I would add that FF7 very clearly had cell phones. But you're right about the other stuff, yes. THough VII's tech level was especially anachronistic. With autonomous robots and, you know, giant laser cannons, but a barely-functioning rocket ship.
With technology I would like to point out that the tech in OG was a product of the time it was made in. Take the office in Junon during the Sapphire's WEAPON attack on the place, there are the old box computer monitors, while in CC Lazard is seen using a flat screen monitor or laptop if I recall correctly.
I'm not an expert on the evolution of computers from the 1990s to now, but I'm sure boxes where much more common than the flat monitors we have now.
Really disliked that they updated the technology. I want my weird anachronistic future with bulky CRT monitors and clunky-ass PHS phone thingies.
Watch them use fucking iPhones in the Remake or something.
Really disliked that they updated the technology. I want my weird anachronistic future with bulky CRT monitors and clunky-ass PHS phone thingies.
Watch them use fucking iPhones in the Remake or something.
I'm curious how much influence Sakaguchi really had over FFVII. My research (go to this page if you have time and search for his name) doesn't yield much reason to believe he did more than name the materia system and come up with the theme of life.hian said:Personally, as I've said in other threads - I don't blame Nomura, Kitase, or Nojima as much as I blame the absence of Sakaguchi, which I've always suspected based on history, interviews, and conversations, to be the father of the various aspects I personally enjoyed as the staples of the pre-SE Final Fantasies.
If Sakaguchi hadn't been there, I suspect FF games would always have been more like the SE FF games.
It's not that these guys suddenly devolved or changed styles - rather that they now work without Sakaguchi influencing the end-product, and labor under the directives of the SE shareholders.
Hear fucking hear.Really disliked that they updated the technology. I want my weird anachronistic future with bulky CRT monitors and clunky-ass PHS phone thingies.
This is what they looked like:Really disliked that they updated the technology. I want my weird anachronistic future with bulky CRT monitors and clunky-ass PHS phone thingies.
Watch them use fucking iPhones in the Remake or something.
Did we ever see one? Everyone always just made a motion to pull it off their belt or shirt pocket, we don't know how bulky they were or weren't. Though even Advent Children's look bulky now.
I'd love that too. Actually, I'd be pretty happy if the mini-games (G-bike, snowboarding, Mog's house) would feature the same graphics as in the OGReally disliked that they updated the technology. I want my weird anachronistic future with bulky CRT monitors and clunky-ass PHS phone thingies.
You've received a friend request said:WEDGE wants to be your friend.
> Yeah.
> Not interested.
I'm curious how much influence Sakaguchi really had over FFVII. My research (go to this page if you have time and search for his name) doesn't yield much reason to believe he did more than name the materia system and come up with the theme of life.
Yet, they several of them also did, and many of them laid the foundations for what ended up being the final ideas implemented."In the second place, according to Nomura, most of Sakaguchi’s original ideas for FFVII didn’t even make it into the final game. While Sakaguchi did provide the game’s pivotal concept of planet life, Nomura has described Sakaguchi’s original plot as “completely different” from the final product."
This too is a pretty shoddy argument to make for several reasons :Sakaguchi’s limited involvement with the game is also reflected by how little he has ever been interviewed with regard to it. With few exceptions, such as this interview from 1997 made for the Squaresoft Collector’s Video released the same year, Sakaguchi has been all but ignored when it comes to discussion of the game’s developmen.
There is a difference between being credited with an idea, which only says something about who came up with it, and someone having influence on creative direction.While Sakaguchi can certainly be credited with memorable ideas like the concept of planet life, materia and a city fueled by mako, when it comes to the cast, he can’t even so much as be credited with the idea of Cloud himself, much less have authority over Cloud’s love life.
This is a clear example of Sakaguchi's creative out-put and executive direction overriding Nomura's - which is the exact opposite of the point the interview was provided to demonstrate.Nomura: Edea. At first, I thought FFVII was going to be the story of a battle against a sorceress. However, development soon shifted when Sakaguchi-san brought out a mako city plot, and the sorceress story was dropped.
With the main point, I gather, being this sentence :The nails in the coffin on this matter are comments from Sakaguchi himself acknowledging his lack of involvement in both FFVII and FFVIII’s development. In the June 5, 2008 issue of Weekly Famitsu, Sakaguchi revealed the following:
The problem here is that the preceding paragraphs literally deal with technical advances needing extra oversight that he and other veterans on the team were not qualified to do (cinematography in 3D etc. being the primary concern) which has nothing at all to do with creative direction on an executive level, which is one part of what production is all about - which he says he was responsible for....enormous work to be done in the producing aspect, so I went in that direction, and I left Kitase in charge of the main aspect.
Actually, that would be really surprising, and that sentence does not belong in a serious article on the topic of FFVII's development cycle.Simply put, Sakaguchi has no ownership over Cloud, Aerith, Tifa or FFVII. It wouldn’t even be surprising if Yoshitaka Amano knew more about Aerith, Tifa and Cloud during development, and — as we’ve seen — he doesn’t even play the Final Fantasy games.
@Hian, man I really wish I could join in on what your are talking about. I never really have done that much in-dept research of the game's development or know too much about the other producers works to argue anything like you are. IMO while some concepts where scrapped like Aerith and Sephiroth being siblings and Midgar looking like the way Yharam does in BloodBorne, well FF7 came out to be a great game.
