FFXV discussion thread [No Spoilers]

[Hey Everyone]

Or he only heard the story beats from someone else and is just regurgitating them mixed in with his own made up shit, which only proves that he had some story beats right from whatever source told him that, yet he got a lot of other things wrong which indicates he was making shit up just to spread negativity surrounding the game.

Again Noctis dies at the end of the game, in a CGI cutscene, one that was being made since 2015. This leaker claims that all the bros are fine in the end, which goes against the fact that Noctis dies at the end, which someone in his supposed position should have known. What does Ardyn being 2000 change? No one is denying this, that doesn't in anyway change the fact that he said that the bros were fine in the end despite us knowing that Noctis dies at the e

The gate is mentioned in Versus, Valhalla is not. Stop
Astrals are gods, in Episode Duscae Ignis specifically refers to Ramuh as a god after you summon him, and the artwork in the ending is part of the whole cosmogony stuff which is also in the final game which shows the former kings of Lucis, the Astrals bar Ifrit, Daemons below the chosen king of light with his sword sworn by him.

No I'm not just talking about the Omen trailer, I'm talking about in FFXV itself right after Noctis gets the Trident of the Oracle from Shiva and Noctis shatters the frozen Ardyn, Ignis and Gladio get up and go to the next cart then Noctis see's Luna's ghost in front of him.
Noctis can see the souls because if you payed attention his eyes go red during that final CGI cutscene, they also go red whenever he summons an Astral which means it's related to a power of the gods.

Recurring theme through a trilogy that was never once stated by anyone on any official position to be a trilogy? Sure thing. Stop fucking clinging to bullshit.

nd and there being an entire CGI scene dedicated to his death. And we saw alt costumes with colors mere months after he stated that there wouldn't be anything other than black

Spoiler: everything

The bros are fine, Noctis isn't that doesn't go against the fact that Noctis the main character dies, and again the script was going through rewrites.
Also the Astrals weren't even called Astrals they were Eidolons at one point, and the gods were different Etro was going to be one of them, and Somnus was in reference to a sleeping god, the Astrals were there, you could call them gods in the same way you could call the summons gods, but they weren't the main focus, as we can clearly see in the Versus trailers as opposed to now. Unless you want to tell me that Final Fantasy Versus XIII was always Etro, the sleeping God, and the Six who weren't called Astrals but Eidolons to begin with and that was before the FNC was removed that means gods and goddess changed. (http://arcadesushi.com/final-fantasy-15-director-speaks-on-eidolons-airships-and-more/)

When it was known as Final Fantasy Versus XIII, Final Fantasy XV made use of the Fabula Nova Crystallis mythos, including the terminology. By 2015, the use of the mythos had been reduced to an unexpressed thematic base for the game's world. The woman represented in the game's logo was said to be the most important goddess in the world's lore that woman wasn't suppose to be Luna there are evident changes to the FFXV lore and mythos here, and the Astrals themselves they weren't gods who created the world as it seems to be in the games canon the game original had very different gods

Also what you say about the eyes that see the light of expiring souls that wasn't it
Also the eyes that see expiring souls isn't Noctis seeing souls of the dead this was the original concept for it.

Uniquely for Final Fantasy Versus XIII, it was said that those who had had a near-death experience could "see the light of expiring souls" and gain power from the Kingdom of the Dead. An aspect that made Final Fantasy Versus XIII distinct from the rest of the series was its focus on the human perspective of the mythos's core divine conflict,

It wasn't Noctis just simply seeing souls, he was also able to predict the deaths of people with this ability.

Also about the trilogy thing
http://www.redgamingtech.com/final-...e-direct-sequels-confirmed-by-tetsuya-nomura/
Poster on 4chan correctly leaked the title of MS conference's FFXV demo (Trial of the Titan). The guy was right about most of the stuff he said, and some of the stuff stated you could only know if you were in development of the game unless you want to tell me that Gentiana being Shiva this entire time was in the trailers, because we only saw Shiva in the claim your throne trailer, oh and he was right about the summons as well, unless you want to tell me that Ifrit was a known summon when we only saw him in the Gamescom Demo, He knew about Gentiana being Shiva unless you want to tell me that she was in revealed to be so in one of the trailers somehow. Bahamut was one of the summons, when people were wondering if he was going to be in the game, because I can't for the life of me think of a trailer that showed Bahamut, unless you want to tell me that is some random ass guess that he managed to be spot on about every single summon, then this discussion is over. FFXV was meant to have sequels that had one climax to the story, so a trilogy, each of the leaks have consistently said trilogy, and with this one being close to incredibly accurate to how the game turned out, even saying it was unfinished which it is, then I don't see why I would discount the trilogy claim when it's a lot more believable then what you suggest, and has an official source which is Nomura himself.

And he shared more.

A lot more.

Warning: MASSIVE spoilers.

"Gentianas role in the story."
Gentiana is Shiva in human disguise. dogs are Shiva servants.

