Members see less ads - sign up now for free and join the community!
Noone care man, if you ruined your expirience by reading spoilers, don't do the same to others. You haven't play the game in the first place.
Your explanations will be nothing but bubbling of a aggrieved man. Im sorry.
If you think that game can be judged by non-context ending that you've seen and non-explorable area which you expected - you're wrong.
Your explanations will be nothing but bubbling of a aggrieved man. Im sorry.
If you think that game can be judged by non-context ending that you've seen and non-explorable area which you expected - you're wrong.
Likes:
LeonBlade and Nova
I've been following the impressions thread on GAF, and here's where things seem to stand:
On a related note, there was some discussion on GAF about whether story was important for FF or not, which sort of seemed to miss the point to me. FF relies on story to the extent that the underlying fiction is at least as crucial to people's enjoyment as the gameplay is, but the parts of that underlying fiction that acts as the franchise's USP are characters and spectacle, not plot. >_>; (Otherwise FFVII's "we're not going to tell you whether we destroyed the world" ending, FFVIII's... everything, FFIX's Giant Space Flea From Nowhere, and FFXII's non-existent middle would get more criticism than they do.)
1) The people who have actually played the game almost universally seem to enjoy it overall. The consensus seems to be that the story gets a lot stronger in the second half, with a fair amount of criticism of the plot/presentation of the first half but a lot of praise for the final chapter and ending. Set-pieces and dungeons have gotten a particularly high level of praise from players.
2) There are a lot of people with an axe to grind against the game in spoiler-heavy threads (most of whom have neither played nor intend to play the game), which shifts the overall discourse to be a lot more negative.
3) People who are in the press or know people in the press seem, if anything, more positive about it than the people who bought the game early.
2) There are a lot of people with an axe to grind against the game in spoiler-heavy threads (most of whom have neither played nor intend to play the game), which shifts the overall discourse to be a lot more negative.
3) People who are in the press or know people in the press seem, if anything, more positive about it than the people who bought the game early.
On a related note, there was some discussion on GAF about whether story was important for FF or not, which sort of seemed to miss the point to me. FF relies on story to the extent that the underlying fiction is at least as crucial to people's enjoyment as the gameplay is, but the parts of that underlying fiction that acts as the franchise's USP are characters and spectacle, not plot. >_>; (Otherwise FFVII's "we're not going to tell you whether we destroyed the world" ending, FFVIII's... everything, FFIX's Giant Space Flea From Nowhere, and FFXII's non-existent middle would get more criticism than they do.)
I'll get this out of the way, since i consider my posts from yesterday to be somewhat melodramatic adding to the shitty last night at college. Had more time to cool off a bit.
Honestly, even if the game could potentially score an 85% critic wise (even if i still hope it would be higher), i won't let it get me down in the long run. Given that the characters and gameplay are seemingly met with positive reception, especially with how important the latter is to me in a video game, thats enough for me believe FFXV will be my type of game to experience with joy.
Take KH2:FM for example. Literally in my top 5 all time favorite JRPGs/Action games in general. Many of the KH fandom were displeased with the plot, pacing, and exploration aspects of the title, yet there was one strength many agreed 2FM had to offer, gameplay.
Which reminds me, regarding gameplay, i have a confession to make. During the years I've anticipated Versus XIII since inception, not once did i gove a damn about how the plot would be handled. On the contrary, it was only the overall gameplay and characters i cared for due to Tokyo Team's experience with the console Kingdom Hearts projects.
It was really only until after Nomura left Tabata the role of sole director that changed my mind on that aspects thanks to countless speculations over what changed/carried over from VsXIII to XV. Now i totally understand how story is important for many people, in an RPG, but like Jubileus mentioned, there could very much be relevant narrative content people may easily miss out on due to the dynamic story structure in XV.
So regardless of what'll happen next week, the fact that gameplay and characters are what i can totally look forward to, par for my initial anticipations bodes quite well for my potential enjoyment.