As you acknowledge inI'm curious how much influence Sakaguchi really had over FFVII. My research (go to this page if you have time and search for his name) doesn't yield much reason to believe he did more than name the materia system and come up with the theme of life.
I find that question pretty strange in a way, although I've heard it from several people.
He was the producer. Knowing the role of producers in video-game development, especially during that time period and in Japan, it really beggars belief that anyone thing final creative control would be with anyone other than Sakaguchi.
hian said:But, as I've clarified before, I am not saying that this (creative control) means that everything in the game (or even a significant portion of it) comes from Sakaguchi I.E him inventing it - I'm saying that as the person calling the shots, and as the person who oversees the work-load, he's the one who molds the process, and selects which ideas get to be in the final product.
We don't know ideas were put up during brain-storming, and how many of those were scrapped, or reworked, before they closed on what would finally be included due to suggestions or objection from Sakaguchi.
A lot of FF fans would disagree with you about that assessment, though. I've seen many comments that FFVII was when the series "stopped being my FF" before briefly returning to form with FFIX and then never going back again. FFVII is widely regarded as the line of demarcation in Final Fantasy's departure from classic style and content.hian said:What we do know is what FFVII ended up being, and it's to my mind, patently obvious that if we're to group FF games on style and content, FFVII (although a game with arguably the biggest width of all the FF games) lands closer to FF1-6, and FF9, than say FF8, FF10-13 (although, as I said, due to the width of the game, it does have similarities to all of them), and the only real common factor here is to my mind, is the presence of Sakaguchi.
To be fair, it was also Sakaguchi who once said "The spirit of the Final Fantasy games has always been to outdo ourselves, to do something that has never been done before" (August 2001 issue of Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine).hian said:After all, Kitase, Nojima and Nomura carried on working on FF media in a close capacity after Sakaguchi left, and they've as far as I'm concerned, not made a single FF game with the feel that the earlier ones have, and constantly strive to mix up the formula, whilst the majority of Sakaguchi's repertoire has remained fairly consistent.
He gets a "Based on a story by" credit along with Nomura, not credit for writing the story (Nojima is consistently referred to as the writer by Kitase). I don't think we'd venture to call Nomura the co-writer based on this same credit, so why would we extend "story writer" to Sakaguchi over it?hian said:It's also worth saying that in the actual credits of the original he is credited as the story writer for the game as well as producer, together with Nomura.
It doesn't. It's just where I had my research on this topic (some of which I've forgotten to add) assembled because of how it related to that topic, so I linked to it. Nowhere did I indicate that the topic of that article was directly related to what we're discussing here.hian said:As for your article -
I'm not sure how it pertains to this issue ...
Perhaps he was; perhaps he wasn't. Had he not been off on his personal quest half the time, we could say with more certainty. But he was, so that's that.hian said:Just like ideas Sakaguchi first fronted ended up being changed, it is quite likely that ideas fronted by Kitase, Nojima and Nomura where informed, changed, adapted etc. in talks between them - talks where Sakaguchi would also be present and involved.
hian said:There is nothing in the interviews to suggest this weren't the case, and the magnitude of his position and the fact that he laid out the basic premise to begin with, would suggest otherwise.
Your argument here is the shoddy one. The only one of us talking about "at the time" is yourself. I spoke of "how little he has ever been interviewed" about FFVII -- and that's the truth.hian said:This too is a pretty shoddy argument to make for several reasons :Sakaguchi’s limited involvement with the game is also reflected by how little he has ever been interviewed with regard to it. With few exceptions, such as this interview from 1997 made for the Squaresoft Collector’s Video released the same year, Sakaguchi has been all but ignored when it comes to discussion of the game’s developmen.
1.) Looking back at the time, not only where the kinds of dev team interviews we see nowadays a bigger rarity, having the producer of a game appearing in such interviews regularly was an even bigger rarity - especially in Japan.
We're going to have to agree to disagree on this. Frankly, it's nothing short of ludicrous to suggest the man wouldn't have more to say about the best-selling Final Fantasy -- the game that ripped open mainstream success for RPGs in the west, and is now getting a remake that fans and gaming journalists alike have literally been begging for going on almost 20 years -- if he had more to do with the storytelling vision at the heart of it.hian said:2.) Since the FFVII dev team was the biggest one to date, and also the largest project to date, with several new faces in new roles etc. it's common sense and courtesy to split up interviews between the various creators in this way. Not only as a means of not swamping people's already tightly packed work-loads, but also as a means of providing credit and platform for up-and-coming talents in the company.
Nomura for instance was really building his career at the time. He had himself requested to be lead character designer for the game, and so it's natural that he would be grabbing for any attention he could to further build his platform.
Simply put, Sakaguchi's involvement, or lack thereof, in interviews is not a metric of much (if any) value in determining his role in the shaping of FFVII.
We'll have to agree to disagree on that as well. Approving an idea that someone else came up with doesn't make you the source of that vision.hian said:There is a difference between being credited with an idea, which only says something about who came up with it, and someone having influence on creative direction.
It's often said that Nomura came up with the limit break system (a really weird thing to say though, since the limit break system is essentially just a slightly evolved version of the desperation attacks that already existed in FF6, which Nomura did not come up with), but what truly matters though in terms of talking about who had the largest impact on FFVII's style to my mind, is the person who made the executive decision to include it after it was proposed by Nomura.
So what "something else entirely" is Sakaguchi talking about when he says he wasn't involved in the story? =Phian said:And that's what I mean when I say Sakaguchi's influence is likely to have been significant, and that most people, including the team themselves, are probably talking about something else entirely.
