Final Fantasy XV - General News Thread

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Lulcielid

Warrior of Light
Oct 9, 2014
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Argentina
Even if he was not removed the final product would still not had been what he initially planned because time, budget and hardware would still demand for compromise.

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On this day (July 9th), Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV, the CGI supplementary movie of XV premiered on japanese cinnemas. Man, time flies by withouth noticing.
 

motoleo

Chocobo Knight
Jan 7, 2019
196
264
I'm not working on it now but I have saved a Kingsglaive model of Luna and I'm trying to see if I can place that on the game Luna because when I was introduced to this series I was introduced through Kingsglaive.

Those stories just didn't really connect for me. The girl from Kingsglaive didn't go to altissia, we never saw her with Pryna. When you really picture it in your mind..

They both give off different vibes. I just can't imagine the girl from the movie sitting in a chair crying to her brother, in the movie she seemed kind of uninterested while her brother was in a near death situation, I just want to see how the scenes would look if I transferred it over.
 
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Ikkin

Warrior of Light
Oct 30, 2016
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So I had a new thought regarding the question of what Aera knew when:

Given that Ardyn's soul was apparently trapped in the Crystal when he touched it, it seems most reasonable that the vision Ardyn received from Ifrit of his face in the Crystal reflected that (rather than, as he assumed, demonstrating that he was truly meant to be King).

With that as a starting point, everything strange about Episode Ardyn and its Prologue falls into place:

Why does Aera seem disturbed by the revelation she received? Because she knows that Ardyn has been chosen to suffer rather than to rule.

Why does Aera choose to have Somnus announce that Ardyn was chosen as King? Because she, like Somnus, knows that's the only reason why Ardyn would return to the palace given Somnus' hostility.

Why not tell Somnus that Ardyn was meant to be absorbed into the Crystal and would shortly be out of his way? Perhaps she did! Either Somnus' aggression towards the Scourge was so great that he couldn't bear the thought of the Crystal absorbing someone who'd been corrupted by it, or Aera realized that was possible and thought (wrongly) that he would be less likely to try anything stupid if he thought that Ardyn was under the protection of the Astrals.

Why does Aera throw herself in front of Ardyn when Somnus attacks him? Apart from her love for him, she probably saw it as her duty to ensure that he reached the Crystal and fulfilled his destiny.

Why was Ardyn rejected by the Crystal? Because he was never meant to be King in the first place.

Why does Ardyn assume that both Aera and Somnus knew the truth about his role? Because they probably did.
 
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Bazztek

Keyblade Master
May 26, 2014
719
1,890
This is my last post regarding this subject towards you Ikkin because you are being purposely obtuse and difficult.
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.
No you are being obtuse and simply are ignoring the facts, the fact is the contest was made to have the artists draw their own artwork for what they think fans most want to see for an ending for DotF, that is why there is a bunch of different artwork like Luna and Noct having kids sitting on the throne, or a different art by Matsuzawa with Luna and Noct with kids at a picnic with Ardyn, or the Luna and Noct at Ardyn's funeral art, or the Noct and Luna wedding in Altissia art, etc. You again ignored what they actually said, I don't know why, this is the second time, it's right there in your face telling you that they created artworks with the art members on the team for what each of those artists ideas were for what they think fans most want to see for an ending in DotF, it is not just talking the Ardyn picnic artwork. You are not using logic, you are outright denying facts.

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.
The proof was posted and you still denied it, I don't care about your excuses.

You're talking about coloring styles, while I'm talking about proportions and outfit design.
I'm talking about artstyle and the design itself, which is nothing remotely close to anything Ferrari has ever drawn or any artwork he has uploaded to his facebook, or any of his designs. Ferrari never had anything to do with DotF.

I'd like to suggest another artist whose style I think matches the funeral artwork better (under certain circumstances, at least): Isamu Kamikokuryo.
You'd still be wrong because Kamikokuryo left Square Enix in 2017 and he has not been stated as being any of the artists involved in DotF or any of the DLC credits, or in anything XV related since he left SE, and not only that but that artwork looks nothing like Kamikokuryo's style while it is inherently Niki's style through and through.

