Agni's Philosophy

Yeah, it looks really cool. Here is survey about it : https://form.square-enix.com/a.p/933

I told them i liked MC but it would be nice to tune down shaky cam and arabs with AKs and combine classic fantasy with these visuals.

I said I liked pretty much everything (especially the friggin' hyena), but I didn't like that Agni's essentially part of a cult where the leader wants their god to kill the Muslim terrorists outside. That's cause for discomfort.

I didn't dislike the arabs with the AKs at all. It was a cool magic vs technology thingie.

Arabs? Muslims? What, did they use those words or something? Last I checked it was a fantasy world where neither of these two things exist. Also, something tells me the head dude was not exactly the good guy in all of this, even if the protagonist looked up to him on some level.

But the graphics, I mean, just... wow!

Eh, the imagery just made me uncomfortable. People of a different religion (which only seems to have white members, from what we've seen)* commencing some sort of ritual to a god that involves them destroying their enemies, who happen to be of darker skin, and wear turbans wrapped around their head. I could be overreacting; I realize that I might be making harsh generalizations, but this is strictly from my observation. I guess it's that feeling you get when you have to ask yourself how seriously you should take something.



All things considered, it was still an amazing demo, and I would love to see this concept applied to an actual game. I'd probably buy this regardless of my personal suspicions; it looks interesting enough to warrant that much.

Originally Posted by Edge7

Eh, the imagery just made me uncomfortable. People of a different religion (which only seems to have white members, from what we've seen)* commencing some sort of ritual to a god that involves them destroying their enemies, who happen to be of darker skin, and wear turbans wrapped around their head. I could be overreacting; I realize that I might be making harsh generalizations, but this is strictly from my observation. I guess it's that feeling you get when you have to ask yourself how seriously you should take something.

I would be far more worried if it were a bunch of people of darker skin, dressed similarly to Arabs, that were the ones wanting to "rain down destruction" on white skinned people. I think this is a case of damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Thanks for bringing this up, saved me a little bit of trouble!

If anything, Edge7, this looks like a group of evil white people who attack poor dark people, and if you're playing the white main character, there would probably be some plot twist somewhere where the main character realizes she's been brainwashed into doing pretty mean stuff all along and perhaps changes sides.

Brought to you buy Coca-Cola!

But that's not what it said on the label.

For techy people, dynamic beard rendering:
Square Enix Luminous Engine demo 2 iPhone - YouTube

Besides the actual plot nonsense everyone is already ranting about, this looks gorgeous!

Originally Posted by Mirage

If anything, Edge7, this looks like a group of evil white people who attack poor dark people, and if you're playing the white main character, there would probably be some plot twist somewhere where the main character realizes she's been brainwashed into doing pretty mean stuff all along and perhaps changes sides.

I had figured as much, in fact, I was about to say that in my previous post, but I had decided I would be guessing way too much, especially from a concept trailer.

Watching it again, I feel like I have overreacted a tad, the setting would be a HUGE breath of fresh air for an RPG. I guess all I really mean is that if they're going with a Middle Eastern setting, and having the protagonist fight the locals, they might want to be delicate about it (not saying they aren't).

Frankly, I'm pretty sick of the magic vs. technology thing. Video games do such a horrible job of it. I want my sci-fi and my fantasy separate, at least as far as video games are concerned. That said, I'd get over it real quick to see more Agni.

Fantasy+SciFi doesn't bother me massively, but what does bother me is the idea that everything in the distant future is perfect and clean. Midgar of VII is a far more intersting future than Eden of XIII. And people shouldn't wear stupid clothes like Tidus does. If they make it simple for style and clothing, then it works. Even VIII was okay (although Esthar was too clean for my liking). VII was great. XIII was enjoyable but the settings were just immaculate and I didn't like that.

Originally Posted by Loony BoB

Fantasy+SciFi doesn't bother me massively, but what does bother me is the idea that everything in the distant future is perfect and clean. Midgar of VII is a far more intersting future than Eden of XIII. And people shouldn't wear stupid clothes like Tidus does. If they make it simple for style and clothing, then it works. Even VIII was okay (although Esthar was too clean for my liking). VII was great. XIII was enjoyable but the settings were just immaculate and I didn't like that.

I can agree with that for the most part. Dirty is much more interesting (and believable). The early Phantasy Star games were kind of the ideal blending for me. A Firefly kind of aesthetics.

the feedback I left:

A step in the right direction. Feels considerably less melodramatic. World is more plausible; fantasy elements work best when limited. People will give many opinions of what they want to see, but be wary of reducing anything to a formula. If a project is backed by purposeful leadership, an honest vision, and a desire to make Art (rather than to target a demographic) then everything else will fall into place. That is what this company used to do, and that is what industry leaders are doing today.

The tech behind this is absolutely incredible, I love it!

I'm also very interesting in the arabic-fantasy setting they have going, and I agree with silentenigma in that it feels much less melodramatic. Very much looking forward to this.

Don't worry, the melodrama won't be too far away. You just have to give it a bit of time, that's all.

Wait when Nomura said they were using "Luminous" as the lighting engine for Versus XIII, he was talking about this engine? On IGN it said it was next-gen, but would be scalable to current gen with shader support, but nothing of integrating a portion of the lighting engine over to a game already built in Crystal Tools. Am I reading too much into this?