Kotaku Rumor: Final Fantasy Versus XIII dead?

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Shamdeo said:
That's the thing really.

It seems like a large part of it is that we don't know much about the game -- and given the large amount of time it's been stewing in fans' minds, the more they think it's being worked on and polished and perfected. Really, there's little we know about the game's mechanics other than the trailer that showed general gameplay (dated by Nomura's own admission).

People look back and point to Final Fantasy VII as this monumental effort by Squaresoft and make connections to this project as it's taken a lot of time and (supposedly) resources. However, it just doesn't translate into a game of high caliber, and a lack of information about the game just feeds a lot of hearsay and speculation -- generating hype.

So really, an amalgamation of unreasonable fan expectation and too little communication from Square Enix has (I believe) caused the situation they're in today in regards to Versus XIII.
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there's enough information out there to justify why people have been so excited for this game.
 
M_Night said:
there's enough information out there to justify why people have been so excited for this game.
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Eh, no not really. People have been drooling and going ape shit about it since the first trailer -.-/ Cool looking character/world syndrome yay. Personally that gameplay trailer from a year ago made the game look like a clunky ass version of KH. Of course that was over a year ago and I'm sure the KH games have been used as combat test for the versus game. :P
 
QisTopTier said:
Eh, no not really. People have been drooling and going ape shit about it since the first trailer -.-/ Cool looking character/world syndrome yay
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maybe not media (screens and raw gameplay footage), but information from developer and magazine interviews we have a lot of info.
 
StuBurns said:
FFXIII was in development a lot longer than one year. Maybe the full push was that long, but development wasn't.
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The first footage they showed in late 2008 was pretty much the only thing that they had done of the game at that point. Okay, let's say that the development of FFXIII took a hundred years (if you want to count the suffering with Crystal Tools in it), but the development of the CONTENT of the game was done in a little over a year, and that only with the help of Nomura's team. FFXIII was a rush-job. A polished one at that, but still in many ways not the game it could've been had they actually spend that much time on the game's development and not just getting the production started.

And FFXIII is absolutely a quality product. It's not a great game, but as a production, it's meticulous top to bottom. Those issues are of game design, not development. Versus might suck, but it's going to be very pretty and smooth while doing it if it does.
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Sure, but almost all of those game design choices in FFXIII came from the fact that after struggling with the tools for so long that they got nothing done in 2-3 years, they HAD to get some kind of product out ASAP, so no super-detailed HD towns, no sprawling dungeons & overworlds (other than the one massive area on Pulse). Final Fantasy Versus XIII doesn't suffer from similar urgency, so they don't have to make such limiting design choices.
 
Do tracks in Theatrhythm list the game they are associated with? If so, it'd be pretty weird to see it read 'Somnus - Final Fantasy Versus XIII' if the title is canceled. Actually, it'd be even weirder if it read like that in Theatrhythm and Versus was rebranded to XV.
 
Stumpokapow said:
FFX's original announcement trailer (black haired Tidus, PlayOnline)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72vckLXI7x4
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Yeah, I remember seeing this video back when it first came out. They announced FFIX, FFX, and FFXI all at once - the FFXI trailer started playing right after this (not sure if that Youtube user has it up in their feed or not, I didn't check).

In any event, concerning FFVXIII, I really can't get myself to care at this point. From the little we've seen it looked to at least be somewhat of a change of pace from the annoying aesthetic and design sensibilities of the "regular" FFXIII. However, by now SE has been in such a horrible state for so long that my sense of schadenfreude over their continued mismanagement is overriding pretty much any need I feel to play or anticipate any of their games unless its a re-release of one of the older games in their library that I like.

Sure, Agni's Philosophy got me hyped at E3 and it still looks great, but this is SE we're talking about. If the same people remain in charge whatever game comes from that technical effort is going to be crap.
 