Yusuke Naora also left Square Enix in 2016 but he was specifically stated and confirmed by the devs to have done the designs for DotF specifically Episode Ardyn for 2000 years ago Ardyn, Aera and Somnus.





However Kamikokuryo has never been cited or stated to have done any artwork for anything DotF or even XV related since he left SE in 2017, and even despite that Kamikokuryo did do new artwork for FF12 Zodiac Age again which they specifically announced and confirmed, andwhat he did was promo art, if he did any DotF artwork for XV then they would have announced and confirmed his involvement in that too just like they did for Naora for Ep Ardyn and just like Kamikokuryo was for Zodiac Age, but they didn't, because he wasn't.

Those two examples you posted don't look anything like the funeral art, here is his FF12 ZA art as a more recent example of something he did and it again looks nothing like that funeral art, which was clearly by Niki.



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:
Kamikokuryo has highly detailed backgrounds and a specific muted pallet he uses, and with wonky rendered human figures in his art, he also uses highly textured brushes with scratchy lines visible on the texture itself, the Funeral art is completely loose background that is unlike Kamikokuryo's art or colour stylings, is unlike his compositions, and the character proportions look nothing like the style and proportions Kamikokuryo uses.

This is FFXV concept art Kamikokuryo did, which looks nothing remotely like the funeral art, same goes for the art of Kamikokuryo you posted.



In fact, I'm inclined to suggest that the other funeral art might have been Niki's piece for the DotF ending contest:
The two funeral arts and the one of the wedding at Altissia with the bros next to them are Niki's artstyle, Luna is wearing a different dress in all three of those artworks.
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.
That is not an assumption which for some reason you still don't seem to understand, it is a fact that Sword of the Father did not exist in Nomura's XV, it was only created for Tabata's XV because the royal arms were only created for Tabata's XV and they were designed AFTER Episode Duscae had come out.

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!)
You should maybe check the source because it has a different statement to only being 2014, which just says the project started looking for other studios in 2014 and entered full production in Summer 2015 after doing some Pre-production, Summer 2015 includes June 2015 which is 3 months after Episode Duscae came out, which is the same month we saw the redesign Regis with the Sword of the Father being first shown in rough art by Matsuzawa then the final art later by Gamescom.

より良いものをお客さんに届けたい、内製に固執するのではなくより広い視野をもって世界中のプロダクションの中からパートナーを探してくことにしました」。本プロジェクトがスタートしたのは2014年、そして一連のプリプロを経て実制作がスタートし たのは2015年夏からだったというから驚かされる。そのため最終的に国内外から49社ほど のスタッフが携わることになった。
Translation
We wanted to deliver a better product to our customers, and so instead of only adhering to in-house production, we decided to search around the world for a wide range of production partners. This Project started in 2014 and then the Actual Production surprisingly started in the Summer of 2015 after a series of Pre-Pro (Pre-Production). As a result, about 49 companies from Japan and around the world became the staff that were involved in the work.
Back in 2013 Kingsglaive started as an internal project which Nozue stated was planned since Versus became XV, then in 2014 they started planning to look for outside production studios to work on it, and then following the story changes and other changes in 2015 they then started that full production in Summer 2015. All of the new designs using mocap face scan people including John Campling as Regis only happened in 2015, same for all the other facescanned people, which was only a few months before ACTUAL production started with all those other companies around the world, Summer 2015 was also the same time we first saw Sword of the Father and in July 2015 a leak from a Chinese website saying a FFXV called Kings Glaive was in the works, and in that leak they mistook Luna for Stella since at that time Luna was still wearing the white Roen dress and had her hair down like Stella did.




And here is a render of Luna with the white Roen dress alongside the Prototype Nyx too.




Well, here's my source, which is absolutely not "just another FF forum:"
Your source is Gematsu just resposting the exact thread from a FF Forum, it literally says it in the opening of the article
n light of the coming details, FF-XIII.net’s Oji decided to compile everything we know about the game into one large document.
Hey, Oji from FF-XIII.net, where have we heard of him before? Oh right he's the same person that fabricated a fake translation from a 2010 interview which he claimed to say that Versus story had been written when in reality the interview said no such thing even regarding any story completion or script. Meanwhile I posted the actual IGN article of Nomura's statement which is only talking about the outside world OUTSIDE of Noctis's country, not inside his country.

