact time and a "M.E."....
What does that M.E. and the jp ("Imperial Invasion of Insomnia"?) mean?

Perhaps it is something like in FF XIII-2. The Bresha Ruins you could travel through time, was 5 A.F., so 5 years "After Fall" (After the ending of XIII, where Cocoon felt apart).
So in XV, 756 years after the war started/ended between Lucis and Niflheim (actually that's too long^^)?? Or something more special like the foundation of the crystals/gods??
 
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Lulcielid

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Oct 9, 2014
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M.E. surely refers to an in game calendar, it's an equivalent of our A.D. I'm guessing E. stands for Era and M. is probably some made up word which is the name of said era.
A minor nitpick, for some reason the english version is missing the time when the invasion happens. Also doesn't it looked to dark to be just 17:32, does it?
Plague of the Stars already kicking off ?
Technically, it can get dark at that hour depending on Insomnia's latitude but I'd say your explanation is most likely correct.
Assuming @Noctis_Caelum theory is right, why the discrepancy between 2592 & 756 ? Food for thought.
Maybe Lucis and Nifleheim use different calendars? That would be interesting. For example, Nifleheim could be counting years from the founding of the empire or some other date important to them.
 
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DrBretto

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Mar 18, 2016
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Well, happy Monday Final Fantasy buddies.

I'm gonna dive right into my little theory I posted because there really isn't much else that's compelling to talk about prior to the event next week and after a whole weekend of discussions and research, this mystery is still unsolved. In fact, I don't think it's actually resolvable and that's the tl;dr of it all. At worst, the basic concept of my idea can't be disproven (That Stella was Luna long before it was announced) but it can't be disproven that Hajime Tabata is an alien god sent from the future. There are, however, inconsistencies in the narrative that I can't make sense of.

I spent the weekend hanging out with an old friend. We've been friends for 27 years (since first grade) and we we both grew up on the Final Fantasy games. He's a FFVII-R fanboy to my FFXV fanboy (Square already has our money for both, neither or us are haters) so we were catching each other up. In doing so, we ended up letting a marathon of FFXV related youtube videos run in the background while we talked about it all and I did notice what should be the smoking gun that kills my theory. There's a very story-related trailer that does show up some time before the reveal trailer that does show some parts of the story that appear to have made it to the final cut that includes Stella as she was prior to being axed. I've never actually seen this trailer outside of one of the "every FFXV trailer ever" compilations, but it is clearly PS3 era, features repeats of the Stella moments and has some hints of the plot as we know it today.

There is a scene with the boys looking back at the destruction going on in Lucis from a rooftop, mirroring the scene that appears to have made the final cut of rewrites where they're in the car, watching the army come to invade from a distance. It also features Captain Hoodie in what looks like the traditional bad guy role, but that hopefully doesn't confirm anything (I'm rooting for Ardyn to be the bad guy. You can't pull off that outfit unless you're a badass). But both of those scenes strike me as important parts of the story that were in place and likely match the final product, which does sort of put to bed the notion that there wasn't a coherent narrative ever written with Stella involved.

However, that doesn't solve the issue of Not only Nomura stating that Stella was in the game after the reveal trailer, and the fact that there was never any indication of Stella and Luna ever existing simultaneously. There was a poster on gamefaqs who is very knowledgeable that thinks that the young girl at the beginning of the reveal trailer is Luna, but that Stella also existed at that point -as evidenced by Stella having never met Noctis until that scene where he was wearing the suit in the old trailers, so the little girl he met as a kid would be a different person- only to be cut out of it after the fact by Tabata. The problem with that is that the portrait collage at the end of that trailer only shows one of them, and a close inspection of that portrait supports the theory that at the time the trailer was released, that character was indeed Stella. Side by side comparison photos are inconclusive because the character looks pretty much like the middle frame of of a face blend between Stella and Luna. But, she is wearing star-shaped earrings, which ever so slightly, but significantly, tips the scales towards it being Stella (along with the verbal confirmation given by Nomura). And this point is significantly after any additional rewrites that had to have taken place as a result of refocusing the project for a wider audience.