Famassu said:
The first footage they showed in late 2008 was pretty much the only thing that they had done of the game at that point. Okay, let's say that the development of FFXIII took a hundred years (if you want to count the suffering with Crystal Tools in it), but the development of the CONTENT of the game was done in a little over a year, and that only with the help of Nomura's team. FFXIII was a rush-job. A polished one at that, but still in many ways not the game it could've been had they actually spend that much time on the game's development and not just getting the production started.
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Bullshit. The demo was finished in 2008, and I have the demo, it's basically identical to the actual game. A year ahead of release, they had the first hour completed. There were trailers showing content from throughout the game already. The first trailer shows cutscenes, animated and directed that were identical when the game finally shipped.

The game was being worked on for a long time.
 
People complaining about when Versus was coming out in the Agni questionaire was the straw that broke the camels back.

I am SO joking. Put down the pitchforks and torches people!
 
What was the name of the PSP game, Type 0? I want to know when this is coming out in EU or if it will forever be only be available in Japan.

Square Enix certainly has a lot of ambition with the XIII series, can't blame a company for trying.
 
I don't think VsXIII is canceled, though I would love to see how Nomura would react if this was the case. First his team helps finish XIII only to have his XIII game be flushed while Toriama gets sequels.
 
solidus51 said:
Wasn't this an exclusive for the ps3?
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If this is canceled, or no longer exclusive, or coming next year and still exclusive, it's not going to make any difference to Sony.

Sony don't care if this game is cancelled, SE on the other hand probably blew nearly fifty million on this game if it's canned.
 
TruePrime said:
I don't think VsXIII is canceled, though I would love to see how Nomura would react if this was the case. First his team helps finish XIII only to have his XIII game be flushed while Toriama gets sequels.
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I just hope he doesn't get "eye cancer" if this happens :<
 
DIdn't nomura say to people "forget about vs13 for awhile"? I think it was last year but it sounded like he was trying to quiet the fans then. I could be wrong tho.
 
So are table flipping gifs bannable now? because I can't think of a more appropriate response but we've gone 15 pages without one...
 
Shamdeo said:
Still banking on some modicum of information to come out at TGS this year, barring none of these rumors are validated. Seems a bit unlikely it'll be at the 25th Anniversary Event.

Something about Nomura having an affinity for Jump Festa might play into it too. ;
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That he does. Easier to conceal trailers that way.
 
I remember being so excited about Versus. It goes all the way back to the "savior of the PS3" days. I must've seen this trailer a hundred times... Crazy to feel nostalgia for a trailer of a game that hasn't even come out yet.
 
miladesn said:
I just hope he doesn't get "eye cancer" if this happens :<
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I'm just waiting for the day he leaves Square. His series he built is going down, teams he built up are having members leave and once said that he wouldn't be around much after The next Console KH.

I just want to see where he would end up.
 
StuBurns said:
Bullshit. The demo was finished in 2008, and I have the demo, it's basically identical to the actual game. A year ahead of release, they had the first hour completed. There were trailers showing content from throughout the game already. The first trailer shows cutscenes, animated and directed that were identical when the game finally shipped.

The game was being worked on for a long time.
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By "the footage they showed", I meant the demo (which was released for public consumption in early 2009, but they showed gameplay/trailers from it in late 2008). And having an hour done of a game that takes, what, 30-50 hours to completed a year before its release is exactly what I was talking about. They had very little of the game's content actually done (they might've had plans, concept art, script etc. but very little of it had actually been modelled, textured, voice acted, animated etc. for the game).

The state of the CGI stuff has no bearing to anything. A whole separate team does those in their own schedule. They've had tons pre-rendered cutscenes done for Versus as well (some of which are clearly not from the beginning of the game).

The demo is like the finished product because it HAD to be. They didn't develop content for the game before they had the tools ready, and that didn't happen until 2008. And even AFTER they had figured out the problems with the Crystal Tools, it took them a while to find a direction for the game. If I don't remember completely wrong, they did once say that before they finished the demo in late 2008, they were still kind of lost with the game and once they had finished the demo, they kind of got a grasp of what they were doing with the game. Too bad they only had about a year after that to finish it, so that lead to a lot of compromises during development (one being the infamous HD towns are hard).
 
bAJRX.jpg


Well looks like this image might need a fix!
 
I'll take Kagari's word over Kotaku in Final Fantasy stuff any day of the week. Kotaku will be the farthest thing from my mind when I'm playing vsXIII.
 
If this is true, I'm guessing a lot of people will be fired. The stockholders will want to see someone pay for the 50 million+ 7 years down the drain.
 
TruePrime said:
I'm just waiting for the day he leaves Square. His series he built is going down,
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Let's see what happens with the next console Kingdom Hearts (which should be the next game in the franchise) before making premature predictions on anything related to their popularity, especially when the games are just getting better & better. It's the handhelds that are going down, not necessarily Kingdom Hearts.

once said that he wouldn't be around much after The next Console KH.
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Considering he has plans for Kingdom Hearts series even after Kingdom Hearts III (aka the end of the Xehanort trilogy), I find it hard to believe he has said anything like that. Source?
 
It'd be nice if Square changed it to XV then released it on both PS3 and 360.

+ I hope they announce XIII-3 at this 25th anniversary event.
 
I made the prediction nothing more.

And Kingdom Hearts right now are handheld games and despite the effort they put in 3D it tanked.
 
Horse Armour said:
If this is true, I'm guessing a lot of people will be fired. The stockholders will want to see someone pay for the 50 million+ 7 years down the drain.
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Where are you ripping that number out of? First of all, it hasn't been 7 years even from the announcement of the game. They announced the game and had very little done to it in the 1-2 years after it. When they did start to do something with it, it was mostly just some key personnel (i.e. Nomura as the director, some key art people etc.) & they started experimenting with PS3 with a small tech team. It hasn't been more than about 2,5 years since they moved a relatively small team (for a production of its size, I've gotten the impression it was maybe somewhere around 50 people, +/- 10) to really start working on the game and it's been about a YEAR since it entered full production (that is, they started building up the size of the dev team). I don't think that kind of progress of development counts up to some huge-ass budget they could never hope to get back in sales. I'm pretty sure that's the reason why Nomura has been able take it this slowly. Had it really been a 300+ man team working on it for 5+ years, THEN I'd understand if the game was cancelled. But it didn't.


Really, come to think of it, the parallels with the development of Versus and Beyond Good & Evil 2 are quite big.
 
TruePrime said:
I made the prediction nothing more.
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A prediction Nomura's own words contradict. :|

And Kingdom Hearts right now are handheld games and despite the effort they put in 3D it tanked.
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This is also something Nomura has already addressed recently. He HAS acknowledged that the series needs to get back on to consoles. And KHIII will do just that.
 
Yeah I said I think he will be around for KH3. I don't think he will stay at Square forever though and if they do some thing like canceling his games then it will speed up the process.
 
After the tutorial there's a shower scene where Noctis steps into the hot, steaming water which washes away his make-up revealing his true identity...Sora.

Then Dearly Beloved plays and the Kingdom Hearts 3 logo appears.
 
Famassu said:
Where are you ripping that number out of? First of all, it hasn't been 7 years even from the announcement of the game. They announced the game and had very little done to it in the 1-2 years after it. When they did start to do something with it, it was mostly just some key personnel (i.e. Nomura as the director, some key art people etc.) & they started experimenting with PS3 with a small tech team. It hasn't been more than about 2,5 years since they moved a relatively small team (for a production of its size, I've gotten the impression it was maybe somewhere around 50 people, +/- 10) to really start working on the game and it's been about a YEAR since it entered full production (that is, they started building up the size of the dev team). I don't think that kind of progress of development counts up to some huge-ass budget they could never hope to get back in sales. I'm pretty sure that's the reason why Nomura has been able take it this slowly. Had it really been a 300+ man team working on it for 5+ years, THEN I'd understand if the game was cancelled. But it didn't.


Really, come to think of it, the parallels with the development of Versus and Beyond Good & Evil 2 are quite big.
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Its development was active enough to prevent KHIII from happening on consoles this generation, so I don't think this constitutes much of a defense.
 