Saori Itamuro is only the lead scenario designer though, in charge of pretty much putting the details Kazuhige Nojima's story into the game's script.
She was only an RPG planner for the first Dissidia while in Duodecim she was one of the two scenario writers.
Tbf i personally believe any story flaw should have the blame shared more with Nojima considering much the team went out of their way to preserve his vision in a workable way.
Honestly, even if the game could potentially score an 85% critic wise (even if i still hope it would be higher), i won't let it get me down in the long run. Given that the characters and gameplay are seemingly met with positive reception, especially with how important the latter is to me in a video game, thats enough for me believe FFXV will be my type of game to experience with joy.
Take KH2:FM for example. Literally in my top 5 all time favorite JRPGs/Action games in general. Many of the KH fandom were displeased with the plot, pacing, and exploration aspects of the title, yet there was one strength many agreed 2FM had to offer, gameplay.
Which reminds me, regarding gameplay, i have a confession to make. During the years I've anticipated Versus XIII since inception, not once did i gove a damn about how the plot would be handled. On the contrary, it was only the overall gameplay and characters i cared for due to Tokyo Team's experience with the console Kingdom Hearts projects.
It was really only until after Nomura left Tabata the role of sole director that changed my mind on that aspects thanks to countless speculations over what changed/carried over from VsXIII to XV. Now i totally understand how story is important for many people, in an RPG, but like Jubileus mentioned, there could very much be relevant narrative content people may easily miss out on due to the dynamic story structure in XV.
So regardless of what'll happen next week, the fact that gameplay and characters are what i can totally look forward to, par for my initial anticipations bodes quite well for my potential enjoyment.
Saori Itamuro is only the lead scenario designer though, in charge of pretty much putting the details Kazuhige Nojima's story into the game's script.
She was only an RPG planner for the first Dissidia while in Duodecim she was one of the two scenario writers.
Tbf i personally believe any story flaw should have the blame shared more with Nojima considering much the team went out of their way to preserve his vision in a workable way.
Last edited:
From what I read I feel like I am going to be highly disappointed with this game. I guess its my own fault cause I expected too much. Yet there were red flags since Tabata took over and the extremely long development time and the scrapping of the versus content. I thought that Tabata wouldn't change Nomura's vision all that much, but he changed it too much in the end. Also thought the world would be a whole lot bigger (One of my biggest gripes because I love exploration in games and wanted to explore more it was one of the biggest selling points to me. Again its my fault for over hyping it. I still think the final game will be enjoyable for me it could even be my goty but it definitely wont be the game I envisioned it being.
Last edited:
4 days 4 hours to go!
I'm going to try to mostly sleep through those very few days left
I'm going to try to mostly sleep through those very few days left
Likes:
AverageAfro
Tabata is one of the few reasons we're getting the game's existence at all. You're undervaluing how much time he and the other staff have spent in putting their all with the game, the man practially had almost 3 hours of sleep each day while working on thw game dude.
Changes already happened even when Nomura was on board, whenever i hear "Nomura's vision" mentioned from the Versus XIII party, its usually under what they visually wanted instead of what Nomura's actual vision was. Lets not ignore the fact that we have Yoko Shimomura confirming that the basic scenario within XV is still very similar to Versus XIII's overall, even with some changes.
No matter how promising Versus XIII looked, trailers never dictate how well the writing quality would have been handled regardless. Not saying you aren't allowed to share disappointment of course, but this just quite feels knee-jerky.
Changes already happened even when Nomura was on board, whenever i hear "Nomura's vision" mentioned from the Versus XIII party, its usually under what they visually wanted instead of what Nomura's actual vision was. Lets not ignore the fact that we have Yoko Shimomura confirming that the basic scenario within XV is still very similar to Versus XIII's overall, even with some changes.
No matter how promising Versus XIII looked, trailers never dictate how well the writing quality would have been handled regardless. Not saying you aren't allowed to share disappointment of course, but this just quite feels knee-jerky.