That seems a bit too specific to merely be a matter of miscommunication.
Well it is, and it's another fine example of Oji from FF-XIII.net not knowing what he's talking about and spreading false translations.




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.
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That top artwork was by Yuki Matsuzawa was concept art and the bottom artwork was just a redone version for one of the updates to match the storybook artstyle of the Cosmogony artwork which that is a page from, that is the reason that art was redone for that, there would be no reason to "redo" an art by a differnent artist just for concept art itself when it already exists for the purpose of concept art, the example you posted with the Ifrit art is completely different because the bottom art is used as actual artwork within FFXV's world as a page from Cosmogony. Also I don't know why you think any of the artwork in DotF is by Ferrari when none of it looks like his artwork or anything he's ever done, tons of example of his artwork to show what his artstyle is was posted, which shows his art through various stages of completion, and you are still denying that. You really don't know what you are talking about, and you also don't seem to know the difference between the roles of character designer and an image illustrator or concept artist.

None of those artworks are by Nomura and I don't know why that twitter account is saying they are, Hasegawa was monster designer on the game and those designs are his artwork, also that Dino art isn't remotely close to Nomura's artstyle.
 
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Bazztek

Keyblade Master
May 26, 2014
719
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From my understanding most of what the KHIII trailers shown even before the game was completed ended up in the final game. I'm pretty sure Nomura would have included most of what his trailers for vXIII shown into the final game. No doubt about it.
You can say the same for XV too, but tell me where is playable Mysterious tower in KH3? They also nerfed Twilight Town from the older trailer and changed numerous scenes into different versions of the same purpose of that scene the same way XV did.

 

Ikkin

Warrior of Light
Oct 30, 2016
1,099
1,705
This is my last post regarding this subject towards you Ikkin because you are being purposely obtuse and difficult.
Honestly, at this point, I think you're simply committed to misunderstanding my position. =P

No you are being obtuse and simply are ignoring the facts, the fact is the contest was made to have the artists draw their own artwork for what they think fans most want to see for an ending for DotF, that is why there is a bunch of different artwork like Luna and Noct having kids sitting on the throne, or a different art by Matsuzawa with Luna and Noct with kids at a picnic with Ardyn, or the Luna and Noct at Ardyn's funeral art, or the Noct and Luna wedding in Altissia art, etc. You again ignored what they actually said, I don't know why, this is the second time, it's right there in your face telling you that they created artworks with the art members on the team for what each of those artists ideas were for what they think fans most want to see for an ending in DotF, it is not just talking the Ardyn picnic artwork. You are not using logic, you are outright denying facts.
I'm not sure if you noticed or not, but I accepted the fact that the contest for which the picnic was created was also the inspiration for the two funeral artworks when you demonstrated, using a human translation, that the captions for the funeral artworks referenced such a contest.

The only point of contention with regard to the quote about the picnic artwork is whether that particular quote identified any other artworks that were created for the contest, or whether it simply said that such a contest existed. My argument was that the only thing that could be determined from the quote was the latter.

The proof was posted and you still denied it, I don't care about your excuses.
Again, I didn't deny it once I had a human translation, because my problem was the machine translation. I wish you'd stop acting as if I was still arguing for a position I no longer hold.

I'm talking about artstyle and the design itself, which is nothing remotely close to anything Ferrari has ever drawn or any artwork he has uploaded to his facebook, or any of his designs. Ferrari never had anything to do with DotF.
And my point is that there are different things that different people look at to determine who they thought created a particular piece of artwork. I'm not the only one who thought the artwork kind of looked a bit Ferrari-like. =P

You'd still be wrong because Kamikokuryo left Square Enix in 2017 and he has not been stated as being any of the artists involved in DotF or any of the DLC credits, or in anything XV related since he left SE, and not only that but that artwork looks nothing like Kamikokuryo's style while it is inherently Niki's style through and through.
Except for the problem that Niki's art is big on chiaroscuro and the funeral art demonstrates a style of lighting diametrically opposed to that. =P

It's also worth pointing out that I wasn't saying that Kamikokuryo actually made the funeral art so much as that his style was more consistent with it than Niki's.

