Final Fantasy XV - General News Thread

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SonOfEtro

Warrior of Light
May 2, 2016
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It's a magic climate change/zombie plague. I feel like fixing it with pharmaceuticals would be very unlikely to seem believable.
Yeah, have to agree.

On a side note, that's one aspect of XV's design that I've never been able to get into. I mean, you have this cool mystical plague tied to darkness that turns people into classic FF monsters. Is it a curse? The remnants of a fallen Astral? A magical ritual gone horribly wrong? No, it's a Meteor Parasite knockoff with barely any backstory (even with all the patches) and an in-world definition of being a strain of malaria... I know it's a fantasy based on reality, but that was taking it too far.
 

Ikkin

Warrior of Light
Oct 30, 2016
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Yeah, have to agree.

On a side note, that's one aspect of XV's design that I've never been able to get into. I mean, you have this cool mystical plague tied to darkness that turns people into classic FF monsters. Is it a curse? The remnants of a fallen Astral? A magical ritual gone horribly wrong? No, it's a Meteor Parasite knockoff with barely any backstory (even with all the patches) and an in-world definition of being a strain of malaria... I know it's a fantasy based on reality, but that was taking it too far.
I wonder whether Episode Ardyn might be used to solidify the lore regarding the Starscourge.

IIRC, based on the various different translations, it seems like a) the Scourge arrived on the meteor and b) Ifrit was the one who summoned the meteor. It also seems like the Scourge didn't start to spread as soon as the meteor fell -- which should have been near the end of the Solheim era -- but that by the time it arose, Solheim had been gone for long enough for people to forget about them.

It wouldn't be that difficult to have Verstael piece that data together into an understanding that the Scourge virus was a strain of malaria that had been exposed to a magic mutagen as a result of the pseudo-radioactive remnants of Ifrit's power within the meteor. That way, rather than being a purely physiological threat, the Scourge would be a magically-enhanced super-virus (explaining its unusual ability to transform people into monsters).
 
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Lulcielid

Warrior of Light
Oct 9, 2014
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The starcourge turning people into monsters already makes it a magical thing, I don't understand why it needs further explanation to make it "more magical" than it already is.
 

Ikkin

Warrior of Light
Oct 30, 2016
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The starcourge turning people into monsters already makes it a magical thing, I don't understand why it needs further explanation to make it "more magical" than it already is.
It's not that the Starscourge isn't clearly magical so much as that the explanation given for it seems too mundane for what it is. That's where something like "magic radiation" could help.
 
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Lulcielid

Warrior of Light
Oct 9, 2014
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Even then what's the problem with the explanation being "mundane" (space virus are mundane thing now?)? Last time I checked being a fantasy story doesn't demand everything having a fantasyish explanation.
 
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motoleo

Chocobo Knight
Jan 7, 2019
196
264
When the daemons swept through Zegnautus it turned all the people there into daemons and seeing as our party could just walk right in without any protection and not become a daemon, I was still confused as to how they could just do that and not be at any risk if it was supposed to be so dangerous. So basically if you know how to fight you won't get it? Are the daemons biting people?
 
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Ikkin

Warrior of Light
Oct 30, 2016
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When the daemons swept through Zegnautus it turned all the people there into daemons and seeing as our party could just walk right in without any protection and not become a daemon, I was still confused as to how they could just do that and not be at any risk if it was supposed to be so dangerous. So basically if you know how to fight you won't get it? Are the daemons biting people?
There was a scene in Ep. Ardyn Prologue where an infected girl went up to a guy and he screamed, so it makes the most sense that it's spread through injuries rather than through the air. IIRC, malaria is a bloodborne illness, so the Scourge should be, too -- it's just that instead of mosquitos as carriers, you get far more dangerous infected monsters. Noct and his friends are able to avoid infection because Noct's magic is able to heal their injuries.

...with that said, mosquitos could still help spread it, which could have made the disappearances a lot harder for Gralea to figure out initially.
 
Feb 19, 2018
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The starcourge turning people into monsters already makes it a magical thing, I don't understand why it needs further explanation to make it "more magical" than it already is.
I agree, I feel like some people are just nitpicking and literally forcing themselves to get upset over trivial details at this point just for the sake of being upset. Folks are taking the whole parasite/virus infection thing way out of context and blowing it way out of proportion. Just because we have an explanation that resembles how real life disease operates doesn't suddenly undermine the clearly magical aspects of the Star Scourge. It's still a magical parasite which alters the human body to become a literal mythical monster that has magical abilities.

Also in regards to talks of a cure people are forgetting that only the Empire really knew where daemons came from thanks to Ardyn being an expert on the matter. It's ancient and lost knowledge to everyone else and as far they're aware people are just being snatched up by these monsters who just happen to exist. Noct only learns the true origins of daemons once he reaches Zegnautus Keep via reading the notes scattered about in the labs and through Ardyn confirming it. So people would have to be aware of the true nature of the Starscourge to even begin looking at ways to cure it. Hell the Starscourge doesn't even get mentioned by name until you're super late into the game.

If by some chance people did find out then even in real life we don't have cures to every disease possible no matter how aware of them we are or how much time we've had to study them. At most we have managed to slow the effects of some of the more dangerous shit but there are still things that we can catch that will absolutely kill us. The only response to Ebola, a more recently discovered disease, is to pump the person with it with as much blood as they're losing and hope for the best (as far as I'm aware) and the mortality rate for that disease is super high. While on the other end of the spectrum we can barely even tackle cancer, a disease we've known about for decades at this point.

So I don't see where this notion of poofing an anti star scourge vaccine/treatment into existence suddenly came from. The story made it pretty clear people were unaware of what was truly going on with only some people barely scratching the surface in regards to what might be happening. Even if people did know what was happening it wouldn't suddenly make them capable of curing the disease. Like how are people supposed to reverse a magical transformation? Noct and his magical powers were the only answer to the magical disease that only a handful of people were actually aware of. That's a perfectly satisfactory aspect of the story.

I know FFXV's story and lore has some problems but complaining about how the Starscourge was explained and handled is just nitpicking at this point. It's a perfectly fine explanation and well handled aspect of the story. There are bigger things to worry about in regards to FFXV's story.
 

motoleo

Chocobo Knight
Jan 7, 2019
196
264
In light of the Dawn of the Future we sat down and thought about the alternative to the prophecy and how that would actually work and my brainstorming for a solution to the Starscourge problem was with science. The antidote thing was my idea but that's just one of many possibilities.
 
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Lord_Ham_Mork

SOLDIER Second Class
Feb 23, 2018
344
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Option B: Noctis uses the power of the crystal to blow up the world and let all the souls go to the Astral Realm (heaven), giving everyone eternal happiness.
(I know this is bullshit)

I'm starting to fear that Dawn of the Future was actually gonna be canon. Being about explaining things so the original ending has another context.

Can you imagine that the novel is really good and improves the game? Damn i would cry black tears like Ardyn.
 
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motoleo

Chocobo Knight
Jan 7, 2019
196
264
I'm so glad Verstael's back in this and now it's back when he was younger. I'm always interested to see what dastardly daemonic deeds this destructive duo's cooking up, I mean I've seen Verstael's work in Episode Prompto and Kingsglaive, it's impressive. I like their dynamic.
 
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Storm

Warrior of Light
Oct 26, 2013
3,351
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Switzerland
In light of the Dawn of the Future we sat down and thought about the alternative to the prophecy and how that would actually work and my brainstorming for a solution to the Starscourge problem was with science. The antidote thing was my idea but that's just one of many possibilities.
theres no obligation to be with science though, since the world is part magical and divine, there were researchers studying the malaria but nothing came out of it.

the crystal always seemed the best potential cure, the "Cure for Insomnia".
 

Bazztek

Keyblade Master
May 26, 2014
719
1,890
If SE translators were calling the Astrals Eidolons, why use that as an example of the article getting something wrong instead of as an example of a likely change? It's not implausible that "Eidolon" was used as the EN equivalent of the meta-textual "summon beast" and Astral was an alternate in-universe term at one point, until audience confusion made it seem easier to remove the "Eidolon" terminology entirely.
I only mentioned that because it's just another example of that article not being completely reliable since they are just reporting what they heard from the live translator and mixing in their own editorial, in the same article they say that Caem is a city where we can take boats, but the ATR source for that info has the live translator calling Caem a town before correcting himself to say it's just an outpost where we take a boat to go to Accordo, alongside concept art of Caem shown. My point is that the game never used the term Eidolon, that was just a live translation for "Shoukan/召喚" (Summon) which is what Tabata calls Leviathan during that ATR, so it's hard to take that article which is the only instance of the woman in the logo being called a goddess as reliable info.

Anyway moving on from that looks like there was some new artwork shown at the Animate XV event today.
 

Ikkin

Warrior of Light
Oct 30, 2016
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I only mentioned that because it's just another example of that article not being completely reliable since they are just reporting what they heard from the live translator and mixing in their own editorial, in the same article they say that Caem is a city where we can take boats, but the ATR source for that info has the live translator calling Caem a town before correcting himself to say it's just an outpost where we take a boat to go to Accordo, alongside concept art of Caem shown. My point is that the game never used the term Eidolon, that was just a live translation for "Shoukan/召喚" (Summon) which is what Tabata calls Leviathan during that ATR, so it's hard to take that article which is the only instance of the woman in the logo being called a goddess as reliable info.
My point is, if the "Eidolon" term came from the translator, then the article was reliable in reporting what they heard in that regard. You could question the reliability of the translator, I suppose (the town/city thing could be an example of a translation mishap), but "Eidolon" is not a natural translation of "Shoukan/召喚", so it seems far more likely that the translator was told which term they should use for that word. (I can't imagine why any translator, FF-literate or not, would translate the Japanese word for "summon" to the Greek word for "idol" for an English-speaking audience unless specifically asked to do so.)
 

Bazztek

Keyblade Master
May 26, 2014
719
1,890
My point is, if the "Eidolon" term came from the translator, then the article was reliable in reporting what they heard in that regard. You could question the reliability of the translator, I suppose (the town/city thing could be an example of a translation mishap), but "Eidolon" is not a natural translation of "Shoukan/召喚", so it seems far more likely that the translator was told which term they should use for that word. (I can't imagine why any translator, FF-literate or not, would translate the Japanese word for "summon" to the Greek word for "idol" for an English-speaking audience unless specifically asked to do so.)
Eidolon has been a term to refer to summons in multiple FFs prior to XV and is synonymous with Summons itself, FF9, FF13, FF13-2, LRFF13, FF Type-0, Dissidia 012, FF4 remake and FF4TAY, FF Explorers, FF Dimensions etc all use Eidolon, it's a word synonymous with Summon itself and that's why the live translator used it.
 
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Ikkin

Warrior of Light
Oct 30, 2016
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Eidolon has been a term to refer to summons in multiple FFs prior to XV and is synonymous with Summons itself, FF9, FF13, FF13-2, LRFF13, FF Type-0, Dissidia 012, FF4 remake and FF4TAY, FF Explorers, FF Dimensions etc all use Eidolon, it's a word synonymous with Summon itself and that's why the live translator used it.
I wouldn't say it's synonymous with "Summons." The term "Espers" is used with similar frequency, appearing in VI (the first time summons were given a unique name!), XII, Tactics' retranslation and all of its sequels, Airborne Brigade, Record Keeper, Brave Exvius, and Chocobo Racing. Even Dissidia 012 slips back and forth between the two terms. And, more importantly, with regards to mainline Final Fantasy games, no special name was given to any summon for six games (with IV only calling its summons "Eidolons" in its remake) and four of the games chose their own game-specific terms (GFs, Aeons, Avatars, and Primals for VIII, X, XI, and XIV, respectively).

Basically, "Eidolon" is not a safe translation for a Japanese term the way that "Moogle" is a safe translation for "Moguri." It's a specific localization choice made by some FF teams and rejected by others. I find it difficult to believe that a professional translator would decide it was a good idea to call summons "Eidolons" without being told to do so.
 
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