Final Fantasy Versus XIII was announced in 2006. It is now 2012. These are facts.
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ZombiePlatypus
Member
Good god. Nomura wasn't joke when he instructed fans "to forget about VersusXIII for a good while" in a pretty old interview.
Viola of the Abyss
Member
Many of these games started development well before Versus did, it's like saying Versus got announced to be released today and instead they made us wait 6 years... to be more precise you should at least consider the games released from 2008, but even then games have very different development periods...
Then again, even chopping that list in half it is quite impressive...
You're right, I should have thought about that. Still, even if you remove some games, the list would be crazy.
One of the big problems mentioned in the FF13 postmortem is their workflow was to start on the assets right away and so they paid people to make tons of content that ended up being useless because for the longest time they hadn't a clear idea of the kind of game they actually were making. So it's not paying people to do nothing but to do stuff they haven't really thought about.
lulzwut? I'm perhaps optimistic (and I'd rather be that than bitch & whine about everything, so sue me), but where the fuck do you rip some ridiculous thing about me believing something about "good" and "bad" people at Square? Don't make up moronic shit. :|
You are the one ignoring many facts about Versus XIII's development. Again, I'm not saying it's been completely problem free, just that "development hell" probably isn't accurate in its case, taking into account all the things about how its development has progressed (it was announced when Nomura himself had barely finished his last project (KHII) and begun to think about the next one, development didn't start until 2008, KH Team had to help with XIII's development, they have made at least a few big changes from original plans) and the ambitious nature of the project itself. These don't point out to the development being immensly troubled, they just point out to them wanting to really put an effort in making this game special (for example, they didn't feel like the original old school world map idea was looking too good in Versus XIII's context, so they decided to change it). If that means abandoning some original plans in favour of something potentially much better, then I'm all up for delays, even if I'm not super happy about not being able to play this game ASAP.
1) Both Fallout 3 & Skyrim build on what they had done before. Final Fantasy Versus XIII doesn't. It's a completely new world with new characters, new gameplay systems, new everything and they are doing quite a lot of things differently (i.e. the interactive cutscenes) or bringing back features which have been more or less absent from the genre/series ever since the PS1 era, but not necessarily in the form they originally were. That's certain to have posed them some hurdles during development, instead of them taking the easy way out.
2) You are forgetting how big those games' development teams are. CD Projekt RED has, what, 200-300 employees? Bethesda ain't no small developer either. Also, did Bethesda only have one team that worked first on Fallout 3 and only then moved on to Skyrim? Or did they work on those games simultaneously? Well, no matter what is the case, the fact is the dev team is still huge and both use the same technology, which makes it a lot easier to have moved on to them after the projects before them were done.
As I pointed out, Nomura has said the dev team for Versus XIII was pretty small until last Summer (they only had a "core team"). And that's just the way Square Enix does things. They have small(er) teams begin work on games, then once the game's development hits a certain point, they move tons more people to churn out whatever still needs to be done for the game.
3) Yeah, Bethesda released Fallout 3 & Skyrim in a short enough time, but both of those could've used more time in development due to how incredibly buggy they were thanks to being rushed out. I'm pretty sure Versus will hold up to at least those standards in regards to polish (you can blame them for a lot of things, but buggy their FF games aren't).
4) Trollollollollollollol about Assassin's Creed. First of all, again, those are sequels which recycle gameplay ideas year after year. Second, the team sizes after Assassin's Creed 1 have been, like, at least 10+ times bigger than the team which worked on Versus until last Summer. I'm sure once Versus is done, Square Enix could churn out Versus XIII-2, Versus XIII-3 and Versus XIII-4 which only had minimal differences & additions in a short enough time if they had two massive 500+ man teams working on them simultaneously. For realz, could you come up with shittier examples?
5) You're still ignoring the fact that development of this game didn't start properly until 2008 and even after that they spent a year helping finish XIII in 2009, during which development of Versus was halted completely. I'm pretty sure if Nomura had had 500 employees since day 1, Versus would've been out in 2009 (but they couldn't have done so since they have manpower tied in plenty of other projects and they couldn't have just focused on Versus)
They told about it in early 2010, yeah, but we don't know if they actually only made those changes then or if they had already worked on it for some time (when we got a sneak peek screen shots of their demo of the world map in maybe 2008, they were already talking about making changes to it). Even those statements are now over two years ago. That's hardly LATE, when considering when the development started. With the intervention with XIII's development in 2009, at that point they had done maybe 1-1,5 years worth of work on the game. That's not really early, but neither is it unbelievably late nor is it that uncommon in game development do do some massive changes one or even two years into a game's development.