"who dies? who is final boss?"
Luna and the dad die, final boss is Ardyn, the red head guy
Luna dies
>King dies

[

 

[Nova]

@Jubileus

This one's my #1 favorite of them all, actually. SSStylish-esque DMC meets Final Fantasy.

 

[Hey Everyone]

But "it takes no skill to play FFXV".

Oh it takes skill to play Final Fantasy XV, but the problem for a lot of people is you can't die, it's nearly impossible to die.

 

[T.O.T]

Oh it takes skill to play Final Fantasy XV, but the problem for a lot of people is you can't die, it's nearly impossible to die.

I think Castlemark is the one exception given how items can't be used...or am I thinking of a different dungeon? You may want to add some spoiler tags to one of your earlier posts.

 

[Jubileus]

But "it takes no skill to play FFXV".

Yeah and "you only need to press one button to win everything" LOL

@Jubileus

This one's my #1 favorite of them all, actually. SSStylish-esque DMC meets Final Fantasy.

Niice!

Man, Noctis really ran circles around Gladio and kicked his ass near the beginning of the vid. He made Gladio look like a newb lol.

Which reminds me I still need to beat all the guys on the last challenge for the camping training.

 

[Nova]

Welp, found the next contender for the throne lol. Smokin' sick style.

 

[T.O.T]

Welp, found the next contender for the throne lol. Smokin' sick style.

I think my computer got a virus from watching this video. So this is what happens when I watch porn QQ.

 

[Ikkin]

Responding to one thing directly, then a bunch of other things in passing:

Also I can't for the life of me, think of a well received trailer, to which it's final product looked like a completely different universe too.

Uncharted 4, maybe? FFXV at least retained the themes of Versus. The version of Sam portrayed in that trailer inherently contradicts the themes of the final version of Uncharted 4.

Anyway...

Based on the information we've gotten from people with known connections to the game, the history of Versus/XV goes something like this:

2006: Nomura is given the Versus project and told to make a trailer for E3 2006. The trailer releases before any real work is done on the game. Limited information is given to the public, but Nomura expresses a desire to create a game with a solid ending.

2010: Non-CG work on Versus is finally shown. It's quite bloody.

2011: Versus is secretly rebranded as XV (note Nomura saying in 2013 that the decision to rebrand had been made two years earlier). The game suddenly looks way more T-rated.

2013: The rebranding is revealed at E3, as part of a multi-game project. The first game has an impossible internal deadline of 2014 and undergoes a number of changes in an attempt to meet it. Notably, Stella is shown as a childhood acquaintance of Noct rather than someone he first met at the party.

2014: Nomura is pulled from the project and it's turned over to Tabata, who's given until September 2016 to finish the project in one game.

In other words,"Versus" as we knew it was not a single consistent vision, and Nomura's XV didn't stay the same either. Versus wasn't always multiple games, and there's no way to say whether any particular version of either Versus or Nomura's XV would have worked as a concept as either one game or a series if allowed to develop to completion.

A few more specifics to round things off:

Spoiler

"Gentianas role in the story."

Gentiana is Shiva in human disguise. dogs are Shiva servants.


"who dies? who is final boss?"

Luna and the dad die, final boss is Ardyn, the red head guy

Luna dies

>King dies

Spoiler

Gentiana being Shiva isn't technically correct according to the Ultimania, which suggests surface-level interaction with the game rather than intimate knowledge of its development. Gentiana actually is a Messenger, one of 24 servants of the Astrals. Presumably, she channels Shiva instead of being the same being as her.

As for ">King dies," that's obviously an interpretation of "the dad dies" by someone else, since it's enclosed in reply brackets. The leak never clearly suggested that Noct would die, and the plot summary implied otherwise.

And, no, there's no way the ending was changed at the last minute. One of the first things Nomura said about the game implied that things wouldn't well for Noct, and I suspect that the title card "An act of love by the last king" might have been intended to refer to Noct rather than Regis in spite of the scene where Regis said he would be the last king.

On a somewhat related note, the first leaker said that the reason he knew that Noct had an older character model was because Regis' ghost commented on his appearance, which is not only untrue but also categorically impossible given that Regis' ghost only appears in the CG clip where Noct dies and remains silent the entire time. Obviously, if the leaker had seen the CG clip, he'd have to have seen what Noct looked like older.

While the first leaker clearly had inside information, the evidence seems more likely to point to him having gotten, say, secondhand information from a QA tester rather than being someone in a position to know the details of the Versus project.

 

[Hey Everyone]

Responding to one thing directly, then a bunch of other things in passing:



Uncharted 4, maybe? FFXV at least retained the themes of Versus. The version of Sam portrayed in that trailer inherently contradicts the themes of the final version of Uncharted 4.

Anyway...

Based on the information we've gotten from people with known connections to the game, the history of Versus/XV goes something like this:

2006: Nomura is given the Versus project and told to make a trailer for E3 2006. The trailer releases before any real work is done on the game. Limited information is given to the public, but Nomura expresses a desire to create a game with a solid ending.