Last edited:
I know all that and I dont know if you read it but I made a bigger post on this subject where I go more in depth on the top of page 7 in the neogaf spoiler impressions thread. I know that Tabata worked hard to make this game and I am sure it will still be a solid game, just way less of a game than I was expecting. There have been some major cuts already that show me this. Nomura might not have made the game I envisioned and that wouldve made me disappointment too. But at least Nomura was the one that made these worlds and characters and therefore wouldve known them better and handled then much better than a person who just got them passed down to him. Nomura also wanted this game to be very ambitious and big. Square downsized the project to make it more realistic. I have a theory that Nomura felt that downsizing it wasent right and thats why he was kicked or left the project. Nomura couldve finished the game as well as originally planed if square didnt have troubles with XIII and XIV 1.0 and made Nomuras team work on them having a skeleton crew for Versus (which explains the lengthy development) I dont think it was Nomuras fault for that. Once Nomura had a full crew again, they probably didnt think a multi part project with XV wouldve worked becuase it flopped with XIII. Also Nomuras game was going to be very ambitions and big. They wanted something safer for a big project so they put Nomura on 7r Instead. They let Tabata finish Versus because they didnt want to waste the assets. Tabata did a good job finishing it but it obviously isnt on as grand of a scale anymore as Nomuras project.(Cuts in areas and story) This is why I am disappointment. Again for Nomuras storytelling i feel like he could have done a much better job than the Dissidia writer epscially since they were his own characters. Nomura said one time that Noctis felt like a son to him. I dont know why they put the Dissidia writer on this.
I don't know why people are still hurt over Versus XIII.
I for one am thankful of the change up, given that the whole XIII IP was a colossal balls up, in terms of the FF franchise. They may have been okay / good games, but as FF titles they were extremely poor and I am glad Versus didn't get added to the pile.
Personally, from what I have played in the JP demo, and from everything else I have seen, what we have here is a potentially outstanding FF title and while the whole Versus XIII thing looked like it could have been promising in terms of it's overall style, we actually knew zip about it so we've lost nothing. The only reason why it's so disappointing is because of peoples own hype and imaginations based off the few trailers / footage we saw.
I think far too many people are over reacting about a lost game that didn't really materialise into anything remotely meaningful development wise.
I for one am thankful of the change up, given that the whole XIII IP was a colossal balls up, in terms of the FF franchise. They may have been okay / good games, but as FF titles they were extremely poor and I am glad Versus didn't get added to the pile.
Personally, from what I have played in the JP demo, and from everything else I have seen, what we have here is a potentially outstanding FF title and while the whole Versus XIII thing looked like it could have been promising in terms of it's overall style, we actually knew zip about it so we've lost nothing. The only reason why it's so disappointing is because of peoples own hype and imaginations based off the few trailers / footage we saw.
I think far too many people are over reacting about a lost game that didn't really materialise into anything remotely meaningful development wise.
Yeah, I would get that crap outta here, man. Haven't checked the spoiler boxes, but I'm assuming they're spoilers for the story.
And I'm repeating myself here, but you just DON'T know what Nomura's vision was beyond what little ("little" for 8 years) was shown. And what was shown? The beginning of the game (which was potentially much, much better than what we got) and a few snippets of info here and there (and Altissia, which, afaik, looks about the same barring the clearly pre-baked visuals the E3 trailer had).
You don't know how that game (if it ever got to a certain point of development under that vision) developed beyond that point. You don't even know how this game actually unfolds the story, as you haven't even played it. You just saw the ending, I'm assuming, in a half-arsed way (why I don't even know), which isn't enough to ponder on everything that happened before that point. Or bulletpoints, as basically any story is going to look weird and dissapointing in those: it all comes down to presentation and execution, as well as pacing and interrelation with its gameplay.
