I might do here at some point - I am planning an article that will cover that (and other things) but I may uploaded it on it's own one day. Thanks.Originally Posted by Bolivar
You're free to divulge at any time you like!
But FFVI doesn't have art direction! They paid a guy to draw a lot of pictures, and a group of programmers made a bunch of sprites and tiles that look absolutely nothing like any of them.
There's too many good games coming out and their prices drop too fast for me to buy anything not named Battlefield or Call of Duty so close to its release date.
Alright, dude, I was as disappointed by FFXIII and its art as much as you were, but seriously!? A launch title? Should we juxtapose Palompolum with ultra-blocky, hyper-grey, and superugly Chimeran mug shots??? Do I really gotta do that? Even then, you list Mass Effect 2 as contemporary? It's Unreal Engine 3!!! Representative of the industry, sure but not making a point of what quality graphics are nowadays. Uncharted 2 is, but c'mon, there's 2, arguably 3 games on consoles that look as good as Uncharted 2. Even, then, I would say FFXIII kept up with it. Not quite the mastery that Naughty Dog has, but seriously, it was a pretty damn good looking game, g.
Perhaps launch title might be a small amount of hyperbole on my part, but there was nothing impressive about it from a technical standpoint. No cool graphical effects, no advanced lighting models. It was essentially an HD PS2 game if you really stop and look at it. It pushed a lot of polygons and that was about it. Games like Uncharted, Call of Duty 4, Gears of War and Mass Effect were being released 2-3 years before it and looking far better, to say nothing of the stuff that came out since.
Are you really going to sit there and tell me FFXIII was anything special when you get to see a bunch of flat textures instead of grass, or the terrible enemy pop-in that is impossible not to notice in Gran Pulse? Should I be impressed by what amount to some half-assed sky boxes that I never get to see or interact with up close?
Mass Effect 2 was released at the same time (almost to the month) as FFXIII meaning that it is a contemporary of FFXIII. And while the Unreal Engine 3 is starting to get a bit long in the tooth, it's continuously updated by a company that's main business is making and selling that engine to developers, and it still manages to pump out better looking games than FFXIII. Honestly, looking at what the end result was from a tehnical perspective alone, it's pretty pathetic that it took Square as long as it did to make the Crystal Tools engine.Even then, you list Mass Effect 2 as contemporary? It's Unreal Engine 3!!! Representative of the industry, sure but not making a point of what quality graphics are nowadays.
A game doesn't have to look as good as Uncharted 2 to still look better than XIII. And there are certainly more than 2-3 that did. Honestly, I saw nothing that impressed me on a technical level in XIII. But if it makes you feel any better, XIII was lightyears ahead of anything Bethesda has ever done to date.Uncharted 2 is, but c'mon, there's 2, arguably 3 games on consoles that look as good as Uncharted 2. Even, then, I would say FFXIII kept up with it. Not quite the mastery that Naughty Dog has, but seriously, it was a pretty damn good looking game, g.
You know what? You're right, son, my bad, Call of Duty 4 is totally better lookign than Final Fantasy XIII.
callofwii.jpg
(SPOILER)I know that's the Wii version!
Nah, dude, definitely not. No smurfing way. Never. Mass Effect 2? Definitely not dude. I played the demo of the PS3 version, running on the Mass effect 3 engine, and it's definitely not seeing FFXIII. Not with its lifelessly awkward character models. No way. C'mon, man. Do we need to go back to the thread with the Palompolum picture? C'mon Vivi. We may hate the horribly designed, nonsensical HD blobs that they called "monsters" but we can't deny there were a lot of pixels in them blobs and they were pretty well lit.
I'm 73% sure you played the PS3 version, so there's no excuse that you played it on the weaker platform.
MassEffect8.jpg ff13_17.jpg
419062-mass-effect-2-windows-screenshot-the-krogan-grunt-looks-especially.jpg 830px-FFXIII_crystal_lake.jpg
Both games are gorgeous, there is no denying that. Personally I feel that ff13 looks more visually appealing though there is no debate on what the better game is.
Eyyyyyyyyyyyyy
Mass Effect titles have awkward character models because Bioware aren't that good at animating, well, much of anything really. They also seem to think it's cool to stand around and awkwardly sway side to side while some talking heads have a chat. That's not a reflection on the technology in the engine though.
