Final Fantasy XV - General News Thread

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Oct 19, 2013
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I would love to someday get a Tabata interview with some really frank, critical questions about the glaring flaws in the narrative and development troubles w.r.t. the script, which the 4chan plot leak, that turned out being true, talked about few months before release.

You know, I've been a Tabby fanboy, but if he does a mainline FF again after the new IP they're working on now since FFXV's out (which I expect to be based on Agni's Philosophy, btw), I think instead of being a director he should just be a producer and leave the directing to someone else (like Sakaguchi was doing starting with FFVI). That suits Tabata's strengths as a team leader and get-shit-done guy much more. He doesn't strike me as the artistic, "visionary" type of creator who could ensure the overall narrative quality that I'd hope for for FF after FFXV. Though, to be fair, he should be given the chance first to make his own FF from the ground up without being forced to salvage a wreck before passing judgement.

Actually, I think the combo of Nomura as director and Tabata as producer would be great, as they should complement each other quite well with Tabata keeping Nomura grounded and in check if he's being too perfectionist again, lol. I mean, they already worked together on FFXV with Tabata as Co-Director for a year or so between 2013 and 2014, but we all know how that worked out. Interestingly, Nomura himself said in 2013 that he isn't good at managing projects:

Tetsuya Nomura:
Actually I am not very good at managing myself
, especially at managing lots of different projects, but because of my staff and all the staffs are very very intelligent, very good and very capable I’m able to run all the different projects at the same time. And also the most important are the Co-Directors in each project, again they are very capable and skilled people, they are the people actually managing the actual everyday job on the ground. That’s why I’m here, they are supporting me all the time.​
 

Lulcielid

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Oct 9, 2014
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I have several problems with putting the words "visionary" and "narrative quality" together (I´ll be leave it at that before I ramble).....that aside, him changing the game from how Nomura envisioned it to how he thought would work better is more than enough to label him as "visionary" for me.
 
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Nova

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Jul 14, 2015
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Indulge me on this, Koozek, but direction-wise, despite past efforts of storytelling flaws outside of KH1, how exactly is Nomura ahead of Tabata in the narrative and visionary department of a director? (Not really gonna count VII Remake since it is of that, a remake).

To me that honestly feels like singling out one from the other.
 
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llazy77

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May 27, 2014
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Indulge me on this, Koozek, but direction-wise, despite past efforts of storytelling flaws outside of KH, how exactly is Nomura ahead of Tabata in the narrative and visionary department of a director? To me that honestly feels like singling out one from the other.
Who made the setting and characters for XV?
 

Ikkin

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Oct 30, 2016
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I would love to someday get a Tabata interview with some really frank, critical questions about the glaring flaws in the narrative and development troubles w.r.t. the script, which the 4chan plot leak, that turned out being true, talked about few months before release.
People with known connections to the game have confirmed that the 4chan leaker was wrong about things, so I wouldn't take anything that guy mentioned about the state of the game behind the scenes as a given. Most likely, it was some QA tester using the plot details he knew to make himself look like an insider. =P

You know, I've been a Tabby fanboy, but if he does a mainline FF again after the new IP they're working on now since FFXV's out (which I expect to be based on Agni's Philosophy, btw), I think instead of being a director he should just be a producer and leave the directing to someone else (like Sakaguchi was doing starting with FFVI). That suits Tabata's strengths as a team leader and get-shit-done guy much more. He doesn't strike me as the artistic, "visionary" type of creator who could ensure the overall narrative quality that I'd hope for for FF after FFXV. Though, to be fair, he should be given the chance first to make his own FF from the ground up without being forced to salvage a wreck before passing judgement.

Actually, I think the combo of Nomura as director and Tabata as producer would be great, as they should complement each other quite well with Tabata keeping Nomura grounded and in check if he's being too perfectionist again, lol. I mean, they already worked together on FFXV with Tabata as Co-Director for a year or so between 2013 and 2014, but we all know how that worked out. Interestingly, Nomura himself said in 2013 that he isn't good at managing projects:

Tetsuya Nomura:
Actually I am not very good at managing myself, especially at managing lots of different projects, but because of my staff and all the staffs are very very intelligent, very good and very capable I’m able to run all the different projects at the same time. And also the most important are the Co-Directors in each project, again they are very capable and skilled people, they are the people actually managing the actual everyday job on the ground. That’s why I’m here, they are supporting me all the time.​
Tabata definitely has a producer-like skill set, though I think even a co-director scheme like the one Naughty Dog had going where there was one director who handled story and one who handled technology could go a long way to working around his weaknesses. I wouldn't want him to be divorced from the creative elements completely, in any case, because he seems like the likely source of the neat indie-like gameplay/story integration systems (like Prompto's photographs and Zack Fair's DMW) and moments (like FFXV's Chapter 10 and Crisis Core's ending) in his games.
 