It's OK to feel dissapointed about changes. I am to, to a certain extent (I liked the original 2009 Stella design better than what was changed during 2013, or her overall presence in Insomnia to what actually happens in KG; I vastly preferred OG Regis even though the new one is a good design too; I would have loved having Insomnia as the main scenario for the beginning of the game; I'm still a bit bummed you can only control Noctis -much less than before, though-). And it's a list that goes on.
The problem comes when everything is blown out of proportion (it's just a videogame, after all) and when people use their own, built throughout the years, expectations, no matter if they have a basis on reality or not, to gauge how a game satisfies them. I'm a bit tired of people dismissing Nomura's vision, but I'm even more tired of people bringing it up as some sort of bastion of great writing, planning and characterization. Basically because we know jackshit about it.
And think about it: many changes you might be complaining about right now could have been made by Nomura himself (in the 2013 trailer, Stella has an almost identical design to Luna -especially as a kid, same dress and all- and she's shown being Noct's friend when a child; it might have just been a dream, or a memory-loss thing. But don't disregard the possibility that that change was made by Nomura himself already). Further than that, Nomura wasn't writing the game afaik; Nojima was. And we all know what he's capable of (both the good or great, and the absolutely awful), so I wouldn't count him as a bastion of know-how in terms of his stories (great concepts often muddled by atrocious or mediocre execution).
Also, many things are being blamed on Tabata as changes he made when we don't know how Nomura would have approached them. He already talked about having the story unfold its plot in a much scarcer amount of Visual Works' scenes and traditional cutscenes: he wanted to give player control. We also don't know how many cities he intented the game to have (nor do we know how many of them there are here; if you do, don't post it here, please). We also don't know what things have been cut beyond the obvious (the beginning) and what would have been done by Nomura. He's also not a god that controls everything, as it's obvious by now that he likes giving others the spotlight and incorporate their ideas.
I'm not saying you can't criticise Tabata's role or this game (which, surprise, is not going to be perfect, far from it), or even do so under a comparison drawn between it and Versus. What I'm saying is, wait until you've played it by yourself, and then do criticise it. And when you do, if you want to compare it to Nomura's vision, do such thing basing your arguments on actual facts and known information (say, "I'm dissapointed with the beginning of the game, Nomura's version looked much better" or "I preferred how Stella fought with a rapier and was in an antagonistic position to Noctis").
And I'm repeating myself here, but you just DON'T know what Nomura's vision was beyond what little ("little" for 8 years) was shown. And what was shown? The beginning of the game (which was potentially much, much better than what we got) and a few snippets of info here and there (and Altissia, which, afaik, looks about the same barring the clearly pre-baked visuals the E3 trailer had).
You don't know how that game (if it ever got to a certain point of development under that vision) developed beyond that point. You don't even know how this game actually unfolds the story, as you haven't even played it. You just saw the ending, I'm assuming, in a half-arsed way (why I don't even know), which isn't enough to ponder on everything that happened before that point. Or bulletpoints, as basically any story is going to look weird and dissapointing in those: it all comes down to presentation and execution, as well as pacing and interrelation with its gameplay.
It's OK to feel dissapointed about changes. I am to, to a certain extent (I liked the original 2009 Stella design better than what was changed during 2013, or her overall presence in Insomnia to what actually happens in KG; I vastly preferred OG Regis even though the new one is a good design too; I would have loved having Insomnia as the main scenario for the beginning of the game; I'm still a bit bummed you can only control Noctis -much less than before, though-). And it's a list that goes on.
The problem comes when everything is blown out of proportion (it's just a videogame, after all) and when people use their own, built throughout the years, expectations, no matter if they have a basis on reality or not, to gauge how a game satisfies them. I'm a bit tired of people dismissing Nomura's vision, but I'm even more tired of people bringing it up as some sort of bastion of great writing, planning and characterization. Basically because we know jackshit about it.
