Final Fantasy XV (was Versus XIII)

[Drax]

I'm having a hard time playing this, I'm too used to having full control of the camera with XIV and it's like the camera just stays 2 ft from the back of Noctis' head.

 

[Lex]

^Exact same thing happened to me

 

[Jason Tandro]

I don't see it happening this year. Maybe in time for the tenth anniversary of the game's announcement next year.

Realizes that the game was announced when I was freshly out of high school...

Dies a little inside...



Also yeah the camera controls aren't terrible but it seems like a lot to manage when I'm trying to fight. God help me but an "Active" camera like in the PSOne era might actually be a good option.

 

[Tetsujin]

Watching it right now, missed the first 30min

- they couldn't fit Stella into the story of FFXV and replaced her with Luna
- the party scene from the VSXIII trailer does not exist anymore
- other characters like the female dragoon are still in
- regarding concerns of fans of Versus XIII that this is a different game: Yeah it's different now =P
- they're showing off a new tech demo video
- their international staff and designers talk about the Luminous engine and technology used in the game
- brief shots of Lestallum at night
- performance capture is used for facial animations
- they talk about Episode Duscae 2.0
- the patch will go live June 9th
- they show a video
- looks like they're showing off new attacks and stuff
- they're fighting one of those big beasts at the lake
- there will not be an E3 trailer after all, they apologize (they blame their Western counterpart for cockblocking a trailer)
- new footage will still be shown at Gamescom
- they hint at what will be shown: they present artwork of King Regis holding kid Noctis it seems
- they talk about Type-0 HD on Steam
- talk about customizable settings
- they show off a tech demo "Witch Chapter 0 [cry]"
- next ATR will be from Cologne on site at Gamescom

And that's it.

 

[Carlie]

- they couldn't fit Stella into the story of FFXV and replaced her with Luna

Yes because you guys have so many female characters in this game that is understandable that you couldn't fit your most important one in there.

 

[Lex]

I am officially disappointed.

EDIT: LOLOLOL "We said there'd be a trailer for E3, but after internal discussions we decided there isn't going to be one. Sorry for lying *nods*"

Apparently the "western partners" said they didn't want a trailer unless it had any new footage. Good on the westerners.

 

[Kuja9001]

My hype is slowly dying.

Replacing Stella and removing a scene that was vital lore wise is disappointing.

 

[Tetsujin]

How would we even know how vital it was? It may only seem that way because that's literally one of the very few things they even had to show off for Versus XIII because the game was not going anywhere in development.

I see Versus XIII pretty much like the secret endings of KH I and II. A bunch of vaguely thought out story ideas and characters that are ultimately gonna change quite a bit for the final product.

I dunno, my excitement is only rising because this game is actually happening now.

 

[ForceStealer]

I see people freaking about the Stella thing...we knew literally nothing about her. For all we know they just renamed the character. (Yes I know she looks little different.) I will say that Luna's a little similar to Yuna, Stella was a more unique name, but geez.

It was like all the people on tumblr calling Noctis their favorite FF character after seeing the first Versus XIII trailer.

I'm interested see how differently the demo will play, if at all.

 

[Claymore]

I'm not sure how to react, except to echo the sentiments that removing ANY female characters, regardless of their importance, is quite scary with what little we do know and have seen of what this game has turned into so far.

 

[Tetsujin]

 

[Kuja9001]

Honestly, I'm lying to myself about the hype because they'll just reel me back in with the next trailer.

The lack of Stella(I liked her design better) and the party scene is still disappointing though.

 

[Lex]

^Well that mostly.

I played the XV demo and my views are in here somewhere, but I noticed a complete shift in tone to what we've seen previously and I reserved judgement because I thought that it would obviously crop up in other areas. Everything I've seen now gets further and further away from that original tone which is what I was looking forward to.

It's not like I'm judging anyone for enjoying the tone shift or liking what they see, I just preferred it the way it was previously. I expected it to get a bit lighter but everything they've said now points to the original ideas for Versus being almost completely scrapped, and I'm not happy about that. I am decidedly unhappy about that.

