Final Fantasy XV - General News Thread

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stolas

Sphere Hunter
Feb 20, 2018
225
348
lmao today i learned "Bros on the Road" is literally a cover of Stand By Me by Oasis



enjoy your New Empire ads
That's not first time Square has "been inspired" by other music. A few of FFXIVs boss battles ripped from other songs such as Sephirot's battle and Good Moogle King battle. To be fair Shota Nakama built his career preforming other peoples work.
 

Storm

Warrior of Light
Oct 26, 2013
3,351
6,012
33
Switzerland
Blinding Awesomess was sharing these prototype KG screenshots on discord and there's an interesting thing about the reaper statue (no old king look like it)

(final version)


(prototype)


considering that we see a lot of these giant robed figures, here's my take (please ignore Nyx's derp face); its possible that the old kings didnt exist back then, instead the grim reapers (the robed figures) had a similar role of defending the city (bond by the pact the kingdom had with Etro).

as it was stated before, the people of Insomnia believed in shinigami and the city was full of allusions to them (and it's still the case even in the final version).


the Myth mural has reapers killing daemons but the curious thing is that one of them is harming a summon, and the same is true in this picture where shiva lies on the ground with tons of spears alongside two robed winged figures, which then brings to my other point:


summons were guardians of specific nations before instead of general protectors of the planet, so i assume Niflheim, having controlled all the other nations, had the summons somehow at their disposal and thats why the reapers are depicted fighting some of them. Odin was probably Lucis summon (his name was in the datamine in the list, also death related), and Niflheim had Bahamut as their main one; would explain the emblem and this art:



here i think they just reused an old asset, but you can notice the similarities with the statue from the early Kingsglave image above to the broken figure in Leide...


the final game and movie still has figures and art depictions of reapers




(this is exactly the same art datamined by XZero)

the statue inside the aquarium tank in the party scene of Kingsglaive is also a statue of a grim reaper (even though you can't see it) according to the artist who worked on it; theres also this on Nyx's room.



hard to say if they scrapped this whole deal with them entirely (the datamined Terra Battle collab event involved one) or simply toned down due to censorship but im inclined to believe the old kings kinda replaced their role in the story (giant spiritual entities asking for sacrifices?) because of the difference in the early/final KG screen.

to be honest not a bad trade if this is how it went, the kings are epic but i think the summons having allegiances to certain nations would be more interesting if my theory is true.

+Bonus

even Stella was in KG pre-production



thanks for reading my late-night ramblings lol
 
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Storm

Warrior of Light
Oct 26, 2013
3,351
6,012
33
Switzerland
Thanks for this, this is really interesting! I really wish they were able to keep more of this kind of imagery in the final version. Are there any more prototype screenshots like this?
the early production KG screens are from a special edition of the movie, but only some of them were shared on discord :x
 

SonOfEtro

Warrior of Light
May 2, 2016
1,036
1,192
someone was sharing these prototype KG screenshots and there's an interesting thing about the reaper statue (no old king look like it)

(final version)


(prototype)


considering that we see a lot of these giant robed figures, here's my take (please ignore Nyx's derp face); its possible that the old kings didnt exist back then, instead the grim reapers (the robed figures) had a similar role of defending the city (bond by the pact the kingdom had with Etro).

as it was stated before, the people of Insomnia believed in shinigami and the city was full of allusions to them (and it's still the case even in the final version).


the Myth mural has reapers killing daemons but the curious thing is that one of them is harming a summon, and the same is true in this picture where shiva lies on the ground with tons of spears alongside two robed winged figures, which then brings to my other point:


summons were guardians of specific nations before instead of general protectors of the planet, so i assume Niflheim, having controlled all the other nations, had the summons somehow at their disposal and thats why the reapers are depicted fighting some of them. Odin was probably Lucis summon (his name was in the datamine in the list, also death related), and Niflheim had Bahamut as their main one; would explain the emblem and this art:



here i think they just reused an old asset, but you can notice the similarities with the statue from the early Kingsglave image above to the broken figure in Leide...


the final game and movie still has figures and art depictions of reapers




(this is exactly the same art datamined by XZero)

the statue inside the aquarium tank in the party scene of Kingsglaive is also a statue of a grim reaper (even though you can't see it) according to the artist who worked on it; theres also this on Nyx's room.



hard to say if they scrapped this whole deal with them entirely (the datamined Terra Battle collab event involved one) or simply toned down due to censorship but im inclined to believe the old kings kinda replaced their role in the story (giant spiritual entities asking for sacrifices?) because of the difference in the early/final KG screen.

to be honest not a bad trade if this is how it went, the kings are epic but i think the summons having allegiances to certain nations would be more interesting if my theory is true.

+Bonus

even Stella was in KG pre-production



thanks for reading my late-night ramblings lol
All this is huge.