Jenova

Keyblade Master
Oct 28, 2013
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i don't think XV's reception was that polarized, at least not XIII levels of polarized.
Agreed. I've seen far more contempt and less defence for FFXIII in comparison. Tabata's case is nowhere near the level of disdain Toriyama and Sean Murray got.
Of course the level of polarization isn't at XIII levels of severity. However, opinions are the game are still mixed overall. I mean, that's true even here. Go further, you'll find varying opinions on the likes of Reddit, Neogaf, GameFAQs, etc. It's no Final Fantasy XIII in its divisiveness, but it's no Final Fantasy VII with universal acclaim either.
 

Nova

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Jul 14, 2015
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Of course the level of polarization isn't at XIII levels of severity. However, opinions are the game are still mixed overall. I mean, that's true even here. Go further, you'll find varying opinions on the likes of Reddit, Neogaf, GameFAQs, etc. It's no Final Fantasy XIII in its divisiveness, but it's no Final Fantasy VII with universal acclaim either.
I don't entirely disagree actually, just felt like mentioning more in the lines of how its a "imperfect but not almost one-sidedly negative" situation, rather than a majority universally wanting his head on silver platter with Nomura devouring it.

While i don't doubt that unpleasable groups will probably never change their current opinion towards the game, i can still personally see others who weren't feeling XV possibly shift their opinion more positively depending on if S.E play their cards well with the future updates.
 
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Jenova

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Oct 28, 2013
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I don't entirely disagree actually, just felt like mentioning more in the lines of how its a "imperfect but not almost one-sidedly negative" situation, rather than a majority universally wanting his head on silver platter with Nomura devouring it.

While i don't doubt that unpleasable groups will probably never change their current opinion towards the game, i can still personally see others who weren't feeling XV possibly shift their opinion more positively depending on if S.E play their cards well with the future updates.
Like llazy77? Hehehehehe...
 
Oct 19, 2013
410
617
I have several problems with putting the words "visionary" and "narrative quality" together (I´ll be leave it at that before I ramble).....that aside, him changing the game from how Nomura envisioned it to how he thought would work better is more than enough to label him as "visionary" for me.
Hm, what do you mean?^^ Maybe "visionary" wasn't the right English word, I actually wasn't sure myself. What I meant was "someone who has a strong sense for artistic coherence and consistency".

To be fair, it is a wonder he managed to make something even decent out of a project with such a messy history at all. It's easy for us to criticize everything from the outside, but I wouldn't have wanted to swap places with Tabata and his team, especially during the formative years of 2013 and 2014 where a lot of the very difficult decisions on the rewrites and restructuring of the game's story and scope including pre-production of Kingsglaive had to be made. So, not exactly the fairest circumstances to be judged under. That's why I should probably reserve judgement on his directorial capabilities until his next game. Not that there'd be anything wrong with him not being a good director anyway, as he clearly has talent as a producer and it's very rare that one person combines well both skill sets of a creative and a leader. Having a good team leader and manager is extremely important. You can have the best people on your team, but if there's no one who can pull them together, motivate them, present clear goals etc. nothing will be done. See the recent amazing Polygon piece on FFVII's development where the former Square staff members praise Sakaguchi's unique leadership skills and emphasize how quickly after his departure from Square everything suddenly changed for the worse because of the lack of clear guidance causing infights everywhere in the company (Nomura: "I shouldn’t be saying this, but hmm, how to put this? It was like Sangokushi [the Chinese literary series “Romance of the Three Kingdoms”]. You know, where the king dies, and then a civil war erupts and everyone starts fighting each other.").

Indulge me on this, Koozek, but direction-wise, despite past efforts of storytelling flaws outside of KH, how exactly is Nomura ahead of Tabata in the narrative and visionary department of a director? To me that honestly feels like singling out one from the other.
Fair point, lol. I definitely didn't mean to make it sound like I'm praising Nomura's directing qualities that much. In fact, I regularily make fun of his hilariously non-sensical work on KH (though, I should probably shut up as a Metal Gear Solid fan :D) and because of this my biggest worry even during Versus times back in the days was the overall story. What I meant was that Nomura is more artistically-driven (obviously because he's an artist himself, directs trailers himself, directed Advent Children, writes base stories/concepts/story boards like for FFVII, Versus, and KH etc.) and perfectionist, while Tabata seems more pragmatic and goal-oriented, and that would complement each other.