"Almost all the story was done by Kitase." "I've left all the in-game event scripting in his hands."hian said:When Sakaguchi says he left event scripting to Kitase for instance, that's what he and others mean when they say he took a more hands-off approach - literally, that he was not the one making all the ideas, or sitting in the office tapping away at a key-board to implement them - not that he was not the one calling the shots on which ideas would be included or not.
Yes, Sakaguchi introducing an idea that merged with that other idea (the one Nomura was expecting) to become "Parasite Eve" instead is a clear example of his overriding direction of FFVII's story. =Phian said:The irony is that this paragraph that I quoted above follows the very part of an interview where Nomura talks about his idea for Edea from FFVIII originally being conceived for FFVII -
This is a clear example of Sakaguchi's creative out-put and executive direction overriding Nomura's - which is the exact opposite of the point the interview was provided to demonstrate.Nomura: Edea. At first, I thought FFVII was going to be the story of a battle against a sorceress. However, development soon shifted when Sakaguchi-san brought out a mako city plot, and the sorceress story was dropped.
The whole of the quoted material was the main point, which is why I quoted the portions I did while omitting other bits.hian said:Your article goes on to say :
With the main point, I gather, being this sentence :The nails in the coffin on this matter are comments from Sakaguchi himself acknowledging his lack of involvement in both FFVII and FFVIII’s development. In the June 5, 2008 issue of Weekly Famitsu, Sakaguchi revealed the following:
...enormous work to be done in the producing aspect, so I went in that direction, and I left Kitase in charge of the main aspect.
hian ... buddy ... it's entirely pertinent to what we're talking about. That is literally what we're talking about: the story.hian said:Leaving Kitase in charge of the "main aspect" is a mirror statement to one he's made other places referring specifically to event scripting and the directing of story scenes, and as I've said earlier, that is not pertinent to the point in this regards.
"Almost all the story was done by Kitase." "I've left all the in-game event scripting in his hands."hian said:Yes, dialogue was written by Nojima, yes characters and characters arcs where largely developed by Nomura, and yes, everything you see playing out on screen in events was directed by Kitase - but it was all overseen by Sakaguchi, and planned in board-meetings where he would have been present.
Again, to reiterate :
We don't know how many ideas were scrapped, or how many times he said : "How about we go with that idea instead of that one?", but looking at everything Nojima, Kitase and Nomura has done the moment Sakaguchi was no longer producer, when they would have had larger creative freedom, and based on the fact that what ended up making then is so drastically different from FFVII and earlier FF games, it is not at all unrealistic to imagine that what Sakaguchi did not provide in terms of original ideas, he did provide in terms of creative directives to ensure that specific style.
On the one hand we have someone who at least made illustrations of those characters (as well as made the original design that became Vincent), and so at least had the vaguest ideas of who the characters were. Then we've got a guy who has never uttered a peep about any of them, nor been credited in any meaningful way with anything about their creation or the directions they were taken in the story of their game.hian said:Actually, that would be really surprising, and that sentence does not belong in a serious article on the topic of FFVII's development cycle.Simply put, Sakaguchi has no ownership over Cloud, Aerith, Tifa or FFVII. It wouldn’t even be surprising if Yoshitaka Amano knew more about Aerith, Tifa and Cloud during development, and — as we’ve seen — he doesn’t even play the Final Fantasy games.
Sadly, Kitase has demonstrated a propensity for being every bit the idiot Nomura can be, just in his own special ways. He also seems to more or less greet Nomura's suggestions with a rubber stamp and a look of awe.Talking for instance about the remake :
If people think Nomura is going to be able to pull whatever stunts he wants as a director without the go-ahead or approval of Kitase as producer, they're just not in touch with how development works in Japan.
As you acknowledge in , final creative control and actual creative influence are two very different things. We've all had a supervisor who was so focused on other things -- say, for instance, flying around the world meeting with film studio executives, setting up a studio in Honolulu, and writing/directing one of the most expensive animated film failures of all time =P -- that they left other things officially under their purview to technically get done by other people.
A lot of FF fans would disagree with you about that assessment, though. I've seen many comments that FFVII was when the series "stopped being my FF" before briefly returning to form with FFIX and then never going back again. FFVII is widely regarded as the line of demarcation in Final Fantasy's departure from classic style and content.
If that classic style was Sakaguchi's influence (and of course it was), then you're sort of making my point for me, depending on who you ask. FFVII would be an example of diminished creative involvement on his part given how often it's cited as the shift in style for the series.
To be fair, it was also Sakaguchi who once said "The spirit of the Final Fantasy games has always been to outdo ourselves, to do something that has never been done before" (August 2001 issue of Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine).....
.....According to the man himself, change is a cornerstone of what makes Final Fantasy.
He gets a "Based on a story by" credit along with Nomura, not credit for writing the story (Nojima is consistently referred to as the writer by Kitase). I don't think we'd venture to call Nomura the co-writer based on this same credit, so why would we extend "story writer" to Sakaguchi over it?
And again, we've had Nomura tell us that Sakaguchi's original concept has next to nothing to do with the final product -- not to mention that we know his attention was divided with working on bankrupting Square via The Spirits Within at the time.
Perhaps he was; perhaps he wasn't. Had he not been off on his personal quest half the time, we could say with more certainty. But he was, so that's that.