 

[Hisako]

Do we even know anything about the plot at all? Or the lore behind the setting? Anything at all?

Until we actually get a sense of the context behind the game all we can really judge are superficial elements, like "X character no longer exists" or "X character is now Y" (which seems like the more likely option), and "Z scene is no longer in the game" when for all we know Z scene may very much not fit into the game for stylistic reasons.

 

[ForceStealer]

Right, I'm just not sure anyone actually knew anything about it. I also always got the impression that people who were pessimistic about it were because of how convoluted Nomura likes his stories. Tabata throwing that out would kinda corroborate that...but Nojima is still the writer, but who knows.

 

[Hisako]

I'm rereading some of the old stuff and if I'm remembering correctly the original story was going to involve a feud between families and Noctis/Stella on opposite sides and what-not, in a sort of Shakespearean tragedy sort of way. I'll admit that premise sounds fucking awesome and it's a shame that they've dropped it for the boy band road-trip themes, but it's entirely possible (reasonable, even) that they axed Stella as a specific character because she no longer fit the new plot or the themes of XV.

There were also hints that Stella was going to be playable, which lends even more credence to the idea that she wouldn't fit in the current envisioning of the game.

Anyway, speculations going to speculate

 

[Tetsujin]

Right, I'm just not sure anyone actually knew anything about it. I also always got the impression that people who were pessimistic about it were because of how convoluted Nomura likes his stories. Tabata throwing that out would kinda corroborate that...but Nojima is still the writer, but who knows.

He's not actually. I forgot the name of the new writer, Saori something. I think she was a planner for Dissidia.
Edit: Saori Itamuro.

I'll admit that premise sounds fucking awesome and it's a shame that they've dropped it for the boy band road-trip themes

The road trip was always focus of the story though. Nomura had been talking about this during the VsXIII days.

The story was that Niflheim attacks Noctis' kingdom to steal the crystals and Noctis and his buddies go on a road trip to get shit back or something. This premise remains the same for XV, with the difference that Noctis and the others are actually out of town when the attack happens as opposed to him attending the party.

Also, here's the entire ATR:

I'm rewatching now as I missed the first half.

 

[Claymore]

"So I wanted to take this time to tell you before we start promoting FF15 at Gamescom, that this is indeed a different game now, and that we will be taking steps to promote FF15 to you - our fans - with confidence from here on out. We will make absolutely no compromises as we head towards finalising the best possible game, so I hope you look forward to FF15. Thank you for your attention, and thank you for your continued support."

To anyone who has been following the game since its initial inception, I don't think it's too much to allow people to be annoyed, regardless of how great this new vision might become.

 

[Kai Schulen]

Petition to have Stella as a secret boss in FFXV and she's like the hardest boss to fight, ever, for she could be the manifestation of all the frustration fans have felt for the past...decade waiting.

 

[Tetsujin]

The tech demo from the report:

 

[Lex]

To anyone who has been following the game since its initial inception, I don't think it's too much to allow people to be annoyed, regardless of how great this new vision might become.

Jesus finally someone said it. Thank you.

 

[Hisako]

Not sure people here were being told not to be annoyed, but it wouldn't be hard to imagine that happening on the internet

 

[Lex]

Well no but everyone's being very "I mean we knew nothing anyway so like EH EH EH" and it's kind of irritating to express a feeling and have it implied that your view is meaningless and stupid, regardless of whether or not that's the way said comments were intended.

I'm not on the hate train, I was looking forward to that dark Shakespeare inspired story they spent years pumping out random trailers for, and at this point I feel like it's gone based on what we've been shown. They could be making the best game ever, and that's cool, I'm not saying I'm not going to get it, I'm just saying that the Versus XIII everyone was hyped for is never going to see the light of day, and yeah I'm pretty damn disappointed about that. I don't know why that's a huge problem for some people.

 

[ForceStealer]

Oh stop, it's not a huge problem for us, Lex, relax. I was just expressing why I thought it might be premature to be disappointed. I didn't say you weren't allowed to be. Excuse me.