So, the most likely conclusion I can come up with here is that there really was more changed from the story than I had originally thought, or that they let on. It does appear there was some kind of at least basic outline for the story for XIII-vs and that story was heavily changed as a result of the shift, but that included a re-write of Stella's character into what Luna is today, only to essentially have her name and looks be the only things they changed after the fact. After which, to settle the issue and prevent the nerd riots, Tabata took the whole thing on his shoulders to squash the issue.

I also can't find any evidence of mechanical soldiers until after the reveal trailer. This suggests to me that the soldiers may have actually originally been human but were maybe changed to robots so you can still chop off limbs without getting an M rating, which was not a factor until it became FFXV. This means that the *entire* story was rewritten accordingly because the magitek troops are so much at the core of the story now.

Basically, my best guess conclusion is this: After the distractions that killed FFXIII-vs were over, they refocused on rewriting the entire script to adapt it to be a mainline title as the first order of business, most likely still keeping as many of the core elements of the original concept in tact, but that new version did, indeed include such a heavily rewritten Stella that they later made the decision to rename accordingly. Tabata's comments about how and why he made the call to make her changes still being totally true, but he intentionally left the timeline of that decision out so we would assume that it was more recent. And I think he did that to assure the fans that this is a consistent and coherent project he is in control of, and I think it backfired because of the inconsistencies in the narrative.
 
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dissasterrific

fal'Cie Goddess
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Mar 6, 2016
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I used to think that rewriting Stella was connected with the fact that Tabata established XV to be a complete story of its own, meaning it won't spawn any sequels which is contrary to Nomura's initial intentions of expanding the "World of Versus Epic". There may have been bigger plans for Stella gameplay-wise, but since they decided control solely for Noctis, it required drastic changes on her character, likely including her fighting style (from warrior-like to mage-like).
 

DrBretto

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Mar 18, 2016
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That is (more or less) what that person I talked about from gamefaqs thinks as well, and honestly, that's probably most likely right because that dude is a computer and he knows his stuff. The only reason I don't take it at face value is because of the inconsistencies I've noticed when trying to actually go back and figure this stuff out. The Stella issue is particularly interesting to me because the reactions it caused when it was announced and the wildly different stories I've heard from different people. There are contradictions in the quotes from the devs and the timeline and it makes it difficult to see what the truth really is.

I think it's so murky that it's easy to get one impression if you're going through it in real time vs looking back and trying to piece it all together. And it's a situation where it's like "one of these 4 statements is a lie, which one" kind of logic puzzles.

But, my brain is cooked for the day anyway, so I'm just gonna go ahead and stick with my version until there's a compelling reason to think otherwise :)
 
Sep 26, 2013
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Here's my thing, Doc. Either the game changed more recently than you might think or it was intentionally misrepresented in the 2013 re-reveal. The trailers released then made heavy use of a scene that is no longer in the game- that is Noctis trying to flee and/or repel the Niflheim invasion of Insomnia- and of a gameplay system that's no longer implemented. They even use a design for Regis which is no longer up-to-date, rendered in full modern CG, when Regis' design was altered for story purposes. You could argue that this was just young Regis, but young Regis has likewise received that same design change as shown in this promotional art. Next to that, the inclusion of Magitek soldiers is actually extremely minor, as Niflheim's army has always had a backbone of Magitek since the early days.

If I'm being honest here it seems like we're much more on the same page now, as you mention in your post directly that there seem to have been massive changes since the project was Versus XIII. I just don't necessarily see the way Tabata and SE has handled them in such a positive light, and I'll be the first to say that I feel strongly sympathetic towards anyone who might be disappointed with the change in direction because it is quite massive. Everything seems to have been stripped down, and now longtime fans of Versus are being presented a different title that essentially has Versus' skin and little else.

