Final Fantasy XV - General News Thread

Members see less ads - sign up now for free and join the community!

  • This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Learn more.

Storm

Warrior of Light
Oct 26, 2013
3,351
6,012
32
Switzerland
Live action? Yeah I think I'm gonna pass lol. Netflix's track record with live action adaptations is abysmal and video games are even harder to translate to live action than anime due to the sheer amount of content that usually has to be condensed into a far shorter format. Should've gone the Castlevania route and made it animated at least with a passionate studio behind it.
definitely harder to adapt an "anime" world into live-action, FFXIV though has a lot of western look into it, the first two expansions are dragon-centered and the world is medieval for the most part.

anyway 20,000 replies aw yeah
 
Last edited:
Jun 3, 2018
53
118
Yo yo. Edited the timeline a bit, rewrote some things, added some more. Still need to consider other events; Episode Ignis's alternate ending I'm mulling over, as I believe it's tied in some way to the new content but I'd have to go through DotF again.
work in progress timeline.jpg
Also, the way Noctis is trapped in the crystal, reliving his destiny repeatedly is like Type-0's plot, crossed with XIII's plot; it's "inevitable", the only way, and they are trying really hard to hammer it home.
 

Ikkin

Warrior of Light
Oct 30, 2016
1,099
1,705
Yo yo. Edited the timeline a bit, rewrote some things, added some more. Still need to consider other events; Episode Ignis's alternate ending I'm mulling over, as I believe it's tied in some way to the new content but I'd have to go through DotF again.
View attachment 1210
Also, the way Noctis is trapped in the crystal, reliving his destiny repeatedly is like Type-0's plot, crossed with XIII's plot; it's "inevitable", the only way, and they are trying really hard to hammer it home.
There's a pretty significant wrinkle in any attempt to make FFXV fit into a cyclical structure ending with the Phantom Wedding:

The Phantom Wedding only makes sense if the game timeline is the true timeline.

First and most determinative problem: the Phantom Wedding and the wedding in DotF take place in two different places. Don't believe me?


This is the location of the Phantom Wedding -- the throne room in the Citadel, in downtown Insomnia.

Based on the ending to Dawn of the Future, there are two problems with this:

"- Noctis strikes Bahamut down, and the Citadel begins to fall (with everyone still on it). He summons Titan to catch the Citadel and the Crystal sucks in the remaining darkness and daemonic energy, before shattering. Titan picks up Luna and the other characters jump onto his hand to escape as the Citadel crumbles."

In other words, in the DotF timeline, the Citadel no longer exists at the time of Noct and Luna's wedding. Furthermore,

"- The book ends with an epilogue from Regis’ perspective, describing how each region is recovering from the damage, Noctis and Luna’s wedding in Altissia, and a thank you to Cor, Cid, Cindy, Gladiolus, Ignis and Prompto for their contributions in bringing Noctis and the rest of humanity to this point. He then congratulates Noctis and Luna on their wedding and wishes them happiness."

DotF specifically states that Noct and Luna are married in Altissia... which is entirely consistent with the portrayal of the wedding on the front cover of the novel:


That alone should be sufficient to quash any speculation that the Phantom Wedding was meant to portray the "ideal" DotF timeline that Noct would eventually reach after dealing with time loop shenanigans. But the Phantom Wedding contains a second, equally troublesome element:



...Noct and Luna are clearly, uh, phantoms. The establishing shot makes it very clear that no one is sitting on the throne... and yet, the two of them appear off-camera surrounded by soul crystals and Sylleblossoms (the sorts of effects exclusively reserved for dead Lucian kings and Luna post-Altissia).

The messages from the 30th Anniversary Exposition are clearly written to reflect a posthumous happily ever after, too:

Regis:

My son, I know your journey was not an easy one. Though the challenges you faced as king were numerous, you confronted them all without ever losing heart, walking tall until the dawn. You should be proud.

Lunafreya, I must thank you for watching over my son -- as the Oracle, and as his betrothed. May you both know happiness forevermore.

Gladiolus, Ignis, Prompto, you stood by my wayward son. For that, you have my eternal gratitude. The future of our kingdom goes with you.


Prompto:

Hey, buddy. Congrats on your wedding! Guess this means our journey together's finally come to an end, huh? It's sad to say goodbye, but I'm so happy for you -- both of you. Lady Lunafreya's words and your friendship changed me for the better, and I can't thank you guys enough.

...Oh, and leave the whole "ushering in the dawn of a new world" to me. You just enjoy your happily ever after.


Ignis:

Congratulations, Noct. I suspect your father would be delighted to see you don his royal raiment with pride and join your beautiful bride in holy matrimony. Would I were able to see it for myself.

Ever since you were a lad, I sensed you were destined for greatness. I'm glad to see I was right.

My friend, my liege, my brother -- I wish you and Lady Lunafreya happiness everlasting.


Gladio:

Before, you could barely even tie your own shoes, so it's kinda crazy to think you tied the knot. You've come a long way, Noct, and I want you to know I'm proud of you.

Now that you two are finally together, you better treat her right. Got it? We've got everything else under control. Don't worry: this world's in good hands.

Congrats, buddy. Hope you two are happy now and always.


Overall, then, if you're looking for a way to fit DotF into FFXV as it released, the Phantom Wedding is a massive problem rather than a potential point of contact.
 
Jun 3, 2018
53
118
Yes, but there's other details lopped off the story that were the basis for new events. The invasion being one of them; Omen implies that Noct was there for it. The Phantom Wedding itself isn't even truly a wedding, it's Noct's coronation. But given we lost the entire other worldly part of the game, they'd just use assets they already had. The ending of XV is already abridged (Noctis musing on his friends is a few brief flashes when in reality, he was seeing it all).

It's one of the discrepancies that exist due to the trimming and addition of extra content.

Before anybody gets smart, this is all taken with a grain of salt. I still wish to try doing a basic restructure of the story utilizing Safay Roth's role; to truly understand the current changes, we have to try understanding how it used to be.
 

Ikkin

Warrior of Light
Oct 30, 2016
1,099
1,705
Yes, but there's other details lopped off the story that were the basis for new events. The invasion being one of them; Omen implies that Noct was there for it.
...how does the Omen trailer imply that Noct was there for the invasion? (And why are we assuming that the Omen trailer reflects some version of canon rather than simply being a piece crafted to evoke a particular feeling?)

The Phantom Wedding itself isn't even truly a wedding, it's Noct's coronation. But given we lost the entire other worldly part of the game, they'd just use assets they already had. The ending of XV is already abridged (Noctis musing on his friends is a few brief flashes when in reality, he was seeing it all).

It's one of the discrepancies that exist due to the trimming and addition of extra content.
I would argue that the Phantom Wedding is meant to be understood both as wedding and coronation (which is kind of necessary symbolically, because the game treats marriage, kingship, and sacrifice as three aspects of the same calling). It definitely didn't take place in the Citadel as a result of missing assets, though -- the church shown in the DotF cover art already exists in the game, so there's nothing stopping the final scene from being set there if the team really wanted to imply that the wedding reflected how things might have been rather than to imply that something new was taking place.

Basically, I think that everything about the Phantom Wedding is designed to reflect the game as it existed in 2016 rather than any hypothesized earlier draft. There may be other things that remain in the game that connect with earlier concepts, but the Phantom Wedding (at least in anything close to its current form) is not at all likely to be one of them.

Before anybody gets smart, this is all taken with a grain of salt. I still wish to try doing a basic restructure of the story utilizing Safay Roth's role; to truly understand the current changes, we have to try understanding how it used to be.
Do we even know enough about Saffirus ("Safay Roth" sounds utterly ridiculous, I'm sorry XD; ) to speculate properly about what his role was (at least beyond "was the Imperial general responsible for fighting Leviathan")?
 
Jun 3, 2018
53
118
Showing helps a lot; the Omen has Noct fleeing Insomnia as it's burning, implying he was there for it before the events of the trailer. It's many, many things like that, small details you don't notice but your brain does which reinforces the narrative. XV was all about showing over telling.

The Phantom Wedding itself is definitely part of Noct's perfect dream world, as Umbra is present and the crystals and sylleblossoms are present. It's part of the perfect fantasy Bahamut has laid out for Noct. That said, the wedding taking place in Altissia with Noct finally sitting atop the throne as king make perfect sense, remember; they did significantly trim down the ending. You are on my train of thought, the Phantom Wedding like many other things about the game is rooted in the original draft and the extra content we were to get, but because the base game lacked elements, we got an abridged version that does the job it needs to do, nothing more. It had people question it, crying tears of joy, happy for Noct and Luna. When the DotF came about, they likely thought they could tank things they put in the game and expand on it; Ardyn's past itself was absolutely cut content from the game, as Ardyn discusses the Prologue in older scripts.

