The Future of Final Fantasy's Art Direction

You basically just described moe anime, there's more than just moe anime, his is basically a slightly more realistic take on it. In fact, when you enter "realistic anime" on google, several things from him come up. :| A lot of his FFVII artwork has exactly what you described btw

Pretty much everything that comes up through that search has little to nothing to do with anime. Fan artwork, unrelated artwork and... a lot of Lightning. So here we come back to the original issue, what do you think anime is, and how is it relevant to FF15 artstyle at all provided we're not talking about Brotherhood here, which IS an anime. I'm just trying to understand what criticism is being tossed around here.

No, but judging it by a heavily manipulated shot (gathering a bunch of players with gaudy skittles mounts) isn't any more fair. The average player experience is not going to be seeing gaudy skittles mounts all the time. Even among the kinds of pictures you're showing (group shots), these are far more common:
If a game's visual style is judged by the worst possible shot, then all games are ugly by default. I suppose that might be a valid argument from a film perspective, but videogames aren't films.

Do you want me to just port over to Idyllshire real quick and take a screenshot?
XIV puts into the hands of the players a huge amount of options sourced from various styles and cultures, from subtler realistic low-key gear of 1.0 times, to absolute fashion disaster, from Tron-like future tech (albeit justified by the setting) to modern asian dresses. From my understanding, FF11 wasn't really like that. The only consistent thing about FFXIV is how eclectic it is.
 
You see quite a bit of this mix specifically in anime and video games. It's more of what I was getting at, yes.

Beautiful lady though.

Yeah. Too many "half American" or "a quarter American" girls in anime. I find it weird though that "half American" or "a quarter American" boys usually mean "not so good looking" in anime.
 
Wait, what? To begin with, we haven't seen drawings of either Stella or Luna done by Nomura. Second, his art doesn't actually often feature attributes frequently alleged to "anime" - round babyfaces, large bright eyes, in fact...

I got to admit, the FXIII designs look nice on paper. Not so much in 3D. I'd say it's difficult to capture the colors,highlights, shading, gradients, and texture of water color when you go full 3D, and it can break the design. Although, Vanille needs to get leg braces.

Really, that's the issue. It's not 'anime design' that's the issue, per say. It's how the design is presented. Water Color, graphite, and acrylics are mediums which present the same images in different ways, with different personalities. An image drawn well in one may look poor in another. The medium is important, and this applies just as much to video games.

With that in mind, the hyper-realistic designs with the latest in lighting technologies and clay-like skin is more of a choice of medium. Whether the inspiration is from anime or not is of secondary importance; you need to chose a good medium first to fit the visuals you want....and yes, realistic rendering doesn't go well anime character designs, usually.

To prove my point: A game with a bad choice of 'medium' (A game that draws it characters like stereotypical Anime/Manga Characters, but tries to go for 3D realism)

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They look like they're made of clay!

A game that chooses a great medium for a similar comic book style (Via dolphin to make it a bit more comparable):
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Here, link is pretty much a comic book character with big eyes, filled pupils, and a very simplistic style - not generic anime moe blob style but more an a old school comic style. Looks great.

Now, it's 10:36PM were I am I've lost track of the point I was originally trying to make so one of you can go try to find it and I'll come back tomorrow because I'm tired. Good night.
 
It'd be cool if we got a non-MMO game that didn't have Nomura character designs at all. I think FF12 was the last one. The whole Goku-hair look on his leading male characters clashes pretty badly with the fidelity in modern games that have realistic looking skin like XV. I don't really know who they'd use instead of Nomura though.
 
I think it's almost certain that XVI will have an Agni's Philosophy/Kingsglaive look.

I hope that they keep mixing it up with Akihiko Yoshida and others' more stylized art direction in future entries, too.
 