I could go over a massive list of changes, and at some point perhaps I will if only to share my enthusiasm for Versus with others who felt the same. Not here, though, because the reason I point this out isn't to say XV is bad because it isn't Versus any longer. I say all of this because what I'm hoping is that people who were big fans of Versus will give XV a chance despite its differences. Many of the implementations and iterations made since Versus died are staggering in how bright and fresh they are, and those elements that remain from the old days shine magnificently as well. From what I'm observing, the game has more than enough merit to stand on its own two feet. The world is bright and massive which is a glorious return to form for Final Fantasy after the long absence of the world map. The action battle system is a first, and it's allowing a true sense of scale that I don't think Final Fantasy has been able to achieve up to this point. I mean, the fights with Leviathan and Titan are absolutely mind-boggling. The series is all about slaying gods, but I've never seen a god quite this big in a title before. There's a sense of awe and wonder when you look out at Duscae and watch the Astral Shard shimmer that I can't effectively quantify beyond saying that it feels like magic.

Basically, I'm just hoping fans like me who once had (or still have) a bias towards Versus XIII will be able to bury it peacefully and give XV the chance it deserves. The best way to do that is to let Versus and its promotional roller coaster be a fond memory and nothing more.
 

DrBretto

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We're on the same page in that there's a clear point where the game was re-written, but I don't agree about how many things some people are assuming didn't make the cut, or for what reason. As far as I can tell, the only significant changes are Stella -> Luna and the lack of ability to switch characters, both of which I agree with.

We're not in agreement if you are saying that you think there were significant changes to the story AFTER the 2013 reveal. Specifically in regards to Luna, and not for the sake of a Luna vs Stella debate, but for the sake of people trying to use that change to say that the project has been unstable. It looks to me like all of the major changes took place long before that with a bunch of minor tweaks and whatnot ever since, and that it's been pretty stable ever since reconvening and refocusing after the original project was put on hold.

And, ultimately, I still contend that the majority of what the game is today would have been what it ended up as even if they didn't change the name. I think any changes in regards to the target ESRB rating are fair game. I think people are "blaming" Tabata on the Stella thing when it was almost certainly based on a lot of factors. Tabata is at the helm, so of course he'll put it on himself, but I think it happens regardless, and for a myriad of reasons.

From everything I can gather, the biggest person to get any blame is Nomura. I feel like he was well meaning, but he came out there and made a lot of implied promises he couldn't keep, and when it came time to put it all together, Tabata just took it so it wouldn't look like anyone was trashing him. I'm not saying that Nomura was doing anything wrong, either, I think he just needed to be reigned in, which is something that happens with a lot of artists. Otherwise, I don't think the game ever gets made in the first place, and that still leaves people missing a game that was never going to be, and also might already be more in tact than people think.
 
Sep 26, 2013
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Again, if the game did not experience major changes after 2013 then it was intentionally misrepresented. I'm more than willing to accept either one of those cases as fact. I honestly don't know how you can maintain that changes happened before that period, though. I can't see any evidence to point to that, while there's a mountain of it to point to changes after that point. I'd be very interested to hear more of what leads you to believe that happened, but in the meantime here are a few changes that happened just since 2013.

Stella was changed to Luna. You could potentially argue this was already in the works, but I don't think there's a ton of concrete evidence to support that. Nomura directly references Stella in interviews, and we even see a still frame of a full CG model created for her as part of the lineup of faces at the end of the trailer. That's a lot of heavy lifting and redesigning to do for a character that's already in the process of being cut, and it would be weird to promote her at all when her role is supposedly in flux.

Regis' design changes. This was outright stated by Tabata to be a case of the story altering, in fact! Regis was depicted as a middle-aged mafiaesque father to Noctis originally and was shown in this form with updated CG in the reveal trailer, even including a brand new scene of him bonding with his child Noctis. Since 2013, he was replaced with a far older king who is being aged by a new plot device in the form of Insomnia's taxing barrier. Regis' younger looking design is the only one we see in 2013, both in the present facing off with Iedolas and in the past with his son.