Safay Roth was the translation utilized by interviewers; Sapphirus is probably romanjinized, with Safay Roth being the real iteration of the name. Ravus himself was known as Lupus at one point, either due to romanization or simply a name change. We have concept artwork for him and the word that he was once a famous general and originally poised as the antagonist. This next bit is speculation based on the XIII trilogy; he was Jihl Nabaat, basically. Hyped up as the enemy leader, antagonizing your party directly, in charge of authority operations (there was to be a whole echelon of Niffs to fight, not just Aranea and Ardyn), before being disposed of by the true villain upon the reveal. The name itself was clearly intended to harken back to Sephiroth. Basically, Safay Roth is simply a red herring.
3euai67a75321.jpg
The game was conceived as a sister project to XIII alongside Type-0, and they stated before each game is like a different translation of the same FNC mythos; as such, we can see a shitton of parallels between all three games (someone pointed out a hefty amount of this a few pages ago). Like Noct being given his destiny in XIII and being told it's absolutely necessary (and all being a plot to murder a shitload of people), he gets trapped in a dream about his destiny repeatedly like Type-0's world being forced to relive the same events while the gods hope that they get their intended outcome.

Sure, this goes into fan theory, but before you just disregard it as theories, conjecture, why not lend your imagination to these glaring similarities. Using the other games, reading about their development, interviews and looking at the XIII trilogy as a whole paints a pretty good idea of what the FNC story actually is; with this greater context utilizing all the games based in FNC lore, we can interpret the basic story of the goddess told throughout all three, and restructure earlier elements. They're not exactly the same, so again, grain of salt, but I am not spewing shit for crackpot theories; I definitely believe there is ways to understand the earlier version of the story, the story at launch, the story they were trying to tell and more.
 
Feb 19, 2018
582
1,108
31
definitely harder to adapt an "anime" world into live-action, FFXIV though has a lot of western look into it, the first two expansions are dragon-centered and the world is medieval for the most part.

anyway 20,000 replies aw yeah
Idk, man with how they're butchering Witcher from the looks of it FFXIV having western elements isn't gonna save it. I just don't have faith in Netlfix's live action stuff and video games typically translate very poorly to live action in general. FFXIV has an ad out there where they basically have a bunch of anime style scenes play out and it looks amazing. Couple that with the fact that FFXV's own anime was actually really good or that FFVII has a pretty great standalone OVA as well and I just don't get the decision to make it live action. We'll see how it looks when it gets made I guess but there are a whole lot of reasons to be wary of it.
 
Jun 3, 2018
53
118
Idk, man with how they're butchering Witcher from the looks of it FFXIV having western elements isn't gonna save it. I just don't have faith in Netlfix's live action stuff and video games typically translate very poorly to live action in general. FFXIV has an ad out there where they basically have a bunch of anime style scenes play out and it looks amazing. Couple that with the fact that FFXV's own anime was actually really good or that FFVII has a pretty great standalone OVA as well and I just don't get the decision to make it live action. We'll see how it looks when it gets made I guess but there are a whole lot of reasons to be wary of it.
I'd say it's more dependent on whether or not they're doing it as a passion project or a checklist project. Considering it's Netflix, I have concerns more about them wanting to checkoff diversity castings and tell a thinly-veiled IRL political story using the XIV setting, instead of making a true addition to XIV's lore. However, Netflix does have interesting projects lined up, so we can hope for the best. The reason why some live action is harder is because any anime has Japanese luxuries; flashbacks, long pauses while character's internally monologue. IF you do this in live action, it's boring, so they have to utilize the format and go for a Hollywood approach with flash and bang to drag you in. However, when they try too hard to add bells and whistles, it becomes a cluster of nice but utterly pointless bells and whistles. The creators must be passionate, and actually play the game, not just be hires to write about that online game, Final Fantasy XIV.
 

Ikkin

Warrior of Light
Oct 30, 2016
1,099
1,705
Showing helps a lot; the Omen has Noct fleeing Insomnia as it's burning, implying he was there for it before the events of the trailer. It's many, many things like that, small details you don't notice but your brain does which reinforces the narrative. XV was all about showing over telling.
The thing with Omen, though, is that it's so dreamlike and ambiguous that it's never really obvious what it's meant to reflect. Maybe Noct is meant to be understood as fleeing from the city during the invasion... but he also doesn't really seem to be paying attention to the Imperial airships chasing him, so it's just as likely that the invasion elements are meant to symbolically reflect things that are happening that he doesn't know about, as in the final game.

(It's also worth pointing out that, given the existence of posters that say "Gone Gold" and "New Project Launch - Jobs Offered - Business Division 2," it is almost certain that Omen was made in light of the story being told by 2016!FFXV rather than being an older project that reflected an earlier draft of the story.)

The Phantom Wedding itself is definitely part of Noct's perfect dream world, as Umbra is present and the crystals and sylleblossoms are present. It's part of the perfect fantasy Bahamut has laid out for Noct. That said, the wedding taking place in Altissia with Noct finally sitting atop the throne as king make perfect sense, remember; they did significantly trim down the ending. You are on my train of thought, the Phantom Wedding like many other things about the game is rooted in the original draft and the extra content we were to get, but because the base game lacked elements, we got an abridged version that does the job it needs to do, nothing more. It had people question it, crying tears of joy, happy for Noct and Luna. When the DotF came about, they likely thought they could tank things they put in the game and expand on it; Ardyn's past itself was absolutely cut content from the game, as Ardyn discusses the Prologue in older scripts.
I think you misunderstood my position on the Phantom Wedding:

"Basically, I think that everything about the Phantom Wedding is designed to reflect the game as it existed in 2016 rather than any hypothesized earlier draft. There may be other things that remain in the game that connect with earlier concepts, but the Phantom Wedding (at least in anything close to its current form) is not at all likely to be one of them."


Could there have been an early draft where, like DotF, Noct fights fate and ends up marrying Luna? Maybe... but the Phantom Wedding in its current form was clearly designed from the ground up to reflect Noct's marriage/coronation in the afterlife rather than as secret connection to a draft no one in 2016 other than some of the members of the development team knew about. Suggesting otherwise is kind of like suggesting that Ardyn was meant to be the guy under the robe in the super early Versus XIII trailers because he and Regis do the surround-each-other-with-swords move that Noct and that guy did in that trailer. =/

Safay Roth was the translation utilized by interviewers; Sapphirus is probably romanjinized, with Safay Roth being the real iteration of the name. Ravus himself was known as Lupus at one point, either due to romanization or simply a name change.
For what it's worth, Sapphirus and Lupus were both found, romanized, when the game was data mined, so I'm going to go with Sapphirus as the real name (especially because "Safay Roth" is stinkin' terrible, the interview it came from only ever had a fan translation rather than an official one, and "Sapphirus" is a legitimate Latin word). Lupus was clearly an alternate name used early on rather than a romanization change, both because there's no way to get "Ravus" from "Lupus" and because "Lupus" is a Latin word of its own (which connects with the wolf on early Ravus' coat of arms, mind!).

We have concept artwork for him and the word that he was once a famous general and originally poised as the antagonist. This next bit is speculation based on the XIII trilogy; he was Jihl Nabaat, basically. Hyped up as the enemy leader, antagonizing your party directly, in charge of authority operations (there was to be a whole echelon of Niffs to fight, not just Aranea and Ardyn), before being disposed of by the true villain upon the reveal. The name itself was clearly intended to harken back to Sephiroth. Basically, Safay Roth is simply a red herring.
View attachment 1211
If Sapphirus really was a Jihl Nabaat-like figure, I'm not sure why it would have been necessary to remove him, given that the game wasn't exactly unwilling to include Imperial figures who didn't do a whole lot.

My suspicion is that his role as originally intended was largely a function of the expansion of Versus XIII into a multi-game project. Such a project would obviously need a major Imperial antagonist to fight at the end of Part 1, and Sapphirus' involvement in the Leviathan fight seems to suggest he would have been right where he needed to be to serve that function. As such, once the project was cut back to one game, he went from an important character to a big distraction and therefore removed entirely.

The game was conceived as a sister project to XIII alongside Type-0, and they stated before each game is like a different translation of the same FNC mythos; as such, we can see a shitton of parallels between all three games (someone pointed out a hefty amount of this a few pages ago). Like Noct being given his destiny in XIII and being told it's absolutely necessary (and all being a plot to murder a shitload of people), he gets trapped in a dream about his destiny repeatedly like Type-0's world being forced to relive the same events while the gods hope that they get their intended outcome.