Yusuke Naora also left Square Enix in 2016 but he was specifically stated and confirmed by the devs to have done the designs for DotF specifically Episode Ardyn for 2000 years ago Ardyn, Aera and Somnus.


I am... not entirely sure how this supports any point that you made. All you've really done is demonstrate that Squenix does bring their former employees back as contractors.

However Kamikokuryo has never been cited or stated to have done any artwork for anything DotF or even XV related since he left SE in 2017, and even despite that Kamikokuryo did do new artwork for FF12 Zodiac Age again which they specifically announced and confirmed, andwhat he did was promo art, if he did any DotF artwork for XV then they would have announced and confirmed his involvement in that too just like they did for Naora for Ep Ardyn and just like Kamikokuryo was for Zodiac Age, but they didn't, because he wasn't.
I'm not entirely sure why you would assume that the existence of announcements of Naora's involvement in creating character designs and creating unique boxart for a re-release would necessarily imply that Squenix would announce any and all work performed by independent contractors, regardless of how important. Character design is important enough for Nomura to get special copyright credits alongside Squenix as a corporation, and boxart is a major draw for the sorts of people who might be considering whether to purchase a new re-release of an old game they already own.

Those two examples you posted don't look anything like the funeral art, here is his FF12 ZA art as a more recent example of something he did and it again looks nothing like that funeral art, which was clearly by Niki.
The lighting is still a whole heck of a lot closer than Niki's chiaroscuro, I can tell you that!

Kamikokuryo has highly detailed backgrounds and a specific muted pallet he uses, and with wonky rendered human figures in his art, he also uses highly textured brushes with scratchy lines visible on the texture itself, the Funeral art is completely loose background that is unlike Kamikokuryo's art or colour stylings, is unlike his compositions, and the character proportions look nothing like the style and proportions Kamikokuryo uses.
The problem with Kamikokuryo's style and proportions on human figures isn't that they're universally wonky so much as they're inconsistent, which makes it difficult to use them to rule him out. =P

Anyway, I'm not sure why you think Kamikokuryo's "specific muted palette" is a point of contradiction when the artwork under discussion demonstrates exactly that sort of muted palette (rather than a dramatic contrast between light and darkness as one might expect from Niki):


Not to mention, it's pretty clear that whoever did this particular piece of art, the entire thing is far looser than it would have been in a finished piece. And here's where I think you shot yourself in the foot.

This is FFXV concept art Kamikokuryo did, which looks nothing remotely like the funeral art, same goes for the art of Kamikokuryo you posted.

I'm not sure what the first image is, because it's broken. But the second one... I'm not sure how you could have possibly failed to realize how counterproductive it is for your argument.

The palette is very close to the funeral artwork. The magitek hordes are drawn loosely in a way that is very similar to the background figures of the funeral art. There are a number of places in the background where it is very clear that loose strokes are being used rather than detailed textures. None of the contrasts you sought to provide seem to be truly applicable here. =/

The two funeral arts and the one of the wedding at Altissia with the bros next to them are Niki's artstyle, Luna is wearing a different dress in all three of those artworks.
Wait wait wait wait wait.

Is this "the one of the wedding at Altissia with the bros next to them?"



Are you seriously suggesting that three artworks were created by the same artist for the same competition? And that two of those artworks (if not three; the above image really doesn't look a lot like a wedding in Altissia given Luna's expression and the presence of Bahamut's swords) represented the same funeral, but depicted Luna wearing a different dress for some reason? That makes literally no sense whatsoever.

I guess you could be talking about this image of the bros with Noct and Luna at their wedding:



...but that just raises more questions, because that looks nothing like the style of either funeral artwork.

And, speaking of wedding artworks, do we have a solid attribution for the artist who drew the cover for DotF?



That is not an assumption which for some reason you still don't seem to understand, it is a fact that Sword of the Father did not exist in Nomura's XV, it was only created for Tabata's XV because the royal arms were only created for Tabata's XV and they were designed AFTER Episode Duscae had come out.
Facts require either direct evidence or logical proofs based on direct evidence. Neither of those things exist for the claim that the designs for each and every royal arm were created de novo after the decision was made to develop a set of royal arms... and they certainly don't exist for the claim that they were designed after the release of Episode Duscae.