Pretty much everything that comes up through that search has little to nothing to do with anime. Fan artwork, unrelated artwork and... a lot of Lightning. So here we come back to the original issue, what do you think anime is, and how is it relevant to FF15 artstyle at all provided we're not talking about Brotherhood here, which IS an anime. I'm just trying to understand what criticism is being tossed around here.
I wasn't criticizing, I was stating the fact that in-game Luna is based on artwork obviously influenced in someway shape or form by anime and isn't based on anyone.
 
If they want to better appeal to a worldwide audience they are probably gonna have to make a change to Kingslaive's style. Honestly I feel like the designs of most of FFXV's characters are just Nomura baggage that for someone reason wasn't ejected into orbit.
 
This is basically it right here.

In terms of FF style, Akihiko Yoshida's designs for FF14 are really the best thing the series is doing right now:

Yup. That's amazing.

FFXV has the unique problem of constant redesigna as the gane itself changed in scope. Versus was a spin-off most likely M-rated title. XV has to cater to a larger audience so they obviously changed designs (Luna, Regis) to appeal to a global audience. There's this weird dissonance between somw of the old designs and the newer ones.
 
But what does this mean exactly?
That it's very clearly not based on actual people and forgoes a lot of things that would make them more believable. Like hair that would normally take hours to make in the morning being just the natural way their hair grows because reasons.
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As Tabata put it, it's very artificial. Even more so because of the realistic skin rendering.

Yup. That's amazing.

FFXV has the unique problem of constant redesigna as the gane itself changed in scope. Versus was a spin-off most likely M-rated title. XV has to cater to a larger audience so they obviously changed designs (Luna, Regis) to appeal to a global audience. There's this weird dissonance between somw of the old designs and the newer ones.
I think they finally hit the right mark with kingsglaive but again had to stick with Nomura's designs in the main game.
 
Do you want me to just port over to Idyllshire real quick and take a screenshot?
XIV puts into the hands of the players a huge amount of options sourced from various styles and cultures, from subtler realistic low-key gear of 1.0 times, to absolute fashion disaster, from Tron-like future tech (albeit justified by the setting) to modern asian dresses. From my understanding, FF11 wasn't really like that. The only consistent thing about FFXIV is how eclectic it is.
Yes, it's a role-playing MMO in which you can invent a visual style to a certain degree. But even that visual style is not outside the setting and a handful of inconsistencies do not destroy or even really damage its overall aesthetic.
This isn't even in the same ballpark as a universe in which you can drive cars and fight behemoth. That isn't just a potential screenshot, but actually part of how FFXV has advertised itself!
 
I strongly dislike the J-Pop art influence, so I hope they ditch it in the future. Kingsalive looks to be a massive step in the right direction, especially since Square wants (needs) there games to have more universal appeal outside of Japan. They need to strike a better, more interesting balance of "East meets West."

I'd say there's a decent chance that Agni's Philosophy will end up turning into Final Fantasy XVI:

One might argue that the only reason FFXV looks the way it does is because it's an old Nomura project from 2006.
 
Yes, it's a role-playing MMO in which you can invent a visual style to a certain degree. But even that visual style is not outside the setting and a handful of inconsistencies do not destroy or even really damage its overall aesthetic.

This isn't even in the same ballpark as a universe in which you can drive cars and fight behemoth. That isn't just a potential screenshot, but actually part of how FFXV has advertised itself!

If a world which has behemots living in it eventually invented cars, wouldn't it make sense?
Where is a line to be drawn?
Let's just look at the equipment.


It's hard to even say those all belong to the same one video game.
Final Fantasy was always borderline eclectic.
 
If a world which has behemots living in it eventually invented cars, wouldn't it make sense?
Where is a line to be drawn?
Let's just look at the equipment.



It's hard to even say those all belong to the same one video game.
Final Fantasy was always borderline eclectic.
Generally the worlds that have the most verisimilitude are those which themselves have a history, and it's clear that things like cars are transplants taken from our world, not natural progressions of the world which they are in.

I suppose I'll just present Shandification as the end-all be-all for this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvwlt4FqmS0
 
I strongly dislike the J-Pop art influence, so I hope they ditch it in the future. Kingsalive looks to be a massive step in the right direction, especially since Square wants (needs) there games to have more universal appeal outside of Japan. They need to strike a better, more interesting balance of "East meets West."

I'd say there's a decent chance that Agni's Philosophy will end up turning into Final Fantasy XVI:


One might argue that the only reason FFXV looks the way it does is because it's an old Nomura project from 2006.
I think what's obvious is that FF isn't gonna be straying away from more and more photorealism any time soon, so like, nothing resembling cel shading. That seems to be their end goal for the mainline series whether it's a modern day setting or a full high fantasy setting.
 
TBH , FFXV Stella is perfect , and might as well concludes the thread .

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and this

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Fits in perfectly as a fantasy character , neither overly westernized nor asian . This is the type of design developer should strive to achieve . Again sadly she's not a main party member like Yuna . Speaking of Yuna , she's a great design as well .
 
Flawless queen
U won't see this one clutching her pearls
Apparently the first ten minutes of the movie give Luna a shit ton of agency. But then again it was recorded solely with western VA so it will probably lack any sort of anime mannerisms whatsoever compared to the game. :/
 
I may be in the minority, but I wish that mainline Final Fantasy would actually try to move away from the (near) photorealistic artstyle since the PS2 era instalments, and go back into making more cartoon-ish, hand-drawn art style like that of FFIX. Or perhaps making the in-game visuals look like painting similar to that of FFT:WoTL's cutscene or Valkyria Chronicles.

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I mean, for the love of good, do something new. This also applies to Tales series as well. The bland generic 3D anime style is tiring. Also I want new character designer to take charge. Enough of Tetsuya Nomura already.
 
TBH , FFXV Stella is perfect , and might as well concludes the thread .

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that's luna

and this

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Fits in perfectly as a fantasy character , neither overly westernized nor asian . This is the type of design developer should strive to achieve . Again sadly she's not a main party member like Yuna . Speaking of Yuna , she's a great design as well .

and that's basically luna
 
Sorry I meant Luna but my point is this is a great character design in general . The main problem is she isn't one of the main party character so it kinda defeat the purpose .

Back to this topic , I'm already very pleased with FFXV art direction. All it needs is to be an actually good game and has a decent story , and hopefully will be a good reference for future FF mainline .

p/s no more all male party

edit : look at Persona 3/4 harem ftw
 
I may be in the minority, but I wish that mainline Final Fantasy would actually try to move away from the (near) photorealistic artstyle since the PS2 era instalments, and go back into making more cartoon-ish, hand-drawn art style like that of FFIX. Or perhaps making the in-game visuals look like painting similar to that of FFT:WoTL's cutscene or Valkyria Chronicles.

Then I'll be in the minority with you. You want me to lose interest in your game? Push the style further and further towards photorealism. I want to see something that couldn't potentially exist outside of my window.
 
No, but judging it by a heavily manipulated shot (gathering a bunch of players with gaudy skittles mounts) isn't any more fair. The average player experience is not going to be seeing gaudy skittles mounts all the time. Even among the kinds of pictures you're showing (group shots), these are far more common:
If a game's visual style is judged by the worst possible shot, then all games are ugly by default. I suppose that might be a valid argument from a film perspective, but videogames aren't films.

I don't mean to be rude, but your non-ugly shot there looks really ugly and I would say separately not super cohesive. Extreme Japanese Flat Ground Syndrome (not even normal-mapping on the cobblestones) with distorted textures, hideous UI with at least four different fonts, bad image quality with lots of aliasing, a random underwear model on the right hand side, the character is wearing some kind of cat hat and a thick coat in a bright and lush redwood forest (and has a fox tail), the flowers look really bad, map icons that didn't scale with good IQ to the rendering resolution, a garish overuse of lighting from that yellow fox thing but pretty flat lighting otherwise, typical MMO functional but icon-filled screen, inconsistent shadow behaviour...

Kagari's concept character art of FF14 looks really nice, so I have no idea if you just got a shot that's particularly bad. Your shot looks less bad than the gaudy crowd shot you're arguing against, but I don't think it solves the problem.
 
I don't mean to be rude, but your non-ugly shot there looks really ugly and I would say separately not super cohesive. Extreme Japanese Flat Ground Syndrome (not even normal-mapping on the cobblestones) with distorted textures, hideous UI with at least four different fonts, bad image quality with lots of aliasing, a random underwear model on the right hand side, the character is wearing some kind of cat hat and a thick coat in a bright and lush redwood forest (and has a fox tail), the flowers look really bad, map icons that didn't scale with good IQ to the rendering resolution, a garish overuse of lighting from that yellow fox thing but pretty flat lighting otherwise, typical MMO functional but icon-filled screen, inconsistent shadow behaviour...

Kagari's concept character art of FF14 looks really nice, so I have no idea if you just got a shot that's particularly bad. Your shot looks less bad than the gaudy crowd shot you're arguing against, but I don't think it solves the problem.
I certainly wouldn't argue against XIV's UI being an overly busy mess, but the purpose of the shot had more to do with the visual consistency of the characters in the frame with the environment itself. Whether or not it was ugly was somewhat beside the point (my own opinion is that only a handful of stylized 3D choices, none of which appear to have wide market appeal, is anything more than garish).

There isn't really a 3D style at the moment that a perceptive individual wouldn't have an easy time picking apart as games and 3D aren't really a natural fit visually, it is more that some fit their style better relative to others. But again, if we're just going by what could be versus what is, then every 3D game is perpetually ugly (because unlike 2D, 3D has yet to plateau as technology has improved).
 
I may be in the minority, but I wish that mainline Final Fantasy would actually try to move away from the (near) photorealistic artstyle since the PS2 era instalments, and go back into making more cartoon-ish, hand-drawn art style like that of FFIX. Or perhaps making the in-game visuals look like painting similar to that of FFT:WoTL's cutscene or Valkyria Chronicles.

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I mean, for the love of good, do something new. This also applies to Tales series as well. The bland generic 3D anime style is tiring. Also I want new character designer to take charge. Enough of Tetsuya Nomura already.

Oh dear god, YES dude! That'd be amazing!
 
Then I'll be in the minority with you. You want me to lose interest in your game? Push the style further and further towards photorealism. I want to see something that couldn't potentially exist outside of my window.
What if they're still realistic and ----->believable<---- believability being the most important thing, but are set in fantasy? Agni's philosophy is the most realistic and believable FF media we've seen in realtime YET it's very much a fantasy instead of something you can see out of the window. It's part of why GoT is SO successful is because it has that philosophy down to near perfection even when doing stuff that's considered high fantasy.
 
I may be in the minority, but I wish that mainline Final Fantasy would actually try to move away from the (near) photorealistic artstyle since the PS2 era instalments, and go back into making more cartoon-ish, hand-drawn art style like that of FFIX. Or perhaps making the in-game visuals look like painting similar to that of FFT:WoTL's cutscene or Valkyria Chronicles.

With FFXII/Crisis Core/Type-0 (not the nasty HD remaster models for the latter), I feel like Square hit the perfect sweet spot with their in-game character models. They're clean, they have the right amount of polygon count to hold up well all the years later, and they animate beautifully.

WoTL is still breathtaking, I just started it up on my Vita the other day. It looked better than when I played it on my PSP!
 
I strongly dislike the J-Pop art influence, so I hope they ditch it in the future. Kingsalive looks to be a massive step in the right direction, especially since Square wants (needs) there games to have more universal appeal outside of Japan. They need to strike a better, more interesting balance of "East meets West."

I'd say there's a decent chance that Agni's Philosophy will end up turning into Final Fantasy XVI:

But that's still Japanese style based on visual works and traditional illustrations. It just has a different tone. I agree it would be great to see, but its not what i'd expect from your viewpoint of throwing out Japan stuff.
 
While I like how FFXV looks, I do agree that they're going to have to start making their characters look more grounded and realistic if they truly want that mass appeal.
 
Is OP just talking about different color grading? Because some of the FFXV characters seem like they'd look normal in Kingsglaive. Like maybe the face shape and color of the lighting is the difference?
 
I think I'm fine with a more realistic approach like the one featured in kingsglaive and agni s philosophy. It's also easier to drag in the 30-40s old players this way compared to the more younger Nomura s style.
 
I think I'm fine with a more realistic approach like the one featured in kingsglaive and agni s philosophy. It's also easier to drag in the 30-40s old players this way compared to the more younger Nomura s style.

I think people are talking past each other. Do you simply want a realistic more grounded world style, or an active move away from japanese aesthetics entirely? They aren't the same thing.. Agni was still a Japanese aesthetic, while Kingsglaive is literally digitizing western actors.

they arent anywhere near the same. Agni herself as a design is not modeled off of anyone real, but the environments and the world view are more grounded than say FF13
 
When was this?
Only thing even remotely similar, that I could find, was when she pointed to herself for like half a second
So not the same
Post from last year:
If Luna's putting her hands in front of her chest is already enough evidence for her not being as strong a woman, then you could say the same about the 2009 Stella that moved and behaved like your typical anime girl in the trailer where she talks with Noctis at the party. Granted, I haven't actually read again completely what she says in that video, but Luna is judged by some here based only on gestures and body language from a few seconds of footage, too.

Now look at this:
She looks serious and determined. Luna = strong woman confirmed!!!

Chill and wait until we see more.

PS: Listen to Falk.
 
I think people are talking past each other. Do you simply want a realistic more grounded world style, or an active move away from japanese aesthetics entirely? They aren't the same thing.. Agni was still a Japanese aesthetic, while Kingsglaive is literally digitizing western actors.

they arent anywhere near the same. Agni herself as a design is not modeled off of anyone real, but the environments and the world view are more grounded than say FF13

A more grounded realistic approach for both the universe and the characters. Modelled on real actors or not it doesn't change a thing to me. The old character in agni s philosophy could be very well be based on one but I don't care. That's the characters I like now compared to decades of stylized ones I'm now getting tired of.
 
With FFXII/Crisis Core/Type-0 (not the nasty HD remaster models for the latter), I feel like Square hit the perfect sweet spot with their in-game character models. They're clean, they have the right amount of polygon count to hold up well all the years later, and they animate beautifully.

WoTL is still breathtaking, I just started it up on my Vita the other day. It looked better than when I played it on my PSP!

I mean, they looked great technically, but what I truly want is something stylized and visually striking and unique. AAA titles like modern FF, Metal Gear, Witcher, Elder's Scrolls, Fallout, GTA, Assassin's Creed, Uncharted, Batman, Resident Evil and so on look more and more homogeneous, and it's boring. Meanwhile games like INSIDE, Ori and the Blind Forest, Ni No Kuni 2, Persona 5, Cuphead, Cosmic Star Heroin looks so much more interesting visually to me.

Hell, even much older games like Legend of Mana and Saga Frontier 2 had more charm and visual flair than some modern AAA titles IMO.

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Modern games from major developers these days are simply chasing after realistic graphics and bragging about their technological edges and how many polygons in faces and body while no longer caring about creating distinctive, interesting art style.
 
A more grounded realistic approach for both the universe and the characters. Modelled on real actors or not it doesn't change a thing to me. The old character in agni s philosophy could be very well be based on one but I don't care. That's the characters I like now compared to decades of stylized ones I'm now getting tired of.

They are still stylized though. Its just more gritty and less cyberpunk/fantasy mishmash.
 
Judging from this thread, the only conclusion I can draw is that no matter what SE will do with FFXVI, half of the fans will be pissed. To this point I really wonder if the franchise should go on.
 
I'm not going to say that their current look isn't a style worthy of some consideration, because it is. The issue with their art is that they have no creative ceiling and no restraint. When everything is over designed and ritzy, nothing stands out. It's the logical result of a decade of artistic direction that has consisted of little more than the following directions:

"Should we add more detail to this character's outfit? Will it add any meaning to them?"