And think about it: many changes you might be complaining about right now could have been made by Nomura himself (in the 2013 trailer, Stella has an almost identical design to Luna -especially as a kid, same dress and all- and she's shown being Noct's friend when a child; it might have just been a dream, or a memory-loss thing. But don't disregard the possibility that that change was made by Nomura himself already). Further than that, Nomura wasn't writing the game afaik; Nojima was. And we all know what he's capable of (both the good or great, and the absolutely awful), so I wouldn't count him as a bastion of know-how in terms of his stories (great concepts often muddled by atrocious or mediocre execution).
Also, many things are being blamed on Tabata as changes he made when we don't know how Nomura would have approached them. He already talked about having the story unfold its plot in a much scarcer amount of Visual Works' scenes and traditional cutscenes: he wanted to give player control. We also don't know how many cities he intented the game to have (nor do we know how many of them there are here; if you do, don't post it here, please). We also don't know what things have been cut beyond the obvious (the beginning) and what would have been done by Nomura. He's also not a god that controls everything, as it's obvious by now that he likes giving others the spotlight and incorporate their ideas.
I'm not saying you can't criticise Tabata's role or this game (which, surprise, is not going to be perfect, far from it), or even do so under a comparison drawn between it and Versus. What I'm saying is, wait until you've played it by yourself, and then do criticise it. And when you do, if you want to compare it to Nomura's vision, do such thing basing your arguments on actual facts and known information (say, "I'm dissapointed with the beginning of the game, Nomura's version looked much better" or "I preferred how Stella fought with a rapier and was in an antagonistic position to Noctis").
Nomura being the creator of the characters and the original story doesn´t make him inherently the better writer of the two and neither means that he would have make a better job at developing said characters and story than Itamuro, for all we know Nomura could have writen a terrible mess of script.
For the same reason that Yoshinori Kitase was given a directorial role in FF6 despite having no prior directorial experience and having only worked in visual designs for over 3 years at Square. For the same reason that Hiroyuki Ito was given directorial role in FF6 despite having no prior directiorial experience. For the same reason Nomura was given a directorial role in Kingdom Hearts despite having no prior directorial experience.
Because, Square´s higher ups trust their developers and trust that they´re capable of producing quality products.
For the same reason that Yoshinori Kitase was given a directorial role in FF6 despite having no prior directorial experience and having only worked in visual designs for over 3 years at Square. For the same reason that Hiroyuki Ito was given directorial role in FF6 despite having no prior directiorial experience. For the same reason Nomura was given a directorial role in Kingdom Hearts despite having no prior directorial experience.
Because, Square´s higher ups trust their developers and trust that they´re capable of producing quality products.
Likes:
LeonBlade and Tornak
Whatever the reason I don't think people are going to be happy with this game, because XIII was such a let down, people's expectations of this game have gotten so high that, they are trying to find bad things about it, i personally think it looks amazing but haven't played it yet but il make the most of it instead on moaning about it
Yeah. I mean, it's beautiful having the "originator" of an idea as the person who continues it, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be better that way. Or that an author has the ultimate word on his work. Death of the author, and all that.
It's one of the thing I'm most excited about XVI, actually. The potential birth of new talents: in writing, in directing, in character design, in world design, in music, in battle design... It's the one thing I think FF needs, as much as I love many of the people actively working on recent games.
I mean, look at Sakaguchi, the indisputed creator and director of FIVE Final Fantasy games: he delegates his position as director to two young talents, while retaining a more secondary role (which would be the one he'd held for the rest of his career in regards to FF). What happened? A game that's considered, by many, as the best one of the bunch. Scratch that, the same happened with VII and IX, if you have different tastes.
Anyways, in regards to FF XV, I'm curious as to what the hell that "Astral-nomous" thing they're doing in Hollywood is.
It's one of the thing I'm most excited about XVI, actually. The potential birth of new talents: in writing, in directing, in character design, in world design, in music, in battle design... It's the one thing I think FF needs, as much as I love many of the people actively working on recent games.