2010: Non-CG work on Versus is finally shown. It's quite bloody.

2011: Versus is secretly rebranded as XV (note Nomura saying in 2013 that the decision to rebrand had been made two years earlier). The game suddenly looks way more T-rated.

2013: The rebranding is revealed at E3, as part of a multi-game project. The first game has an impossible internal deadline of 2014 and undergoes a number of changes in an attempt to meet it. Notably, Stella is shown as a childhood acquaintance of Noct rather than someone he first met at the party.

2014: Nomura is pulled from the project and it's turned over to Tabata, who's given until September 2016 to finish the project in one game.

In other words,"Versus" as we knew it was not a single consistent vision, and Nomura's XV didn't stay the same either. Versus wasn't always multiple games, and there's no way to say whether any particular version of either Versus or Nomura's XV would have worked as a concept as either one game or a series if allowed to develop to completion.

A few more specifics to round things off:

Spoiler

Gentiana being Shiva isn't technically correct according to the Ultimania, which suggests surface-level interaction with the game rather than intimate knowledge of its development. Gentiana actually is a Messenger, one of 24 servants of the Astrals. Presumably, she channels Shiva instead of being the same being as her.

As for ">King dies," that's obviously an interpretation of "the dad dies" by someone else, since it's enclosed in reply brackets. The leak never clearly suggested that Noct would die, and the plot summary implied otherwise.

And, no, there's no way the ending was changed at the last minute. One of the first things Nomura said about the game implied that things wouldn't well for Noct, and I suspect that the title card "An act of love by the last king" might have been intended to refer to Noct rather than Regis in spite of the scene where Regis said he would be the last king.

On a somewhat related note, the first leaker said that the reason he knew that Noct had an older character model was because Regis' ghost commented on his appearance, which is not only untrue but also categorically impossible given that Regis' ghost only appears in the CG clip where Noct dies and remains silent the entire time. Obviously, if the leaker had seen the CG clip, he'd have to have seen what Noct looked like older.

While the first leaker clearly had inside information, the evidence seems more likely to point to him having gotten, say, secondhand information from a QA tester rather than being someone in a position to know the details of the Versus project.

Spoiler: everything

The only second hand info I remember was the later info, but nothing regarding the Nomura trilogy seemed fake, also I'm aware that Versus started out as one game, then blew up into 3 games, then when Tabata became the sole director it became one game(To which I will always say to it's detriment Versus and FNC elements or not Versus XIII was clearly turned into a trilogy for good reason the non-fleshed out side characters, and the rushed second half bare this out), so on and so forth also Gentiana in the game is pretty much Shiva they don't really explain it very well in game, Noctis does mention her being not human, and her being a messenger for the gods, but that's really it, the leaker just put it in the most crudest way a player would understand it who had just picked up FFXV without any knowledge of the game prior would interpret the matter, I'm not going by the Ultimania because holy shit look at the guidebooks and tell me there aren't inconsistencies Clarus being one of them they used his Versus XIII look not his Kingslaive. Also he was the one that revealed Ardyn being 2000 years old he said that as well.

From my understanding of the CG thing, the script was going through still rewrites, so it's very possible they used a stand in, because apparently the older model wasn't designed, or not finished it's design.

[

 

[Ikkin]

The only second hand info I remember was the later info, but nothing regarding the Nomura trilogy seemed fake, also I'm aware that Versus started out as one game, then blew up into 3 games, then when Tabata became the sole director it became one game(To which I will always say to it's detriment Versus and FNC elements or not Versus XIII was clearly turned into a trilogy for good reason the non-fleshed out side characters, and the rushed second half bare this out), so on and so forth

How in the world can you tell whether information "seems fake" when there's no evidence regarding Nomura's version of the game one way or the other? It's not particularly unlikely that "multiple games" would mean "trilogy," but all you can really judge the accuracy of that claim by is the fact that there were serious inaccuracies in the rest of the guy's information.

Spoiler

also Gentiana in the game is pretty much Shiva they don't really explain it very well in game, Noctis does mention her being not human, and her being a messenger for the gods, but that's really it, the leaker just put it in the most crudest way a player would understand it who had just picked up FFXV without any knowledge of the game prior would interpret the matter, I'm not going by the Ultimania because holy shit look at the guidebooks and tell me there aren't inconsistencies Clarus being one of them they used his Versus XIII look not his Kingslaive. Also he was the one that revealed Ardyn being 2000 years old he said that as well.

From my understanding of the CG thing, the script was going through still rewrites, so it's very possible they used a stand in, because apparently the older model wasn't designed, or not finished it's design.

Spoiler

My point is that if the leaker had inside information, he'd have probably said something about how there's more to it than Gentiana being Shiva but it's badly conveyed, since he clearly had it out for the game.

In any case, the Ultimania and the strategy guide are on completely different levels when it comes to canonicity. The strategy guide had some weird errors, but there's no reason to think that's true of the actual Ultimania.