The treaty signing party was cut. In 2013, Noctis is seen fighting through the streets of Insomnia with the banners for the treaty signing contrasting the attack by the very nation that should have been signing it. Since then, Tabata has gone on record as saying that the treaty signing and Noctis' entire presence in Insomnia has been cut. Instead, Noctis hears about the invasion of his home city over the radio. Basically, some of the only events we ever saw in gameplay from Versus were removed from XV after being advertized in 2013.

World of the Versus Epic dies. This is something that was straight up announced to the public for the first time in 2013 that Tabata again tells fans has been removed. If no major changes occurred after 2013, what happened to this? In fact, Tabata often cites rewriting the script as a necessity to make sure XV consists of one game and only one game, where Square Enix announced to eager fans in 2013 plans for a full-scale epic. Unless changes happened post-2013, this move is frankly ridiculous.

Director Hajime Tabata himself states in a 2015 ATR that XV is not Versus XIII anymore. This speaks for itself. The director clearly thinks that changes have been made that are so immense he doesn't want fans to think Versus XIII is still alive. Above all others, he should know!

All of these are changes that happened after the 2013 reveal trailer without reference to what I knew of Versus long before then, so I'll restate. Things changed or the game was falsely marketed as not changing. If you want to think there weren't major changes in story after 2013, I've got no real problem with that. In the long run, I'd hope it really won't matter how much things did or did not change for the sake of XV. The game should speak for itself and I have every faith that it will be fantastic. For myself, the evidence seems to overwhelmingly point towards the project that was Versus being fully gutted for the sake of the project that is XV.
 

DrBretto

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Mar 18, 2016
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On the Stella to Luna change, I actually feel like you skimmed my post or something because I explained that theory clearly and your response doesn't address my points at all. The character was still named Stella, but everything about the character was already Luna, at least for the most part. This wouldn't be considered a huge change after 2013. It would mean in the process of finalizing it, it made more sense to call the character something else. The evidence is the E3 trailer and its what most of my posts focus on. I explained this one from every angle. The crux of the point being that the Stella that was in the trailer is the Stella they assured was still in the game, but at its core would be more recognizable as what Luna is today.

I don't consider Regis' design change to be major, so I have no opinion on this aspect. There are always tweaks and revisions, so this doesn't concern me at all. They probably just wanted him to more closely resemble one of those Knights of the Round Archaeans from the artwork so it's easier to sell the mystical connection between the deities and the Caelum family or something like that. That doesn't necessarily imply heavy rewrites.

Any rewrites to make it a single entry would have been before releasing the FFXV trailer. If not fully written, it's at least outlined, so I'm not sure what that's supposed to be supporting. Everything Tabata said here could just as easily be read as him either just now being asked about it or him just now feeling it's the appropriate time to reveal how the changes happened, but it doesn't imply that they had just happened right before he said it. That's where things are widely open to interpretation. They could have made all of these decisions in 2012 and when asked about it in 2014, using the exact same words to describe why the change was made.

No one is questioning that things have changed since it was FFXIII-VS, either. I just contend that these things changed prior to the reveal trailer and that most if what changed was changed as a result if turning it into a coherent project. (I'm quite glad it won't have planned sequel, BTW. So whatever they had to cut to do that, great.) They had to have had a bunch of meetings deciding how to do that when they made the decision to make the conversion to mainline. It makes far more sense that the bulk of the changes were made then, and simply referred to, refined, or explained later. All of the quotes can easily be read that way as well. This is important because it means that the vision really has remained mostly intact, and that final product will be closer to what it has been this whole time than you appear to believe. It also means the project is more stable than some people are saying as well.