You should maybe check the source because it has a different statement to only being 2014, which just says the project started looking for other studios in 2014 and entered full production in Summer 2015 after doing some Pre-production, Summer 2015 includes June 2015 which is 3 months after Episode Duscae came out, which is the same month we saw the redesign Regis with the Sword of the Father being first shown in rough art by Matsuzawa then the final art later by Gamescom.
Right, because it makes so much sense to check a source in a language I can't actually read. =P

Not to mention, the English source contradicts the Japanese one, anyway:

While Advent Children was a way to thank Final Fantasy VII fans, Kingsglaive will be a way to get more people interested in Final Fantasy as a way to draw in new people who aren’t experienced with the brand. Production began three years ago.
Three years before 2016 is 2013, not 2014.

I was also able to find another English source, this time referencing Famitsu, that claimed that "Kingsglaive began production in 2013."

There's definitely something strange going on with regards to the information we have about Kingsglaive's inception, though I think your translation leaves open the possibility that the project that started in 2014 was the outsourcing rather than the initial planning for the movie itself, since the focus of the question is on said outsourcing.

Which... I think you agree with?

Back in 2013 Kingsglaive started as an internal project which Nozue stated was planned since Versus became XV, then in 2014 they started planning to look for outside production studios to work on it, and then following the story changes and other changes in 2015 they then started that full production in Summer 2015. All of the new designs using mocap face scan people including John Campling as Regis only happened in 2015, same for all the other facescanned people, which was only a few months before ACTUAL production started with all those other companies around the world, Summer 2015 was also the same time we first saw Sword of the Father and in July 2015 a leak from a Chinese website saying a FFXV called Kings Glaive was in the works, and in that leak they mistook Luna for Stella since at that time Luna was still wearing the white Roen dress and had her hair down like Stella did.
In any case, it would seem downright bizarre for one of the most important character's most important prop not to have been created over a year (i.e. from December 2013, the latest date allowed for by the Famitsu info, to Episode Duscae's release in March 2015) into pre-production on a movie with only a few months remaining in pre-production (i.e. March 2015-Summer 2015).

And it seems almost as strange to presume that the design for the Sword of the Father was shown off almost as soon as it was made -- it seems like something of that sort would require a bit of time spent on revisions and reconsideration between its initial creation and its inclusion as a fully rendered 3D model in a trailer. =P

Your source is Gematsu just resposting the exact thread from a FF Forum, it literally says it in the opening of the article
...wow, gaming media is the literal worst. Well, apart from Google, which is completely incompetent at finding the translations of Versus interviews that used to exist but seem to have disappeared down the memory hole. *sigh*

Hey, Oji from FF-XIII.net, where have we heard of him before? Oh right he's the same person that fabricated a fake translation from a 2010 interview which he claimed to say that Versus story had been written when in reality the interview said no such thing even regarding any story completion or script. Meanwhile I posted the actual IGN article of Nomura's statement which is only talking about the outside world OUTSIDE of Noctis's country, not inside his country.
Well, it's sort of odd that practically everything apart from that one quote can be corroborated using either the linked interviews or other known information about the game. =/ It's even odder that there definitely was information about magic being important (and only usable through Noct) at some point*, even though it doesn't seem to be corroborated by the linked interviews. (Another thing that I didn't see corroboration for was the claim that the area immediately outside of Insomnia was based on "Bang Bang"/Western movies... but the final game proves that much to have been accurate. =P )

* I actually managed to find what I was thinking of, and it's from an article that didn't exist when the FF-XIII.net post was created. How strange. (The article says nothing about medieval elements of Noct's culture, but it does show some interesting connections between 2011 Versus and the current FFXV!)

It would be so helpful if there was a complete list of translated Versus interviews... =/

Well it is, and it's another fine example of Oji from FF-XIII.net not knowing what he's talking about and spreading false translations.
I guess my question now is, why would it have been the case that people at the time -- who had much better resources to fact-check than we do now, after so many of the relevant sources have been taken down -- wouldn't have fact-checked a claim that so blatantly contradicted what we knew about the game? That just seems really strange to me.
 