I know his track record isn't the best, but I think Nomura might have the potential in him if given the right opportunity. I mean, even though I still think he was way too overambitious and, may I say, delusional with his original Versus trilogy-plans, it was still his original concepts and ideas that made me so excited in the first place. Of course, I know ideas alone don't make a good game and I respect Tabata and his team for actually realizing a lot of Nomura's concepts. I'm also quite liking Nomura's mentality regarding FFVIIR's approach of reimagining instead of just pandering to nostalgia and when he said "I think that love for FF alone isn’t enough to make FF. Someone who isn’t satisfied with FF can make it. A creator has to be someone who wants to change FF, to surpass it.". So, I'm giving him the benefit of doubt until FFVIIR is done.

People with known connections to the game have confirmed that the 4chan leaker was wrong about things, so I wouldn't take anything that guy mentioned about the state of the game behind the scenes as a given. Most likely, it was some QA tester using the plot details he knew to make himself look like an insider. =P



Tabata definitely has a producer-like skill set, though I think even a co-director scheme like the one Naughty Dog had going where there was one director who handled story and one who handled technology could go a long way to working around his weaknesses. I wouldn't want him to be divorced from the creative elements completely, in any case, because he seems like the likely source of the neat indie-like gameplay/story integration systems (like Prompto's photographs and Zack Fair's DMW) and moments (like FFXV's Chapter 10 and Crisis Core's ending) in his games.
AFAIK only the part about FFXVI not already being in development was wrong.

And yeah, the Naughty Dog set-up sounds good.

@Koozek Tabby has done a Final Fantasy from the ground up. Type-0. That was all him from the beginning.
I mean a mainline FF. Haven't played Type-0, but it doesn't seem to be that good either.
 

Ikkin

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Oct 30, 2016
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AFAIK only the part about FFXVI not already being in development was wrong.
Not in the slightest. Even on a pure canon facts level, he failed to make it clear that
Noct dies
and claimed that he knew about the timeskip designs even though they didn't exist yet based off of a scene that is completely inconsistent with the ending we actually received. Beyond that, his claims about rewrites and rerecorded dialogue don't match what Ray Chase said about his experience in recording sessions (namely, that while there were retakes, he wasn't aware of any significant cuts to lines he'd recorded). He didn't actually have a solid idea of how long the main story of the game would actually take and just parroted what Tabata said even though he clearly had it out for the game. He didn't know about the Prompto and Ignis DLC even though it should have been blatantly obvious. He was wrong about optional outfits being all black. And so on and so forth.
 
Oct 19, 2013
410
617
Not in the slightest. Even on a pure canon facts level, he failed to make it clear that
Noct dies
and claimed that he knew about the timeskip designs even though they didn't exist yet based off of a scene that is completely inconsistent with the ending we actually received. Beyond that, his claims about rewrites and rerecorded dialogue don't match what Ray Chase said about his experience in recording sessions (namely, that while there were retakes, he wasn't aware of any significant cuts to lines he'd recorded). He didn't actually have a solid idea of how long the main story of the game would actually take and just parroted what Tabata said even though he clearly had it out for the game. He didn't know about the Prompto and Ignis DLC even though it should have been blatantly obvious. He was wrong about optional outfits being all black. And so on and so forth.
Ah, I see. Well, I never really bothered researching that leak much because I skipped it at that time for spoiler reasons and after the game came out I heard there was made up stuff added to it (like the FFXVI thing), so I didn't care about it anymore. We got way more interesting leaks after release anyway ;)
 

DrBretto

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Mar 18, 2016
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Edit: I'm assuming we're talking about the leaks from the guy talking about vs and what's changed recently. If I'm mistaken, please ignore.

People with known connections to the game have confirmed that the 4chan leaker was wrong about things, so I wouldn't take anything that guy mentioned about the state of the game behind the scenes as a given. Most likely, it was some QA tester using the plot details he knew to make himself look like an insider. =P
No, I don't think that's the case at all. I think that leak was 100% true, just from one guy's perspective and he acknowledged he had incomplete info from joining the project late.

This reads exactly like the original 4chan leaks about the plot. There are peripheral methods to telling whether a rumor is true or not. The way people react to true info and salatious bullshit is different. It's hard to describe, but very easy to see. The way it was written also rings true using the same method detectives use when taking statements from witnesses. They will typically ignore the hyperbolic, too eager for drama-like responses in favor of the more understated, direct and emotionless responses because people can get caught up in the drama, distorting the story.