 

[Tetsujin]

People are allowed to be disappointed, I just feel like expressing why it might be premature!

The perceived change in tone might simply stem from them being able to focus on things other than broody nighttime scenery and random snippets of dialogue and actually show gameplay and the road trip stuff Nomura had only talked about and we've only seen a small glimpse of in the initial VsXIII trailers.

And also, we do not know if Versus XIII was always going to stay as dark as the trailers implied, nor do we know if XV isn't gonna be that dark in the end after all!

They do emphasize they want to keep Nomura's vision as intact as possible.

I also wanna quote this (Falk Au Yeong works as an audio engineer for the VGO on KH ReMixes and FFXV):
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=166543791&postcount=1402

Alright, I guess now that the thread is sorta winding down instead of going at approximately 5 pages a minute, I'd chip in my own two cents. Without getting too far into things I shouldn't be talking about, do remember that Nomura's style during the mid/late 2000s is to make trailers or video pieces on concepts that are freaking cool, and then integrate them into the game's plot later.

In some cases, like the Secret Movies of Kingdom Hearts, it results in some exceptional scenarios and unbelievable levels of hype. If you're not aware, Another Side, Another Story, KH's secret movie was made prior to fleshing out the story of KH2, and Nojima had to write in the quotes present in the trailer after that fact*. Several key details (har har) were changed from that movie to how it was implemented in-game in KH2 and Chain of Memories, e.g. the keyblades involved. (Get it? Keyblade? Key details? Har har)

While The Gathering was obviously more fleshed out, even it had some elements changed by the time it was fleshed out into Birth By Sleep, KH2FM's secret movie, e.g. Xehanort's design.

* "Another side, Another story..." was meant as more of a concept trailer, showing whatever ideas Tetsuya Nomura had for a sequel at the time; it was not meant to be taken as an actual part of the storyline for the games. Kazushige Nojima, the scenario writer, explained that, after the story for Kingdom Hearts II was written, he had to go back and find places to put in the seemingly random quotes found in both "Another side, Another story..." and "Another Side, Another Story [deep dive]".

It is entirely possible that key elements of the Versus XIII trailers might have been changed even if the project had remained as Versus XIII. While Nomura and Nojima undoubtedly would probably have weaved everything, from the party invasion to Stella and her exact characterization as it had been presented, it into their overall narrative, the existence of those scenes, as they were, were not yet indicative that an entire story had already been completely set in stone utilizing those scenes.

I think honestly, this is one of the gifts Nomura and Nojima have - being able to write in his ideas into a narrative that doesn't break under its own weight when taken in small slices e.g. Kingdom Hearts. When a slightly different set of people took the helm, the decision to find ways to include these smaller concept pieces into the overall narrative becomes a harder one, because if not done correctly it will be at the expense of the game itself, and a disservice to Nomura.

Having spoken to multiple staff members over the past year, what I can say that when they are following Nomura's original vision as much as possible, it's not simply just PR speak. They -are- doing all they can to respect the world and characters that Nomura created. Aesthetically, it's still a fantasy based on reality. Noctis still is crown prince of a family of sword summoners. The combat still is based on capitalizing on that fact. It's still an action-based open world Final Fantasy. The game still is at its core a road trip story. Nojima's plot is still largely intact.

I think the way Tabata handled this announcement was spot-on. It needed to be done sooner rather than later, especially as the marketing campaign for the game itself launches next month, and rampant speculation then would have led to a much bigger fallout than the current situation.

I will say that when I myself found out about the changes (can't say how or when, for obvious reasons), I was a little disappointed, having been someone who also followed Versus XIII (and Somnus, omg) since the start, but FFXV at this point should be judged on its own merits, based on everything that has been revealed from E3 2013 onwards, and I've definitely taken to the world, characters, and story.

Writing off the current female characters in the narrative just because they haven't been really focused on in marketing material up to this point, and just because they aren't what was shown in Versus XIII, does the plot of FFXV a disservice. That much I feel comfortable saying.