Don't get me wrong, like I said in my other post, a lot if this is open to so much interpretation that there's no way to say either interpretation is correct, but I do stand by my theory that everything since the E3 2013 trailer is pretty much Canon (with an occasional name or character model change) which we can see when the game comes out. They've repeatedly stated that the vision hasn't changed and that the project has been stable. Everything they talked about with the niflheim characters on the last ATR is consistent at least that far back. And further if you want to include early footage of Aranea.

This isn't to say things didn't change, but they changed before FFXIII-vs had a chance to get its own cuts. It's even more widely open to interpretation which of the features may or may not have made it, but I think it'd be foolhardy to believe that everything Nomura claimed he wanted to do could have all made the cuts and worked well together. I just dont think it was ever close enough to completion.
 
Sep 26, 2013
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As a quick aside since I kinda hijacked the thread with Doc here, I have a fun observation for you folks that you may or may not be aware of. Noctis' Armiger weapons seem to be largely named after weapons wielded by the Knights of the Round Table! Rhongomyniad was King Arthur's spear and the spear that slew the traitorous Mordred. Likewise, Galatine is Gawain's blade, said to be sister sword to Excalibur itself, and Secace is a sword associated with Lancelot though Arondight is by far his more famous blade. This could perhaps be coincidence, but it's worth noting that the abilities granted by these blades are all prefixed by the word "Knight" as in Knightswords, Knightshield and Knightguard. The only one I can't find any confirmation for is Aqesiro, which I simply don't recognize in any way and haven't unearthed any research on.

Those of you following this thread may have noted a conversation between Koozek and I where it was theorized that some or all legendary weapons may be linked directly to summons which sprang from a description by Tabata of a legendary weapon found in the water that seems to mimic Leviathan's abilities. Could it be that we already have evidence of one of those legendary weapons in the game in the form of Armiger blades that represent the Knights of the Round? It could not only hint at the summons being present in the game as possibly seen in the key art, but confirm the theory that Noctis may achieve a weapon or set of weapons to represent the Astrals/Archaeans.

As for you Doc, I'll try to formulate a full reply to your points in the near future. I'm sorry you didn't feel heard in my responses, and will try to rectify that going forward.
 

DrBretto

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Mar 18, 2016
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As a quick aside since I kinda hijacked the thread with Doc here, I have a fun observation for you folks that you may or may not be aware of. Noctis' Armiger weapons seem to be largely named after weapons wielded by the Knights of the Round Table! Rhongomyniad was King Arthur's spear and the spear that slew the traitorous Mordred. Likewise, Galatine is Gawain's blade, said to be sister sword to Excalibur itself, and Secace is a sword associated with Lancelot though Arondight is by far his more famous blade. This could perhaps be coincidence, but it's worth noting that the abilities granted by these blades are all prefixed by the word "Knight" as in Knightswords, Knightshield and Knightguard. The only one I can't find any confirmation for is Aqesiro, which I simply don't recognize in any way and haven't unearthed any research on.

Those of you following this thread may have noted a conversation between Koozek and I where it was theorized that some or all legendary weapons may be linked directly to summons which sprang from a description by Tabata of a legendary weapon found in the water that seems to mimic Leviathan's abilities. Could it be that we already have evidence of one of those legendary weapons in the game in the form of Armiger blades that represent the Knights of the Round? It could not only hint at the summons being present in the game as possibly seen in the key art, but confirm the theory that Noctis may achieve a weapon or set of weapons to represent the Astrals/Archaeans.

As for you Doc, I'll try to formulate a full reply to your points in the near future. I'm sorry you didn't feel heard in my responses, and will try to rectify that going forward.
That's a great observation about the weapons! And our conversation isn't a hijack. I think we're both just seeing the same thing from two different angles. There's so much left to interpretation, it's hard to pin down what is the truth. I expect you to do your best to express how you see it as well. And in the end, if we can't come to an agreement, then we can just see it differently. It's all good.