Sure, and I said as much. And as I also said it might not be the most efficient way of developing, but this is THE Final Fantasy Nomura wants to make and if they've come up with something that he thinks will make the game better (like the changes to the world map or changing cutscenes to be more interactive), then they've implemented those changes instead of abandoning them simply to get the game out faster or to satisfy impatient fans. It may be somewhat frustrating for fan to wait for the game, but I'd rather get a game they are also fully happy with than whip them to rush out something they feel isn't quite right.
ZombiePlatypus
Member
I definitely see where you're coming from but I'm not sure I'd include Bethesda in that list of examples. Their games are bug-infested and feel totally unpolished. Which I guess is an interesting comparison with SE since their games, while polished and mostly bug-free, have felt equally incomplete lately due to ridiculous amount of missing content and features.
They already made Chocobo's mysterious dungeon!
charlequin
Banned
This is the normal argument in these threads. FFXIII failed because lolz Toriyama, Versus will be great because LORD NOMURA-SAMA. It's got a core of truth to it (Nomura is indeed a strong project leader in general and a great asset for Square-Enix) but it ignores the realities of the situation in favor of creating this simplistic model of where these problems arise from -- even though we've seen three consecutive numbered FFs, and other projects besides, run aground in exactly the same way, under different directors and staff.
There's nothing particularly ambitious about Versus compared to other successful products from other developers. It's a KH/FF mashup. It's an action RPG with a semi-open world and lots of sidequests. This is a game other companies have already made and that in practice is not all that much greater in scope than Kingdom Hearts II. It is something a well-organized team (with an immense budget and tons of manpower, both of which SE can bring to bear here) can make in three years.
What you just describe is at the heart of what it actually means for a project to be troubled. A well-managed project of this scope cannot have core mechanics changing late into the process, because that has a ripple effect on everything that's already been finished and wastes time. The correct approach to take with a game like this has to involve locking down gameplay concepts early on and targeting asset production and content development to those mechanics.
So does Versus. There's no real reason for it to use its own unique engine (in fact, it wasn't supposed to, and the multiple different reports we've had about its engine being redesigned, reworked, hacked together with newly-licensed middleware, etc. are also indicative of troubled development.) It doesn't include any unprecedented new gameplay mechanics that the team is unfamiliar with; it's very much based on a mashup of features from Kingdom Hearts II and FFVII, both games that the team is exceedingly familiar with and which Square developers have implemented very successfully in the past.
According to the Witcher 2 credits, 135 people worked on the Witcher 2 in a development role. The closest I can get from an apples-to-apples comparison of Final Fantasy XIII's credits (i.e. cutting out outsourced CG production, outsourced music-related credits, localization, non-development management, etc.) is 489.
In general, the idea that Square-Enix, a company with three different 5m+ selling RPG franchises, is too poor to afford huge development teams like... Bethesda... a company with two different 5m+ selling RPG franchises... is pretty absurd.
As opposed to FFXII, FFXIII, and FFXIV, all of which went way overbudget and took much longer than intended and still came out unpolished. (And the latter two were significantly worse received by both critics and their target audience than either Bethesda RPG in question to boot.)
Yes, the AC games have giant teams. Yes, they reuse a bunch of stuff (the way smart development teams do) -- although AC1 is obviously an original project and AC2 (and, based on previews, AC3) extensively re
Part of the point here is that using giant teams that aggressively preproduce, reusing existing work effectively, and building assets around a core gameplay loop that's in a near-final state early on is how you actually build giant, complex open-world games with high production values. Inasmuch as Square-Enix are not doing so with Versus, it's because they're doing it wrong, which is actually my point. All the techniques Ubisoft uses are available to them. Even if you cut out the iterative AC2 sequels (which are equivalent to, say, FFXIII-2) and you allow that AC1 started development before Versus was revealed, Ubisoft has used this mechanism to create new sequels with huge, ambitious gameplay changes, upgraded graphical engines, and significant polish twice in this window, with a two-year development cycle on AC2 and a three-year cycle on AC3.
Not remotely relevant. Assuming the game was approved in 2005, that's three years -- plenty of time to do full preproduction plus gameplay prototyping and a vertical slice, all with a skeleton team. In a modern development methodology, this time would be invaluable, because by the end of it, they'd already have the visual design of the game entirely mapped out, the core gameplay refined, and playable footage of a close approximation of the game in a limited demo environment, allowing them to spend actual development time directly on level design, event design, asset building, and polishing. Assuming they literally just left the game to rot entirely in 2009 (also, in itself, a sign of awful mismanagement, but let's put that aside for now) they've had three years (2008, 2010, 2011) of full-on development after an extended preprod period -- they should have a content-complete prototype at this point that's undergoing tweaking and polishing, and they should be at the point where they can both demo the game live and already set a firm release date.