I mean, look at Sakaguchi, the indisputed creator and director of FIVE Final Fantasy games: he delegates his position as director to two young talents, while retaining a more secondary role (which would be the one he'd held for the rest of his career in regards to FF). What happened? A game that's considered, by many, as the best one of the bunch. Scratch that, the same happened with VII and IX, if you have different tastes.
Anyways, in regards to FF XV, I'm curious as to what the hell that "Astral-nomous" thing they're doing in Hollywood is.
Likes:
Nova and LeonBlade
Nomura never acted as the script writer for Versus XIII, so I don't know why his ability to write for the characters is in any way relevant. >_>; He wrote a sum total of one script -- for Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days -- and then noped out of scriptwriting forever because isolating himself from the world and eating canned food for two weeks wasn't all it's cracked up to be.
IIRC, Nojima was the original scriptwriter, and his track record is... mixed. FFVII and FFX were his babies, and they're some of the (if not the) best in the series, but on the other hand, he's to blame for that FFX-2.5 nonsense.
As for Itamuro, wasn't she credited in Kingsglaive for vetting the dialogue in the after-credits scene? If she's the one who set the standard for the dynamic within the party, I give her a lot of credit for that.
IIRC, Nojima was the original scriptwriter, and his track record is... mixed. FFVII and FFX were his babies, and they're some of the (if not the) best in the series, but on the other hand, he's to blame for that FFX-2.5 nonsense.
As for Itamuro, wasn't she credited in Kingsglaive for vetting the dialogue in the after-credits scene? If she's the one who set the standard for the dynamic within the party, I give her a lot of credit for that.
Last edited:
Likes:
LeonBlade and Tornak
Two camps of people:
1/ Those who go with the flow and are more likely to enjoy the game because they set realistic standards
2/ Those who have set specific expectations and will end up disappointed.
I'm just happy to have a game to play at all tbh. So first camp for me it is *sits down with the bros at a camp site and enjoys Ignis' cooking*
1/ Those who go with the flow and are more likely to enjoy the game because they set realistic standards
2/ Those who have set specific expectations and will end up disappointed.
I'm just happy to have a game to play at all tbh. So first camp for me it is *sits down with the bros at a camp site and enjoys Ignis' cooking*
Likes:
LeonBlade, Nova and Tornak
X-2.5 and Will were on-request from SQEX as they wanted to get the tone dark again. And Nomura had never been a scriptwriter to my knowledge until now, but I can see why he didn't enjoy it. For someone who doesn't like it or isn't a natural at it, writing's not all its cracked up to be.
Oh, and about Nojima, let's not forget one of his more mixed contributions to the series. He created the Fabula Nova Crystallis mythos (a fact seemingly conveniently forgotten) and devised the basic scenario for XIII from those concepts that Toriyama and Watanabe later expanded.
Oh, and about Nojima, let's not forget one of his more mixed contributions to the series. He created the Fabula Nova Crystallis mythos (a fact seemingly conveniently forgotten) and devised the basic scenario for XIII from those concepts that Toriyama and Watanabe later expanded.
Likes:
Tornak
Hell, Nomura even said this back in 2008 regarding Noctis and Stella in the party scene from a translated interview:
"First time they met each other"
The fact that the little girl/Stella from the E3 2013 trailer confirmed she met Noctis as children completely contradicts that statement, which would mean Nomura had a hand in changes before he left.
I'll also bring up again how Nomura outright admitted he can't manage projects by himself, he's very dependant with co-directors and places a lot of trust in them.
"First time they met each other"
The fact that the little girl/Stella from the E3 2013 trailer confirmed she met Noctis as children completely contradicts that statement, which would mean Nomura had a hand in changes before he left.
I'll also bring up again how Nomura outright admitted he can't manage projects by himself, he's very dependant with co-directors and places a lot of trust in them.
Last edited:
Likes:
LeonBlade and Tornak