Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier

[Theozilla]

Our Lord and Savior
View attachment 9880

Okay, just to be clear everyone know those captions are fake quotes right?
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/anime-was-a-mistake

 

[ForceStealer]

lol, yes. But he's still curmudgeonly in most interviews, which I suspect is why the meme was made in the first place

 

[Roundhouse]

https://www.vox.com/2016/12/11/13908296/hayao-miyazaki-artificial-intelligence-viral-video

Warning, the video in this article is an excruciating experience.

 

[Prism]

Our Lord and Savior
View attachment 9880

I know you’re just jokin’ around, but even if so, I feel like it’s a good opportunity to highlight what he actually says in that clip instead of the joke captions:

It’s like this.

It’s a matter of whether or not you can vividly bring to mind the image of children as they really are.

In that way, if I don’t observe, I can’t draw. You can’t do this if you haven’t seen anything

If you’re only concerned with yourself If in that way you spend every day

Does that lead to whether or not you even like people?

So, Japanese animation isn’t being based on observation, not really.

It’s made by people who don’t like to observe people.

So, anime’s become a hive of otaku.

And, well, he’s right on the money. Anime of the past had roots in observation, where the stylization was designed as representations of real world equivalents. As time went on, anime started to be based on stylizations of that stylization - to the point to where, after many iterations, the connection to the real observation were lost. The depiction of concepts (in particular, women) have little resemblance to real life. They’ve all become akin to an otaku’s view on the world, basically. I can definitely appreciate Miyazaki for being the anti-otaku.

 

[looneymoon]

He was talking about the 1000 year old dragon lolis and you cannot convince otherwise

 

[ForceStealer]

Anime of the past had roots in observation, where the stylization was designed as representations of real world equivalents.

Spoiler

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

He's old, he's allowed to be curmudgeonly. Guy's seen a lot.

 

[KindOfBlue]

The depiction of concepts (in particular, women) have little resemblance to real life. They’ve all become akin to an otaku’s view on the world, basically.

I have since rejected all 3D women in favor of the far more superior 2D because at least when they reject me I know they’re just being tsundere

 

[Prism]

Spoiler

You're telling me you've never seen someone IRL make that face?

 

[Theozilla]

I know you’re just jokin’ around, but even if so, I feel like it’s a good opportunity to highlight what he actually says in that clip instead of the joke captions:



And, well, he’s right on the money. Anime of the past had roots in observation, where the stylization was designed as representations of real world equivalents. As time went on, anime started to be based on stylizations of that stylization - to the point to where, after many iterations, the connection to the real observation were lost. The depiction of concepts (in particular, women) have little resemblance to real life. They’ve all become akin to an otaku’s view on the world, basically. I can definitely appreciate Miyazaki for being the anti-otaku.

Part of if is also Japanese animators being exploited even more than they were before, quality of work and ability to improve one’s skills correlates greatly with workers rights and compensation.
Like the fact that apparently half of all TV anime (to ever exist) has been produced since 2010 is a testament to how overworked the anime industry is.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1391904750703054848

 

[looneymoon]

Wikipedia mentions Miyazaki being a labour leader during his time at Toei, so that checks out.

 

[Strangelove]

where’s that quote about something being an insult to life itself

edit: it was ai based cg animation apparently but good meme

 

[Roundhouse]

I linked the full video earlier, it's worth watching. Very....er....hard to watch though.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Saying "it's a VR simulation of how Shinra thinks Midgar works in the future" is a *good* explanation. In squares the circle in a lot of ways. We know from CC that VR training data is used to train SOLDIERs. Remake showed that Shinra has *really good* VR technology, that had to be developed *sometime*. It doesn't even retcon anything. It just says "they're using this technology you *already* know about".

I don't get why people are complaining about an explanation that *makes sense*. Is it because it's admiting that the Compilation World-building is a thing? Is it because it doesn't "add" anything new to the lore/world-building? I really don't get it.

No one taking issue with the First SOLDIER interview is complaining about the inclusion of VR, the notion of blueprints being programmed into it, or even the Compilation. Only the startlingly prescient and bafflingly accurate nature of the imagery that the designers of neither the blueprints nor the VR tech itself would or could have reasonably known about.

Which -- as Theo pointed out -- is only even a point of contention in the first place because it was unnecessarily introduced as an explanation the setting needed:

To be fair, some of the frustrations are coming from a place of feeling like the devs going out of their way to create lore for something like a mobile spin off game, is SE making a big deal out of something that shouldn't be a big deal. So it's become a recursive loop of making a big deal out a perceived big deal being made in the first place unnecessarily.

They didn't do this sort of nonsense for the snowboarding or motorcycle mobile titles; they didn't have to here either. It's altogether a case of inventing a problem for an inadequate solution to (fail to) solve.