(In comparison, even FFXII had publicly-playable vertical slices that presented a good concept of the final game over a year before the game released.)
Well, it's kind of evident on a marketplace level that both critics nor gamers are more forgiving of bugs (even awful ones) than games that just aren't really fully fleshed-out or fun to play.
Regardless, I think it's likely that Square-Enix could produce RPGs that are more fun, more visually attractive, and more polished than Bethesda's with a better production model. FFXIII-2 is a big step forward.
It's easy to pinpoint Nomura as the reason people will have hope for Versus. Is that in of itself proof of it's quality? No, of course not. Production is moving at a pace that would bring rosy cheeks to a snail, however, given the history of the projects he has been heavily involved in compared to the other projects, there is a consistency which is lacking elsewhere. Maybe Versus will be the great floundering moment, but until it's out, I give his name significant weight.
FFX was the last really good Final Fantasy in my opinion, since then Nomura has headed two excellent console KHs, KH:BbS, a game which I think is the best of it's platform, and had significant influence in TWEWY, the best game of it's platform.
Nothing Nomura has made has had the development time of Versus, but I don't really see that as a bad thing. Maybe people's expectations are too high, but for it to be the quality of recent Final Fantasy's would shock me, nothing else he's done has been that weak.
EDIT: Nothing is a little extreme really, I hear the DS KHs are garbage. But for his major releases at least.
FFX was the last really good Final Fantasy in my opinion, since then Nomura has headed two excellent console KHs, KH:BbS, a game which I think is the best of it's platform, and had significant influence in TWEWY, the best game of it's platform.
Nothing Nomura has made has had the development time of Versus, but I don't really see that as a bad thing. Maybe people's expectations are too high, but for it to be the quality of recent Final Fantasy's would shock me, nothing else he's done has been that weak.
EDIT: Nothing is a little extreme really, I hear the DS KHs are garbage. But for his major releases at least.
LiquidSolid
Member
Difference is, Bethesda started off with an engine that was already built. Sure they had to make a lot of changes to get exactly what they wanted out of it but a lot of the hard work had already been done and the remaining work would've been easy comparatively.
Versus' team however, didn't have this luxury. The engine they were originally meant to use was developed concurrently with XIII, so they were left waiting. I guess at some point they either realised that the Crystal Tools wouldn't suit their needs or got sick of waiting but either way, they went with their own solution instead. Same thing happened with XIV but in that case, I'm Tanaka didn't have the political power to push the game back a couple of years like Nomura does.
TheChillyAcademic
Member
Depends entirely on your definition of garbage in the KH series.
Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
charlequin said:
This makes no sense.
First of all, what was "approved" in 2005 exactly? It could be as little as a product name within a larger marketing plan. It certainly wasn't running on anything renotely like final hardware as PS3 itself didn't launch until Novemeber 2006.
Either way, without a solid vertical slice and a lot of pre-production work (all of whih requires an engine) you don't have a project than can be reviewed as part of the greenlight process.
More to the point, being titled VERSUS XIII, pretty much demands that there be a "regular" XIII to contrast it with. That being the case there would be no reason for the pre-prod phase to be expedited to the extent it gets ahead of the companion product its intended to slingshot off!
The delays and issues facing XIII and XIV almost certainly pushed it back even further, which again considering XIII didn't launch until December 2009 means that development on the title could not have entered full swing until some point in 2010.
Bottom line: Versus has never been a priority project for SE, and was never likely to be scheduled for release in the same calendar year as XIII, even disregarding that they also had the FFXIV launch to deal with (9/2010), and fellow FNC title Type-0 (10/2011) to get out the door and promote.
Versus got announced way too soon is all.
No way this game will be as good as the hype behind is making it out to be. I mean, it's a SPIN OFF, the main XIII is already out, and of course it was more important to SE than VsXIII, I call massive dissapointment.
To be honest, it doesn't look especatular (aside from the graphics) I don't have idea how it could bow us all.
To be honest, it doesn't look especatular (aside from the graphics) I don't have idea how it could bow us all.
You could say at the time that Final Fantasy Tactics was a spinoff. It's still one of the best FF games out there.