Not that I'm saying he never looked at the story before the game was released. Obviously he approved it. However, when Kitase talked about the keepers of FFVII's lore in this interview from 2008, Sakaguchi's name didn't come into the equation at all. Nojima's did. Nomura's did. Naora's did. Kitase's own did..
Where's Hironobu? He's not there. He's not there for a reason. And it can't even be said that the reason is that Sakaguchi is no longer with Square Enix, as, in the same interview, Kitase said, "Anything relating to the stories, Mr Nojima, who is no longer with Square Enix is really still the top authority.".
Sakaguchi basically never comes up when talking about FFVII's story. He never gets interviewed about it. He's barely credited with anything outside what hardware the game was made with. The dude simply didn't have the same degree of involvement in the creative process as he did with the first six FFs. He just didn't.
I started this discussion because you're intellectual, you live in Japan, and I was hoping you had access to resources that I don't. But you've not been able to cite a single interview that would indicate a different conclusion from what I'd previously arrived at through my research -- even as I cite interview after interview..
Only -- yet again -- Sakaguchi himself has indicated he wasn't around much while FFVII and VIII were being made because, starting in 1996, he was making his movie. "I am mainly working on the movie" he said in one response I showed you. "I left Kitase in charge of the main aspect [of FFVII]" he said in another.
From yet another interview: "I’ve been working with Kitase for a long time, since FF5. He did most of the event scenes in FF6: the opera house, Celes’ suicide scene, the scene where Setzer climbs the stairs and reminisces, and more. I’m not exactly turning things over to the next generation just yet, but for FF7 almost all the story was done by Kitase. His original ambition was to be a film director, so he’s well-disposed towards this work–I’ve left all the in-game event scripting in his hands."
"Almost all the story was done by Kitase." "I've left all the in-game event scripting in his hands."
Full stop.
He could have been more involved with FFVII's story had he wanted to be. He didn't.
Your argument here is the shoddy one. The only one of us talking about "at the time" is yourself. I spoke of "how little he has ever been interviewed" about FFVII -- and that's the truth.
Also, again, Nojima hasn't been an SE employee for almost ten years, yet he continues being interviewed about FFVII all the time. It's not like Sakaguchi is unavailable or no longer making games -- yet the dude just doesn't get asked questions about the most famous game from the series he's most known for being the father of?
There's really only one good reason: He didn't have much to do with it beyond the technical stuff.
We're going to have to agree to disagree on this. Frankly, it's nothing short of ludicrous to suggest the man wouldn't have more to say about the best-selling Final Fantasy -- the game that ripped open mainstream success for RPGs in the west, and is now getting a remake that fans and gaming journalists alike have literally been begging for going on almost 20 years -- if he had more to do with the storytelling vision at the heart of it.
We'll have to agree to disagree on that as well. Approving an idea that someone else came up with doesn't make you the source of that vision.
I'll have to take your word for Nomura not coming up with the Desperation Attacks..
So what "something else entirely" is Sakaguchi talking about when he says he wasn't involved in the story? =P
"Almost all the story was done by Kitase." "I've left all the in-game event scripting in his hands."
So, no.
Yes, Sakaguchi introducing an idea that merged with that other idea (the one Nomura was expecting) to become "Parasite Eve" instead is a clear example of his overriding direction of FFVII's story. =P
Sakaguchi outright said he was responsible for the stories of the games up through VI -- meaning things changed after VI. I even quoted another interview where he outright said his priority with FFVII was game design as opposed to story.
There's really little to no question here of his creative influence on the story. It's not non-existent, but it's minimal -- by his own admission.
hian ... buddy ... it's entirely pertinent to what we're talking about. That is literally what we're talking about: the story.
On the one hand we have someone who at least made illustrations of those characters (as well as made the original design that became Vincent), and so at least had the vaguest ideas of who the characters were. Then we've got a guy who has never uttered a peep about any of them, nor been credited in any meaningful way with anything about their creation or the directions they were taken in the story of their game.
Yes, the comment was hyperbolic -- and the paragraph I just wrote needs to be hung on a lampshade as well -- but that was also the point: To emphasize just how little Sakaguchi can be credited for the most important things about FFVII. If the man has ever even said Cloud's name, it would be news to me..
Sadly, Kitase has demonstrated a propensity for being every bit the idiot Nomura can be, just in his own special ways. He also seems to more or less greet Nomura's suggestions with a rubber stamp and a look of awe.
Before closing, I want to say, by the way, that I hope it doesn't seem like I'm talking shit about Sakaguchi. The dude is obviously brilliant and I have mad respect for him. Even The Spirits Within is an amazing work of art -- it wasn't terribly insightful as to what would be a successful movie, nor what FF fans would be expecting, but it's still fucking amazing.
I'm just utterly, utterly baffled that you would ignore his own admissions about FFVII's development and overlook that his name is also on FFVIII and FFX -- which you cite as examples of what happens without him at the helm post-FFVII -- as executive producer when his role with those games was much the same as it had been with FFVII.
The August 2001 issue of Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine (issue 47) that I cited earlier. There's a large feature on The Spirits Within and FF in general, and an interview with Sakaguchi. It speaks of how, in 1996, the success of "Toy Story" (released in November 1995) was fresh on everyone's mind, including Sakaguchi's, and that -- as Square was getting into more cinematic CG storytelling -- he recognized the potential for Square to do something like it, and so began that process before FFVII was released.As you acknowledge in , final creative control and actual creative influence are two very different things. We've all had a supervisor who was so focused on other things -- say, for instance, flying around the world meeting with film studio executives, setting up a studio in Honolulu, and writing/directing one of the most expensive animated film failures of all time =P -- that they left other things officially under their purview to technically get done by other people.
