From a verified Mognet Central forums leak, we have the opportunity to look at alleged information about the late Final Fantasy Versus XIII project lead by Tetsuya Nomura as it slowly turned into the Final Fantasy XV we all know.
We all know Final Fantasy Versus XIII, the most interesting project in the quite disappointing Fabula Nova Crystallis story arc, was halted at some point and finally turned into the Final Fantasy XV we’ve all played in 2016.
What has been sort of lost in translation are a few neat features that the original game director Tetsuya Nomura had planned back in the days to be in the game. These features have always been the talk of the town, constantly at the center of rumors re-considering how Versus XIII would’ve ended up being if given more time to express its full potential.
Personally, I’m not a fan of “what if…” stories, but this time around we have some pretty interesting materials to check out, coming from new leaked information verified by a moderator on Mognet Central forums.
This information includes of course the much-discussed dream and time travel mechanics, which were said to be pivotal in Versus XIII and included only in a secondary role throughout the final XV (this would explain why they are so quick and almost pointless).
A guy supposedly in the original team (the one with Nomura) states that the rumors about Final Fantasy XV Versus, a game which would stick closer to the original vision for FFXIII Versus, are basically fake, in the first place, and that the trilogy was said to be completed around 2020-2021.
“The changes, there were so much things they had to cut, reconvert and even FUSE to try to maintain as much things as they could,” said the source talking about the philosophy behind the work done on FFXV. Curiously enough, despite the look of the early trailers, the source here says the two projects were quite similar as both based on the idea of friendship and formative journey.
Few characters changed in the process, mainly Stella and Lupus. The first was supposed to die in the early hours of the game but was ultimately cut and a big part of her personality (“more than you think”) was used to build Lunafreya. Lupus was Stella’s brother and was said to be “the other chosen one” who would’ve fought Ardyn – the closest thing to Nomura’s concept in XV – in the final battle together with Noctis. As for Stella/Luna, a lot of him was used to build Ravus, even though the latter was highly de-powered in terms of his role in the core story.
Time travel was also working thanks to Umbra, as in the Final Fantasy XV we’ve all played, but had a much more important role in the story as Noctis was depicted as not accepting all the tragedies he witness and struggling to change them by going all the way back through the adventure.
This was something game director Hajime Tabata didn’t appreciate because was complicating too much the story flux and the other mechanics in the game, same as the dreams were the protagonist would’ve been talking to the dead like Regis and Stella.
In dreams, Noctis would’ve been wondering whether what he was living was real or, of course, a dream, and even though it looks superfluous Nomura felt it was very important in order to give the game the vibe of magic and mystery people felt in love with when Versus XIII was originally revealed. On top of that, he was also disappointed about Kingsglaive, as in his opinion it didn’t have any sense to build from the ground up a new protagonist (Nyx) rather than using the already existing characters.
I told you it was very interesting! But what you think of all this wall of text? Let’s discuss it in the comments below.
Source: ResetEra
Published: Feb 20, 2018 12:29 pm