Sure, this goes into fan theory, but before you just disregard it as theories, conjecture, why not lend your imagination to these glaring similarities. Using the other games, reading about their development, interviews and looking at the XIII trilogy as a whole paints a pretty good idea of what the FNC story actually is; with this greater context utilizing all the games based in FNC lore, we can interpret the basic story of the goddess told throughout all three, and restructure earlier elements. They're not exactly the same, so again, grain of salt, but I am not spewing shit for crackpot theories; I definitely believe there is ways to understand the earlier version of the story, the story at launch, the story they were trying to tell and more.
Oh, there are definitely parallels. I'm pretty sure I've made a number of connections myself in earlier posts. ;)

However. I'm not sure it's wise to assume that the drafts which existed for Versus XIII/FFXV maintained the same exact concepts until Tabata arrived and started changing stuff. It's certainly plausible, given the associations with FNC material from XIII-2 and Lightning Returns, that some of the material that became DotF was drawn from 2013!FFXV. But it's even more clear that DotF envisioned a very different ending than 2006!Versus, given that Nomura was saying that "the current plot is truly very sad," "the story tells of companions who spend time together and the happiness they share each day as well as the heavy responsibilities they carry," and "misery and worry play a huge part in the story," while Kitase was convinced that "people will cry because of the story, they will get involved into it and will be crying for a whole week and on!" (Not to mention Nomura's claim that "There will likely not be a love relationship in the story, and if there is it is not what you will imagine." XD; )

My own hypothesis is that, in some very important ways, 2016!FFXV rolled back changes that 2013!FFXV had made in favor of elements that had been considered much earlier on. Kitase's prediction in particular seems very unlikely to have come to pass had a more DotF-like concept been chosen for the game as it released, but it's certainly applicable to the game as it released in 2016.
 
Feb 19, 2018
582
1,108
31
I'd say it's more dependent on whether or not they're doing it as a passion project or a checklist project. Considering it's Netflix, I have concerns more about them wanting to checkoff diversity castings and tell a thinly-veiled IRL political story using the XIV setting, instead of making a true addition to XIV's lore. However, Netflix does have interesting projects lined up, so we can hope for the best. The reason why some live action is harder is because any anime has Japanese luxuries; flashbacks, long pauses while character's internally monologue. IF you do this in live action, it's boring, so they have to utilize the format and go for a Hollywood approach with flash and bang to drag you in. However, when they try too hard to add bells and whistles, it becomes a cluster of nice but utterly pointless bells and whistles. The creators must be passionate, and actually play the game, not just be hires to write about that online game, Final Fantasy XIV.
Yeah, I wholly agree with your points. Castlevania is a shining example of this. It's made with love, care, and actual passion for the project which contributes to the quality far more than it just being animated though I definitely think animating it helped bring some of the more out there elements to life in a far more faithful and convincing way which is why I'm advocating for that. Though I'm willing to admit I'm a bit biased as well since I prefer animation over live action for the most part. That being said the lack of passion in most of Netflix's adapted projects is another reason why I'm worried. I just don't expect FF to be treated with much care if a property as big as Witcher is being mishandled the way it is. I suppose I should wait until the cast and crew are announced to cast judgement but I feel like Netflix's reputation warrants a healthy dose of skepticism and caution at this point.
 

Lord_Ham_Mork

SOLDIER Second Class
Feb 23, 2018
344
587
31
Yes, but there's other details lopped off the story that were the basis for new events. The invasion being one of them; Omen implies that Noct was there for it. The Phantom Wedding itself isn't even truly a wedding, it's Noct's coronation. But given we lost the entire other worldly part of the game, they'd just use assets they already had. The ending of XV is already abridged (Noctis musing on his friends is a few brief flashes when in reality, he was seeing it all).

It's one of the discrepancies that exist due to the trimming and addition of extra content.

Before anybody gets smart, this is all taken with a grain of salt. I still wish to try doing a basic restructure of the story utilizing Safay Roth's role; to truly understand the current changes, we have to try understanding how it used to be.
The Omen trailer is a vision that Bahamuth showed to Regis to see what his son would have to deal if he didn't embark into his journey.
In the same way he did through Prynna with Ignis.

So Dawn of the Future is Bahamuth plan backfiring because Ardyn didn't follow his instructions as he thought he would.
 
Jun 3, 2018
53
118
WOOORDS of WisdoooooooOOOOM.
It definitely seems like it was made around 2016's mid time, or at least completed (or perhaps they rendered it just in anticipation of when they truly went gold, as Tabata whipped out the gold disc at the crowd this trailer was premiered at (they had like no reaction to Omen :c)). It seems like one of the things that the filmmakers, having to have known the original Versus invasion in order to properly write and construct the Kingsglaive movie, put in as a reference, since people likened Omen to Versus heavily the time it came out due to the Luna and Noct battle. It's definitely something along the lines of something Bahamut made up as a fate for Noctis he'd intentionally do, given his recent characterization revelations to threaten Ardyn with eternal darkness.

I still think we agree on the PHantom Wedding, as I'm mostly agreeing with your post. It has a number of connotations considering Tabata meticulously went over the ending and even had slight touch ups to the ending between the base disc and Crown Patch (miniscule things like slight angles or a few extra seconds here and there or shaved off). He had to be very careful about the presentation to make sure the grand message of XV came across, that Luna and Noct do end up happy, but had to very much be careful. Bahamut and the Astrals right when Noctis summons the Kings of Lucis I'm 100% convinced is him casting Terraflare, but with the lack of context, we chalked it up as being part of Noct's summon ritual, when it's likely this is Bahamut destroying the world of man. Even with the Royal Edition's credits featuring extra scenes after the Dawn, remember, they weren't sure if they'd quite get a chance to do the 4 DLC plan at the time and still had to reinforce this narrative. DotF was to reveal it's Bahamut laying out a classic good vs. evil story for Noctis to win and achieve happiness and save the day. Light and dark, but there is no good or evil, just Bahamut making everybody think that so he gets his desired Light VS. Darkness battle.

They removed several characters and plots, and given Verstael had one scene in base XV, among other characters rewrites occurring, they just didn't want to bloat it up too much. Tabata said they had one villain in the game, Ardyn, when it's likely Safay Roth would have led Caligo, Ravus, Aranea and Loqi in the initial war post-Invasion. However when the game got trimmed down and had to have resources diverted to other things, they had to trim story as even chapter 2 features a cut subplot about Cor being allegedly kidnapped. With the trimmings, they lost nuance and reason to have Safay Roth, so they made his antagonistic role go to Ardyn and his military role go to Ravus. We had no scenes of Ravus battling Leviathan because they belonged to Safay Roth. It's likely he would have been killed like Caligo was in EP: Ignis, before Safay Roth got cut and they had to trim the Leviathan invasion down further. Ignis features cut content from the Leviathan battle apparently and given the mass rewrites Ignis got, the delays it got as well as the fact that it's cut content, it's plausible that it's due to Safay Roth. I will also maintain it's Safay Roth, as his initials on the ship are "SAF." Who could say, at this point.

MY idea is that like XIII, Versus started off as one game with a smaller tale, before they being ballooned up and then they realized they had too much, and required a trilogy. XIII trilogy I view as a 3-disc FF game, which helps see a bit more parallels. The Clavis and Vanille's subplot to gather souls even seems like Luna gathering Darkness for Bahamut. Vanille and Fang being red and blue are even similar to how it was to be the red and blue brothers of Lucis to be Kings of Light and Darkness. Then it defaulted to Luna, paralleling Lightning being drawn in as the one to hold the Chaos at bay while Vanille was to gather Souls as Fang refused to go along with it. Fang herself is like Noctis, not truly knowing what's going on but relentlessly protecting her other. They both attempted to go along with their destiny against Ardyn and Orphan, but then reject their grander calling when it comes to God/Bahamut obliterating everybody once they know the true consequences of what would happen.

As such, we can draw parallels to XIII's story and project that onto Versus in a tragic way, as XIII is a complete solo experience even if it has a bit of mystery, like how XV was a complete experience with Noct's death, reflecting how Nomura stated that it will have one conclusion, they will still delve more into the story like with XIII, XIII-2 introducing the opportunity for an "alternate grand finale" if you may.

The Omen trailer is a vision that Bahamuth showed to Regis to see what his son would have to deal if he didn't embark into his journey.
In the same way he did through Prynna with Ignis.

So Dawn of the Future is Bahamuth plan backfiring because Ardyn didn't follow his instructions as he thought he would.
Basically, yeah. Ardyn resisted, so Bahamut started lying to people more and more culminating in everybody rejecting the gods. Regis himself was so scared by Omen that he sacrificed a fucking city for Bahamut's insane plot to kill everybody, because Regis didn't know any better, he just knew this would give his son happiness.
 