Looking at it, I don't think the Grim Reapers were intended to represent Etro herself or her servants directly. They were probably symbolic representations of the dead. That specific imagery needed to be toned down so the game wasn't accused of being inappropriate (I know, people are silly), so they switched it to be more obviously about ancestral worship, which has examples in multiple religions and mythologies.

This all fits in with what was said about how the original mythos' thematic elements were retained while the terminology was scrapped. They kept in as much as they could, and I'm glad all the reaper imagery wasn't removed.
 
Likes: Storm

Bazztek

Keyblade Master
May 26, 2014
719
1,890
someone was sharing these prototype KG screenshots and there's an interesting thing about the reaper statue (no old king look like it)

(final version)


(prototype)


considering that we see a lot of these giant robed figures, here's my take (please ignore Nyx's derp face); its possible that the old kings didnt exist back then, instead the grim reapers (the robed figures) had a similar role of defending the city (bond by the pact the kingdom had with Etro).

as it was stated before, the people of Insomnia believed in shinigami and the city was full of allusions to them (and it's still the case even in the final version).


the Myth mural has reapers killing daemons but the curious thing is that one of them is harming a summon, and the same is true in this picture where shiva lies on the ground with tons of spears alongside two robed winged figures, which then brings to my other point:


summons were guardians of specific nations before instead of general protectors of the planet, so i assume Niflheim, having controlled all the other nations, had the summons somehow at their disposal and thats why the reapers are depicted fighting some of them. Odin was probably Lucis summon (his name was in the datamine in the list, also death related), and Niflheim had Bahamut as their main one; would explain the emblem and this art:



here i think they just reused an old asset, but you can notice the similarities with the statue from the early Kingsglave image above to the broken figure in Leide...


the final game and movie still has figures and art depictions of reapers




(this is exactly the same art datamined by XZero)

the statue inside the aquarium tank in the party scene of Kingsglaive is also a statue of a grim reaper (even though you can't see it) according to the artist who worked on it; theres also this on Nyx's room.



hard to say if they scrapped this whole deal with them entirely (the datamined Terra Battle collab event involved one) or simply toned down due to censorship but im inclined to believe the old kings kinda replaced their role in the story (giant spiritual entities asking for sacrifices?) because of the difference in the early/final KG screen.

to be honest not a bad trade if this is how it went, the kings are epic but i think the summons having allegiances to certain nations would be more interesting if my theory is true.

+Bonus

even Stella was in KG pre-production



thanks for reading my late-night ramblings lol
That's a stature of the Oracle Lucii, not a reaper, you can tell since it's literally holding the Trident of the Oracle, and well it looks like the Oracle Lucii. Whatever that robed figure is is just the same thing as the statues out front of the Citadel, a lot of things in that early KG stuff is previs stuff, aka just place holder stuff just for blocking using whatever assets you have already at your disposal. Since those statue models were already made as they are used at the Citadel, they just placed them there too. There's previs stuff where it still used Luna in that Roen dress too because the Roen dress asset was already made. That isn't Stella there in that CG, that's just Luna's previs design prior to them changing it, there is even previs of Luna with her hair tied up like it currently is but wearing that white Roen dress. Stella had already been replaced by Luna when Kingsglaive started in October 2013. Originally Kingsglaive was using the same CG artstyle as the games CG artstyle, and Nyx also had a design that looks more in line with the games artstyle, it was only in 2015 that they changed it to look more photorealistic and switched the designs to using the facial scanned models, and that's when Regis's design was also changed too, and that's why everyone in Kingsglaive looks different than in the game, except for Regis since they liked his KG design so much they decided to use it in the game too.

Also there was never a huge focus on "reapers" themselves, rather it was just Etro that was worshipped as part of the FNC connection that it was using, and Etro is the goddess of death in the FNC, which in Japanese is called Shinigami, which also sometimes is translated as "reapers", which is the only reason the whole "omg there was reapers!?" ever became a thing, even though it was just Etro, and the painting of Etro was just adorned by a stature of a more familiar visage of one.
 
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Storm

Warrior of Light
Oct 26, 2013
3,351
6,012
33
Switzerland
That's a stature of the Oracle Lucii, not a reaper, you can tell since it's literally holding the Trident of the Oracle
i know that, it was just for the sake of comparison with the early production screen with the creepy figure.

Also there was never a huge focus on "reapers" themselves, rather it was just Etro that was worshipped as part of the FNC connection that it was using, and Etro is the goddess of death in the FNC, which in Japanese is called Shinigami, which also sometimes is translated as "reapers", which is the only reason the whole "omg there was reapers!?" ever became a thing, even though it was just Etro, and the painting of Etro was just adorned by a stature of a more familiar visage of one.
i would have to disagree with that since you can see giant robed winged figures in previous artworks; even that panel just discovered with a grim reaper giving something to a human indicates they were real creatures.

im not sure if Stella was totally placeholder or they simply planned to not change her design too much initially?
 
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Likes: Vallen