Except that the 4 year production cycle of Spirits of Within started the year FFVII was released, not before, meaning that there is no real overlap between those two development cycles.
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And as for The Spirits Within - again, as far as I know, seeing as how the movie had a 4 year development cycle and was released in 2001, there is no overlap between the development cycle of that movie and FFVII as far as I know, so if you say otherwise, sources please.
The flipside to this coin is that FFVII and VIII's writing have been compared as similar to one another -- and different from the past games of the series -- by how they both began the trend of dwelling on the main characters' private dramas as the central narrative of the overarching plot, and especially by how they delve into the angst of the main character.hian said:A lot of FF fans would disagree with you about that assessment, though. I've seen many comments that FFVII was when the series "stopped being my FF" before briefly returning to form with FFIX and then never going back again. FFVII is widely regarded as the line of demarcation in Final Fantasy's departure from classic style and content.
And that's not an argument. FFVII from a game-play perspective, and arguably from a story-perspective as well, literally builds on almost every convention established by FFVI, which is why so many of the people who prefer the SNES games consider it superior to VII.
Those fans are knee-jerking over the fact that FFVII suddenly got accessible and mainstreamed over night, and did a turn-away from the classical high-fantasy settings of earlier games.
Yet, from the aesthetics to the game-play, the story and writing, FFVII retains deformed characters, a battle system that essentially just introduces the mechanics from FFVI, with a character development system that is essentially just an open ended skill-placement system, instead of an open-ended class system (which had already been done several times), and still has the same slap-stick humor and save-the-world plot as always.
If not clear previously, I should hope it is by now that I'm more discerning than that.hian said:It's clear here that we're talking past each-other here, because I see Sakaguchi's style as an amalgamation of various aspects, whilst the fans you're speaking of here, and if you're in their camp, are talking about one aspect - namely the classical fantasy VS modern-punk/cyber-punk fantasy which we see later.
And that depends on the topic.hian said:Except that wouldn't be a point now would it?
A point worth making is not a point dependent on who you ask ...
hian said:... and I'm not asking to begin with.
Which we -- and many others -- see different things in, and which even you see different things in than some of this game's core developers. Yet we all see these things as self-evident in the products.hian said:It does not matter what people say in interviews about this - the evidence is there to see in the actual products.
All the time with Kitase.hian said:How often do you find producers being interviews in-depth about stories of their games, that they did not write?
Why do Rob Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza continue being interviewed about creating Deadpool over 20 years ago? He's been around the neighborhood more than any bicycle.hian said:And that's strange how?
FFVII had by that point taken a completely different turn with the compilation titles etc.
Why would Sakaguchi be considered a keeper of FFVII's lore in the context of the franchise at that point in time?
Regardless of whatever he had to do with the original, he has nothing to do with anything else that is now considered the canon of the game.
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The reason he never comes up when talking about FFVII's story is because A.) He neither wrote nor directed it and B.) FFVII is now a compilation of titles, everything with the exception of the original, with which Sakaguchi bears no relevance.
Why would anyone interview him about FFVII's story in light of that?
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You're seriously asking why Sakaguchi isn't regularly being interviews about a almost two decades old game, which has been expanded into a franchise he has nothing to do with, that he made for a company that no longer exists, while he's working on new products, when there are already plenty of people working on that franchise for another company, with more media flair that give regular interviews?
No, seriously?
At this point, we're getting into a philosophical, and even legal, debate that has gone on with the western comics industry for decades -- e.g. what constitutes work-for-hire and what rewards should come with that?hian said:Because Nojima wrote everything, of course he'd be the primary expert on FFVII lore. That doesn't mean that the overarching style of the game can be attributed to him alone (not saying you imply this - just making a point).
These things are not relevant to one another.
Point in case - Let's say I come to you and say, "Hey, I have an idea for a story - I want to make this modern version of Hercules set in a distant, dystopian cyber-punk future! Can you write something for me?"
After you've written that story, of course you'll be the authority on that story. You wrote it after all - However, you wouldn't have written anything at all, if I hadn't come to you first, and moreover, what you wrote was driven creatively by the concept I gave you.
That makes me a significant factor in creative process whether you like it or not, because what you would have written without me approaching you with that specific setting would, very probably, be completely different.
Sakaguchi is not relevant when talking about the details of FFVII (and certainly not now, in light of the compilation, which he had no part in what so ever), he is however relevant when talking about the overarching elements that make FFVII into what it is.
Think of it as an egg - Where Sakaguchi (and of course the rest of the higher-ups) are the shell, and the actual content creators are the contents of the egg.
I'm not trying to downplay the role of the rest of the team here - I'm saying that when FFVII is a traditional Japanese role-playing game, with an open ended character development system, has a world-map, a focus on large scale adventure, character-driven plot, deformed character designs, has some elements of romance, some of Lovecraftian horror, and so forth and so forth, these are elements that tend to be drawn up in the early stages of concept design, and they are elements that tend to be closely overseen by the producer and discussed with him or her.
They are also, by the interviews you see dearly cite, things Sakaguchi was involved in.
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Again, I am not saying Sakaguchi made up FFVII, or came up with all the ideas. I'm saying he provided context and creative censure for those ideas, which is what a producer does.
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Again, If I tell you to write a story for you and provide you 4 plot themes I want you to incorporate, provide you a setting and style I wish you to adhere to, and then leave you to it - I am not involved in writing that story. I'm not the authority, or the person to go to and talk about the details of that story once it's finished.