Ikkin

Warrior of Light
Oct 30, 2016
1,099
1,705
@ArbyWorks ,

I'm going to respond to your last post more fully when I have more time, but I want to make my position on the relationship of the Phantom Wedding and the DotF material crystal clear:

I believe that, given the fact that the Phantom Wedding cannot exist in the same reality as DotF, the end of FFXV represents a definitive and irrevocable break with any and all DotF-esque plans that may have been floated in earlier drafts of the game.

I also hold that the scene where Bahamut is joined by the rest of the Astrals over the Citadel serves far better as evidence for the above position as opposed to the contrary, as the other Astrals assisting Bahamut is the exact opposite of what happens in DotF.

The only way to rectify these inconsistencies is to hold that everything after the end of Chapter 13 in the original game is simply a vision crafted by Bahamut to manipulate Noct into doing what he wants. Unfortunately, this not only renders it impossible to use anything within the original game as evidence in favor of such a conclusion, it's not even internally consistent -- it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for Bahamut to show Noct how things would have went in a timeline where Ardyn cooperated if they were actually in a timeline where Ardyn didn't cooperate and Bahamut's plan had to change to reflect that.

Rather than undercutting the original game in order to justify the existence of DotF in a canon that was intentionally designed to rule such elements out, it makes far more sense to treat DotF as what its creators admitted it to be -- an alternate timeline with different initial parameters to those found in canon proper. And, if you really want to fit the ghosts of past DotF elements into a timeline, there's always the timeline of hypothetical drafts to play around with. ;)
 

mozzafaralj

SOLDIER Second Class
Apr 12, 2016
300
466
@ArbyWorks ,

I'm going to respond to your last post more fully when I have more time, but I want to make my position on the relationship of the Phantom Wedding and the DotF material crystal clear:

I believe that, given the fact that the Phantom Wedding cannot exist in the same reality as DotF, the end of FFXV represents a definitive and irrevocable break with any and all DotF-esque plans that may have been floated in earlier drafts of the game.

I also hold that the scene where Bahamut is joined by the rest of the Astrals over the Citadel serves far better as evidence for the above position as opposed to the contrary, as the other Astrals assisting Bahamut is the exact opposite of what happens in DotF.

The only way to rectify these inconsistencies is to hold that everything after the end of Chapter 13 in the original game is simply a vision crafted by Bahamut to manipulate Noct into doing what he wants. Unfortunately, this not only renders it impossible to use anything within the original game as evidence in favor of such a conclusion, it's not even internally consistent -- it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for Bahamut to show Noct how things would have went in a timeline where Ardyn cooperated if they were actually in a timeline where Ardyn didn't cooperate and Bahamut's plan had to change to reflect that.

Rather than undercutting the original game in order to justify the existence of DotF in a canon that was intentionally designed to rule such elements out, it makes far more sense to treat DotF as what its creators admitted it to be -- an alternate timeline with different initial parameters to those found in canon proper. And, if you really want to fit the ghosts of past DotF elements into a timeline, there's always the timeline of hypothetical drafts to play around with. ;)
so this is alternative ending in the dawn of the future, not the trace the main story of the main ending (phantom wedding) in the main game.
 

Bazztek

Keyblade Master
May 26, 2014
719
1,890
This is the very definition of an unsubstantiated assumption.

The Famitsu quote you provided -- in Google Translate form, mind! -- said nothing about any piece of artwork other than the specific key image of the happy ending picnic that the interviewer asked about.

And yet, you somehow managed to draw from that simple comment the "fact" that every single piece of artwork included in the DotF art book was created for the same reason, under the same circumstances. That's so far from what was said in that quote that I honestly couldn't even believe that was what you were trying to say at first and read your commentary as if it were your own translation until that interpretation became impossible to sustain.

This is why I asked for positive evidence -- I figured that three quarters of your certainty was based in assumptions you'd made rather than in actual statements made by the development team.
What? No? Did you actually read the quote? He said they held competition with the Art Members of the team to create artworks for an ending that they think fans most want to see and would satisfy them, and that one of the drawings that was created was that Ardyn picnic image, which is only being brought up because that was the only one that was shown back when DotF was announced in 2018 which is why the interviewer asked him about that image, so him saying that they held a competition with the Art Members to create ending artworks for DotF and that that Ardyn picnic art was just one of them not only directly implies that there are other art works made for that competition but that Ardyn picnic art is not the only one made for that competition with the Art Members to depict an ending those artists think fans most want to see and would satisfy them.

I have no trouble believing this is the case for this image, and it bears no relevance to the artwork in question.
It's literally directly related to it because that is another artwork that was created by the Art Members and the first line of the description of that vertical image of Ardyn's funeral with Luna in her Kingsglaive outfit is the same line used for the horizontal Noct and Luna at Ardyn's funeral artwork too, that they are both artworks created for DotF as idea's for the ending and that that is Ardyn's funeral. The fact that that artwork of Luna in her kingsglaive dress at Ardyn's funeral says the same thing in the first 2 sentences as the horizontal artwork of Noct and Luna at Ardyn's funeral means that both were created as idea images for the ending of DotF, even if one was created for DotF earlier than the other or whatever, either way all DotF artwork would have only started being made in 2018 when it was first being planned. There is absolutely no way Ferrari would have been involved in that to begin with, and again that artwork looks nothing like his artstyle.

However.

Google Translate is... Google Translate. Its ability to translate grammar is, quite frankly, nonexistent. That's why its quality is a hundred times better when applied to languages like Spanish, which contain similar grammar and syntax to English -- in those languages, it doesn't have to do anything but translate words, since the grammar and syntax are already largely understandable the way they are.

Japanese, in particular, handles subjects in a very different way than English does. That's why a machine translated line like "This is one of the works when an art member was given an idea image about the ending of 'The Dawn of the Future'" is not proof of anything -- its grammatical oddities aren't just a matter of machine translations translating things weirdly (the way a human translator who isn't a native English speaker might) but a suggestion that the translation itself is highly ambiguous.

Does it mean "This is one of the works created when an art member was asked to create an idea image [concept art] about the ending of The Dawn of the Future"? Maybe. But it could also mean "This is one of the works chosen by an art member as an idea image [concept art] to reflect the ending of The Dawn of the Future..." especially since a later line says, "it was planned to include the scene of 'The First King's Funeral' in the ending being further inspired from this art specifically," which strongly suggests that the artwork influenced the ending rather than vice versa.

The best way to resolve this question, of course, is to get a proper human translation of the caption rather than relying on Google Translate for things that depend on grammatical accuracy.
I only used google translate because I couldn't be bothered doing a full translation when I posted it, but that said the google translate is close enough to the intended meaning regardless, in that the artwork of Ardyn's funeral was definitely created for DotF.

So let's go through it sentence by sentence.

"これは(This is)アートメンバーに(by an Art Member)『末来への夜明け』(Dawn of the Future) のエンディングについて(About the ending)、アイディアイメージ(Idea image)を出してもらったとき(when came up/when put out)の作品(Work of art)のうちのひとつです(One of)。"

The "エンディングについて" means that the idea image artwork that was created was for the ending of Dawn of the Future.

Basically it means "This is one of the works of art from when an Art Member came up with/put out an idea image about the ending of [Dawn of the Future]"

Which means that an Art Member created that artwork for the ending of Dawn of the Future, and given the context from the Famitsu interview of the competition to create endings for DotF by the Art Members that fans would want to see it only further indicates that this is one of the many artworks that were created by the DotF Art Members as their ideas for the ending that fans would like to see.

2nd line is this
アーデンの (Ardyn's) 葬儀 (Funeral) をイメージして(image)描かれました(was drawn)。
"An image of Ardyn's funeral is depicted"

And both these two art works of Ardyn's funeral state this text in their first two sentences, which confirm that both of them were created as idea images for the ending of Dawn of the Future by Art Members.

"これはアートメンバーに『末来への夜明け』のエンディングについて、アイディアイメージを出してもらったときの作品のひとつです。アーデンの葬儀をイメージして描かれました。"
"This is one of the works of art from when an Art Member came up with/put out an idea image about the ending of [Dawn of the Future]. An image of Ardyn's funeral is depicted."


"これはアートメンバーに『末来への夜明け』のエンディングについて、アイディアイメージを出してもらったときの作品のうちのひとつです。アーデンの葬儀をイメージして描かれました。"
"This is one of the works of art from when an Art Member came up with/put out an idea image about the ending of [Dawn of the Future]. An image of Ardyn's funeral is depicted."

