Stayed up way too late slowly making my way through the last part of Lhusu Mines last night. The monsters there where way beyond my league but I managed to snag almost everything, had to go to bed before the last couple 25% chests. So much fun, I can't remember the last game where I got myself into a situation like that. Plus I think I got enough vampyre fangs to make Karkata.
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
I know everything about that scene is supposed to be Bad Stuff... but I still cannot get over just how horribly the cutesy-looking designs on every fucking character undercuts the tone. The Queen is supposed to be horrible monstrous person and she just looks like a bargain-bin muppet, the Black Wizards are supposed to be menacing and they're all waddling around like they're on Sesame Street, and the soldiers just look like some kind of animated Alice in Wonderland version of the KKK merged with those card soldiers.
No idea why they thought over-cute-ing everything was a good idea for model design.
It's not even a matter of disagreement, I totally agree that quality is excellent. It's definitely the peak of their efforts with pre-rendered game environments before shifting to full 3D stuff on the PS2.
I just can't get into the style at all. Far, far too heavily towards some kinda cutesy anime for me to get into it, complete with cutesy anime reactions and dialogue. When the Queen is obliterating some significant place or other, I shouldn't be laughing at her mugging for the camera like a grossly obese Grover; this is supposed to be serious, important shit, not a comedy shot.
Don't even know why I'm spoiling this but massive FF7 OG image spoiler:
Point being: cutsey SD anime characters going through massive trauma and tragedy is like the vast majority of the series when 9 was released...
In other news, the PS5 timed exclusive Godfall has just been rated.... for the PS4. And Sony said their exclusivity deal expires around May 21 when we should probably expect it on Xbox and the like. How is this relevant? Well it suggests that Sony is indeed paying select developers to keep games *off* of their previous platform. Which I've argued is likely happening with FF7R Intergrade as well, because its otherwise pretty crazy to make PS5 exclusive DLC for a PS4 game. Not that it means you should expect Intergrade to show up on the PS4 one day, it could be a permanent exclusive for all we know, or not worth Square's effort to release on last gen in 2022, but I'm pretty confident that Sony have made some kind of deal limiting its availability.
I think FF9 is supposed to be a little tongue in cheek. Really all FFs are like that. There is always some silliness.
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
FF7 constantly switches between art styles so it's not quite the same. The cutscene preceding that spoiler, where the actual thing occurs, is done in the non-chibi style, for example. The backgrounds and color choices are also quite a bit less cutesy than in 9.
Oh I agree 100% with Tim Roger's contention that FF7 outdated itself on release by having so many clashing art styles. I even think the SD field graphics really undermine the original and a mod swapping in battle style models improves the game 110%. But for a game like FF9 looking more to the past than the future, that basically was the majority of the series. The SD FF7 models were the 3D realization of the simple lines-for-eyes type artstyle of the past 6 games, at least one of which featured the freaking apocalypse. So cutesy goofy character art going with melodrama is the exact summation of the brand at that point.
rahkeesh2000 on
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Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
Ff9 was intentionally a love letter to the old style ff games. The character models were going to reflect those character designs on the old snes covers due to that. It is how it is. If anything they did a great job of making those designs a little more serious looking.
FF7 constantly switches between art styles so it's not quite the same. The cutscene preceding that spoiler, where the actual thing occurs, is done in the non-chibi style, for example. The backgrounds and color choices are also quite a bit less cutesy than in 9.
Yeah, all the surrounding advertising, almost all the cutscenes, and in-game combat models show that the SD look for overworld stuff was just their way of handling their first experience with actual 3D models in semi-3D environments. Those models are an abstraction because they didn't have any difficulty rendering the entire cast at one time plus piles of extras, but they're not the actual character models. And when anything serious or eventful goes down, such as the cutscene footage immediately before that screenshot, it's all models with human proportions. The game even makes sure you get to see all the "real" character models in cutscenes before you leave Midgard, so you know what everybody should look like.
If the Playstation could've supported it, all the character models would've looked as much like their cutscene versions as possible. Instead, they compromised.
Well, the Playstation can support it (see what they pulled off with FFVIII and FFIX; they both have parity between battles and non-battles), so it was more of a question of experience with the technology.
Kinda like how sprite work in the SNES games improved over time, until FFVI had no difference between battle sprites and overworld sprites. That's probably whey they got more ambitious with cutscenes during battles.
I'm sorta sad that Yoshitaka Amano's time with the franchise was all in its elder days, aside from IX. I'd like to see his character designs in a modern FF, dude is hella talented.
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
edited April 2021
FF9 has an aesthetic that you might see in fairy tales and it isn't unusual for that genre to mix more light-hearted art with more serious themes.
Sometimes that was a purposeful obfuscation as they would be consumed by children. Hell you still see it in modern cartoons.
It's not even a matter of disagreement, I totally agree that quality is excellent. It's definitely the peak of their efforts with pre-rendered game environments before shifting to full 3D stuff on the PS2.