Likes: stolas
Apr 23, 2018
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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.
View attachment 1211
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.
I think the best way to get an idea of what Versus XIII and earlier drafts of XV were going for is to look at the other FNC games, their mythologies, the real life mythology they're based on and the Kingdom Hearts games and Nomura's writing tendencies. There's a ton of overlap between all of that stuff. XV still has a lot of those themes and ideas in it, they just removed the FNC terminology.
 
Apr 23, 2018
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Here's something interesting from a translation of DotF's Episode Ardyn section:

The Beyond, a space connected by the Crystal, where none could ever cross over in the flesh. Two thousand years ago, when Ardyn’s soul had been rejected by the Crystal, in that instant, it had been imprisoned in the other world.

Before, he had thought his immortality the Scourge’s doing. But in truth, that he could not die was because his soul was not on this side, but in the Beyond.

[...]

Once Ardyn’s existence was extinguished to the last, Noctis would be extinguished as well. The death of the True King, the last Lucian monarch. In exchange, the Crystal that had absorbed all daemonkind would shatter, and the world would be cleansed…

[source]

This is one of those things that makes DotF's questionable relationship with canon frustrating. Because the lore details offered here... actually seem more consistent with canon than with DotF itself?

The most important implications seem to be as follows:
  1. The Beyond isn't so much a physical space inside the Crystal as it is a preexisting non-physical space connected to the physical realm by the Crystal.
  2. The assumption made amongst the English-speaking audience that Bahamut's claim, of Ardyn, that "One so impure of body and soul was deemed unworthy of the Crystal’s Light, and forbidden to ascend" meant that Ardyn's soul could not be allowed to pass on to the afterlife was... actually pretty close to the truth. Ardyn is immortal because his soul is trapped, not because he's a daemon (which makes a lot of sense, since daemons are, as a rule, not immortal).
  3. Using the power of Providence shatters the Crystal. This is consistent with the animation shown after Noct is slain on the throne, but never specifically clarified in the game itself.
  4. By imprisoning Ardyn's soul in the Beyond, the Crystal that connects the physical realm to the Beyond is able to absorb all of daemonkind... and, because of this, shattering the Crystal becomes a means to cleanse the world of the Scourge.
With regards to #1, this is a pretty blatant connection between FFXV and FNC, since the connection between the Seen and Unseen Realms are of utmost importance in the FNC mythos.

With regards to #2, the existence of this particular bit of lore in the final game's lore bible would certainly explain why the EN localization team felt comfortable using much more ambiguous language than the JP writers did -- they actually were intending to imply something more complex than Ardyn simply being unable to become King.

With regards to #3, the consistency with the animation could also suggest that we're dealing with restored lore from the final game's lore bible rather than new lore designed for Dawn of the Future.

And, with regards to #4, the mechanism by which the world is cleansed basically brings everything together in canon... including most of Episode Ardyn. Ardyn wasn't given his powers to heal people of the Scourge; they were always meant to make him a conduit for the Scourge and thereby draw it off into the Crystal where it could be destroyed all at once. Even Ardyn being intentionally freed from Angelgard shortly before the plan bore fruit makes sense under this paradigm -- by tying all of the world's Scourge to himself in his attempt to seek revenge, Ardyn unknowingly facilitates the Scourge's destruction.

The strange thing, though, is that the Ardyn-as-Scourge-conduit paradigm doesn't actually leave a lot of room for Ardyn's behavior in the alternate route to ruin Bahamut's plan. If he absorbs the Scourge, he pulls it into the Crystal, which should be the absolute best way to ensure the Scourge's destruction... so DotF!Bahamut wanting him to spread the Scourge rather than absorbing it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Even spreading the Scourge shouldn't really ruin the plan, though, because Ardyn spreading the Scourge appears to tie the Scourge to himself sufficiently to ensure its destruction when the Crystal is shattered.