I am however, still the person who set out the path for that story turning into what it was.
I guess if I tell you to bake me a cake, and give you money to do it, then I did not have meaningful impact on what happens next, because you might end up baking a chocolate cake, or a strawberry short-cake or whatever takes your fancy, and since I didn't specify that aspect of it, that makes the entire difference?
I value your insight as another piece of the puzzle, but when, for example, you're citing FFVII as an example of the ongoing use of an aesthetic that both the art designer and character designer have plainly said they weren't using -- there's clearly value in my observations and approach as well.hian said:This is silly.
First, the reason I don't cite resources, is because A.) my argument is not dependent on resources in that sense, and B.) what resources they are dependent on, which would be a decade of interactions with Japanese developers (some of which worked on the original FFVII I might add) cannot be provided in either case without becoming an empty appeal to authority which I really don't wish to make.
I don't consider the interviews to be of any value in this context. They simply aren't relevant. Especially if they're not read in context of the times, and Japanese culture/customs and the Japanese gaming scene.
Interviews are framed by politics of companies and individual perspectives. I've already provided examples of errors in speech concerning the newest interviews on the remake, and I've pointed out how Nomura taking credit for the limit break system in and of itself is
completely silly, even though it's stated in black and white in an interview.
People need to stop treating this stuff like Biblical literalists.
It has to be read in context. I'm reading this interviews in context of my knowledge about the company at the time, and about the industry in Japan. That's my insight, and it's based on personal experience.
You can dismiss that if you want, but to dismiss it based on those interviews is to fail to grasp the very essence of the argument here. I am not arguing from a different set of sources, I'm arguing from a different perspective as a source in my own right.
Whether you accept that or not, is entirely up to you, but to expect me to supply you with sources for speculation based on personal experience, versus your speculation based on interviews is a moot exercise. It is to assume that these interviews give a clear distinction of what you think has been said (which I have argued they don't) on top of which you have to assume that your speculation has more value in light of that than mine (which again, I have argued isn't the case).
I brought it up to head you off at the pass on citing Sakaguchi's absence from the company as a reason he isn't interviewed about the game's story -- but you still went there anyway.hian said:Seriously?
Nomija has been writing and expanding the FFVII universe regularly since its original release.
Nojima has been writing for SE steadily ever since the release of the game (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazushige_Nojima)
To say that he hasn't been an SE employee for almost ten years is such a meaningless statement in the light of the writing he has done for them in that same time period, that it borders on looking like being willfully deceptive to win an argument.
Please don't do that.
There are clearly differences in what we each consider "meaningful" here, as well as what we're each even discussing. I've been trying to talk about nothing but the story from go, and you keep dragging this in other directions before coming back around to the story.hian said:The point here is patently obvious - Sakaguchi sits down with his team, and discusses ideas.
They have an impact on that, and he has an impact on that. It's a concerted effort - but at the end of the day, the ideas pass by Sakaguchi's desk and where discussed with him, and there is good reason to believe that the overall style of FFVII has been impacted by that process to some degree, which I would call "meaningful" since FFVII is largely consistent with other Sakaguchi works, whilst post-merger FF games are largely not except in the most superficial of ways.
Which has never been what I said, even once. Ever. As should be painfully obvious.hian said:No, because that's not what "we" are talking about. It's what you're superimposing on the conversation in order to justify a completely different claim - namely that Sakaguchi had little to no creative influence on FFVII as a whole.
Yes, I have noticed you constantly changing the subject I wanted to talk about -- a topic you began all this with, by the way. It's been annoying the shit out of me.hian said:Notice that I've never limited my discussion of FFVII here to only its story.
I consistently use words like style, themes, feel etc.
Was it the one where he said something about Kitase being better at spectacle, so he tries to be better at emotion?hian said:It's a question of how many ideas and what kind of ideas were passed around the office at the time, and how the team came to decide what to go with and what not to go with.
And here I believe Sakaguchi made an impact, because, as I've said a 1000 times, there is a clear distinction between the games he is involved with in some capacity, and those where people like Kitase are in full creative control over.
In fact, although I was dumb enough to close the god damn tab, I was just reading an interview with Sakaguchi where he comments on the distinction between his style and vision for games, and Kitase's.
At least we can agree that we should be afraid.hian said:Sadly, Kitase has demonstrated a propensity for being every bit the idiot Nomura can be, just in his own special ways. He also seems to more or less greet Nomura's suggestions with a rubber stamp and a look of awe.
That I agree with. If anything, I'm getting the distinct feeling that in the case of the remake, it definitely is Nomura's brain-child more so than Kitase's and that Kitase's probably willing to defer to Nomura on most issues.
The August 2001 issue of Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine (issue 47) that I cited earlier. There's a large feature on The Spirits Within and FF in general, and an interview with Sakaguchi. It speaks of how, in 1996, the success of "Toy Story" (released in November 1995) was fresh on everyone's mind, including Sakaguchi's, and that -- as Square was getting into more cinematic CG storytelling -- he recognized the potential for Square to do something like it, and so began that process before FFVII was released.
So, yeah, as you mention further down in your post, he was fully engrossed with that process during FFVIII's development, but he was already getting things ready during FFVII's.
There's a net loss of ginormous degree at that crossroads. You can speak to an emergence of differences in style and whatnot that we see in FFVIII, and how plain that is to see -- but to my eyes (and that of many other fans), it's plain to see that FFVIII's atmosphere was just a continuation of what began at FFVII.