These both say the same thing in their first two sentences with only 1 minor difference, the only difference in their first line is that the vertical artwork says "作品のひとつです" which means (one of the works) while the horizontal artwork says "作品のうちのひとつです" which also means (one of the works), so both mean the same exact thing in that they are "one of the works", so there is no change in meaning in the first sentence.

The 3rd sentence in the horizontal image states this.
もともと(Originally)『エピソード ノクティス』において(In Episode Noctis)、アーデンもまた(Ardyn also)報われる(be rewarded)最期(last moment/death/end)を想定していましたが(was assumed/envisioned)、さらに(Furthermore/moreover)このアートから(because of this art/from this art)具体的に(Specifically)インスパイアされてエンディングに(inspired the ending of)「初代王の葬儀」[Funeral of the First King]のシーンを入れる予定でした。(scene was planned)"

Basically "Originally in [Episode Noctis] Ardyn was also envisioned to be rewarded in the end, moreover this artwork specifically inspired an ending scene that was planned for the [First Kings's Funeral]"

So basically one of the planned endings they were going with for Episode Noctis was Ardyn being being rewarded with a funeral recognizing him as the First King, which is what the horizontal artwork of Noct and Luna at Ardyn's funeral which was made for DotF specifically inspired them to plan a scene like that, but ultimately they did not go with that.

It was already explained earlier that various artworks were created by the Art Members as different ideas for the ending of DotF for what they think would satisfy fans, and these concept artworks of Ardyn's funeral which are not actually part of the final DotF story are just that, other art works created by the Art Members for DotF when they were still planning the ending for it, which is why they all vary in what they depict, with some showing Ardyn's funeral while other showing Noct and Luna's wedding while another showing Noct and Luna with their kids with Ardyn and the bros having a picnic, another showing Noct and Luna on the throne with their kids, etc.

I'm not sure why you seem to think Roberto Ferrari drew that DotF art work when it looks nothing remotely like his artwork at all, including any of his storyboard drafts from 2013 which all still use a flat art style with no blended colours and all still use basic linework, which is not present at all in the Ardyn funeral artwork for DotF, which again was created specifically for DotF which only started being planned in 2018, which was 5 years AFTER Roberto Ferrari had already left the XV team and was no longer contributing any artwork for the game after he left at the end of 2013.

Here is some of those same storyboard panels that Ferrari drew more clearly, they all use flat colours and basic lineart, there is no blended painterly style employed, Ferrari's style is minimal in how he draws in his flat toned more anime-eqsue way, he always uses lineart and basic flat colours, he rarely if ever will blend colours and even if he does it's only for things such as highlights, not base tones or shade, even in more rudimentary form his artstyle still has solid lineart and clear distinction between colours, which does not look at all like any of the DotF artworks which are using heavy amount of blended colours in a detailed painterly style that doesn't evoke any semblence to Roberto Ferrari's artwork.




See here even when doing backgrounds Ferrari still uses solid flat fills with clear distinction between colours, not blends, and every panel of that storyboard he does uses lineart with these solid fills even if roughly drawn.









I don't know why you think this DotF artwork is by Roberto Ferrari, when this DotF artwork is heavily blended with more dynamic range of colours and blended tones with a ton of highlights, shades, tints, textured brushes and clear use of different brush types, and that also uses no actual lineart as it blocks in with the shades themselves. Especially when compared to Kenji Niki's art below who's artstyle matches exactly with this DotF artwork.




Seriously just look at how Gladio and Ignis are drawn and shaded in this artwork by Kenji Niki here, where they were added to the artwork above, and how they are in the same style as the DotF Ardyn's funeral artwork.


Remember what I said above about assumptions? There's no positive evidence here whatsoever, just a bunch of arguments from absence. (Using the lack of detail in a rough draft to suggest that the design for a complicated weapon wasn't finalized is a particularly absurd sort of argument from absence, even.)

My suggestion about the Sword of the Father isn't that it filled the same role back in Nomura's XV, anyway. My suggestion was that, given the other evidence that the artwork was early, there's no reason it couldn't have been created earlier to fill a different role, like Noct's ultimate weapon.
Funny you talk about assumptions yet all you do is that, why are you assuming Sword of the Father existed in Nomura's XV when all the evidence suggests it can only have been created in 2015/ for Tabata's XV? When the changes were made to Regis which is a direct result of Kingsglaive's production which fully ramped up in 2015, and when we first saw Sword of the Father? There is literally nothing to suggest it ever existed in Nomura's XV nor was the concept of the royal arms even a thing there, that was one of the main things that was added in Tabata's XV.

The existence of concept art for Kingsglaive, which required much higher levels of detail for its characters than 2013!XV would have, is by no means evidence that the concepts behind individual designs didn't exist earlier. The two hooded figures in particular look like attempts to change Nomura-esque designs into something that would work in artificial-"live action."
Hey look more assumptions from you with no evidence or anything to back up what you're saying at all, meanwhile what I posted was artwork from the Art Director of Kingslgaive with all of those designs being brand new and some even unfinalized versions of their Kingsglaive design itself, including that Regis design which is a completely different design to the original Regis design in Nomura's XV, so no, the entire existence of the Kingsglaive itself was never a thing in Nomura's XV either and we can see in all pre 2015 CG of the peace treaty scene all of Regis's council only wore suits, there were no tall robed men with giant black square helmets or anything like that, even in any concept art for Nomura's XV we've seen. You are the only one assuming something here, and based on absolutely nothing at that.

Also the level of difference in concept art for Kingsglaive and XV itself are easily comparable, be it for characters or environments.
Concept art made specifically for XV by SE artists.



Concept art made for Kingsglaive by artists and studios that were commissioned to make artwork.



If the concept for "Luna"'s outfit came from the artist, though, that doesn't really match his style on Kingsglaive at all. =P
Luna has been frequently drawn and depicted in different outfits, including those that never made the final cut, so him drawing Luna in a different outfit which neither Stella nor Luna have ever been depicted in before for that concept art for DotF does not mean anything.
 

Ikkin

Warrior of Light
Oct 30, 2016
1,099
1,705
What? No? Did you actually read the quote? He said they held competition with the Art Members of the team to create artworks for an ending that they think fans most want to see and would satisfy them, and that one of the drawings that was created was that Ardyn picnic image, which is only being brought up because that was the only one that was shown back when DotF was announced in 2018 which is why the interviewer asked him about that image, so him saying that they held a competition with the Art Members to create ending artworks for DotF and that that Ardyn picnic art was just one of them not only directly implies that there are other art works made for that competition but that Ardyn picnic art is not the only one made for that competition with the Art Members to depict an ending those artists think fans most want to see and would satisfy them.
I did, in fact, read the quote. I just reread it, in fact, and it is no more determinate now than it was when I first saw it. I suppose it would have been more accurate to say that it "said nothing specific about any specific piece of artwork other than the specific key image of the happy ending picnic that the interviewer asked about," but I figured that the extra two "specifics" were implied. Obviously, one could take the quote to mean that there were other pieces of artwork, but that doesn't mean that you can use the quote to prove that any piece of artwork that was not specifically mentioned falls into the category of artwork created in response to that competition.

In other words, you used something ambiguous to make a definite claim, which is not a logically valid form of reasoning.

It's literally directly related to it because that is another artwork that was created by the Art Members and the first line of the description of that vertical image of Ardyn's funeral with Luna in her Kingsglaive outfit is the same line used for the horizontal Noct and Luna at Ardyn's funeral artwork too, that they are both artworks created for DotF as idea's for the ending and that that is Ardyn's funeral. The fact that that artwork of Luna in her kingsglaive dress at Ardyn's funeral says the same thing in the first 2 sentences as the horizontal artwork of Noct and Luna at Ardyn's funeral means that both were created as idea images for the ending of DotF, even if one was created for DotF earlier than the other or whatever, either way all DotF artwork would have only started being made in 2018 when it was first being planned. There is absolutely no way Ferrari would have been involved in that to begin with, and again that artwork looks nothing like his artstyle.
I feel like things would have gone a lot more smoothly had you actually mentioned the near identical text in both images instead of simply paraphrasing the first, given that I don't speak Japanese, and I'm not particularly inclined to play "spot the differences" in a language I'm unfamiliar with. =/

With that said, the most important thing is the human translation, so:

I only used google translate because I couldn't be bothered doing a full translation when I posted it, but that said the google translate is close enough to the intended meaning regardless, in that the artwork of Ardyn's funeral was definitely created for DotF.

So let's go through it sentence by sentence.

"これは(This is)アートメンバーに(by an Art Member)『末来への夜明け』(Dawn of the Future) のエンディングについて(About the ending)、アイディアイメージ(Idea image)を出してもらったとき(when came up/when put out)の作品(Work of art)のうちのひとつです(One of)。"

The "エンディングについて" means that the idea image artwork that was created was for the ending of Dawn of the Future.