Anyway, I think this particular bit of lore might be the missing piece needed to understand the logic of the ending of FFXV proper, which is... odd, but I'll take it. XD;
XV's "The Beyond" sounds very similar to Valhalla in XIII, it's like an in-between world/purgatory that the Gods/Eidolons reside in, where human souls pass through on the way to the Unseen World beyond it. So you have the Living World>Valhalla/Void Beyond>Unseen World, I'm guessing the dream world in XV is similar to the Void Beyond in FNC, in the sense it's a place made of dreams in a chasm between the seen and unseen worlds. The FNC lore really lines up with XV's when you look into it, almost perfectly. Ardyn's predicament is similar to Yeul's, whenever their physical body dies they go back to Purgatory where their souls are unable to pass onto the Unseen World, so they return back to the living world again and again.

I have a theory that Noctis would've become the King of the Afterlife and that would've tied into the phantom wedding at the end of XV. They leave the original ending up to interpretation but I like the idea that it was Noctis' destiny to reign there, maybe that's why in the original trailers Noctis and Stella's meeting was predestined by the divine, they would've ruled the Unseen World together, replacing Etro maybe, at the cost of their lives.

In fact Umbra being able to become Human might have all been because of the dream stuff. In Japan they have Kitsune, which are like Fox spirits that can transform into Humans and act as Messengers, it's curious that Noctis' dream guardian Carbuncle also resembles a fox in XV too. Either way I think the dream world would've played a bigger role in the story outside of just the Platinum Demo once, but for obvious reasons they chose to remove the more metaphysical elements from the plot.
 
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motoleo

Chocobo Knight
Jan 7, 2019
196
264
Shattering the crystal dispersed enough light to purge all daemons? My personal theory was that the same magic that the daemons use come from the same crystal that Lucis has and that why they had to destroy the crystal to get rid of both of them.
 
Likes: Lord_Ham_Mork
Apr 23, 2018
62
128
Shattering the crystal dispersed enough light to purge all daemons? My personal theory was that the same magic that the daemons use come from the same crystal that Lucis has and that why they had to destroy the crystal to get rid of both of them.
I always liked the idea that Lucis' crystal was secretly evil and more like a dark crystal, would've been a different take on the concept. But with DotF it's still not really clear how the crystal tied into everything, can anyone help me out? If it was the soul of the planet wouldn't destroying it have a negative effect on Eos? Why did purging Ardyn's soul from the crystal get rid of all Daemons when he wasn't even the source of the scourge in the first place?
 

Ikkin

Warrior of Light
Oct 30, 2016
1,099
1,705
XV's "The Beyond" sounds very similar to Valhalla in XIII, it's like an in-between world/purgatory that the Gods/Eidolons reside in, where human souls pass through on the way to the Unseen World beyond it. So you have the Living World>Valhalla/Void Beyond>Unseen World, I'm guessing the dream world in XV is similar to the Void Beyond in FNC, in the sense it's a place made of dreams in a chasm between the seen and unseen worlds. The FNC lore really lines up with XV's when you look into it, almost perfectly. Ardyn's predicament is similar to Yeul's, whenever their physical body dies they go back to Purgatory where their souls are unable to pass onto the Unseen World, so they return back to the living world again and again.

I have a theory that Noctis would've become the King of the Afterlife and that would've tied into the phantom wedding at the end of XV. They leave the original ending up to interpretation but I like the idea that it was Noctis' destiny to reign there, maybe that's why in the original trailers Noctis and Stella's meeting was predestined by the divine, they would've ruled the Unseen World together, replacing Etro maybe, at the cost of their lives.

In fact Umbra being able to become Human might have all been because of the dream stuff. In Japan they have Kitsune, which are like Fox spirits that can transform into Humans and act as Messengers, it's curious that Noctis' dream guardian Carbuncle also resembles a fox in XV too. Either way I think the dream world would've played a bigger role in the story outside of just the Platinum Demo once, but for obvious reasons they chose to remove the more metaphysical elements from the plot.
Yeah, The Beyond definitely seems to share elements with Valhalla. The connection with dreams actually reminds me a little more of a certain place from KHIII, though -- a place between life and death that can be accessed from dreams, since the line between life and death is thinner when you sleep.

With regards to Ardyn, I'm more inclined to connect him with Caius than Yeul, though it's probably more appropriate to say that he shares elements with both of them.