"...More."

"Does Bahamut have enough sparkling scales and zippers?"

"...More."

"Does this monster seem like it communicates how powerful it is? Should we-"

"MORE."

It is a valid statement to say that changing it up would piss off half their fans. But that ignores the fact that their fanbase as a whole is a shrinking pool of people who are excited less and less every time they release a product.
 
I'm not going to say that their current look isn't a style worthy of some consideration, because it is. The issue with their art is that they have no creative ceiling and no restraint. When everything is over designed and ritzy, nothing stands out. It's the logical result of a decade of artistic direction that has consisted of little more than the following directions:

"Should we add more detail to this character's outfit? Will it add any meaning to them?"

"...More."

"Does Bahamut have enough sparkling scales and zippers?"

"...More."

"Does this monster seem like it communicates how powerful it is? Should we-"

"MORE."

It is a valid statement to say that changing it up would piss off half their fans. But that ignores the fact that their fans as a whole is a shrinking pool of people who are excited less and less every time they release a product.
Indeed. Just look at Nomura's Batman and it's quite telling.

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Jimquisition made a nice video about it.
 
Indeed. Just look at Nomura's Batman and it's quite telling.


Jimquisition made a nice video about it.

Hey, there are people who think it looks cool. And its not as if he's incapable of conceptualizing subdued designs when he feels like it. Its just the style he likes to use.

That's what a lot of fans like. It doesn't have to appeal to everyone, and it should not really.

Even then, i can understand people who don't like that kind of stylem, but in general, there are far more other types of designs out there in Japan to use than defaulting to western styles. There are more than two extremes of scale where Nomura draws whatever he wants, or something so down to earth its a ubisoft game
 
I mean, they looked great technically, but what I truly want is something stylized and visually striking and unique. AAA titles like modern FF, Metal Gear, Witcher, Elder's Scrolls, Fallout, GTA, Assassin's Creed, Uncharted, Batman, Resident Evil and so on look more and more homogeneous, and it's boring.
All of those titles have fantastic art direction while being distinct from each other, no one would ever confuse elder scrolls with the witcher or batman with metal gear or uncharted with AC. In fact:let's legitimately compare using two screenshots per game:
FFXV

Metal Gear

Witcher 3
Elder Scrolls

Fallout

GTA

Assassin's Creed

Uncharted

Batman

^
All of these games have very different aesthetics and solutions for things like lighting and hair rendering. "Charm" doesn't just come from being incredibly stylized dude.
Hell, even much older games like Legend of Mana and Saga Frontier 2 had more charm and visual flair than some modern AAA titles IMO.

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Many indie games take this aesthetic and do more things with it from

Modern games from major developers these days are simply chasing after realistic graphics and bragging about their technological edges and how many polygons in faces and body while no longer caring about creating distinctive, interesting art style.
It seems you don't know what artstyle means as you named a bunch of games that have incredibly distinct art styles from each other despite them all having realistic rendering. The main similarity is that most of them are incredibly high fidelity.
 
Wow. I don't think I've ever criticized Fallout 4's style/graphics, but it really comes off as ugly in all those examples. :S But yeah. Most of those are good examples of different stylizations with good graphics. I do appreciate when developers can make a game look good without squandering a lot of their budget on graphics.
 
Wow. I don't think I've ever criticized Fallout 4's style/graphics, but it really comes off as ugly in all those examples. :S But yeah. Most of those are good examples of different stylizations with good graphics. I do appreciate when developers can make a game look good without squandering a lot of their budget on graphics.
Yea, it's pretty obvious that the industry, (mainly the west), is currently is more diverse than ever before with more distinct aesthetics and visual styles than ever before yet we still have people trying to argue that high visual fidelity is a bad thing while implying that said high fidelity doesn't require a shit ton of thought and effort when it comes to achieving the look we see in the final game or has no "charm."

EDIT:Note, besides the ps4 exclusive those are all pc screenshots.
 
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