As for Ardyn, I don't think it's ever actually been confirmed that he's 2000 years old. The Cosmogony book dates back 2000 years (according to one of the in-game excerpts), as do the Crystal, the Ring, and the kingdom of Lucis (according to the Ultimania), but it's entirely possible that Ardyn was born a couple hundred years after that, since he has twelve Armiger weapons and the twelve statues intended to hold the souls of the kings who wielded those weapons had only just been built at that time.

With regards to CG, you can't just use stand-ins for CG scenes the way you can for real-time scenes, because CG has to be pre-rendered. If the CG clip wasn't finished, it probably wouldn't have been included at all (which, it should be noted, would explain why the guy appeared to be completely ignorant as to some of the major events that happened in the ending =P ).

 

[Hey Everyone]

How in the world can you tell whether information "seems fake" when there's no evidence regarding Nomura's version of the game one way or the other? It's not particularly unlikely that "multiple games" would mean "trilogy," but all you can really judge the accuracy of that claim by is the fact that there were serious inaccuracies in the rest of the guy's information.

Spoiler

My point is that if the leaker had inside information, he'd have probably said something about how there's more to it than Gentiana being Shiva but it's badly conveyed, since he clearly had it out for the game.

In any case, the Ultimania and the strategy guide are on completely different levels when it comes to canonicity. The strategy guide had some weird errors, but there's no reason to think that's true of the actual Ultimania.

As for Ardyn, I don't think it's ever actually been confirmed that he's 2000 years old. The Cosmogony book dates back 2000 years (according to one of the in-game excerpts), as do the Crystal, the Ring, and the kingdom of Lucis (according to the Ultimania), but it's entirely possible that Ardyn was born a couple hundred years after that, since he has twelve Armiger weapons and the twelve statues intended to hold the souls of the kings who wielded those weapons had only just been built at that time.

With regards to CG, you can't just use stand-ins for CG scenes the way you can for real-time scenes, because CG has to be pre-rendered. If the CG clip wasn't finished, it probably wouldn't have been included at all (which, it should be noted, would explain why the guy appeared to be completely ignorant as to some of the major events that happened in the ending =P ).

I could tell it would seem fake, if Nomura didn't say it, that's how, if Nomura said nothing of the sort about the game having multiple sequels, and the guy said that the game was suppose to be a trilogy then I wouldn't have even taken it into consideration and would have outright called it fake.
What makes it real is that it is the only realistic interpretation of FFXV having multiple direct sequels, as well as the guy being right about tons of things about FFXV, that I can't for the life of see someone knowing unless, he/she has inside development knowledge. Also for the CGI stuff, it sounds like rewrite to me, and things changed, even he acknowledged that the script was still being rewritten.

 

[Ikkin]

I could tell it would seem fake, if Nomura didn't say it, that's how, if Nomura said nothing of the sort about the game having multiple sequels, and the guy said that the game was suppose to be a trilogy then I wouldn't have even taken it into consideration and would have outright called it fake.
What makes it real is that it is the only realistic interpretation of FFXV having multiple direct sequels, as well as the guy being right about tons of things about FFXV, that I can't for the life of see someone knowing unless, he/she has inside development knowledge. Also for the CGI stuff, it sounds like rewrite to me, and things changed, even he acknowledged that the script was still being rewritten.

The link that you yourself posted quoted Nomura as saying that "as a story, we plan to continue it further" and suggested an episodic release rather than saying that there will be multiple direct sequels. As such, there are a number of interpretations other than trilogy, such as one or three full sequels (rather than two) or a legitimately episodic release.

And it's easy to see where someone could gain knowledge of the things that leaker had right without having behind-the-scenes knowledge -- QA guys usually get full access to the story, but it's rare that they're given any real insight into any behind-the-scenes stuff.

Given what Ray Chase said about not having any significant changes to the dialogue he'd performed for Noct, I think it can be safely assumed that "rewrites" was more of an escape clause for that leaker than anything else. CG scenes certainly wouldn't have been able to be rewritten during the final year of development, since CG can't actually be made on that sort of time frame.

 

[Hey Everyone]

QUOTE="Ikkin, post: 50214, member: 3347"]The link that you yourself posted quoted Nomura as saying that "as a story, we plan to continue it further" and suggested an episodic release rather than saying that there will be multiple direct sequels. As such, there are a number of interpretations other than trilogy, such as one or three full sequels (rather than two) or a legitimately episodic release.

And it's easy to see where someone could gain knowledge of the things that leaker had right without having behind-the-scenes knowledge -- QA guys usually get full access to the story, but it's rare that they're given any real insight into any behind-the-scenes stuff.