Basically it means "This is one of the works of art from when an Art Member came up with/put out an idea image about the ending of [Dawn of the Future]"

Which means that an Art Member created that artwork for the ending of Dawn of the Future, and given the context from the Famitsu interview of the competition to create endings for DotF by the Art Members that fans would want to see it only further indicates that this is one of the many artworks that were created by the DotF Art Members as their ideas for the ending that fans would like to see.

2nd line is this
アーデンの (Ardyn's) 葬儀 (Funeral) をイメージして(image)描かれました(was drawn)。
"An image of Ardyn's funeral is depicted"

And both these two art works of Ardyn's funeral state this text in their first two sentences, which confirm that both of them were created as idea images for the ending of Dawn of the Future by Art Members.

"これはアートメンバーに『末来への夜明け』のエンディングについて、アイディアイメージを出してもらったときの作品のひとつです。アーデンの葬儀をイメージして描かれました。"
"This is one of the works of art from when an Art Member came up with/put out an idea image about the ending of [Dawn of the Future]. An image of Ardyn's funeral is depicted."


"これはアートメンバーに『末来への夜明け』のエンディングについて、アイディアイメージを出してもらったときの作品のうちのひとつです。アーデンの葬儀をイメージして描かれました。"
"This is one of the works of art from when an Art Member came up with/put out an idea image about the ending of [Dawn of the Future]. An image of Ardyn's funeral is depicted."

These both say the same thing in their first two sentences with only 1 minor difference, the only difference in their first line is that the vertical artwork says "作品のひとつです" which means (one of the works) while the horizontal artwork says "作品のうちのひとつです" which also means (one of the works), so both mean the same exact thing in that they are "one of the works", so there is no change in meaning in the first sentence.

The 3rd sentence in the horizontal image states this.
もともと(Originally)『エピソード ノクティス』において(In Episode Noctis)、アーデンもまた(Ardyn also)報われる(be rewarded)最期(last moment/death/end)を想定していましたが(was assumed/envisioned)、さらに(Furthermore/moreover)このアートから(because of this art/from this art)具体的に(Specifically)インスパイアされてエンディングに(inspired the ending of)「初代王の葬儀」[Funeral of the First King]のシーンを入れる予定でした。(scene was planned)"

Basically "Originally in [Episode Noctis] Ardyn was also envisioned to be rewarded in the end, moreover this artwork specifically inspired an ending scene that was planned for the [First Kings's Funeral]"

So basically one of the planned endings they were going with for Episode Noctis was Ardyn being being rewarded with a funeral recognizing him as the First King, which is what the horizontal artwork of Noct and Luna at Ardyn's funeral which was made for DotF specifically inspired them to plan a scene like that, but ultimately they did not go with that.

It was already explained earlier that various artworks were created by the Art Members as different ideas for the ending of DotF for what they think would satisfy fans, and these concept artworks of Ardyn's funeral which are not actually part of the final DotF story are just that, other art works created by the Art Members for DotF when they were still planning the ending for it, which is why they all vary in what they depict, with some showing Ardyn's funeral while other showing Noct and Luna's wedding while another showing Noct and Luna with their kids with Ardyn and the bros having a picnic, another showing Noct and Luna on the throne with their kids, etc.
I find it kind of frustrating that, given how pathetic machine translation can be and how ambiguous Japanese can be by it's very nature, you'd attempt to continue an argument with a machine translation rather than ending it by demonstrating your own capacity to parse what is said.

In light of the new information, I concede that you do have decisive evidence that, however uncharacteristic the artwork may be, it was in fact created in 2018. I'd also like to note that, given this new information, some of the seeming connections between Versus and DotF may not actually exist.

I'm not sure why you seem to think Roberto Ferrari drew that DotF art work when it looks nothing remotely like his artwork at all, including any of his storyboard drafts from 2013 which all still use a flat art style with no blended colours and all still use basic linework, which is not present at all in the Ardyn funeral artwork for DotF, which again was created specifically for DotF which only started being planned in 2018, which was 5 years AFTER Roberto Ferrari had already left the XV team and was no longer contributing any artwork for the game after he left at the end of 2013.

Here is some of those same storyboard panels that Ferrari drew more clearly, they all use flat colours and basic lineart, there is no blended painterly style employed, Ferrari's style is minimal in how he draws in his flat toned more anime-eqsue way, he always uses lineart and basic flat colours, he rarely if ever will blend colours and even if he does it's only for things such as highlights, not base tones or shade, even in more rudimentary form his artstyle still has solid lineart and clear distinction between colours, which does not look at all like any of the DotF artworks which are using heavy amount of blended colours in a detailed painterly style that doesn't evoke any semblence to Roberto Ferrari's artwork.
Obviously, the reason I thought Roberto Ferrari could have been involved in the creation of the artwork because I believed it was created prior to the end of 2013. =P If I did not believe that the artwork was Versus/2013!FFXV artwork rather than 2018 DotF artwork, I would not have even raised that possibility.

With that said, the difference in medium isn't necessarily proof that an artist couldn't have been involved in an artwork, because artists sometimes step out of their comfort zones and try other mediums... and line artists' work are sometimes used as a base for expansion by other artists. The funeral artwork, in particular, demonstrated exaggerated proportions and clothing styles that reminded me of some of the things that Ferrari did, even if I hadn't seen him use a detailed painterly style.

I don't know why you think this DotF artwork is by Roberto Ferrari, when this DotF artwork is heavily blended with more dynamic range of colours and blended tones with a ton of highlights, shades, tints, textured brushes and clear use of different brush types, and that also uses no actual lineart as it blocks in with the shades themselves. Especially when compared to Kenji Niki's art below who's artstyle matches exactly with this DotF artwork.




Seriously just look at how Gladio and Ignis are drawn and shaded in this artwork by Kenji Niki here, where they were added to the artwork above, and how they are in the same style as the DotF Ardyn's funeral artwork.
With regards to Kenji Niki, the painterly style is definitely more associated with him, but the exaggerated proportions and clothing styles don't match up with anything I've seen him do. If there was an overlap in the time the two men worked on the game, I wouldn't have found any reason to rule out the possibility of Niki expanding on lineart done by Ferrari (and honestly would have found that possibility more likely that either of the two men doing it on their own).

Funny you talk about assumptions yet all you do is that, why are you assuming Sword of the Father existed in Nomura's XV when all the evidence suggests it can only have been created in 2015/ for Tabata's XV? When the changes were made to Regis which is a direct result of Kingsglaive's production which fully ramped up in 2015, and when we first saw Sword of the Father? There is literally nothing to suggest it ever existed in Nomura's XV nor was the concept of the royal arms even a thing there, that was one of the main things that was added in Tabata's XV.
There's a pretty big difference in the amount of evidence required to suggest a consistent alternative than to claim that something is definitively true.

I was not assuming that the Sword of the Father existed in Nomura's XV. All I was saying is that, given the fact that concept artwork exists before it is shown to us, the presence of the Sword of the Father does not definitively prove that an artwork was not created for Nomura's XV, because we were never specifically told when and why the Sword of the Father concept was developed.

Hey look more assumptions from you with no evidence or anything to back up what you're saying at all, meanwhile what I posted was artwork from the Art Director of Kingslgaive with all of those designs being brand new and some even unfinalized versions of their Kingsglaive design itself, including that Regis design which is a completely different design to the original Regis design in Nomura's XV, so no, the entire existence of the Kingsglaive itself was never a thing in Nomura's XV either and we can see in all pre 2015 CG of the peace treaty scene all of Regis's council only wore suits, there were no tall robed men with giant black square helmets or anything like that, even in any concept art for Nomura's XV we've seen. You are the only one assuming something here, and based on absolutely nothing at that.
Same thing goes here. I'm not assuming that the priest-like designs existed in Nomura's XV, just saying that their presence does not definitively prove that an artwork was created for Nomura's XV, since we do not definitively know when they were created.

With that said, there's an interview from Nomura that was in existence by 2011 where it was stated that the nobility of Insomnia wore medieval clothing, which we never actually saw in any concept art or trailer, so there's reason to think that such outfits could have conceivably existed. =P

Also the level of difference in concept art for Kingsglaive and XV itself are easily comparable, be it for characters or environments.
Concept art made specifically for XV by SE artists.



Concept art made for Kingsglaive by artists and studios that were commissioned to make artwork.

Environmental artwork and character concepts are two very different things. Versus character concepts were highly anime, which definitely wouldn't have worked for Kingsglaive.