Noct becoming King of the Afterlife makes perfect sense as a final outcome, especially since that's still a perfectly viable interpretation of the final game. The biggest difference would be that he would replace Etro rather than taking on a completely new role, and the dream/afterlife aspects would have played a much bigger role earlier in the game.


I always liked the idea that Lucis' crystal was secretly evil and more like a dark crystal, would've been a different take on the concept. But with DotF it's still not really clear how the crystal tied into everything, can anyone help me out? If it was the soul of the planet wouldn't destroying it have a negative effect on Eos? Why did purging Ardyn's soul from the crystal get rid of all Daemons when he wasn't even the source of the scourge in the first place?
Perhaps the idea was never that the Crystal was the soul of the planet so much as the place within it (i.e. The Beyond) contained the soul of the planet.

Here's Bahamut's line about the place he met Noct in English: "The heart of the Crystal, wherein lies the soul of the star, and it is in this place that the King will gain the power to fulfill his calling."

And in Japanese: "Inside the Holy Stone, wherein lies the soul of the Planet. And a place for you, Chosen King, to obtain the power and finally fulfill your mission."

That seems consistent with the idea that the soul of the planet is in The Beyond, which is accessed through the Crystal. As such, destroying the Crystal wouldn't destroy the soul of the planet so much as the connection between the physical realm and the soul of the planet.

As for the destruction of Ardyn's soul purging the daemons, perhaps the idea is that Ardyn's actions -- first to absorb the Scourge and then to spread it -- tied the Scourge to himself in a deep enough way that it could no longer continue to exist without him.
 
Apr 23, 2018
62
128
Yeah, The Beyond definitely seems to share elements with Valhalla. The connection with dreams actually reminds me a little more of a certain place from KHIII, though -- a place between life and death that can be accessed from dreams, since the line between life and death is thinner when you sleep.

With regards to Ardyn, I'm more inclined to connect him with Caius than Yeul, though it's probably more appropriate to say that he shares elements with both of them.

Noct becoming King of the Afterlife makes perfect sense as a final outcome, especially since that's still a perfectly viable interpretation of the final game. The biggest difference would be that he would replace Etro rather than taking on a completely new role, and the dream/afterlife aspects would have played a much bigger role earlier in the game.




Perhaps the idea was never that the Crystal was the soul of the planet so much as the place within it (i.e. The Beyond) contained the soul of the planet.

Here's Bahamut's line about the place he met Noct in English: "The heart of the Crystal, wherein lies the soul of the star, and it is in this place that the King will gain the power to fulfill his calling."

And in Japanese: "Inside the Holy Stone, wherein lies the soul of the Planet. And a place for you, Chosen King, to obtain the power and finally fulfill your mission."

That seems consistent with the idea that the soul of the planet is in The Beyond, which is accessed through the Crystal. As such, destroying the Crystal wouldn't destroy the soul of the planet so much as the connection between the physical realm and the soul of the planet.

As for the destruction of Ardyn's soul purging the daemons, perhaps the idea is that Ardyn's actions -- first to absorb the Scourge and then to spread it -- tied the Scourge to himself in a deep enough way that it could no longer continue to exist without him.
Yeah, when I think about it Valhalla was said to be on the borders of the Unseen Realm, which is very similar to the the Final World. And how Chirithy says "there's nothing else beyond this". Makes me suspect what we saw in the secret movie was the Kingdom Hearts equivalent of the Unseen World, maybe it's the Kingdom of the Dead being ruled by Yozora? And in FNC, Chaos is visualised as dark water in Valhalla, the Verum Rex art shows Yozora's swords sinking into water, as well Young Xehanort warning Sora he'd be condemned to the bottom of the abyss, so a lot of signs seem to be pointing in that direction imo.

And the crystal acting as a gateway to the beyond makes much more sense actually, with the beyond serving a similar function to Valhalla in XIII and the Final World in Kingdom Hearts. The crystal is a little bit like Etro's Gate in that context.

The Ardyn thing's still a bit murky for me but I can buy what your saying, especially since he was the one mostly responsible for spreading the plague across the world in the modern era, destroying his soul may have undone that. But also the crystal being destroyed in DotF and purging all of the darkness with it's light and shattering is a clean explanation that I actually prefer, does it do that in the original ending or did it just fizzle out?