It's hard to repeat something when the creator isn't quite sure how they managed to make something. Or when they acknowledge that how something used to be made isn't how they could make it today. The OG FFVII seems to have been a group project with a story and world-building a group of people were making up as they went. And with all the co-inspiration that happens when a group of creative people are passing ideas around. That sense of "making it up as you go" is viewed even by the creators as something... that really shouldn't happen again. And we have seen what happens when that goes very wrong (FFXVersus).

However, loosing the "making it up as you go" aspect along with that co-inspiration from... at least five other people than NKN is going to affect how everything after the OG feels. You can't just... "fake" that kind of thing in a creative process. So the FFVII stuff from after the OG has a fundamentally different creative process than the OG did. Expecting the same tone out of two different creative processes... you're only setting yourself up for disappointment in the long run.

Not that I have any strong interest in making complaints about the Compilation at this point, but given that fans have, time and time again, successfully captured the appropriate tone in their own endeavors while utilizing that different process -- it's extremely difficult for me to consider this a valid defense of the creatives behind that original rendering for being unable to analyze what they had made (regardless of the previous process) and adhere.

Heck, the remake itself shows that they are at least 80 percent able to 15+ years later.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Thanks, Tres.

 

[KindOfBlue]

They didn't do this sort of nonsense for the snowboarding or motorcycle mobile titles; they didn't have to here either.

Would it have really made THAT much of a difference if they did do it for those titles though?

it's extremely difficult for me to consider this a valid defense of the creatives behind that original rendering for being unable to analyze what they had made (regardless of the previous process) and adhere.

I would think it’s because from a creative standpoint for them it would just boil down to rehashing what was already done, hence why most of the remake “works” because a lot of it is just repeating what has already won fans over, which I suppose is good for fanservice but I imagine it would be pretty unsatisfying as a creator to be beholden to stroking the fans’ nostalgia boners instead of doing whatever you want...a very common issue with artists and audiences I’m afraid, the “this band’s old stuff was way better” phenomenon

 

[Tetsujin]

They didn't do this sort of nonsense for the snowboarding or motorcycle mobile titles; they didn't have to here either. It's altogether a case of inventing a problem for an inadequate solution to (fail to) solve.

But they did in the original game by making them arcade games in the Gold Saucer.
How the G-Bike arcade game perfectly recreates Cloud and the party's escape from Midgar mere days or weeks after it happened remains a mystery to this day

 

[Keveh Kins]

^The game development industry in the world of FF7 has even worse crunch and horrendous working hours than the real world.

"G-Bike 2077 needs to launch in two weeks people! The holiday season is upon us boy!" - Dio, allegedly

 

[Obsidian Fire]

I imagine it would be pretty unsatisfying as a creator to be beholden to stroking the fans’ nostalgia boners instead of doing whatever you want...a very common issue with artists and audiences I’m afraid, the “this band’s old stuff was way better” phenomenon

As someone who does my own creative stuff... it's often done *because* I want to see/do something new other people haven't done before... IE: it's *because* I can make something new, that I am making it in the first place.

The problem with making something new... is that you might *fail* to make something other people like. Or that surpasses old work you have done before. In fact, oftentimes, it *is* worse than old work you did before. No one can maintain the kind of creative high needed to make "better work than all your previous work" all the time. That's just now how creative endeavors work.

This is probably the number one reason we see less and less new IP. Companies want success for the least amount of risk. It is more risky to make new ideas than rehashing old ideas. But as a creator of creative content... that gets old fast.

I really can't blame Nomura, Kitase and Nojima for wanting to try new things in a setting they created in the first place. It's theirs. They can do what they want with it. And if what they want to do is make new stories rather than rehash old stories, I really can't blame them. Especially if it's possibly the last major creative work they will ever do together.

No creator wants the "best work" they did to be the work they created at the start of their career and then had to keep remaking over and over again.

 

[Lulcielid]

Codes have being sent to closed beta participants.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1399319755287322632

 

[cold_spirit]

The beta is now open. I've been able to catch streams of it on Twitch.

First impression: It looks pretty good. My only critique is that the environment is a bit drab. Mechanically it looks solid, at least no worse than other battle royales.

 

[Shademp]

Not gonna lie, that's a pretty badass snapshot

 

[Makoeyes987]

People can hate but this game looks pretty clean. I'm impressed.

 

[Keveh Kins]

I'm looking forward to trying this out.

And sucking at it cause I'm crap at shooters. But hey

 

[Shademp]

People can hate but this game

My assumption is that Nomura hates this game too. It only occurred to me yesterday that Nomura's strange comment about virtual reality time travel (assuming that's even remotely what he meant) might be his passive-aggressive way of saying "I don't agree with the existence of this title but the higher-ups want their mobile gaming money so at most I can low-key express my disdain by showing my utter disregard for good lore in The First SOLDIER".

That's my headcanon, at least.