Luna has been frequently drawn and depicted in different outfits, including those that never made the final cut, so him drawing Luna in a different outfit which neither Stella nor Luna have ever been depicted in before for that concept art for DotF does not mean anything.
While it's true that Luna has been drawn and depicted in different outfits, the outfit that she's shown in in the funeral artwork clashes terribly with virtually every outfit created for FFXV. The only outfits even slightly similar are Cindy and Iris, both of whom were created by... Roberto Ferrari. =P
 

Bazztek

Keyblade Master
May 26, 2014
719
1,890
I did, in fact, read the quote. I just reread it, in fact, and it is no more determinate now than it was when I first saw it. I suppose it would have been more accurate to say that it "said nothing specific about any specific piece of artwork other than the specific key image of the happy ending picnic that the interviewer asked about," but I figured that the extra two "specifics" were implied. Obviously, one could take the quote to mean that there were other pieces of artwork, but that doesn't mean that you can use the quote to prove that any piece of artwork that was not specifically mentioned falls into the category of artwork created in response to that competition.

In other words, you used something ambiguous to make a definite claim, which is not a logically valid form of reasoning.
I don't know why you don't understand why it is relevant, that is because it is Terada specifically stating that the the Art Members created artwork for endings they thought would satisfy fans, which is why there is multiple different artworks for different kinds of endings that aren't even part of the actual ending of DotF, which is exactly what that artwork of Luna and Noct at Ardyn's funeral is, which is exactly what the artwork of Noct and Luna with kids at the picnic with Ardyn is, which is exactly what the artwork of Noct and Luna with kids on sitting on the throne is. You are being purposely obtuse for no reason.

I feel like things would have gone a lot more smoothly had you actually mentioned the near identical text in both images instead of simply paraphrasing the first, given that I don't speak Japanese, and I'm not particularly inclined to play "spot the differences" in a language I'm unfamiliar with. =/
This would have gone more smoothly had you just listened to what was said to you earlier instead of needlessly dragging this out.

Which is especially hilarious given your next point.

With that said, the most important thing is the human translation, so:
And the translation I just provided is a human translation, by me, which I broke down in such a simple fashion that even someone with no Japanese knowledge should be able to understand, it's not a machine translation.

I find it kind of frustrating that, given how pathetic machine translation can be and how ambiguous Japanese can be by it's very nature, you'd attempt to continue an argument with a machine translation rather than ending it by demonstrating your own capacity to parse what is said.
That is not a machine translation, that is an actual translation by me, and in the actual Japanese section itself I put in parenthesis the actual meaning of what is being said in the most literal sense so that there is no confusion, and then had the actual translation by me underneath it and yet you still got confused?

I really don't think you have a good eye for discerning artstyle at all if you seriously cannot parse the difference between Ferrari's distinct flat style and something like the DotF artwork. The gulf of difference is even more than that of Nomura and Kamikokuryo's art, and even that said Ferrari's humans don't even look like the style used in that DotF artwork to begin with, again Niki's does and it is so clearly evident just by looking at Ignis and Gladio in this art. And it's not as simple as "oh maybe ferrari decided to use a painterly style for this one art just because" when even despite that there are still always going to be telltale signs of something being done by a specific artist.

Like this is so obviously done in the same style.



While this is not.




I was not assuming that the Sword of the Father existed in Nomura's XV. All I was saying is that, given the fact that concept artwork exists before it is shown to us, the presence of the Sword of the Father does not definitively prove that an artwork was not created for Nomura's XV, because we were never specifically told when and why the Sword of the Father concept was developed.
It was created when Regis's design was changed and when the creation of the Royal Arms became a thing, which was a change made when it was Tabata's XV, the design motif of Sword of the Father is present in all 13 of the royal arms, and the changes to Regis's design happened as a result of Kingsglaive's changes to XV itself, which happened as a result of story changes, which happened as a result of the shift from Nomura to Tabata, there is such a clear line of cause and effect here. The presence of the Royal Arms being a thing at all was never a thing in Nomura's XV, therefor it did not exist in Nomura's XV, and seeing as we saw the Armiger Noctis used back in 2013 and in the old Versus CG trailers of which no sword of the father or any royal arm was even present then it is again only further proof. The Royal Arms hadn't even been designed yet even when Episode Duscae was released despite the idea of them having now become a thing, which is why Episode Duscae used regular weapon models as placeholder in Noctis's armiger in that demo, and then only following that were the Royal Arms revealed and Sword of the Father conceived alongside Regis's new design.

With that said, there's an interview from Nomura that was in existence by 2011 where it was stated that the nobility of Insomnia wore medieval clothing, which we never actually saw in any concept art or trailer, so there's reason to think that such outfits could have conceivably existed. =P
The only place I even see saying anything about Noctis kingdom having middle age outfits is just another FF forum yet there is no source to that statement at all, I don't recall this being said about Insomnia during Versus at all, and if anything I think you are mistaking Nomura stating that the outside world outside of Lucis dress in a more medieval style. Insomnia never had been shown with a single robed or medieval dressed character in any part of the 2011 or 2013 footage, only Niflheim was, the whole shift to adding robes to the Insomnia council was a change that happened as a result of Kingsglaive.

In fact here is an IGN article from 2007 which has IGN state that Nomura states only Noctis's country is modern while the rest of the world is more middle ages.

The cityscape as a whole takes influences from Tokyo. It's specifically meant to be in the image of the city's bustling Shinjuku area, which is also home to Square Enix's corporate headquarters. Nomura said that he passes through this area every day and always thinks its cool, so he took the chance to make use of it as material for this project.

Nomura also shared a few details which help to clarify some of the game's background story. The cityscape is a part of the main character's home country. But the entire world isn't as advanced. Surrounding the main character's modern city-like country is a world that's stuck in the middle ages. The main character's country is the only one that's reached modern times.

The reason for this split was hinted at in the Jump trailer. As the main character's car speeds down the Ginza-influenced highway, we hear a radio broadcast discussing an end to a cold war. This cold war was over crystals. The main character's country has crystals. In fact, the main character is part of a royal family who has, for generations protected the crystals. The outside world once had crystals, but lost them due to continued war. They focus their resources on weapons rather than the development of their culture, which has left them in their current backwards state.
https://ign.com/articles/2007/03/02/tetsuya-nomura-on-ff-versus-xiii

Versus character concepts were highly anime, which definitely wouldn't have worked for Kingsglaive.
This is concept art for Nyx for Kingsglaive.


This is concept art for kid Noctis, kid Luna and an early version of timeskip Noctis in XV.





As character art director on XV Yusuke Naora's job was to create a visual so that characters by Nomura, Ferrari, Mihara etc, all had a unified look in the final game. Those CG face renders of the XV characters from 2013 which look semi-realistic were by Naora's art direction working with Visual Works to render them, he had mentioned in interviews the little touches he would do to the characters too, Nyx too originally had a look that was unified with the games 3DCG artstyle, which was only changed in 2015 when they changed Kingsglaive to be using real people face scans.

This is what Nyx's original design looked like back when Kingsglaive was going to have the same 3DCG artstyle as the game, back when he was just a 2D design turned into 3DCG like the game designs, as is evident when comparing to Cor or Gladio.






The only outfits even slightly similar are Cindy and Iris
It really doesn't look similar to either of them, Iris is wearing a sleevless hoodie, a tartan miniskirt and high boots, Cindy is wearing a longsleeve cropped jacket, bikini, short shorts, symmetrical leggings, gloves and cowgirl boots, Luna in that DotF artwork looks to be wearing more like an amalgamation of her Kingsglaive dress and her DotF asymmetrical attire under the duster she had, taking design cues from her Kingsglaive attire itself with the but with a black colour scheme, shorter cut dress, spats and asymmetrical legwear.
 
Last edited:

Ikkin

Warrior of Light
Oct 30, 2016
1,099
1,705
I don't know why you don't understand why it is relevant, that is because it is Terada specifically stating that the the Art Members created artwork for endings they thought would satisfy fans, which is why there is multiple different artworks for different kinds of endings that aren't even part of the actual ending of DotF, which is exactly what that artwork of Luna and Noct at Ardyn's funeral is, which is exactly what the artwork of Noct and Luna with kids at the picnic with Ardyn is, which is exactly what the artwork of Noct and Luna with kids on sitting on the throne is. You are being purposely obtuse for no reason.
I'm not being purposefully obtuse. I'm simply demanding that you operate according to logic rather than treating an assumption (based off of something that may or may not be relevant) as proof.