I just can't get into the style at all. Far, far too heavily towards some kinda cutesy anime for me to get into it, complete with cutesy anime reactions and dialogue. When the Queen is obliterating some significant place or other, I shouldn't be laughing at her mugging for the camera like a grossly obese Grover; this is supposed to be serious, important shit, not a comedy shot.
Ah ok, I didn't understand at first. Yeah I see what you mean.
It doesn't get to me the same way, but I can see how the juxtaposition of dramatic events and that art style could be jarring.
I feel like, 20+ years on (O_O), that's just how it's supposed to look to me and I'll probably never have an issue with it.
I think they underestimated how powerful the playstation was with FF7. That is why you have better models in FF8 and FF9.
I wouldn't say it was a mistake or a misunderstanding, they were learning how to do 3D for the first time. With lessons learned from 7, they then were able to make 8 and 9.
They said that getting the field models in 8 was a "major challenge" i.e. they didn't know what they were doing at the time.
But it also involved some real compromises. Scenes with nearly a hundred soliders marching in Junon just weren't possible anymore. I also felt the bad guys where strangely lacking in big armies in some scenes in 8/9 and that again probably had something to do with the difficulty in showing more than a few characters at once.
Still if you know you're stuck with SD models, doing cinematic close-ups with them probably isn't the best of ideas.
Anyone else think the lack of prerendered backgrounds in post-PSX RPGs is a tragic loss? Not that 3D environments is bad, but I wish the industry felt that prerendered backgrounds still had a place. They can lend so much artistry and atmosphere to a setting; I still find the areas in FFVII-IX way more visually appealing and memorable than anything in the more recent games.
Anyone else think the lack of prerendered backgrounds in post-PSX RPGs is a tragic loss? Not that 3D environments is bad, but I wish the industry felt that prerendered backgrounds still had a place. They can lend so much artistry and atmosphere to a setting; I still find the areas in FFVII-IX way more visually appealing and memorable than anything in the more recent games.
Square-Enix apparently has no issue with them. Bravely 2.
They sort of did have a big army scene in VIII with the Galbadia Garden attack. They just cheated and threw the character models in front of a FMV. Which still blew my mind at the time.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
They sort of did have a big army scene in VIII with the Galbadia Garden attack. They just cheated and threw the character models in front of a FMV. Which still blew my mind at the time.
Really the game engine was pretty fancy. You had FMV backgrounds and some way to line up the 3D models with the 2D scenes.
Sometimes, they would change the 3D perspective with the FMV background.
This is my cue to remind anyone with FF7 PC version to install the Ninostyle character models because they look absolutely gorgeous.
They have restyled chibi field models or the option to put battle models in the field. Project is still being updated to do every NPC and monster model as well.
Anyone else think the lack of prerendered backgrounds in post-PSX RPGs is a tragic loss? Not that 3D environments is bad, but I wish the industry felt that prerendered backgrounds still had a place. They can lend so much artistry and atmosphere to a setting; I still find the areas in FFVII-IX way more visually appealing and memorable than anything in the more recent games.
Heard of Fantasian? Sakaguchi's new game on Apple Arcade. They built dioramas and photographed them, then put 3d characters on top, resulting in something not too far from the PS1 pre-rendered backgrounds.
Anyone else think the lack of prerendered backgrounds in post-PSX RPGs is a tragic loss? Not that 3D environments is bad, but I wish the industry felt that prerendered backgrounds still had a place. They can lend so much artistry and atmosphere to a setting; I still find the areas in FFVII-IX way more visually appealing and memorable than anything in the more recent games.
Heard of Fantasian? Sakaguchi's new game on Apple Arcade. They built dioramas and photographed them, then put 3d characters on top, resulting in something not too far from the PS1 pre-rendered backgrounds.
I was really interested in that game until it was announced as iOS Exclusive.
Well, the Playstation can support it (see what they pulled off with FFVIII and FFIX; they both have parity between battles and non-battles), so it was more of a question of experience with the technology.
Kinda like how sprite work in the SNES games improved over time, until FFVI had no difference between battle sprites and overworld sprites. That's probably whey they got more ambitious with cutscenes during battles.
It wasn't just that; the variety and scale of screens in 7 were very different from the ones you got in 8 and 9. Cloud could end up just a handful of pixels in the distance in way that never happened to Squall or Zidane (I think the furthest you got was like the central Garden screens). Reduced to that size, they needed the characters to be distinct enough to see them and know what's going on. Add that to the funky way the PS1 handled polygons (a polygon that was generated is always visible, even if it should work out to less than a pixel high.
so high poly models reduced to a very small size are a mess of pixels), and there was a definite advantage to sticking with low-poly models.
Anyone else find Hell House to be actually easier in Hard Mode than Normal? He can kill you quickly, but he seemed to go down easy as hell in comparison to fighting him on normal, where it felt like a slog for me. Maybe it's just that I'm better at the game by now and already had his timings figured out, so I wasn't missing spells when he was flying around or wasting them on his God House Mode, but I sorta feel like my damage dealing capacity has scaled up more than the bosses' HP.
I made it to Fossil Roo. I ran from the monster and fought the bounty hunter. Good thing I can save state on this.Taking a while to get to a save point.
Anyone else find Hell House to be actually easier in Hard Mode than Normal? He can kill you quickly, but he seemed to go down easy as hell in comparison to fighting him on normal, where it felt like a slog for me. Maybe it's just that I'm better at the game by now and already had his timings figured out, so I wasn't missing spells when he was flying around or wasting them on his God House Mode, but I sorta feel like my damage dealing capacity has scaled up more than the bosses' HP.
Probably not.
You're probably just better at the game and focusing on their week points and keeping up the offense.
He goes down fast in the normal game too if you do that.
Posts
No idea why they thought over-cute-ing everything was a good idea for model design.
It's not even a matter of disagreement, I totally agree that quality is excellent. It's definitely the peak of their efforts with pre-rendered game environments before shifting to full 3D stuff on the PS2.
I just can't get into the style at all. Far, far too heavily towards some kinda cutesy anime for me to get into it, complete with cutesy anime reactions and dialogue. When the Queen is obliterating some significant place or other, I shouldn't be laughing at her mugging for the camera like a grossly obese Grover; this is supposed to be serious, important shit, not a comedy shot.
Point being: cutsey SD anime characters going through massive trauma and tragedy is like the vast majority of the series when 9 was released...
In other news, the PS5 timed exclusive Godfall has just been rated.... for the PS4. And Sony said their exclusivity deal expires around May 21 when we should probably expect it on Xbox and the like. How is this relevant? Well it suggests that Sony is indeed paying select developers to keep games *off* of their previous platform. Which I've argued is likely happening with FF7R Intergrade as well, because its otherwise pretty crazy to make PS5 exclusive DLC for a PS4 game. Not that it means you should expect Intergrade to show up on the PS4 one day, it could be a permanent exclusive for all we know, or not worth Square's effort to release on last gen in 2022, but I'm pretty confident that Sony have made some kind of deal limiting its availability.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
It isn't out yet, but XVI's is very good, and somewhat reminiscent of X's
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Yeah, all the surrounding advertising, almost all the cutscenes, and in-game combat models show that the SD look for overworld stuff was just their way of handling their first experience with actual 3D models in semi-3D environments. Those models are an abstraction because they didn't have any difficulty rendering the entire cast at one time plus piles of extras, but they're not the actual character models. And when anything serious or eventful goes down, such as the cutscene footage immediately before that screenshot, it's all models with human proportions. The game even makes sure you get to see all the "real" character models in cutscenes before you leave Midgard, so you know what everybody should look like.
If the Playstation could've supported it, all the character models would've looked as much like their cutscene versions as possible. Instead, they compromised.
Kinda like how sprite work in the SNES games improved over time, until FFVI had no difference between battle sprites and overworld sprites. That's probably whey they got more ambitious with cutscenes during battles.
Sometimes that was a purposeful obfuscation as they would be consumed by children. Hell you still see it in modern cartoons.
Ah ok, I didn't understand at first. Yeah I see what you mean.
It doesn't get to me the same way, but I can see how the juxtaposition of dramatic events and that art style could be jarring.
I feel like, 20+ years on (O_O), that's just how it's supposed to look to me and I'll probably never have an issue with it.
I wouldn't say it was a mistake or a misunderstanding, they were learning how to do 3D for the first time. With lessons learned from 7, they then were able to make 8 and 9.
But it also involved some real compromises. Scenes with nearly a hundred soliders marching in Junon just weren't possible anymore. I also felt the bad guys where strangely lacking in big armies in some scenes in 8/9 and that again probably had something to do with the difficulty in showing more than a few characters at once.
Still if you know you're stuck with SD models, doing cinematic close-ups with them probably isn't the best of ideas.
Square-Enix apparently has no issue with them. Bravely 2.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Really the game engine was pretty fancy. You had FMV backgrounds and some way to line up the 3D models with the 2D scenes.
Sometimes, they would change the 3D perspective with the FMV background.
They have restyled chibi field models or the option to put battle models in the field. Project is still being updated to do every NPC and monster model as well.
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
Heard of Fantasian? Sakaguchi's new game on Apple Arcade. They built dioramas and photographed them, then put 3d characters on top, resulting in something not too far from the PS1 pre-rendered backgrounds.
I was really interested in that game until it was announced as iOS Exclusive.
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
It wasn't just that; the variety and scale of screens in 7 were very different from the ones you got in 8 and 9. Cloud could end up just a handful of pixels in the distance in way that never happened to Squall or Zidane (I think the furthest you got was like the central Garden screens). Reduced to that size, they needed the characters to be distinct enough to see them and know what's going on. Add that to the funky way the PS1 handled polygons (a polygon that was generated is always visible, even if it should work out to less than a pixel high.
so high poly models reduced to a very small size are a mess of pixels), and there was a definite advantage to sticking with low-poly models.
Probably not.
He goes down fast in the normal game too if you do that.
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
You are in for a surprise.
Also, he is called Blank.