There's also the way people closer to those who would know behave. Rational people who would otherwise dismiss any falsified rumors will obviously believe the rumors if they have first hand knowledge of it. And that spreads out from the other rational people that trust them.

When a rumor is fake, you have a few key elements. The news itself usually has some kind of convenient relevance to an ongoing outrage, as if it was written as a direct response to what people are hoping for, and the people who pick it up and believe it are generally the ones more susceptible to hyperbolic ramblings and filling in blanks in order to fit a story around the leak they hope is true. For a real life example, see Hey Everyone's posts about vs xv (sorry to use you as an example, bud, I know you're just excited, but it's true)

These leaks come across as factual and unembellished. People that should have been skeptical accepted it immediately. It fits reality and not necessarily a particular narrative, and doesn't seem to come with any bias.

I am very confident that those leaks are the truth as that person sees it. Very confident. And, similarly confident that the vs xv stuff is bunk. I have no doubt he may be mistaken about a point or two, or has incomplete info that others might have a better insight on, but I believe he told the truth as he saw it
 
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Ikkin

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Oct 30, 2016
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Edit: I'm assuming we're talking about the leaks from the guy talking about vs and what's changed recently. If I'm mistaken, please ignore.



No, I don't think that's the case at all. I think that leak was 100% true, just from one guy's perspective and he acknowledged he had incomplete info from joining the project late.

This reads exactly like the original 4chan leaks about the plot. There are peripheral methods to telling whether a rumor is true or not. The way people react to true info and salatious bullshit is different. It's hard to describe, but very easy to see. The way it was written also rings true using the same method detectives use when taking statements from witnesses. They will typically ignore the hyperbolic, too eager for drama-like responses in favor of the more understated, direct and emotionless responses because people can get caught up in the drama, distorting the story.

There's also the way people closer to those who would know behave. Rational people who would otherwise dismiss any falsified rumors will obviously believe the rumors if they have first hand knowledge of it. And that spreads out from the other rational people that trust them.

When a rumor is fake, you have a few key elements. The news itself usually has some kind of convenient relevance to an ongoing outrage, as if it was written as a direct response to what people are hoping for, and the people who pick it up and believe it are generally the ones more susceptible to hyperbolic ramblings and filling in blanks in order to fit a story around the leak they hope is true. For a real life example, see Hey Everyone's posts about vs xv (sorry to use you as an example, bud, I know you're just excited, but it's true)

These leaks come across as factual and unembellished. People that should have been skeptical accepted it immediately. It fits reality and not necessarily a particular narrative, and doesn't seem to come with any bias.

I am very confident that those leaks are the truth as that person sees it. Very confident. And, similarly confident that the vs xv stuff is bunk. I have no doubt he may be mistaken about a point or two, or has incomplete info that others might have a better insight on, but I believe he told the truth as he saw it
Peripheral methods of determining which rumors to believe matter little once factual inaccuracies start to accrue.

Just look at the downfall of Verendus -- that guy got the following he did largely because none of the people who culled false rumors bothered to call him out for years, until he was brought down by a journalist who usually didn't involve himself with such matters on the basis of factual inaccuracies.

The 4chan leaker was demonstrably wrong in a number of ways. That makes him another Verendus, not someone who's right from his own perspective or some such nonsense.

The AMA guy is different, and I haven't looked too closely at all of his claims, but IIRC there were a few of those that didn't line up with what we saw of the game, too, and his claims about Versus seemed to become internally inconsistent as he answered more questions.
 

Hey Everyone

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Dec 30, 2016
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Unknown, Unknown
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/932981-final-fantasy-xv/74675878

You know maybe with a couple of edits, this plot line could be made into FFXV-2 to FFXV-4, then with FFXV-4 tie it back to FFXV's ending. I mean there is an idea if Square really wants to make multiple games out of FFXV in the future.

Producer: Tabata or Kitase
Director: Tetsuya Nomura

Granted I would want Tabata focused on Type-Next(Better have a simultaneous PC release or I'm going to go Versus XIII 2006 Noctis on the entirety of SE headquarters.
 
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Jenova

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Oct 28, 2013
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http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/932981-final-fantasy-xv/74675878

You know maybe with a couple of edits, this plot line could be made into FFXV-2 to FFXV-4, then with FFXV-4 tie it back to FFXV's ending. I mean there is an idea if Square really wants to make multiple games out of FFXV in the future.

Producer: Tabata or Kitase
Director: Tetsuya Nomura

Granted I would want Tabata focused on Type-Next(Better have a simultaneous PC release or I'm going to go Versus XIII 2006 Noctis on the entirety of SE headquarters.
Sounds like fan-fiction.

Ugh. I wish we could move on from this already.