In this particular case, it appears - based off of completely different facts, mind! - that the contest mentioned in the interview about the picnic artwork may have been the inspiration for the two pieces of funeral artwork as well. But nothing in the interview even suggests that any particular artwork, apart from the picnic artwork, falls into that category. It is not logically valid to use the interview to prove anything more than the simple facts that there a) was a contest of that sort and b) the picnic artwork was created for it,. As such, I will insist that the logic is invalid and the conclusion does not follow from the premises even if the conclusion is true on other grounds.

Do you understand my point now?

This would have gone more smoothly had you just listened to what was said to you earlier instead of needlessly dragging this out.

Which is especially hilarious given your next point.
Refusing to accept paraphrases of ambiguous origen and machine translations of an ambiguous source as solid proof isn't "needlessly dragging [things] out." It's the way everyone should behave with regards to paraphrases and machine translations, because paraphrases are inherently untrustworthy and machine translations of Japanese are terrible.

And the translation I just provided is a human translation, by me, which I broke down in such a simple fashion that even someone with no Japanese knowledge should be able to understand, it's not a machine translation.
Which is why, as you might or might not have noticed, I immediately accepted it. =P

That is not a machine translation, that is an actual translation by me, and in the actual Japanese section itself I put in parenthesis the actual meaning of what is being said in the most literal sense so that there is no confusion, and then had the actual translation by me underneath it and yet you still got confused?
I understand that the translation you provided in your last post is an actual translation. My point was that your earlier use of machine translation made things a lot harder than necessary for both of us, given that you were entirely capable of providing a translation sufficient to end the argument.

I really don't think you have a good eye for discerning artstyle at all if you seriously cannot parse the difference between Ferrari's distinct flat style and something like the DotF artwork. The gulf of difference is even more than that of Nomura and Kamikokuryo's art, and even that said Ferrari's humans don't even look like the style used in that DotF artwork to begin with, again Niki's does and it is so clearly evident just by looking at Ignis and Gladio in this art. And it's not as simple as "oh maybe ferrari decided to use a painterly style for this one art just because" when even despite that there are still always going to be telltale signs of something being done by a specific artist.

Like this is so obviously done in the same style.



While this is not.
I still think we're talking about different things. You're talking about coloring styles, while I'm talking about proportions and outfit design.

Anyway, now that Ferrari has been definitively ruled out, I'd like to suggest another artist whose style I think matches the funeral artwork better (under certain circumstances, at least): Isamu Kamikokuryo.




Unlike Niki, whose FFXV artwork seems to focus heavily on the interplay of light and shadow, chiaroscuro-style, Kamikokuryo's artwork has an otherworldly luminosity throughout that better matches the funeral art. Kamikokuryo's materials work and proportions seem looser as well, while Niki's seem a lot more grounded than the funeral art.

In fact, I'm inclined to suggest that the other funeral art might have been Niki's piece for the DotF ending contest:



Note the interplay of light and shadow, strong materials work, and the use of Luna's Kingsglaive dress. ;)

It was created when Regis's design was changed and when the creation of the Royal Arms became a thing, which was a change made when it was Tabata's XV, the design motif of Sword of the Father is present in all 13 of the royal arms, and the changes to Regis's design happened as a result of Kingsglaive's changes to XV itself, which happened as a result of story changes, which happened as a result of the shift from Nomura to Tabata, there is such a clear line of cause and effect here. The presence of the Royal Arms being a thing at all was never a thing in Nomura's XV, therefor it did not exist in Nomura's XV, and seeing as we saw the Armiger Noctis used back in 2013 and in the old Versus CG trailers of which no sword of the father or any royal arm was even present then it is again only further proof. The Royal Arms hadn't even been designed yet even when Episode Duscae was released despite the idea of them having now become a thing, which is why Episode Duscae used regular weapon models as placeholder in Noctis's armiger in that demo, and then only following that were the Royal Arms revealed and Sword of the Father conceived alongside Regis's new design.
Again, you're basing your entire chain of logic on the bolded assumption that the design for the Sword of the Father was created to serve its current purpose. My point was that, as we were never specifically told that the design did not exist for a different reason prior to its current use, its presence cannot be used to decisively date a piece of artwork to pre-2015. (In fact, given the limited delay between Episode Duscae's release in March and the Dawn trailer's release in August, it seems quite likely that the existence of placeholder weapons in Episode Duscae does not imply that the Royal Arms designs did not exist until after Episode Duscae. Not to mention, Kingsglaive entered full development in 2014, which would have been very difficult without designs for Sword of the Father, Sword of the Mystic, Star of the Rogue, and Mace of the Fierce!)

The only place I even see saying anything about Noctis kingdom having middle age outfits is just another FF forum yet there is no source to that statement at all, I don't recall this being said about Insomnia during Versus at all, and if anything I think you are mistaking Nomura stating that the outside world outside of Lucis dress in a more medieval style. Insomnia never had been shown with a single robed or medieval dressed character in any part of the 2011 or 2013 footage, only Niflheim was, the whole shift to adding robes to the Insomnia council was a change that happened as a result of Kingsglaive.

In fact here is an IGN article from 2007 which has IGN state that Nomura states only Noctis's country is modern while the rest of the world is more middle ages.


https://ign.com/articles/2007/03/02/tetsuya-nomura-on-ff-versus-xiii
Well, here's my source, which is absolutely not "just another FF forum:"

https://gematsu.com/2010/08/final-fantasy-versus-xiii-all-the-details-so-far

With the destruction of the Outside World’s crystal’s the land begins to become a ruin and this is seen throughout the areas early, but there are still other cities with technology and heavy firearms but no longer protected by the Crystals. Noctis’ kingdom is very advanced, but the costumes and rules are still seen as the ones from middle ages, mainly when it comes to royal matters. Magic will have an important and intriguing role in the game.

That seems a bit too specific to merely be a matter of miscommunication.

This is concept art for Nyx for Kingsglaive.


This is concept art for kid Noctis, kid Luna and an early version of timeskip Noctis in XV.





As character art director on XV Yusuke Naora's job was to create a visual so that characters by Nomura, Ferrari, Mihara etc, all had a unified look in the final game. Those CG face renders of the XV characters from 2013 which look semi-realistic were by Naora's art direction working with Visual Works to render them, he had mentioned in interviews the little touches he would do to the characters too, Nyx too originally had a look that was unified with the games 3DCG artstyle, which was only changed in 2015 when they changed Kingsglaive to be using real people face scans.

This is what Nyx's original design looked like back when Kingsglaive was going to have the same 3DCG artstyle as the game, back when he was just a 2D design turned into 3DCG like the game designs, as is evident when comparing to Cor or Gladio.



I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to prove by this comparison. My point isn't that current-gen FFXV used concept art that was a lot less detailed than would have been necessary for Kingsglaive; my point is that last-gen FFXV used concept art that was a lot less detailed than would have been necessary for Kingsglaive. The fact that the concept art needed to be completely reworked even for a current-gen system simply proves my point that the existence of Versus XIII concept art would not render further concept art for Kingsglaive unnecessary.

It really doesn't look similar to either of them, Iris is wearing a sleevless hoodie, a tartan miniskirt and high boots, Cindy is wearing a longsleeve cropped jacket, bikini, short shorts, symmetrical leggings, gloves and cowgirl boots, Luna in that DotF artwork looks to be wearing more like an amalgamation of her Kingsglaive dress and her DotF asymmetrical attire under the duster she had, taking design cues from her Kingsglaive attire itself with the but with a black colour scheme, shorter cut dress, spats and asymmetrical legwear.
My point is that, apart from Cindy, most FFXV characters of both genders wear clothing that's at least vaguely plausible as something a real person might wear. (I mostly just threw Iris in there because she's showing more skin than most FFXV characters. Aranea would have probably been a better choice, but her design changed so much for the better that I didn't immediately think of her the utterly ridiculous way she looked in her concept art.)

DotF Luna, while wearing asymmetrical attire, is modest enough that it looks like she scrounged together some clothes for the post-apocalypse rather than intentionally choosing the JRPG heroine look:



Likewise, Solara's design also demonstrates some asymmetry, but it still doesn't have that JRPG heroine look:


The "Luna" design is so out of place in FFXV that I honestly think that it would have made more sense had it been intended for a different game. It's, like, everything people make fun of Nomura designs for but worse. =/
 

stolas

Sphere Hunter
Feb 20, 2018
225
348
In regards to the rapier wielding "Luna" and Noctis in Altissia; it's typical for production reuse artwork all the time. They did it for Ifrit. That piece could have been made earlier than DoTF and just repurposed to be cost effective. It's also likely that it could have been handled by multiple artists. An example is Nomura. He creates and draws characters but I doubt he's the one that's painting all of them. Also stating that Ferrari only does flat color therefore is ruled out isn't a valid argument and you're making an assumption otherwise.
ifrit1.png ifrit2.jpg
 
Last edited: