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[chaosblade]

All the text being in Japanese does not bode well for the english release date.

Makes more sense to use the same footage for every Direct than go through the effort of making an early English build just for a trailer. They probably won't even start on localization programming until after the game goes gold in Japan.

 

[lostinblue]

nvm not worth arguing.

With whom?

 

[Laconic]

Xenoblade with its three character party already did away with standard nuke/tank/heal concept later on, once you got more party members. Even running with three nukes was perfectly viable thanks to the evade tank concept and the fact that even support characters could wear heavy armor. And X apparently doesn't even have dedicated healers in the first place.

I'm aware, lol. Which is why I qualified the "trinity" concept, with "split the difference". Re: divvy up bits and pieces of 3 "main" roles and various Utility tasks, between them.

I hated the fact that Xenoblade had a 3 member party... I played it anyway, due to how absolutely epic it was.

But not one moment went by during that game, that I didn't wish I had at least a 4 person squad. Not a single one.

 

[Golnei]

Can you elaborate further?

They sure as hell didn't lose the source code and it didn't have pre-rendered scenarios going on. Max they lost if higher res texture assets if they ever had them. Assets which would never be suitable for the most part 720/1080p now.

Seems like they were playing the victim or something.

That's according to the title's director Tetsuya Nomura, who made the revelation during a Square Enix-created E3 video discussing the project, as well as Kingdom Hearts III and Final Fantasy XV.

"Kingdom Hearts 1 was created a long, long time ago, so actually the original data was missing already," he explained. "It was lost, so we had to research, and we had to dig out from the actual game what was available and recreate everything for HD. We had to recreate all the graphics and it was actually not that easy."

In the beginning, however, the PC port suffered many problems. When the contract programmers received the FF7 source code from Square, it was a horrible state of atrophy. When work started on the port, it was soon discovered that they had received an earlier, buggy version of the program. Work had to stop while Square accumulated a later version. It was also discovered that the people and equipment used to create the backgrounds for FF7, were now being used for FF8 and FF9. There was no way to re-render the backgrounds and the port team was forced to use the original low color/low resolution PSX dependencies. The movies faired worse. Squaresoft never rendered high resolution versions of the movies. The movie format was incompatible with Microsoft's DirectX system, so it was decided to convert the compressed PSX movies to one more native to a PC platform. This caused disastrous results. The movies were now a copy of a copy of a low resolution render.

Seeing things like that regarding their archiving, it's not inconceivable that the majority of original assets from 90s Square titles are now lost. Though enough survives to hint at how beautiful a full remake of their games utilising pre-rendered backgrounds would be.

 

[SoraanTribal]

I'm aware, lol. Which is why I qualified the "trinity" concept, with "split the difference". Re: divvy up bits and pieces of 3 "main" roles and various Utility tasks, between them.

I hated the fact that Xenoblade had a 3 member party... I played it anyway, due to how absolutely epic it was.

But not one moment went by during that game, that I didn't wish I had at least a 4 person squad. Not a single one.

What exactly makes 4 so much better than 3? I don't think adding one extra player really changes that much when the game doesn't use the trinity system. Maybe if you controlled the AI characters I could see the advantage, but not as it is.

 

[Pellegri Testament]

What exactly makes 4 so much better than 3? I don't think adding one extra player really changes that much when the game doesn't use the trinity system. Maybe if you controlled the AI characters I could see the advantage, but not as it is.

It would make it more like a 4 player dungeon in an mmo where you have 2 dps, a healer and a tank. True "support" in an action game that isn't turn based is a dying breed because it takes away from the action when you have little more than a buff bot in the party that does mediocre dmg. With 4 players in the game, it wouldn't make it any different than it seems now other than you have an extra dmg dealer.

FF15 being an example, I can guarantee the core party make up is going to be 2 dmg dealers, a healer that also helps out on dmg when there's not much to heal, and a tanky class. There's no way the buff guy isn't going to be a tank, Noctis will likely be whatever you want him to be, and the other 2 will be able to switch between dmg and heals.

 

[Laconic]

What exactly makes 4 so much better than 3? I don't think adding one extra player really changes that much when the game doesn't use the trinity system. Maybe if you controlled the AI characters I could see the advantage, but not as it is.

It really is the minimum necessary for a robust party, as far as I am concerned.

Anything less just doesn't offer enough of a robust dynamic to the battles.

I personally prefer to have 6, but 5 is solid; 4 is the bare minimum for flavor.

I can see where 4 could be the optimal number for certain battle systems, but, console limitations aside (PS1), 3 person parties are uninspired tosh.

A 3 person party is store brand Neapolitan.

 

[Otakumegane]

Official website is up.

With music.

http://xenobladex.jp/

 

[lostinblue]

Seeing things like that regarding their archiving, it's not inconceivable that the majority of original assets from 90s Square titles are now lost. Though enough survives to hint at how beautiful a full remake of their games utilising pre-rendered backgrounds would be.

Thanks, sorry for giving you work.

EDIT: That sounds terrible but in regards to KH they either lost geometry data files or original textures before they were converted for the PS2 pipeline.

Geometry I don't believe for a second they redid from scratch as they most likely ripped them from the game with tools like everyone does. Textures can be ripped as well but they would be too low res and knowing PS2 color depth limited to be put to use anywhere.

Still looks hectic bad.


As for the assets for FFVII, FFVIII and FFIX that's just sad, but there's certainly a factor of being a contract programmer and having to ask for things versus working there. I remember how Okami for the Wii was a bitch for Ready at Dawn, credit sequence had been lost, parts of the code were missing (they unearthed two hdd's and sent them their way), shit like that. But then they did it for the PS3 just fine, they had the full source code after all I think, then again less time had gone by too. Still prospects are not good at all.

I still hope they could somehow recover most of it. FFIX should be the most likely as it was the last one, perhaps they didn't even use it's workstations more afterwards. It also seems by far the most beautiful candidate for a HD remaster.

I fully expected tons of OBJ files with missing assets but geometry still there for FFVII though.

 

[Golnei]

Official website is up.

With music.

http://xenobladex.jp/

I quite like it actually. Very typical of Sawano (everything after the chorus' entry is indistinguishable from 70% of his Gundam tracks), but it fits the setting well enough.

It'd be nice for the score to rise above 'competent and inoffensive' at some points, though.

 

[Pellegri Testament]

Official website is up.

With music.

http://xenobladex.jp/

Not a bad title screen theme, can only assume it is anyway.

 

[wmlk]

Anyone expecting stuff like Colony 9 or Frontier Village need to temper their expectations. You could tell that from the very beginning.

Think more Xenogears and Xenosaga/Gundam than Xenoblade. Takahashi himself had said that Xenoblade is a disservice to the type of game that he really wants to make.

The game looked interesting until they showed the New LA part. It just seems so out of place.

It seems perfectly in place. This is nothing new for them. The GTAV comparison by Kotaku is dumb when stuff like this has been done way before that.

Not everything is GTAV, Skyrim, or Dark Souls.

 

[Shahadan]

Not a bad title screen theme, can only assume it is anyway.

I hope not because Xenodlade's was perfect and this will not do >(

 

[Shahadan]

Think more Xenogears and Xenosaga/Gundam than Xenoblade. Takahashi himself had said that Xenoblade is a disservice to the type of game that he really wants to make.

.

That's my problem because Xenoblade was his only game that was fun and nice to look at. With X he seems to be back with his usual ways and I don't want to play that again.

Edit: Sorry dp.

 

[Pellegri Testament]

I hope not because Xenodlade's was perfect and this will not do >(

This is also likely what we can expect when it comes to quite a bit of the music in the game. Xenoblade had it's opening and ost due to them bringing on about 5 different composers or groups to do it, this on the other hand will likely be Sawano for the majority. Would make sense that he did the opening(and that this is it) so it set the tone for the rest of the game.

That's my problem because Xenoblade was his only game that was fun and nice to look at. With X he seems to be back with his usual ways and I don't want to play that again.

Edit: Sorry dp.

Best to drop out now then because this is guaranteed to be about "god killing" again when they made it clear in the e3 trailer that the main antagonists worshipped/followed anything. The combat and world are likely the only things that will follow in Xenoblades wake, the story on the other hand will go back to Saga/Gears.

 

[Easy_D]

Music on the website makes me hype as fuck. So nice to have the entire track.

 

[wmlk]

Sawano is hit-or-miss.

Like, he can come up great themes like the Primordial Wilderness theme, and good ones like the one on the website, and flat-out bad ones like the E3 2013 theme in my opinion.

A lot of people have a problem with Sawano's overbearing sound and those stupid vocals, myself included. We'll see what happens.

It likely won't top ACE+, Minami Kiyota, and what Shimomura did for Xenoblade, though.

 

[anaron]

Sawano is hit-or-miss.

Like, he can come up great themes like the Primordial Wilderness theme, and good ones like the one on the website, and flat-out bad ones like the E3 2013 theme in my opinion.

A lot of people have a problem with Sawano's overbearing sound and those stupid vocals, myself included. We'll see what happens.

It likely won't top ACE+, Minami Kiyota, and what Shimomura did for Xenoblade, though.

Same here. I don't know why they weren't brought back.

 

[Shahadan]

Best to drop out now then because this is guaranteed to be about "god killing" again when they made it clear in the e3 trailer that the main antagonists worshipped/followed anything. The combat and world are likely the only things that will follow in Xenoblades wake, the story on the other hand will go back to Saga/Gears.

I'm fine with killing god or whatever like this.
I just rolled my eyes pretty hard at the E3 trailer when I understood we were gonna have again a bajillion organization names, whole sentences who made purposedly no sense to give a false sentiment of mystery and delay the twist for 40 hours, and badly directed teh epic spaceship battle scenes.

I mean the guy and his wife write good stories when you read them on a wiki or in a book, but in games it's always shit. At least for me. They're way too ambitious and/or high on their own farts and forget how to build a plot.
Xenoblade was ok because it was simpler (at least before the last part), and they focused the writing on the characters and their relationship. Best ensemble cast in a rpg in years, and it overshadowed the shonen plot and made it good to watch cutscenes.

I don't see that here and considering the main character is made by the player he's going to be silent and there won't be something like Xenoblade again.

Coupled with the western aesthetic and other stuff, I'm afraid it could be a case of a sequel forgetting why its predecessor was loved.

 

[wmlk]

I'm fine with killing god or whatever like this.
I just rolled my eyes pretty hard at the E3 trailer when I understood we were gonna have again a bajillion organization names, whole sentences who made purposedly no sense to give a false sentiment of mystery and delay the twist for 40 hours, and badly directed teh epic spaceship battle scenes.

I mean the guy and his wife write good stories when you read them on a wiki or in a book, but in games it's always shit. At least for me. They're way too ambitious and/or high on their own farts and forget how to build a plot.
Xenoblade was ok because it was simpler (at least before the last part), and they focused the writing on the characters and their relationship. Best ensemble cast in a rpg in years, and it overshadowed the shonen plot and made it good to watch cutscenes.

I don't see that here and considering the main character is made by the player he's going to be silent and there won't be something like Xenoblade again.

Silent protag is the only thing I have a problem with.

The religious overtones are going to be interesting considering this is a Nintendo game.

I just hope they realize their vision as developers. Xenogears is an example of a game that they want to make. I'm hoping it's like that and that the plot doesn't fall apart.

 

[lostinblue]

Silent protag is the only thing I have a problem with.

Oh, c'mon!

Sure, it differs from Xenoblade, but I gave up after seeing the E3 demo and loving it regardless. Reminded me of Shin Megami Tensei a little, more than Zelda or Dragon Quest.


... Can someone rip the theme from the site?!

 

[wmlk]

Oh, c'mon!

Sure, it differs from Xenoblade, but I gave up after seeing the E3 demo and loving it regardless. Reminded me of Shin Megami Tensei a little, more than Zelda or Dragon Quest.


... Can someone rip the theme from the site?!

If they want to tell a story like Xenogears and Xenosaga, I dunno if silent protag is right.

 

[Golnei]

Silent protag is the only thing I have a problem with.

The religious overtones are going to be interesting considering this is a Nintendo game.

I just hope they realize their vision as developers. Xenogears is an example of a game that they want to make. I'm hoping it's like that and that the plot doesn't fall apart.

I don't mind the choice of a silent protagonist - Shulk was the weakest part of Xenoblade's cast, and if they retain a similarly vibrant array of supporting characters, keeping the protagonist silent may actually improve the narrative, focusing more on the ensemble than a flat lead character.

And seeing as they gave approval for Bowser to be shown killing angels in Bayonetta, I'm not sure the religious overtones will be too problematic - considering this is Takahashi, it's likely just going to be a bunch of ultimately meaningless symbolism, anyway.

 

[SpecialAgentZ]

... Can someone rip the theme from the site?!

http://xenobladex.jp/media/x11_00.mp3

(right click - save as)

 

[duckroll]

Stop using old threads for new discussions.