You can still get a highly-polished experience with beautiful cutscenes if custom characters are a thing. Cutscenes have been in-engine for ages now, and they look fine.
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How would you feel if Final Fantasy 16 used a create a character?
- Thread starter iceblade
- Start date
After Sonic Forces, where your OC is not the main character, but one of several, equally important protags, I absolutely would not be against it.
Please provide me with a game that has a CaC with cutscenes that are anywhere near the level of quality of something like FFXII/XIII/Uncharted.
It's not possible. You cannot have a cutscene that had 4849292929393 possibilities in mind compete with a hand-crafted cutscene.
And for a series that became popular partly because of stellar presentation and beautiful cutscenes, it would be dumb of SE to permanently remove such things. Also there are plenty of games that still use CGI cinematics. Past couple of months alone we've had Destiny 2, CoD: WW2, and Middle-Earth: Shadow of War all use CGI cinematics, all AAA games.
Again, seriously, there are plenty of other game series for that. You don't see me going on the Fallout boards asking for preset characters and stories, or asking for a CaC Open World Uncharted game. The compromises required by Western design philosophies directly go against what helped make FF popular. Seriously FF is not a WRPG series.
Then again we now have a CaC in a fucking Sonic game. And unsurprisingly it was a disaster.
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I'd rather they stick to set characters for the non-mmo line of games as they have, for the majority, of the numbered FF games. It would feel like they're moving even farther from the things I used to love about the series.
Is your number one problem with custom characters popping up in a non-online FF game that it might impede graphical fidelity? FFXV's cutscenes were nearly all in-engine and they looked pretty good. Even XIV's which are all in-engine save for the very few at the beginning/end look good. And to use one of your examples: Most of FFXII's cutscenes are in-engine. Though we're not talking about Destiny 2, CoD: WW2 or Middle-Earth, we're talking about Final Fantasy. That franchise is moving away from pre-rendered scenes, and has been since XI, which released 17 years ago. I just can't get behind the idea that custom characters are a deal breaker because it might make cutscenes slightly less uncanny-valley incuding.
They can do what they did with Titus and just never say his name. Though if they went with a custom character they'd probably make him/her a blank slate and go mute. I'll take mute over Bethesda's Fallout 4 choices.
....??? I get so confused when people say stuff like this. First of all, no FF's have a majority of their cutscenes in CGI. Secondly, XII and XIII have literally the same amount of CGI cinematics as VII-X. 45 minutes' worth, give or take 3 minutes. Also, most of XIII's cutscenes are pre-rendered.
XV only has so little because:
1. They were constantly rewriting the story, even on the year of its release
2. They thought Insomnia was less of priority than the Open World, so they scrapped it and made SE's CG team (plus others) work on it. So a whole bunch of resources were spent on a CGI movie
Otherwise, it would've had the usual amount. E3 2013's trailer featured plenty of CGI and the next few trailers featured a decent amount as well. VIIR is using CGI (the reveal trailer's footage was confirmed to be scenes from the actual game), too.
I get the feeling a lot of people in this thread have never played a Saints Row game. Also, Final Fantasy's cutscenes are nowhere near as good as some people seem to think they are. The series deserves more flack for popularizing shitty pre-rendered cutscenes. The average Bioware game has far better cutscene direction than a typical Final Fantasy title. Dragon Age: Inquisition's are almost uniformly outstanding.
The bigger thing they need to fix is to abandon the JRPG design tropes and transition into an actual RPG where you make choices that matter. No more of this "You can't have actual choices because that would conflict with the crappy, super generic personality we chose to give the protagonist," they've been pulling for years.
Look at Call of Duty, for example. Black Ops II had the right idea with its elaborate system of choices and consequences. Black Ops III had the right idea with male/female protagonist choices and some character customization. I'd like to see Black Ops IV bring those two elements together.
Look at Call of Duty, for example. Black Ops II had the right idea with its elaborate system of choices and consequences. Black Ops III had the right idea with male/female protagonist choices and some character customization. I'd like to see Black Ops IV bring those two elements together.
This, I feel it is more important I can have the option to dictate my party jobs/classes like FF12 and the older final fantasy games. Let me make a party of 4 white mages and go to town.
Sure, I'd be all for them experimenting with it at least once. I'd even be willing to accept a mute character to see how it affects their storytelling given how dogshit their last few outings have been story-wise recently.
Plus I always like it when every single piece of equipment I throw on my character shows up in the model and you can't really do that with static, Nomurafied character designs. Which in turn makes me hope the next entry has no sign of Lord Nomura-sama anywhere in sight either. Put that man away for a bit and bring back either Amano or Yoshida please.
Plus I always like it when every single piece of equipment I throw on my character shows up in the model and you can't really do that with static, Nomurafied character designs. Which in turn makes me hope the next entry has no sign of Lord Nomura-sama anywhere in sight either. Put that man away for a bit and bring back either Amano or Yoshida please.
I'd hate it, I prefer stories with pre-dertermined characters with set personalities and looks.
Dude, I think we're using different definitions of CaC. I don't mean any customizable background story. If you read my posts again I've been only talking about purely cosmetic character customization. That creates no compromise in cutscene direction. It's the same story, cutscenes, just with a different-looking character. Please tell me how it would have impacted FFXII's cutscenes if you could change Vaan's hair and skin-color? The directing, the camera movement, everything is the same. As I said, I'm not talking about CGI scenes. Of course those would always have a discrapancy.
I disagree on TW3. The main story cutscenes were well-directed. Don't mix up sidequest cutscenes and dialog shots with the hand-crafted story scenes, that's not fair.
And what do you mean with this? Do you mean those in-engine pre-rendered cutscenes they used in Uncharted 1-3 and FFXIII?
You know that Uncharted 4 already didn't use any of the in-engine pre-rendered cutscenes anymore, right? If you could change Nathan's clothes, hair, skin-color etc. nothing would be compromised direction-wise because it's all real-time in-game cutscenes.
Also about what you said about the Xenoblades:
How is XC2 not having CaC the reason for better cutscenes? Maybe it's just... better directed (different directors, more time and experience after making XCX)? Wasn't the CaC in XCX purely cosmetic anyway or did it have customizable stories? Was the character silent compared to XC2? If it was only cosmetic why would there be a compromise in cutscene direction? Besides, the characters in XC2 are even uglier than the already atrocious ones in XCX and I'm sure everybody would be happy if you could give the main character a different outfit, lol.
None of the FMV cutscenes in any FF game since like X-2 (which was over 10 years ago) have really wowed or impressed me. Half of the FMV scenes in XII barely matters since it's just shots of scenery and I could barely understand what was going on in some of theXIIIFMV cutscenes because it was visually all over the place at times. It's also worth mentioning that XIII-2 and LR barely had any CG outside of the opening and ending (and no, them being sequels have nothing to do with it. X-2 had lots of it). I didn't miss FMV scenes in XV at all and if they continued to use less of it then I wouldn't mind (as long as we still get great openings and endings FMVs but honestly XV didn't suffer from not having the latter). They should use it when they feel it's actually needed; not because some guy on a forum says they have to because other FFs had a lot. If VIII was remade today, then the opening would definitely still be a FMV but there's no reason why the ballroom scene has to for instance. It would be perfectly fine if that scene was in real time.
If it lets me avoid playing as a emo j-pop group i am fine with it.
The mass effect games did this very well, fully voiced characters with a set backstory and personality and complete control of their appearance.
The mass effect games did this very well, fully voiced characters with a set backstory and personality and complete control of their appearance.
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Ok since I have no idea how to multi-quote:
1. Person who says Dragon Age Inquisition has far better cutscenes than XII and XIII, and that FF's need to drop their "JRPG tropes": no need to turn FF into a WRPG series, thanks! Also lol at DAI's cutscenes being better than something like FFXII.
2. Dipuu: FFXII has plenty. Over 40 minutes of it.
3. Girl who wrote a post about FMV's: Actually XIII-2 has pretty much the same amount as X-2, minutes-wise (around 20 minutes). Only difference is XIII-2 went for fewer and longer ones. LR has 15 minutes' worth. And it does have to do with budget. Otherwise the stories would be more ambitious and have more of it. The same director used 47 minutes' worth of it for the main game, after all. I don't think future FF's need tons and tons of frequent and tiny ones (which is why some people think FFXII has very little), but for climactic and visually intensive moments of the plot? Yeah. Visual Works is a fucking amazing team and they definitely need to have their talent showed off in mainline FF games. I'm glad Dragon Quest games started using them.
4. Koozek: look, it's not a coincidence that the games I brought up have no customization whatsoever. There's a reason for that. That's all I'll say I just don't really have the energy to discuss it any longer :p
1. Person who says Dragon Age Inquisition has far better cutscenes than XII and XIII, and that FF's need to drop their "JRPG tropes": no need to turn FF into a WRPG series, thanks! Also lol at DAI's cutscenes being better than something like FFXII.
2. Dipuu: FFXII has plenty. Over 40 minutes of it.
3. Girl who wrote a post about FMV's: Actually XIII-2 has pretty much the same amount as X-2, minutes-wise (around 20 minutes). Only difference is XIII-2 went for fewer and longer ones. LR has 15 minutes' worth. And it does have to do with budget. Otherwise the stories would be more ambitious and have more of it. The same director used 47 minutes' worth of it for the main game, after all. I don't think future FF's need tons and tons of frequent and tiny ones (which is why some people think FFXII has very little), but for climactic and visually intensive moments of the plot? Yeah. Visual Works is a fucking amazing team and they definitely need to have their talent showed off in mainline FF games. I'm glad Dragon Quest games started using them.
4. Koozek: look, it's not a coincidence that the games I brought up have no customization whatsoever. There's a reason for that. That's all I'll say I just don't really have the energy to discuss it any longer :p
Final Fantasy is very heavy on story, and not having a protagonist that's carefully written with a personality would undermine that.
You still haven't even remotely addressed any of my questions how cosmetic customization relates to cutscene direction. That has nothing to do with each other. You just picked examples of games that coincidentally had better direction and no customization. Just answer this one question, lol: you think FFXII's cutscenes would suddenly suffer if you could make Vaan's hair black instead? How?
At this point they really need to go back to the drawing board and work on creating a good MC with distinguishable character traits.
Going from the last couple of FF MCs and then to a CAC one will only make it even more clear that SE is gradually losing the plot.
Going from the last couple of FF MCs and then to a CAC one will only make it even more clear that SE is gradually losing the plot.
Mass effect has a character creator and and a protagonist with a defined personality and story.
What Mass effect have you been playing. All 3 games are voiced. The reason why some sections aren't has absolutely nothing to do with the main character being custom or not and more the number of options in dialogue and whether the developers chooses to have them all voiced.
Divinity OS 2 is a kick started game. It has 6 origins/possible party members. All uniquely voiced, it has Over 20 possible combinations including custom characters for your main character (Race and gender as well as permutations for undead).
Every single combination has a substantial amount of unique voiced responses from over the 100 hour playthrough. All origin characters have unique voices and cutom you can pick through a voice track.
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Which is funny because none of the most recent main FF games have featured Nomura designed outfits for the main characters: FFXV, FFXIV, FFXIII-2.
LR: FFXIII did, but the many alternate outfits were designed by the FFIX character designer.
lmao there's so much wrong with this and the way you talk to people but continue to do you I guess.
But the point isn't about the run time, I specifically said that outside of the opening and ending XIII-2 barely has FMV scenes which is true.There are only two FMV scenes in between them and neither are that memorable (Serah crying over Lightning does not need to be an entire FMV scene), but the one with Lightning is fine as it (plus it's kind of recycling scenes from the opening). It's the same with XII. Outside of the opening, ending, and the scene where Vaan is escaping with Fran and Balthier near the beginning of the game what FMV's are rememberable and/or needed for the story? Compare that to X where the sending needed to be an FMV or 1000 Words in X-2, where the entire point of the scene would have feel flat without an FMV. And as far as XIII goes, a lot of the FMV had very little substance to them. There's a lot of them and they're pretty but that's it.
It's fine in the MMOs. But a create a character does dampen the story a bit. Though if they want to go back to the more classic routes of just "job", it could work.
Fine in an mmo or a separate mode but I need final fantasy to have defined characters. That's what originally made them stand out for me. I'm not saying it wouldn't work but I'm personally against it.
I'm all for it. I enjoy creating characters.
Surely the designed protagonist can be the default character, for those who do not prefer to create their own. It's a workable solution I think. We're living in a post Mass Effect world, the idea that CaC wouldn't work in a linear game has been disproven.
I also dislike the sentiment I'm seeing here, where the idea that CaC should be kept to wrpg, and not be introduced to jrpg as deeply troubling. The advocating of limiting that branch of the industry due to your own preference is arrogance of the highest order. It suggests a mind-set that is closed to the introduction of new ideas or change. I'm actually disgusted to have read it.
Don't get me wrong, I like created protagonists as much as anybody, but I also support the idea to go the other way. If you can please both camps, then what's the harm?
Please find attached below a sneer.gif directed at some of the more obnoxious statements in this thread :
Surely the designed protagonist can be the default character, for those who do not prefer to create their own. It's a workable solution I think. We're living in a post Mass Effect world, the idea that CaC wouldn't work in a linear game has been disproven.
I also dislike the sentiment I'm seeing here, where the idea that CaC should be kept to wrpg, and not be introduced to jrpg as deeply troubling. The advocating of limiting that branch of the industry due to your own preference is arrogance of the highest order. It suggests a mind-set that is closed to the introduction of new ideas or change. I'm actually disgusted to have read it.
Don't get me wrong, I like created protagonists as much as anybody, but I also support the idea to go the other way. If you can please both camps, then what's the harm?
Please find attached below a sneer.gif directed at some of the more obnoxious statements in this thread :