Lavalamp1138 said:
Do tracks in Theatrhythm list the game they are associated with? If so, it'd be pretty weird to see it read 'Somnus - Final Fantasy Versus XIII' if the title is canceled. Actually, it'd be even weirder if it read like that in Theatrhythm and Versus was rebranded to XV.
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Versus just shows up as "Music from the Final Fantasy series" in the english version.
 
Jesus, I'm starting to think there's some kind of curse associated with being PS3 exclusive. And where the fuck is Agent Rockstar? WHERE IS IT?
 
Famassu said:
By "the footage they showed", I meant the demo (which was released for public consumption in early 2009, but they showed gameplay/trailers from it in late 2008). And having an hour done of a game that takes, what, 30-50 hours to completed a year before its release is exactly what I was talking about. They had very little of the game's content actually done (they might've had plans, concept art, script etc. but very little of it had actually been modelled, textured, voice acted, animated etc. for the game).

The state of the CGI stuff has no bearing to anything. A whole separate team does those in their own schedule. They've had tons pre-rendered cutscenes done for Versus as well (some of which are clearly not from the beginning of the game).

The demo is like the finished product because it HAD to be. They didn't develop content for the game before they had the tools ready, and that didn't happen until 2008. And even AFTER they had figured out the problems with the Crystal Tools, it took them a while to find a direction for the game. If I don't remember completely wrong, they did once say that before they finished the demo in late 2008, they were still kind of lost with the game and once they had finished the demo, they kind of got a grasp of what they were doing with the game. Too bad they only had about a year after that to finish it, so that lead to a lot of compromises during development (one being the infamous HD towns are hard).
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It's ridiculous not to consider those things aspects of the development. The story was being worked on, character designs, cutscene animation and direction. The first trailer shows an in-engine cutscene from Chapter 12, exactly how it was in the final game.

Maybe the moment to moment game hadn't been built, but lots of aspects of the game were built a lot more than a year before they shipped the game.

I could believe they had a lot of loose sections of geometry, and the story/CG in place, then ran out of time so just had to randomly glue it all together, but without question that game was in active development for years.

And Versus might end up being almost the same situation. They have the engine, combat and story in place, maybe they don't have any of the meat designed, and they'll just have to stick random bits and pieces together to get it out the door, if so, that'll be a shame. I hope if that is the case, there won't be people on GAF saying it's because they only had a year to do it all.
 
I'm getting a 'Spirits Within' vibe from Versus now. I wonder just how much money SE plunked into Versus and if recouping the costs is even viable.
 
If it were false, I'd have expected an official statement denying it by now. It's been nearly thirteen hours since the rumor broke.

But it'd be foolish to read too much into that.
 
Father_Brain said:
Its development was active enough to prevent KHIII from happening on consoles this generation, so I don't think this constitutes much of a defense.
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Kingdom Hearts III was always supposed to be released after Versus XIII because Nomura felt that they needed to have a really good grasp of how to develop "next-gen" games because of the ideas he already had for Kingdom Hearts III would need all of their expertise on the platform(s) they would be developing Kingdom Hearts III for. And even if there never was any Versus XIII, he felt some KH stories still needed to be told before KHIII could even happen, so it's not just Versus that has been halting III's development.

Also, the people from the KH Team have helped around with a lot of projects around Square Enix after the announcement of Versus XIII but prior to them starting work on Versus and even after they moved a small group to work on it (games they've more or less participated in include: Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix, Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, Kingdom Hearts ReCoded, The World Ends With You, Final Fantasy XIII and possibly more).


TruePrime said:
Yeah I said I think he will be around for KH3. I don't think he will stay at Square forever though and if they do some thing like canceling his games then it will speed up the process.
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No, he will be around for more than just Kingdom Hearts III. He already has future developments (at least somewhat) thought out for the series. That in addition to him pretty much being the most important person at Square Enix today probably means he ain't leaving SE any time soon. That's like predicting Miyamoto to leave Nintendo. It just won't happen until something really drastic happens.
 
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