Given what Ray Chase said about not having any significant changes to the dialogue he'd performed for Noct, I think it can be safely assumed that "rewrites" was more of an escape clause for that leaker than anything else. CG scenes certainly wouldn't have been able to be rewritten during the final year of development, since CG can't actually be made on that sort of time frame.[/QUOTE]
It seems as episodic as the FF7 Remake which has confirmed to use FFXIII as a blueprint for release so the FF7 Remake is probably taking a page out of what Versus XIII was going to be originally. Though considering the rest of the what the leak said that turned out to be true, and a very basic plot outline of what happened, that happened in the main game apart from the ending, because it seems that Noctis still died either way, it's just that his father spoke, however the overall plot outline seems pretty accurate, apart from the monster Ardyn, and all that it amounts to is Noctis winning, but a lot of what is said here
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1233181&page=1 Is true in the final game, so I don't see why him saying the game was going to be a trilogy should be discounted.

Spoiler: everything

Also nothing in this would actually cause any lines from Ray Chase to be altered, it seems to be everything around Noctis that was going through changes.

Granted I'm thinking monster Ardyn might actually be him during the star purging, so even monster Ardyn seems pretty accurate.

[

 

[Jubileus]

@Hey Everyone

I get that you're passionate about your stance and you're within your right to stick to it, however please use spoiler tags.

The number of times that you revealed heavy plot points without spoiler tags is downright staggering and, to be truthful, disrespectful.

Not everyone has finished the game and some people may be following along what's being discussed here out of curiosity.

I'm sure if you enter a forum thread that explicitly states "No Spoilers" and encountered heavy spoilers for a game that you haven't finished yet, you'd be fairly pissed off wouldn't you?

 

[Nova]

I completely agree with @Jubileus (@Ikkin as well).

SPOILER TAGS Hey Everyone, role with it please.

 

[Ikkin]

It seems as episodic as the FF7 Remake which has confirmed to use FFXIII as a blueprint for release so the FF7 Remake is probably taking a page out of what Versus XIII was going to be originally.

Well, that's an easy assumption to make... but remember that "trilogy" is still an assumption for VIIR as well. IIRC, when they first announced that, they said they were still considering how to break it up into individual games.

Though considering the rest of the what the leak said that turned out to be true, and a very basic plot outline of what happened, that happened in the main game

Spoiler

apart from the ending, because it seems that Noctis still died either way, it's just that his father spoke, however the overall plot outline seems pretty accurate, apart from the monster Ardyn, and all that it amounts to is Noctis winning, but a lot of what is said here

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1233181&page=1 Is true in the final game, so I don't see why him saying the game was going to be a trilogy should be discounted.

You keep ignoring the fact that

Spoiler

the leak absolutely did not meaningfully reference Noct's death, which can be seen in the fact that no one responded to Noct's purported death when the leak was posted.

The only reason why "King dies" can be interpreted as Noct dying now is because the game equates "King" with Noct's role as the Chosen One. But the leaker didn't do that. In fact, he didn't say anything about a Chosen One plot.

And, as I've said before, the leaker wasn't even quoted as saying "King dies." He was quoted quoting someone else:

>Luna dies
>King dies
Where the f*** is the happy ending then?
Noctis will get to see loli ghost Luna so it's okay. Also his bros are fine.

The NeoGAF thread messed up the formatting a bit, but the GameFAQs thread makes it more obvious -- someone else asked the leaker where the happy ending was if Regis and Luna died, and the leaker responded with some garbage about Noct seeing "loli ghost Luna." That's a strike against the leaker, not a point in his favor.

In fact, with regards to the ending in particular, the leaker got more wrong than right. He failed to mention the main character dying. He lied about Luna appearing a "loli ghost." He referenced a conversation between Noct and ghost Regis that does not and could not exist. He referenced a fight with a monster form of Ardyn that never happens. He says something about Noct's older character model not having been implemented yet without taking into account the fact that a critical scene in the ending could be CG (which can't exist prior to the implementation of Noct's older character model).

In other words, all evidence points to him not having seen the ending in the first place.

And that's where his credibility as a source falls apart. If he pretended to know details about the ending that he didn't actually know, then he can't be trusted not to be making things up about Versus. Conversely, if he'd been given intentional misinformation about the ending, then there's no way to be sure the same thing didn't happen with the things he said about Versus.

Regardless of how much the leak got right, the places where it went off the rails shot the leaker's credibility.

Spoiler: everything

Also nothing in this would actually cause any lines from Ray Chase to be altered, it seems to be everything around Noctis that was going through changes.

Granted I'm thinking monster Ardyn might actually be him during the star purging, so even monster Ardyn seems pretty accurate.

...are you seriously arguing that major story rewrites (to the ending, at that!) could be made without affecting the dialogue of the main character? That's wildly implausible.

Spoiler

As for monster Ardyn, here's what the leaker said:

>Noctis gets out and the group fights him in main city
>Ifrit first, then normal red head, then monster version of him
>Noctis wins

It's pretty clear he's intending to refer to the final boss rush, not a character model that appears for a second in a QTE. With that said, he missed the super armiger fight, which should definitely be listed separately in any meaningful list of what you fight at the end of FFXV.

 

[Hey Everyone]

Well, that's an easy assumption to make... but remember that "trilogy" is still an assumption for VIIR as well. IIRC, when they first announced that, they said they were still considering how to break it up into individual games.



You keep ignoring the fact that

Spoiler

the leak absolutely did not meaningfully reference Noct's death, which can be seen in the fact that no one responded to Noct's purported death when the leak was posted.

The only reason why "King dies" can be interpreted as Noct dying now is because the game equates "King" with Noct's role as the Chosen One. But the leaker didn't do that. In fact, he didn't say anything about a Chosen One plot.

And, as I've said before, the leaker wasn't even quoted as saying "King dies." He was quoted quoting someone else:

>Luna dies
>King dies
Where the f*** is the happy ending then?
Noctis will get to see loli ghost Luna so it's okay. Also his bros are fine.

The NeoGAF thread messed up the formatting a bit, but the GameFAQs thread makes it more obvious -- someone else asked the leaker where the happy ending was if Regis and Luna died, and the leaker responded with some garbage about Noct seeing "loli ghost Luna." That's a strike against the leaker, not a point in his favor.

In fact, with regards to the ending in particular, the leaker got more wrong than right. He failed to mention the main character dying. He lied about Luna appearing a "loli ghost." He referenced a conversation between Noct and ghost Regis that does not and could not exist. He referenced a fight with a monster form of Ardyn that never happens. He says something about Noct's older character model not having been implemented yet without taking into account the fact that a critical scene in the ending could be CG (which can't exist prior to the implementation of Noct's older character model).

In other words, all evidence points to him not having seen the ending in the first place.

And that's where his credibility as a source falls apart. If he pretended to know details about the ending that he didn't actually know, then he can't be trusted not to be making things up about Versus. Conversely, if he'd been given intentional misinformation about the ending, then there's no way to be sure the same thing didn't happen with the things he said about Versus.

Regardless of how much the leak got right, the places where it went off the rails shot the leaker's credibility.

...are you seriously arguing that major story rewrites (to the ending, at that!) could be made without affecting the dialogue of the main character? That's wildly implausible.

Spoiler

As for monster Ardyn, here's what the leaker said:

>Noctis gets out and the group fights him in main city
>Ifrit first, then normal red head, then monster version of him
>Noctis wins
It's pretty clear he's intending to refer to the final boss rush, not a character model that appears for a second in a QTE. With that said, he missed the super armiger fight, which should definitely be listed separately in any meaningful list of what you fight at the end of FFXV.

Spoiler: EVERYTHING

I wouldn't call a super armiger fight important info, that fits under normal Ardyn, the guy was just asked to give a basic plot outline not a detailed one, and he got the very basic plot outline of FFXV correct, along with the Shiva being Gentiana(Which is probably the easiest way to put it, most audience members do see it that way), so not saying the Kings of Lucis stab Noctis(when he might not have seen that part and only saw the stuff in real-time graphics that wasn't finished, before he left) The guy gave pretty gave a basic plot outline which he was asked to do, and cut the details, which you are asking for, he didn't give a detailed outline.


"Given what Ray Chase said about not having any significant changes to the dialogue he'd performed for Noct, " The only changes to the ending I can see here are Regis talking about his appearance, but the leaker says nothing of a conversation. What he says is that Regis notes some defining features about him, so it was Regis that spoke, not Noctis, he doesn't speak about them having any conversation. Now onto the boss fights, it does very much go Ifrit, Ardyn, and possibly Monster Ardyn if you count what happened in the star to be monster Ardyn, just the leaker left out most of the details like the bros getting knocked out and Noctis going it alone, but he does allude to it when he says Noctis wins implying that the other guys weren't there.

Now about the 10 year timeskip Noctis and modeling, he said that he didn't have an in-game model, so when play testing the game, you play as young Noctis throughout, older Regis speaks in the ending says nothing about Noctis having a conversation with him, but he himself said he hadn't seen older Noctis not even concept art of the character, I'm not too sure what to make of that as I'm not a developer, whether that means the Kings of Lucis stab Noctis CGI was kept underwraps until it was finished but it's beyond me, granted it is possible that Regis noting Noctis being older happened after the Kings of Lucis stab Noctis, because the throne stuff was real-time graphics not CG, so Regis noting Noct's new appearance could have happened there along with the other lines that Regis says throughout that ending where Noct doesn't say a word until the very end "Thank you" , even though in play testing he looked no different, and the real time graphics part of the ending would have really been in testing with Ghost Loli Luna(oh god the way he put it), and Young Noctis at the time, since it's real-time graphics I wouldn't be surprised if they used those two for stand-ins, to replace with the actual character models later.


Now onto that trilogy thing Nomura said that FFXV would have one climax, but multiple sequels, and this leaker isn't the only one that said it was a trilogy, but I'm not too sure about the other guy, however trilogy or not still doesn't change the fact that the game was condensed, and needed more than 1 game to tell it's story. Also if the release was meant to be episodic in like a Telltale game, Nomura would have just said episodic, but so far considering the leaker was on the money about nearly everything about this game, and it being a trilogy actually has roots in reality considering Nomura did say multiple direct sequels before he had to go back on that, which I'm going to assume was the result of the directoral shift which probably started sometime in 2013, and ended sometime in 2014.

Also even if he was getting second hand information the only plausible part about him lying about Versus would be the ghosts, hallucinations, so on and so forth, and if he was getting second hand information from an actual developer I don't see why he would have lied about this.


"1.Why did they change Regis' design
2.Why did Nomura leave FFXV
3.How long is the game (playtime) and is the map really as big as they say?"
1.Because they had to rewrite a lot of story to cut it down from a trilogy to one game and the dad character got changed a lot. Also to make him look more like the Kingsglave design
2.Because of said Nomura trilogy hopes, and because Square would rather have him on KH3 and FF7 remake. With Nomura it would have been good, but would have taken way more time just to get part 1 out, like an extra 2 years

Now about the FF7 Remake:

The details were revealed in the latest issue of Game Informer, in which producer Yoshinori Kitase said the development team was using Final Fantasy XIII series, which encompassed a total of three games, as the model.

So yes trilogy it's not an assumption that doesn't have a routed basis in facts unless something goes horrible wrong in development. Same goes for FFXV it was going to have multiple games directly related to the plot to have a final climax which if the Versus XIII plot stuff was true it would have been in the dark world.

 

[Ikkin]

Spoiler: EVERYTHING

I wouldn't call a super armiger fight important info, that fits under normal Ardyn, the guy was just asked to give a basic plot outline not a detailed one, and he got the very basic plot outline of FFXV correct, along with the Shiva being Gentiana(Which is probably the easiest way to put it, most audience members do see it that way), so not saying the Kings of Lucis stab Noctis(when he might not have seen that part and only saw the stuff in real-time graphics that wasn't finished, before he left) The guy gave pretty gave a basic plot outline which he was asked to do, and cut the details, which you are asking for, he didn't give a detailed outline.

So the guy thought a

Spoiler

QTE prompt

was worthy of inclusion in a basic plot outline but not

Spoiler

a cinematic fight with unique gameplay mechanics?

Right. -_-

Spoiler

"Given what Ray Chase said about not having any significant changes to the dialogue he'd performed for Noct, " The only changes to the ending I can see here are Regis talking about his appearance, but the leaker says nothing of a conversation. What he says is that Regis notes some defining features about him, so it was Regis that spoke, not Noctis, he doesn't speak about them having any conversation. Now onto the boss fights, it does very much go Ifrit, Ardyn, and possibly Monster Ardyn if you count what happened in the star to be monster Ardyn, just the leaker left out most of the details like the bros getting knocked out and Noctis going it alone, but he does allude to it when he says Noctis wins implying that the other guys weren't there.

You're really grasping at straws.

Spoiler

If Regis was talking to Noct directly, the situation would be completely different than the one we saw in-game, to the point where it wouldn't make sense for Noct not to respond.

And, again, the idea that the guy would include a

Spoiler

QTE prompt

while leaving out

Spoiler

an actual fight

is absurd.

Spoiler

It's far more likely that he didn't mention the bros getting knocked out because he didn't know about it. Assuming that he knew just because he said "Noct wins" instead of "Noct and co. win" is the very definition of grasping at straws.

Spoiler

Now about the 10 year timeskip Noctis and modeling, he said that he didn't have an in-game model, so when play testing the game, you play as young Noctis throughout, older Regis speaks in the ending says nothing about Noctis having a conversation with him, but he himself said he hadn't seen older Noctis not even concept art of the character, I'm not too sure what to make of that as I'm not a developer, whether that means the Kings of Lucis stab Noctis CGI was kept underwraps until it was finished but it's beyond me, granted it is possible that Regis noting Noctis being older happened after the Kings of Lucis stab Noctis, because the throne stuff was real-time graphics not CG, so Regis noting Noct's new appearance could have happened there along with the other lines that Regis says throughout that ending where Noct doesn't say a word until the very end "Thank you" , even though in play testing he looked no different, and the real time graphics part of the ending would have really been in testing with Ghost Loli Luna(oh god the way he put it), and Young Noctis at the time, since it's real-time graphics I wouldn't be surprised if they used those two for stand-ins, to replace with the actual character models later.

This is getting ridiculous. In order to defend a guy who, at the very least, clearly had a chip on his shoulder, you've come up with a just-so story where

Spoiler

the guy saw the final cutscene, except that Regis' dialogue was different, Noct's character model was replaced with his default young model (which, uh, doesn't have gloves), and Luna's was replaced with her model as a child (which has completely different proportions and a completely different hairstyle than the model it's intended to stand in for =P ). I mean, it's not impossible, I guess, but it's certainly implausible given that neither Noct's default young model nor Luna's child model could possibly share animation sets with the models used in that final cutscene.

There comes a time when you just have to accept that Occam's Razor is a thing and stop positing epicycle upon epicycle in defense of a failing theory.

Now onto that trilogy thing Nomura said that FFXV would have one climax, but multiple sequels, and this leaker isn't the only one that said it was a trilogy, but I'm not too sure about the other guy, however trilogy or not still doesn't change the fact that the game was condensed, and needed more than 1 game to tell it's story. Also if the release was meant to be episodic in like a Telltale game, Nomura would have just said episodic, but so far considering the leaker was on the money about nearly everything about this game, and it being a trilogy actually has roots in reality considering Nomura did say multiple direct sequels before he had to go back on that, which I'm going to assume was the result of the directoral shift which probably started sometime in 2013, and ended sometime in 2014.

Did you actually read that link you posted (and then deleted)? "Multiple direct sequels" wasn't actually a direct quote from Nomura -- in fact, the actual direct quote said nothing about how the story would be continued. The same site that said "multiple direct sequels" also stated that "his response even suggests that any future sequels could be released episodically."

Given that, as I've proved repeatedly, the leaker wasn't "on the money about nearly everything about this game," I don't think "trilogy" is as safe an assumption as you do. In fact, given Nomura's proclivities, I'd expect that even if he planned it as a trilogy, it'd have spread out beyond that, given the current state of KH. =P

Also even if he was getting second hand information the only plausible part about him lying about Versus would be the ghosts, hallucinations, so on and so forth, and if he was getting second hand information from an actual developer I don't see why he would have lied about this.

Or, you know, he could have just used the second hand information he had about other stuff to gain a reputation while simultaneously making up a bunch of unverifiable crud. Given the existence of verifiable crud, that seems like the most likely possibility.

In any case, wasn't the ghost/hallucination guy someone else? I don't remember any username being attached to the first leak (neither the NeoGAF nor GameFAQs thread includes a name, in any case).

"1.Why did they change Regis' design
2.Why did Nomura leave FFXV
3.How long is the game (playtime) and is the map really as big as they say?"
1.Because they had to rewrite a lot of story to cut it down from a trilogy to one game and the dad character got changed a lot. Also to make him look more like the Kingsglave design
2.Because of said Nomura trilogy hopes, and because Square would rather have him on KH3 and FF7 remake. With Nomura it would have been good, but would have taken way more time just to get part 1 out, like an extra 2 years

Speaking of verifiable crud, I like how you skipped the leaker's answer to question 3 here, since he obviously just parroted what Tabata was saying publicly (40-50hr main quest) instead of revealing that the game's main quest was a lot shorter than the devs claimed it to be.

This is, for the record, the only information about Versus that guy claimed to give -- that it would have been a trilogy. It's certainly not implausible, but there's no reason to take his word for it.

Now about the FF7 Remake: So yes trilogy it's not an assumption that doesn't have a routed basis in facts unless something goes horrible wrong in development. Same goes for FFXV it was going to have multiple games directly related to the plot to have a final climax which if the Versus XIII plot stuff was true it would have been in

Spoiler

the dark world.

Uh, the reference to FFXIII was intended to imply the amount of content in each VIIR game, not the amount of games that they'd be making. As with Versus, "trilogy" is plausible in and of itself but doesn't have any meaningful evidence to support it.

 

[Nova]

In any case, wasn't the ghost/hallucination guy someone else? I don't remember any username being attached to the first leak (neither the NeoGAF nor GameFAQs thread includes a name, in any case).

Can confirm this yes, I believe he even mentioned claiming to have "worked on" the localization of the game ti'll June last year lol.

 

[Ikkin]

Can confirm this yes, I believe he even mentioned claiming to have "worked on" the localization of the game ti'll June last year lol.

We're talking about this guy, right? I thought that one was implying he was a programmer, while the first guy hinted at having access for QA-related reasons.

Regardless, there were quite a few suspect elements in that particular leak, and little verifiable evidence that he had inside information. The person's level of knowledge of Versus seemed to shift around a lot (from "don't know the whole story about Versus XIII but I heard teammates talk about some details and I also asked about some stuff, so if you want to know something maybe I can answer it" and "I'm probably wrong about this since I'm not that familiar to plot terms and stuff from the 13 universe but I think more than one crystal* existed in the game" to providing a two-paragraph plot summary without once referencing Etro and later obliquely referencing Etro as an "angel," talking about the opening of a door to the afterlife, and extensively discussing Stella's role as a ghost sent back from the afterlife to guide Noct), for instance. Some of the claims about cut content in XV were pretty weird, too, like saying that

Spoiler

"some scenes would have featured Luna crying because of her health and there were also mentions of her goal in life being meeting the male protagonist's expectations/objectives" but were cut for being problematic when the actual game included scenes where Luna cried because her health was failing and she constantly spoke of wanting to support Noct/stand beside Noct/spend time with Noct.

The idea that scenes very much like the ones in the final game were cut for being a problem is downright bizarre.

* Insomnia's crystal was always intended to be the last crystal in Versus XIII, with that aspect of the setting being revealed all the way back in 2006.