I also find it funny when you accuse Mass Effect of having lifeless character models, because outside of cut scenes, the FFXIII character models aren't really anything special, and they certainly don't have any impressive animations going on.
Yeah, like I said before, FFXIII pushed a lot of polygons, but didn't really do much else. And I'm not even trying to say that from a technical standpoint that FFXIII was terrible, because it wasn't, even if they did occasionally do things like pass off flat textures as grass, bushes and trees (a lot of games still do this, and while it may irk me to no end I don't fault them for it). But here's the thing, FFXIII is continuously touted, even by it's detractors a lot of the time, as one of the best looking games of this generation. But on a technical level, it simply does not hold it's own against heavy hitters like Uncharted, God of War 3, Call of Duty 4, the Gears of War series, Mass Effect, Metal Gear Solid 4, Bioshock, about 20% of Gran Turismo 5 (ha!), and Assassin's Creed 2. I could probably go on as well if I mentioned more than just PS3 games. Stuff like Metro 2033 absolutely takes a dump all over FFXIII, despite some stiff animation and reused character models, and it was the first game from a Ukrainian team developed in half the time Square spent on FFXIII (though the company was founded by people who worked on S.T.A.L.K.E.R., so you know they have some programming talent). While on the subject of PC games, I was actually more impressed by some of the updates Valve made to the Source engine for L4D2 than anything I saw in FFXIII.No way. C'mon, man. Do we need to go back to the thread with the Palompolum picture? C'mon Vivi. We may hate the horribly designed, nonsensical HD blobs that they called "monsters" but we can't deny there were a lot of pixels in them blobs and they were pretty well lit.
Like I said, I'm not saying that FFXIII was terrible from a technical standpoint, but it didn't do anything new or amazing, or even more exceptionally than any of the games I listed. It was pretty average. But then, I'll fully admit I may have a slightly different view of it since some of my best friends actually studied 3D art, animation, and programming when they went to school. Spend enough time talking to people like that about games and playing games with them and it's hard not to see things in a different light, because people really do see things differently when they know what they're looking at, and it's hard for that not to rub off to some extent.
I don't own a 360, so there, you're now 100% sure I played the "superior" PS3 version.I'm 73% sure you played the PS3 version, so there's no excuse that you played it on the weaker platform.
You're attempt at trolling is cute but it seriously lacks bite, a lot of the sprites actually look like their artwork. Locke, Terra, and Celes are probably the only exception, and you missed the fact that Amano drew the designs but it was Nomura who transcribed them into sprite form so if you have any complaints take it up with him.
Besides:
finalf7_screen010.jpg
Purple and missing a ton of detail from...
200px-Cloud_Strife_Nomura_art.jpg
Dark Blue original character design but wait...
FinalFantasyCloudTechDemo.jpg
It's actually been a Black uniform all these years!!!
The last is a retcon but when you can explain to me why Cloud has such a major change from his rather simple character design to his walking polygon model, I think you'll figure out why VI's sprites don't exactly match up either.
True beauty exists in things that last only for a moment.
Current Mood: And it's been a long December and there's reason to believe. Maybe this year will be better than the last. I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself. To hold on to these moments as they pass...
Both pictures one and two look purple to me. Even then the differences between the FFVI game images and art images are far more different to each other than the others (Terra being blonde? Locke wearing a bowler hat?) It seems to be the "sprite" characters that change the most in art (Bartz looks really feminine in one of the arts of him).You're attempt at trolling is cute but it seriously lacks bite, a lot of the sprites actually look like their artwork. Locke, Terra, and Celes are probably the only exception, and you missed the fact that Amano drew the designs but it was Nomura who transcribed them into sprite form so if you have any complaints take it up with him.
Besides:
finalf7_screen010.jpg
Purple and missing a ton of detail from...
200px-Cloud_Strife_Nomura_art.jpg
Dark Blue original character design but wait...
FinalFantasyCloudTechDemo.jpg
It's actually been a Black uniform all these years!!!
The last is a retcon but when you can explain to me why Cloud has such a major change from his rather simple character design to his walking polygon model, I think you'll figure out why VI's sprites don't exactly match up either.
Those are two very different shades of purple dude, and I really would say the Nomura sketch is actually a dark blue (though it's most likely an accent shading color and his outfit is meant to be black) but I already said Terra, Locke and Celes are different but just about everyone else is a pretty good interpretation. Also Locke is not wearing a bowler hat, its just a more intricate bandana (almost a turban) that covers his whole head where as the sprite has a simple blue one wrapped around his head. As for Bartz looking feminine, that's just Amano's style. If the guy doesn't have facial hair, he's usually very feminine looking. But here's a comparison from sprite, Nomura's chibi transcription, and Amano's original work.
vs.
vs.
vs.
vs.
vs.
vs.
vs.
I don't think the jump is really that drastic here. Color is off sometimes but we're talking about technology limitations at that point. This isn't like FFV where the Amano art is way off from the sprite art. Detail is lost but one look at Nomura's design of Cloud vs. his sprite and you'll notice a lot is missing as well but the distinguishable characteristics are still there. It's not until FFVIII and the PS2 FFs that we begin to see clear across the board translations of the characters and even that doesn't stop the developers from cheating, like how FFX makes sure that you rarely see Lulu's full character model in cutscenes and CGI sequences, cause the team couldn't be arsed to animate her belt skirt so many times.
True beauty exists in things that last only for a moment.
Current Mood: And it's been a long December and there's reason to believe. Maybe this year will be better than the last. I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself. To hold on to these moments as they pass...
Yeah the drawings of Edgar and Cyan are pretty good in comparrison to their in game models, and Setzer is pretty close as well. Then again Terra is a little too far. On Bartz maybe it is just Amano's style, so I can accept that if that's the case.
On Cloud, yeah the promotional model, and the CGI model is a darker purple, but I think they're both supposed to be purple (then again maybe I just want it that way because to me purple = cool) sometimes the in game model has more detail as well (like when you arrive at Shinra Tower and you can see his sword attached to his back).
streme Wheelie
Recognized Member
Terra's amano hair looks more yellow than blonde imo. It has this weird greeny-yellow tinge to it.
Diversion's aside, it is time to do the countdown.
The first winner of favorite cutscene is a bit of an odd one, and likely to send Vivi22 into a murderous rage and be praised and exalted by Serapy and Future Esthar. Some people love their FF endings but some people can't handle just a sappy "everything's okay" yet on the other hand, a lot of fans like an ending that doesn't end with you scratching your head and asking yourself out loud "Was that it?". Our first top winner does both. Starting off with a mind-numbing, what the smurf, acid trip that would make Hunter S. Thompson proud, and then follows up with a wonderful collage of images showing that everything is all right and the boy gets the girl and even though the story up to this point paints the future as a chaotic political vacuum of suffering, that easy going pop song and bright colors tells the player it's going to be okay. I'm of course referring to the ending of FFVIII, Whether you believe the mind trip opening is some elaborate and off-kilter affirmation that Squall is dead or Rinoa is Ultimecia; or you can be like the rest of us and just accept it as Squall getting his mind blown by the best kind of drug Time Compression can bring, by which I mean a free one. Some people just buy some acid and have a wild night, Squall travels the smurfing globe and fights witches in space, and then fights them in the future to get his drug kick.
Then ending then jumps into Eyes On Me and shows us that Laguna finally made it home to Winhill with Ellone, Seifer is kicking back and fishing with his homies, flowers are blooming, everyone throws a party, Cid gets his smoking hot, "grave robbing" wife, Zell finally gets to ea the lunchroom special, and he gets a librarian girlfriend, but more importantly he got that special. Selphie gets Irvine and a lifetime of kicking him out and forgiving him for all his infidelity, and Rinoa finally gets Squall (or his hologram if that's what you feel) and Squall even gets to smile!
Here's a link to the full ending for those who want to see our first top winner in action!
That's the first of six, did we name your name your top favorite? Tell us how you feel about this revelation and continue to speculate on the other top choices.
True beauty exists in things that last only for a moment.
Current Mood: And it's been a long December and there's reason to believe. Maybe this year will be better than the last. I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself. To hold on to these moments as they pass...
You fail me, common people; they said your sense was to be cherished the most, yet you bring me this.
The sound of FFVIII haters gnashing their teeth in rage sounds so sweet
"Excuse me Miss, do you like pineapple?"
I love the ending to FFVIII and yes, I think it's an "everything's okay" ending. To be honest I can't think of any FF ending that wasn't "everything's okay" even the bad endings in FFV turn out good in the end.The sound of FFVIII haters gnashing their teeth in rage sounds so sweet
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