Are Sakaguchi's sensibilities still present with FFVII? Sure, some of them. Some are even still there in FFVIII. Hell, some are still there in FFX!
He was their mentor. For that, if no other reason, his influence would linger even after he didn't. But there are some way obvious signs of his decreased presence beginning with FFVII at as obvious a place as the character design and storytelling sensibilities.
If you can't see those differences, I can't make you see them -- but they have all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
The flipside to this coin is that FFVII and VIII's writing have been compared as similar to one another -- and different from the past games of the series -- by how they both began the trend of dwelling on the main characters' private dramas as the central narrative of the overarching plot, and especially by how they delve into the angst of the main character.
And VIII doesn't still have some of that slapstick humor? Biggs and Wedge anyone?
Save-the-world plots aren't exactly a Sakaguchi-exclusive either, by the way, so that's not fair. =P
Also, it's ironic you mention the deformed characters, as Nomura and Naora have both said FFVII was a departure from the use of the chibi style. Those character models may look like lego people to us now (or even in 1999), but at the time, these guys were very deliberately trying to move past the aesthetic conventions that had dominated FF design up 'til then. Which is one example of why I think FFVIII was just a continuation of the sensibilities that began taking hold with VII's development.
Which we -- and many others -- see different things in, and which even you see different things in than some of this game's core developers. Yet we all see these things as self-evident in the products.
All the time with Kitase.
Why do Rob Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza continue being interviewed about creating Deadpool over 20 years ago? He's been around the neighborhood more than any bicycle.
Again, though, this is a debate that has raged -- and will continue to rage -- for decades. As you've pointed out, games like this are collaborative works. While there are some for which the word applies to, I'd prefer we both recognize that there is no auteur behind FFVII.
I value your insight as another piece of the puzzle, but when, for example, you're citing FFVII as an example of the ongoing use of an aesthetic that both the art designer and character designer have plainly said they weren't using -- there's clearly value in my observations and approach as well.
I brought it up to head you off at the pass on citing Sakaguchi's absence from the company as a reason he isn't interviewed about the game's story -- but you still went there anyway.
There are clearly differences in what we each consider "meaningful" here, as well as what we're each even discussing. I've been trying to talk about nothing but the story from go, and you keep dragging this in other directions before coming back around to the story..
I can agree that he had a profound impact on the overall production and even specific aspects of said production while concluding his involvement on another aspect was not all that meaningful. That's what I've done here.
Which has never been what I said, even once. Ever. As should be painfully obvious..
If only because I obviously don't give two tugs of a dead dog's cock about anything here but the story.
Yes, I have noticed you constantly changing the subject I wanted to talk about -- a topic you began all this with, by the way. It's been annoying the shit out of me.
Was it the one where he said something about Kitase being better at spectacle, so he tries to be better at emotion?
At least we can agree that we should be afraid.
True enough. I still imagine convincing Square to spend tens of millions of dollars and convincing a Hollywood studio to work with them had to be demanding.The planning process, and the development process is quite different though.
Also true. He's also been interviewed about that one, though, so that's not really the best example you could have gone with.hian said:Another point I didn't go into, is the fact that FFIX's development time also overlaps with TSW, and obviously Sakaguchi had plenty of time for that.
Sorry.hian said:You're overstating my argument.
Fair enough.hian said:Notice how I focus on post-merger FF and the titles made by Nomura, Nojima and Kitase after Sakaguchi left as when styles truly diverged.
FFVIII and FFX to my mind was were this first began, but as I also said, I still consider them to be well within the original spirit of the FF games (unlike say FFXII which is clearly more close to FF:Tactics and Vagrant Story than a FF).
My point is that the divergence in style becomes clearer and clearer the less Sakaguchi has to do with the production, and to my mind, FFVII is still much closer to home than FFVIII, or FFX.
Yeah, but it was only with VII or VIII that you could say the central conflict of the story became the main character's personal crap. You can't even say that about FFVI -- you literally don't even have to recruit Terra back into the party or resolve Celes's quest to find Locke.hian said:Which one would those be? You later speak of personalized character driven story lines, but they began as early as FF4, and where clearly present in FF5 and FF6 as well.
hian said:Yet you provide no examples of them ...
They weren't, but that's also not what I said. =Phian said:I remember clearly the fan-reactions to VIII's plot and Squall back when the game was first released, and people where not saying how great it was because it was similar to their favorite FFVII =P
This may literally be a first for me, bro. I'm used to seeing FFX described almost like it's from another series altogether, even by fans who love it.hian said:I'm not saying it didn't. Again, you're focusing on a relatively minor point here, as I've clarified several times that I don't see VIII and X as major diviations from earlier conventions, I see them as the starting ground.
And this is why I used that "depending on who you ask" phrasing before, which you decried as irrelevant then.hian said:I know a lot of people say the same for FFVII, and it is true that it deviates in many ways too, although I would say, like most people that are fans of FFVI, that this is largely exaggerated since most of the things that people consider different or original with FFVII was already present in one form or another in FFVI.
hian said:Divorcing the points from one another and looking at them in isolation, no it would not be fair.
However that is the exact opposite of how you should appraise that point when I've stated clearly countless times now that I am talking about Sakaguchi's style as being an amalgamation of different aspects, of which world-saving plots is one aspect.
I did not claim that it's unique to Sakaguchi - I was simply musing on what is reasonable to say is a trend in games he is involved with.