As for Versus XIII, who knows....
iKeepPlaying
Banned
Not to mention that FF spin-offs have often been pretty solid. Type-0 is a spin-off, but impressions have been pretty positive of that, and Four Heroes of Light and Mystic Quest were great spin-offs.
Four Heroes of Light could've been a great spinoff, but they released it half finished. Nomura probably has too much clout for the same thing to happen to Versus, but maybe I should wait to see the actual game before I say that. Plenty of games eventually emerge from development hell in a state of surprising incompletion.
This is really what everyone should take away from this discussion, yes a stupidly long list of games SE has been associated with has come and gone since Vs13 was announced, but that is because (as stated over and over) work didn't really even start on the game until recently.
Really makes me wonder why it was announced so early.
-Pyromaniac-
Member
nuff said
Meccanical
Member
To sell PS3s.
TheChillyAcademic
Member
It begins.
Fair enough, though I figure just the trailer for FF13 would of done that (back in a time before everyone hated FF13 when it wasn't out, of course).
I think they just bit off more than they can chew. Underestimating the difficulty of transition into new hardwares (and Japan as a whole). When FNC was originally announced I think they wanted to replicate the success of Compilation and as time went on the reality was different than they envisioned.
Fimbulvetr
Member
It's this same kind of backwards logic that got some people to ignore the best KH game.Ahasverus said:
That kind of logic really fuels the argument to rename it something that doesn't have "XIII" in the title, really.
AzureAngel27
Member
It's really unfortunate that the FNC series ended up this way, it really was an interesting concept when they first unveiled it. But unfortunately way to much has gone wrong and it has taken waaaaay too long to get the games out. I mean weren't there like 3 more games that were supposed to be a part of this that never came to fruition?
iKeepPlaying
Banned
Chain of Memories was ignored?
Meccanical
Member
Rahxephon91
Banned
And that it was on the PSP.
Obviously he means 358/2 Days.
Meccanical
Member
we.are.the.armada
Member
I hope they take as long as they need to in order to make this game perfect. From what I've seen it looks very fun to play and the tone of the game isn't offputting to me at all. I see this game and it makes me want to play IV, VI, and VII again.
Bwahahaha!
Bwahahaha!
I really wish the game has improved from 2011 trailer. The visual was ok, but the battle semeed it need to be polished. The hitting effect(I don't know how to describe it exactly) was really bad. I am not expecting it to be on same level as action games like DMC/NG/GOW etc, but I still want it to improve. It felt like you were slicing paper, much like FF XIII/XIII-2.
TheChillyAcademic
Member
Meccanical
Member
Nah, I would say the collision weight feels significantly meatier than the XIII games considering several enemies could be knocked flat on their ass with a finishing blow and you could sometimes see the weight of the attack shake whatever limb/object it's hitting.
Fimbulvetr
Member
^Lemme guess, you like KH2 better? Cretin.
Yes, certainly. But there's still usually a noticeable number of people popping into recent KH threads going "lol where's KH3?".Raxephon91 said:
Meccanical
Member
Nope.
I don't know why, but this looks like those Lazy Town puppets/dolls.
H_Prestige
Banned
Nope. No reason at all.
KittenMaster
Member
I hope when the time comes, they announce Kingdom Hearts 4 instead of three, just to confuse everyone and cause debate as to which game rightfully deserves to be "3".
That would be cruel, but awesome.
I couldn't care less about KH3 at this point....this IS my KH3!
If only it'll come out by now
I'm really curious if it's stayed on PS3 or not or whether they've taken this time to try to get it to run on other platforms as well....because with all this time and money spent...I dunno if they can afford to be exclusive...
Anyway, if 2013 goes by without a single game-show demo, I will have given up hope with this game.
If only it'll come out by now
I'm really curious if it's stayed on PS3 or not or whether they've taken this time to try to get it to run on other platforms as well....because with all this time and money spent...I dunno if they can afford to be exclusive...Anyway, if 2013 goes by without a single game-show demo, I will have given up hope with this game.
FFXIV will be there. At this point I'm doubting Versus will be just because of SE's other big western titles that will be at the show.
ZombiePlatypus
Member
As a fan I will be pretty annoyed if that's the case. Unless the company is at its deathdoor or something (and SE isn't quite there yet,) there will always be a stream of new, high-profile titles to show off at an event like E3. At some point, they need to go "enough is enough, hold the goddamn line. Right now it's Versus' turn."
At this point, I'm not hoping for anything more specific than "TBA" regarding release time. But, I think it's about time we got some meaty and substantial info (and a new trailer) for the game.
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