Let me put it another way then: Achieving their vision for the aesthetics required moving past FF's prevailing aesthetic conventions. Don't get one of the results confused with the goal.hian said:I have contentions with that characterization -
Firstly, there is nothing in that interview that speaks of moving past aesthetic conventions - it's talking about practical concerns due to cinematography (nitoshin characters not being able to ride bikes without looking weird, or wielding swords).
Good point. It is a distinction worth making.hian said:Secondly, the fact that the characters are not two-headed (nitoshin), which is the most extreme level of chibi design you find, does not change the fact that they are still deformed/chibi to a great extent.
You referenced looking to the comic book industry a few days ago on a related topic, so I thought you were more familiar with it.hian said:I have no idea. I don't know the circumstances around the Deadpool comic. If I did, maybe I'd have an answer.
But if you're not going to give me the context, I have no way of evaluation how analogous this is or isn't to FFVII, and as such, it isn't an argument.
They even made FFX-2 while he was still around (the game was made before the merger, even if the publication happened after). You've got to admit that Square was over Sakaguchi by then.hian said:I'm not trying to super-impose Sakaguchi as some sort of creator for most of FFVII's material, but you do at this point seem unnatural keen on making the point that not had he no meaningful impact, little to no contact with the developments team creative process, and that FFVII is somehow so different from earlier FF games that it doesn't make sense to put the distinction of change in the franchise at him leaving the company.
Many have rightly pointed out, though, that FFVII really only has the illusion of free exploration. You still have to follow a very specific path for half the game, with forced boundaries keeping you along that path.hian said:I find this strange for so many reasons - the biggest one being that you're now focusing almost exclusively on VII's similarities to VIII and X, despite the fact that all three of these games fall within the reign of Sakaguchi within the company, and despite the fact that these games all to quite a large degree follow conventions established by the NES/SNES FF games.
I simply pointed out that I think that we see a fluctuation in changes already before he quit in FFVIII and FFX, although, as you've said some people can argue that they are present in VII as well.
My point is simply that I think the changes in FFVII are overstated, as anyone who's fairly familiar with FFVI can and would argue, and that we see more clearly the precursors to the change we now see in the FF franchise in games like FFVIII and FFX - FFVIII completely ditching stylized unrealistic graphics in favor of realism, and FFX being the true beginning of the stream-lined, less exploration focused game-play.
I respect your point of view (genuinely; I enjoy the hell out of reading your posts), but I disagree with it here.hian said:I don't see that trend as starting with FFVII. I see that trend as taking its first baby-steps with VIII, then X, and finally beginning to fester with XII.
Fair enough.hian said:Except that I qualified it, and it was in context like this :
It's even more confusing however, if you bring it up in a contemporary context where A.) FFVII is now a compilation that stretches far beyond its original title
B.) Sakaguchi no longer works for SE, and has had no part in the franchise after the original at all
C.) When he is hardly ever relevant in context of conversations one might have on the FFVII franchise that cannot be adequately or better covered by people in SE who have been working with the FFVII far longer than Sakaguchi.
This is why Sakaguchi no longer being at SE is relevant.
Not because not being there in and of itself is the reason, but because the company has now moved FFVII into a franchise of which Sakaguchi has nothing to say at all, whilst SE has several people more intimately tied all willing and able to speak about it.
I responded to the rest because you brought it up. Simple as that.hian said:Which is ridiculous, since the flow of this exchange goes like this with you posing this question to me :
"I'm curious how much influence Sakaguchi really had over FFVII."
I then detailing what I believe the nature of his influence to be - as a producer - which you then engage with on every level, then you revert to focus on story when it suits the argument, and now you claim it's unreasonable of me for not having the conversation primarily about story because that's what you really want to talk about?
...
Then be more consistent with your argument, because if that was the only thing you were interested in to begin with, your first reply to me should have been "I'm not talking about Sakaguchi's involvement in anything other than the writing of the story" and left it at that.
The second of which makes explicitly clear that I'm talking about the story (the "technical stuff" obviously being very important to the existence of the product, so I wouldn't be sticking my tongue out at that as though it were irrelevant), while the context of this discussion should at least have hinted that's what I meant by "creative process" in the first.hian said:"The dude simply didn't have the same degree of involvement in the creative process as he did with the first six FFs. He just didn't.
"There's really only one good reason: He didn't have much to do with it beyond the technical stuff."
Your statements, not mine.
hian said:As it is, you got the argument you deserved, not the one you wanted =P
So, what are we doing then?hian said:Then we are in full agreement.The Twilight Mexican said:I can agree that he had a profound impact on the overall production and even specific aspects of said production while concluding his involvement on another aspect was not all that meaningful. That's what I've done here.
I'll be waiting to catch it.hian said:I'm not banking on anything quite yet.
As I said in another thread, I think my real bet will be in the moment I get a screenshot, or video of Cloud outside of Midgar.
That's really when we'll get a sense of what kind of game this will be.
If I get the faintest feeling that we'll be running through woodland corridors to be segued into cut-scenes at regular intervals, that's when I'll throw in the towel on the expectations-train.
This is what they looked like:
Chiming in on the topic of phones from awhile back...
This is what they looked like:
Cell Phones were already a lot more advanced than that back when FF7 came out. The PHS is a deliberate throwback. Possibly intentionally as a "Burner Phone"
That's pretty much exactly what cell phones looked like when FFVII was being made. Here's a couple Nokias from 1996: