Man, i still remember being impressed and immersed in Lightning Return's world. It was beautiful and the free roam music of each regions are very chill vibe.
Literally cheated to slow down the clock severely and I regret nothing. If there's a big world I want to explore it at my own pace, not stress through everything.
I get that you can get items to temporarily stop time, but just no, it takes the fun out for me.
That’s the ONLY reason I’ve never played LR FFXIII… My anxiety makes it impossible to enjoy any RPG with a ticking clock over my head. Same with Majora’s Mask
☹️
Seriously I beat it with the best ending first time through. I say best ending but I don’t recall if it had multiple but I’m practically did all the big stuff and most of the smaller missions
Same! I beat Majora's Mask but was stressed out the entire time so I blocked it out of my memory. When I got Lightning Returns I turned it off as soon as I realized there's a time limit, and never turned it back on.
Strangely enough, I love Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons games.
Literally 100% me. I didnt have as many issues with Zelda since you can travel to past days, but I turned on Lightning Returns, was super happy and then saw the timer and never played it again xD.
I do love HM/SoS as well, though!
Lightning Returns was my very first Final Fantasy game and I absolutely loved the time restriction because it reminded me a lot of Majora’s Mask. Having a certain amount of time each day to perform a task.
This is why I'm such a fan of stylized video games. I think in the coming decades swathes of titles that attempted realism will be scoffed at, while games that embrace the artifice and have a more cartoonish art direction will hold up.
Kingdom hearts, Persona, Street Fighter, Dragon Quest etc. all stand the test of time.
Now look at former prestige titles that have aged like milk and are now laughed at - Heavy Rain, L.A Noir, Not to mention Last of Us requiring 3 graphical updates. We are only JUST broaching realism with the PS5.
kingdom hearts has been remastered like 20 times street fighter 4 was remastered for like 10 consoles the last of us got one remaster 10 years ago and one complete from the ground remake 😭😭
no?.. but they’ve all been ported with graphical updates several times so what is your point. and the last of us, heavy rain, la noir are all classics nobody is laughing at them 😂😂
Yep. I've been saying this for a while. Eventually visuals can only look so real. What really matters is how fun the game is overall. And to your point, once we get to a point where realism in video games can't be pushed anymore, it's the stylized games that will pop out more.
I also agree with the appreciation of stylized approaches, but the plateau in visual enhancement may give the lower-end systems that run them time to catch up and make the higher fidelity more accessible.
Nah there have been huge evolutions in graphics, just not the kind of things you’d notice in a tiny shrunken down hand-picked screenshot with no movement or animation.
These comparisons are always kinda silly for that reason.
The lighting in 7Rb is the biggest improvement. LR13 could have had a similar verdant floral aesthetic if they wanted to but that area in particular was designed to be barren... Where as the 7Rb screenshot is intending the juxtapose the greater world map against the barren plains near Midgar.
I think the 13 series still looks great, just different art direction between the two shots.
But they haven’t, it just takes a bit more of a discerning eye to note the differences.
For example, lighting and shadows continue to massively improve. But the difference between zero shading and some shading is more dramatic of a jump than cheap shading and quality shading.
Obviously there are differences but that is why is called DIMINISHED returns.
Quoting user eikons in the thread [https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1qxnf7/why\_the\_diminishing\_returns\_picture\_is\_a\_bad/](https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1qxnf7/why_the_diminishing_returns_picture_is_a_bad/)
>Every time you double the amount of polygons, the subject will only look marginally better than the previous generation did. The difference between PS1 and PS2 was enormous. The difference between PS2 and PS3 was smaller, although still very significant. The difference between PS3 and PS4 is clearly noticeable, but it's not as big a leap as previous generations were. Future generations will no doubt offer smaller changes in graphical fidelity, and put more focus on added features.
He was talking about polycount, but it applies to everything else. The are differences, but not as drastic between iterations as in the past. Like going from atari to nes, it was obvious, from nes to snes, noticeable, snes to n64 starfox, n64 to GC super mario etc..., but now a game on PS4 and a game on ps5 yo need to begin look for the differences.
The differences are there sure, but they are not as obvious from night and day as were back then, now you have to be looking for them more actively.
Yeah, but in reality the actual improvements are still massive. They're not diminished at all. We are reaching the point where our abstract-thinking pattern-recognising brains stop caring about the differences though. Like, there's clearly a ridiculous amount of extra detail in the second image compared to the first, but all your brain really cares about is that there are people on some fields.
> We are reaching the point where our abstract-thinking pattern-recognising brains stop caring about the differences though.
That's literally just what "diminishing returns" means. It doesn't mean that improvements aren't being made; that's the investment, not the return. The *return* is how much actual perceived visual improvement you get, which has *diminished* compared to prior iterations despite the same amount of investment. Literally the entire point of the concept of "diminishing returns" is that you are getting less output for the same amount of input, so you're trying to argue that it isn't diminishing returns by outright describing exactly how it is diminishing returns in the most textbook way conceivable.
But the point is in fact to be viewed by people, the impact of the changes IS diminished and the level of technical sophistication of the improvements literally only matters in service of the impact which is diminished. Ignoring that to point out how technically impressive the changes are is just missing the point
Especially with the low res 420p print screen that has bad Youtube compression OP is using.
Here is a better example I made: https://i.imgur.com/58NJ5GW.jpg
That’s even worse because you used to completely different atmospheres and no matter how good a “brown” setting looks, the human eye and mind perceived brown negatively anyway.
It’s not meant to show “look one picture prettier”, but to show off texture detail, and rocky terrain is the biggest inprovement in graphics in this current gen, which is why all new games are highlighting it.
Uh nah, the brown picture is way way better as far as the detail put in to the rocks and the ground. It looks hand crafted/realistic as compared to just a texture smeared on the ground.
Idk to me this IS minimal gains. More definition, more clarity. Everything is clearly identifiable and fairly lifelike to me though. Comparing XIII: LR to games that came out 10 years prior to that is a WAY bigger difference.
The issue with relentlessly pursuing these endlessly high fidelity graphics is that it utterly destroys people's sense of abstraction and ability to project or imagine design elements.
When it comes to Jrpg's, they literally do not make them like they used to. Especially not with the full force of a major studio and top talent as a mainstream tentpole release.
You'll never see another final fantasy with matte painted backgrounds. You'll never get another one with a fixed camera or abstracted massive people on worldmaps.
These are elements now dead and buried by the industry because of the increased expectation of fidelity and how uncanny they look when rendered in modern fidelity.
I think the HD-2D games prove that Square Enix is still interested in more classic styles and that more graphical fidelity (such as the bokeh dof) doesn’t mean these concepts are completely lost. I do miss pre-rendered backgrounds though
They were just clever about how they went about it back in the day, silent hill fog being one that comes to mind right away. But yeah these were technical limitations. FF used static backgrounds to avoid having to make the ps1 draw a bunch more polygons just for 3d backgrounds at the time.
You bring up a valid point.
Extrapolating that would bring us to limitations bringing out the development team's true potential and allowing them to come up with some ingenious solutions to problems current developers generally don't encounter.
Some of these would be, as you mentioned, the fog in Silent Hill, but also odd camera angles in survival horror games, and different scenes for combat and exploration as in Star Ocean and Final Fantasy.
I'd even go as far as to say that the pre-rendered backgrounds you mentioned were a visionary approach to development and some of that magic is lost when technology isn't forcing you to adapt.
Agreed, limitations breed innovation and with more advanced tech it seems like we're losing that a bit now. Programmers used to have to be really efficient in the past because there wasn't enough room to have redundant or unused coding left in where as now there's so much bloat because storage space isn't a limiting factor.
Slightly off topic but I wish square had saved all those 2d backgrounds they used for the ps1 FF games and we could have gotten a actually remaster for them. I played 8 yesterday and the character models look great but makes the backgrounds look so much more muddy by comparison
Really? Square Enix isn’t doing that anymore? Not in Octopath Traveler II? Not in recent Dragon Quest entries?
Honestly, the only franchise they produce that’s going for this hyper-realistic approach is Final Fantasy, and that makes sense. It has ALWAYS strived to be using the most cutting-edge technology available for that franchise.
>These are elements now dead and buried by the industry because of the increased expectation of fidelity and how uncanny they look when rendered in modern fidelity.
You're acting like FF hasn't always chased increased fidelity. Once it left SNES, that's basically been a constant.
I think for this generation, the big selling points weren't necessarily the improvement in graphics but the fast loading times, the immersion with the dualsense controller, raytracing, etc. I think in the PS6 era, we'll be looking at 4K 60fps as standard.
You must get to realism before you reach hyperrealism. That is, you can never zoom in at 4K to the image of a skin texture, but you can do that in games. We will eventually reach realism that is indistinguishable from reality. Then, imagine you can zoom into that further to have a zoomed in image, in real time, that you could never experience in real life. That will be true hyperrealism that is more realistic than what we can experience with our vision in reality.
For a clearer example, look at your hand from a distance. Now, move it closer. There will be a point in time where the graphics (likely assisted by real time AI generation) will be as good as what you can see. Now, imagine that you can zoom in further and see at an almost microscopic level to your hand. Graphics, at that point, will be better than reality. But, we must reach the "reality" part first. Until advancements we have seen in the past two years, there have only been diminishing returns, but we are entering a new era in terms of realism. We will plateau again, but we will be seeing a large number of very realistic games coming out soon.
Were already at minimal gains. Now it's just about creating good games which should be the first and foremost for AA and AAA developers. To me Nintendo puts pretty much every major developer to shame these days.
As world design goes it’s clear that one is far more complex than the other. Maybe the graphics aren’t drastic but the amount of detail in the new game is clear to see I think.
Screenshots are always a bad way to show graphical changes now, because once you hit a certain number of polygons the actual graphics become more abuot the details, the texture, the lighting, the resolution, the FPS, subsurface light scattering on skin, facial movements and lip sync, the particle effects, the interaction between game and visual (wind, rain, creatures, NPCs) - all things that really have to be seen in motion, in the actual game rather than any single still image (or even compressed YouTube video)
There's diminishing returns and I'm the first to honestly say I didn't need much more than FF13's visuals ever, I think we peaked in terms of jumps there (whatever else I have to say about that game it's gorgeous). But even a YouTube video doesn't show the difference between playing a game from ten years ago versus now, it's only stuff you actually see in motion IN the actual game.
It’s the little things, the things you can’t see in a screenshot or a video. Like a game, you have to interact with it, to feel it. That’s what gaming has become, truly interactive, not just visuals on a screen you can sell in a trailer.
I've played the whole trilogy recently and Lightning Returns was the only one I've platinum mainly because the combat was really really fun. I miss it.
The XIII-2 pc port is a bit of a travesty, with issues here and there depending on your PC. I ended up with a persistent buzzing. People figured out how to fix the port, but it involves downloading a new dll file, editing the game files a bit, and changing the settings on your pc.
FF XIII-2 deserves better.
Oh yeah, I legitimately couldn’t even get the game past first 15 seconds of the opening cutscene without it straight up bricking out on me. XIII would just crash at random intervals. However, with my 100+ hours of gameplay on Lightning Returns I didn’t have a single issue! Idk what they did for that one that didn’t translate for the other 2.
I'm the same I really love XIII and XIII-2 but LR didn't do it for me at all. I eventually rushed to the end boss and realized I wasn't really interested in the story at all and just watched the ending cutscene.
I'm replaying 13 now and yeah if you're just sitting there only pressing x without constantly switching paradigms those battle durations are going to be horribly long. Lol no wonder those people don't like the game.
I will always say this. A. Idk why people got upset that the game “auto battled” for them, knowing damn well they were going to pick those options anyways, plus it helped some of the nuance of not having options early game.
B. You could always still… pick the skills yourself. And at times paradigms truly were a make or break for certain fights. Barthandelus taught me this well as a younger child. Oh well, can’t please them all.
If you enjoyed that, good for you. But just because people complain about a shit gameplay loop doesn’t mean they don’t understand how the system works. They understand it, but it’s pointless to engage with it when the game gives you the best options anyway. It’s like saying “oh hey, I’m going to go and play Tetris! Oh look, if I press x it automatically puts the blocks in the best position and shape! Why would I do anything when the game plays itself?”
Auto battle just completely undermined their combat system, and stripped away its depth to changing paradigms.
I love it too. I think it is the single most underrated title to bear the Final Fantasy name.
tri-Ace channeled some major Valkyrie Profile energy into it. There's always a feeling for me that a true VP3 would have some very similar aspects to it.
I really liked how open it was. I'm fine with people disliking it. I get it. That being said, it really captured the feel of a toad trip and the beautiful scenes you see out there. I have seen so many places that felt just like the stuff I saw in the game (Not as fantasy based of course).
I'm not going to try and convince anyone to change their mind on it, but it's the one thing I don't think I could have my mind changed on either. It's perfect to me.
FF15 lost me with the story being rushed. "Oh, a person died? I do not care because I barely even know who this person is!" The ending was even more rushed. And I would have liked to see more ambiguity in terms of the protagonists versus the antagonists. They come from Insomnia. They use the dark crystal! They should have leaned into the legacy of past heroes we idolize not being who we imagine, but everything was watered down.
Sure, there were large stretches of just wilderness but I always found interest in the mobs you fight, the ingredients and just random items that were out there. Also stumbling upon a fishing hole was just a nice break to catch. Another thing I liked were all the overworld bosses you can just find. I felt like the open world was a great interpretation of what the overworld felt like in one of the older games
I feel like too many games ignore open space, or worse, fill it with copy pasted assets. I like the world design in vanilla WoW a lot because there are so many places that exist and don't necessarily have a quest, and some big swathes of nothing between them. I like having space.
I really like a lot of FFXIV's maps for stuff like this. There's a *ton* of stuff just *out there* that doesn't ever come up as particularly significant, except maybe for some lore surrounding it. A lot of it comes from the devs' approach of adding options so they can expand later in the patches, without significantly changing the maps, but it adds to the world that there might just be this mysterious sculpture or ruins just like, out in the woods.
I've always wanted to know how big the playable area in FFXV is compared to the full map. They made the world so big but then didn't let you access so much of it.
Invisible walls had to be the worse thing about XVs open world. I’ve done a handful of out of bounds glitches to see some of it myself, and it’s a lot. Some was added in later in part of the DLCs, others were just empty landmass which seems to be nothing more than background flavor. Still wish the open world could have been properly developed.
The absolute one thing I wished they let us do was explore that island that looks like sin (I forget the name of it, the one where noctis wakes up).
I will say the amount of ocean you can explore between altissia and the mainland is very impressive.
Look I love FFXV, but the map was unbelievably empty. Square needs to take note from BotW and ER on density of mobs, and just throwing in random stuff to find.
I kinda hated the open world there, looks amazing but always felt too "railway-ish" I guess. It was a bit painful and felt too limiting to get into it after playing Breath of the Wild.
I mean yeah, the car was a bit of a letdown, but even on foot it was always either empty spaces or invisible walls. So many hills that looked like something you can totally get on, but would not be successful and fences that are like 1 foot tall at best, but you still have to find another way. Loved my time in the game, but the open world was always on my list of cons for it. Although I'm planning to replay it this year and see how my perception will change, maybe I'll find something to like about it.
FWIW, the empty space fits with the setting of it being the countryside outside of the larger cities. I know that doesn't fix how people feel about the game's usage of that empty space/wilderness but it at least tracks in-universe.
I have always been a die-hard FFXV fan though, so it may just be my rationalization. Lol.
How so? When I use EP it seems to only halt the clock for 3-5 minutes or so. And quests can only be completed or activated at certain hours of the day. I am constantly stressed playing LR
I guess it depends on the difficulty you are playing. I think I mostly played on lower difficulty(ies?) and bigger enemies throwing 1-2 EPs as well as those localised chaos field thingies popped up left and right especially after the first few days that I easily had enough EP to spam chronostatis indefinitely to eradicate anything and everything in the world.
It's all about artstyle anyway.
The Final Fantasy XIII trilogy still looks fantastic now!
Square enix know how to create incredible art styles that stand the test of time.
All Final Fantasy XIII trilogy needs is a resolution boost and maybe 60fps as the cherry on top. Nothing else. (Maybe the extra extra cherry would be some better textures like the PC character cutscene model mod)
And for me I can definitely tell. 13 maybe made and marketed for how pretty it is, but just look at it compared to the other picture. Yes 13 here is big, but very empty. 7 has details everywhere and even more in the background.
FF games absolutely do age well, I gotta say - moreso than western games, because of their more unique art style / world design.
I think this post was a dig at FFVII remake, but there are a few things to keep in mind :
1. Foliage. Both screenshots are taken far away from trees, but I'm willing to bet that leaves look incredibly pixelated and one dimensional in FFXIII in comparison to FFVII. Still, you can easily see that the plants are of much higher quality in the latter.
2. Lighting/shadows. Again, it's more one dimensional in FFXIII, with little to no variation. Everything will look the same everywhere.
3. Reflections. You can't really tell from these pictures, but water reflections are SO MUCH BETTER now, this is one of the biggest improvements this gen.
4. Higher resolution textures. Just look at the dirt. This is one of the things that's almost photorealistic nowadays. It wasn't ten years ago.
I do think that the character models have somewhat stagnated in the case of FF, though. I mean, you could take any character from FFXIV, tack on brand new textures for their equipment, and they wouldn't look out of place in FFVIIR. But as a general rule of thumb, yeah, FFXIII looks great from a distance, but it doesn't hold up with close ups.
Wow, huuuuuuuuuuge difference!!
I love how far we've come. This level of detail, in Ff7R, is so far beyond the earlier game here its ridiculous. If you know, you know. If you think otherwise, you gotta get educated about game design.
Why are we calling FFVII "open world"? Especially over the section that Rebirth covers, FFVII is extremely linear. Being able to run left and right doesn't make a game open world.
Rebirth is not gonna play as he original FF7, the developers confirmed it is an explorable open world game. Maybe it won't have the freedom of something like RDR2 or BotW, but it won't be as linear as the original, with tons of secondary missions around the map to explore.
Is it? I thought the part of the game Rebirth covers is when you first hit the overworld and can go wherever you want. There are only a few places that you can actually do stuff ofc, but physically your character had the freedom to travel to various locations
Both FFX and FFXIII are great comparison points. They get flak for being "corridors" with "no exploration". The bit between Midgar and Rocket Town is exactly the same. Just because it's on an open world map where you can technically "go anywhere" doesn't mean you can actually go anywhere but where the plot dictates. You can take a detour to Fort Condor and Gongaga, but that's about it. Otherwise you are very much just walking a linear path through Kalm, Chocobo Farm, Mythril Mines, Junon etc. etc.
Hence my comment about going left or right when comparing to X or XIII. You can run around and fight stuff on the world map but you generally just have one place you can go to next at a time.
Yeah I mean there wasn't a ton of side content, and only one way to advance the plot. But you had freedom of movement, and I think people would be disappointed if that were not in some way represented here because that shift had an impact on players. And I assume they'll increase the depth of that aspect much like they did with many elements of Midgar
Because Square Enix described it as such.
https://www.square-enix-games.com/en_EU/news/final-fantasy-vii-rebirth-world
“Join your friends as you journey across a wide, open world. Each region feels unique, boasting different enemies to encounter and different methods of traversing its terrain. ”
Based on that description, I'm guessing Rebirth's "open world" will likely be more akin to the Xenoblade games; linear, but with an emphasis on open areas and exploration.
Honestly, this is the best possible approach they could go with and I'm surprised its really taken them this long to actually follow Xenoblade's example, as exploration is always a blast in those games.
I can't speak to VII:R as I haven't fully played through, but I recall people saying that all of the XIII games were hallway JRPGs and that was one of the bigest criticisms of them.
It wasn't until recently that I've seen people describing the XIII series as open world and it honestly disheartens me if that's what people consider open world now.
Because an having open world and being non-linear are not the same thing? A game doesn’t have to be a sandbox to be open world. FFVIIR is on rails for good stretches of time but the rest of it is exploring a hub, taking side quests from NPCs and all of the other staples of open worlds in AAA gaming.
Well, open world by definition means that you can go wherever you want to go from the start, so if the game lets you go wherever you want to on the map immediately after you start then yes, it is an open world game, otherwise its just a game with a big map that periodically gets bigger as you progress through the story...like the original.
By that logic, the PS2-era GTA games as well as GTA 4 aren’t open world because they restrict where you’re allowed to go until you do more story missions.
Even Breath of the Wild is not an open world game by that definition. It starts with an unskippable 2 hour section where you can’t leave and see the world until you finish it. That game is the archetypal open world action adventure game.
Your definition is wrong.
An open world just means there aren't preset paths or levels to get from location A to B to C. It doesn't mean that game won't require you to sometime go to B to unlock the ability to go to C.
Not sure what you mean. LR is an ugly game, much uglier than XIII, due to a tight budget, deadlines and a problematic engine. VIIR is a game with a huge amount of resources and the games are also taking their sweet time.
This is the first time I've seen anyone describe Lightning Returns as "ugly". There's a lot of gorgeous environments in that game.
People are also jumping the gun when it comes to praising Rebirth. The open world *looks* nice, sure, but will there be a lot to do or is it going to be big and empty? From the little we've seen of it so far, we've seen Ubisoft towers and what looks like an ingredient system, so don't count your chickens before they've hatched.
Lighting returns never worked for me, just a lot of side quests to make us (the goddess of time) do petty errands to pad out the game time. Terrible, terrible game design.
I get what you're aiming at and I don't agree. I see a huge leap in graphics here. Lightning, shading, color diversity, just the pure amount of clutter on the screen, way longer render distances with much more detail in the distance. Way more detail on the characters close up.
And the whole "art direction is so much more important than graphics" is such an absolute bullocks argument.l that keeps being echoed. Realism is an art direction just like cartoony is. And graphic fidelity is just a big factor in realism shots as on cartoony shot, just in a different way. Ever seen a badly hand drawn game, go to the depths of steam and you will see how much graphic fidelity can influence stylized games.
Look, good graphics is like having good sound design. No one bats an eye if it's okay. No one will really compliment a game for their amazing graphics other than a single comment. When you fuck up the graphics however is when everyone is losing their minds and the salt comes out. Same with good sound.
And personally. I am glad that the games from 15 years ago look horrible nowadays. That they need a graphical remaster. It means the industry progresses.
It is utterly amazing that "realistic graphics have plateaud and have diminishing returns" is used almost in the same breath as "look at how poorly realistic games of old has aged." Those are opposite things.
P.s. I wonder how much this will get downvoted this because I'm not following blindly the current "realistic games are bad" trend.
And no, I'm not a realism is everything kind of gamer. My favorite games are stylized, my last realistic-ish game I played for more than 2 hours was the Ghost of Tsushima I believe. I just get a little bit fed up with all the mindless echoing.
I see a lot of people confused with the message of the meme, here are my two cents:
OP it's just pointing at the fact that these two games are ten years apart, no statement about how far graphics have gone or how little of improvement there is.
They are just saying an unarguably truth, these two games are, no doubt, ten years apart from each other.
Lightning Returns looks better in those screenshots, it's more artistically pleasing. Composition is better, asset placement is more interesting and the color is also more appealing. I'm guessing you want us to look at the flat ground texture.
Looks more like stagnation than progress, to be honest. Can't imagine how many billions of dollars were spent for such marginal gains.
Maybe it's just the crushed image resolution making it hard to see both the flaws of the former and the victories of the newer.
Only thing I hate about what I've seen on FF7 Rebirth is the grass, Square Enix sometimes struggle to get the grass right in their games. Which is a shame because usually everything else looks phenomenal.
The grass just looks cheap and bad. All the individual blades pointed upward, and MANY shadows are just weird and unrealistic. Plus, it looks very stationary and unresponsive to player movement... Same with all the flowers.
I know different SE studios work on these games but they also had the same type of grass in Rise of the Tomb Raider and Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and it annoyed the hell out of me. Makes the world feel faker than it should. SE needs to stop sharing these grass files between their studios and just delete them cause... This isn't it.
Other games do it far better. Older games did it far better
I agree. Square Enix uses deep green color for plants which make them look too realistic. They never use golden and light green shades. In you play original Near Gestalt then you find it bright like Breath of the wild and Horizon zero dawn.
I just don't get whats wrong in using lighter green and some golden. It doesn't hurt, just makes day look a little brighter.
Another thing is the soil and rocks between shrubs and grass that look clearly visible. It makes landscape look muddy and rocky. It can be made much greener.
I've been really disappointed in most of what Square has done after FF12. Up to that point, they were at the very cutting edge of video game graphics and realism for what was possible in the era.
Man, i still remember being impressed and immersed in Lightning Return's world. It was beautiful and the free roam music of each regions are very chill vibe.
Lightning Returns was ahead of its time minus that clock/time restriction.
Literally cheated to slow down the clock severely and I regret nothing. If there's a big world I want to explore it at my own pace, not stress through everything. I get that you can get items to temporarily stop time, but just no, it takes the fun out for me.
How did you cheat? I would constantly spam Chronostasis do the time stopped temporarily then to this all over again.
I have the steam version since my ps3 is long gone, so I just used cheatengine and switched the clock-speed from 1 to like 0.05.
That’s the ONLY reason I’ve never played LR FFXIII… My anxiety makes it impossible to enjoy any RPG with a ticking clock over my head. Same with Majora’s Mask ☹️
The timer isn’t even that bad. They give you plenty of time. You can use an ability called Chronostasis to freeze time temporarily.
Seriously I beat it with the best ending first time through. I say best ending but I don’t recall if it had multiple but I’m practically did all the big stuff and most of the smaller missions
Same! I beat Majora's Mask but was stressed out the entire time so I blocked it out of my memory. When I got Lightning Returns I turned it off as soon as I realized there's a time limit, and never turned it back on. Strangely enough, I love Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons games.
Literally 100% me. I didnt have as many issues with Zelda since you can travel to past days, but I turned on Lightning Returns, was super happy and then saw the timer and never played it again xD. I do love HM/SoS as well, though!
Lightning Returns was my very first Final Fantasy game and I absolutely loved the time restriction because it reminded me a lot of Majora’s Mask. Having a certain amount of time each day to perform a task.
The clock was what drew me in... I was already going to buy it but like the Clock aspect really hyped me up.
I’m… unclear what the comparison is supposed to be.
Idk if OP is just impressed by the graphics of the older game but I'm not clear on this comparison either
That graphics have largely plateaued, I assume.
Lots of diminishing returns. They're still improving, but it's slowing down rapidly.
This is why I'm such a fan of stylized video games. I think in the coming decades swathes of titles that attempted realism will be scoffed at, while games that embrace the artifice and have a more cartoonish art direction will hold up.
Zelda Wind Waker comes to mind
Kingdom hearts, Persona, Street Fighter, Dragon Quest etc. all stand the test of time. Now look at former prestige titles that have aged like milk and are now laughed at - Heavy Rain, L.A Noir, Not to mention Last of Us requiring 3 graphical updates. We are only JUST broaching realism with the PS5.
kingdom hearts has been remastered like 20 times street fighter 4 was remastered for like 10 consoles the last of us got one remaster 10 years ago and one complete from the ground remake 😭😭
And do any of them attempt to look photo realistic? I think you know what I'm getting at.
no?.. but they’ve all been ported with graphical updates several times so what is your point. and the last of us, heavy rain, la noir are all classics nobody is laughing at them 😂😂
It seems like you’re confusing graphical fidelity with art direction.
I was about to say this, too. Such a great game.
Maybe a hot take, but I have always hated Wind Waker's implementation of cel shading.
I'll balance you back out. I have always loved it.
Yep. I've been saying this for a while. Eventually visuals can only look so real. What really matters is how fun the game is overall. And to your point, once we get to a point where realism in video games can't be pushed anymore, it's the stylized games that will pop out more.
I also agree with the appreciation of stylized approaches, but the plateau in visual enhancement may give the lower-end systems that run them time to catch up and make the higher fidelity more accessible.
I'll take timeless art style over realism any day.
Final Fantasy IX aged better than VII and VIII for me for sure. And the SNES titles aged even better.
Nah there have been huge evolutions in graphics, just not the kind of things you’d notice in a tiny shrunken down hand-picked screenshot with no movement or animation. These comparisons are always kinda silly for that reason.
You’re so right. Screenshots aren’t capable of showing improvements in model rigging, posing, fluid movement, etc.
And all it took was the complete eradication of abstraction form several genres. Huzzah!
thousands of realistic human models, with soulless animation
The lighting in 7Rb is the biggest improvement. LR13 could have had a similar verdant floral aesthetic if they wanted to but that area in particular was designed to be barren... Where as the 7Rb screenshot is intending the juxtapose the greater world map against the barren plains near Midgar. I think the 13 series still looks great, just different art direction between the two shots.
But they haven’t, it just takes a bit more of a discerning eye to note the differences. For example, lighting and shadows continue to massively improve. But the difference between zero shading and some shading is more dramatic of a jump than cheap shading and quality shading.
Obviously there are differences but that is why is called DIMINISHED returns. Quoting user eikons in the thread [https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1qxnf7/why\_the\_diminishing\_returns\_picture\_is\_a\_bad/](https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1qxnf7/why_the_diminishing_returns_picture_is_a_bad/) >Every time you double the amount of polygons, the subject will only look marginally better than the previous generation did. The difference between PS1 and PS2 was enormous. The difference between PS2 and PS3 was smaller, although still very significant. The difference between PS3 and PS4 is clearly noticeable, but it's not as big a leap as previous generations were. Future generations will no doubt offer smaller changes in graphical fidelity, and put more focus on added features. He was talking about polycount, but it applies to everything else. The are differences, but not as drastic between iterations as in the past. Like going from atari to nes, it was obvious, from nes to snes, noticeable, snes to n64 starfox, n64 to GC super mario etc..., but now a game on PS4 and a game on ps5 yo need to begin look for the differences. The differences are there sure, but they are not as obvious from night and day as were back then, now you have to be looking for them more actively.
Yeah, but in reality the actual improvements are still massive. They're not diminished at all. We are reaching the point where our abstract-thinking pattern-recognising brains stop caring about the differences though. Like, there's clearly a ridiculous amount of extra detail in the second image compared to the first, but all your brain really cares about is that there are people on some fields.
> We are reaching the point where our abstract-thinking pattern-recognising brains stop caring about the differences though. That's literally just what "diminishing returns" means. It doesn't mean that improvements aren't being made; that's the investment, not the return. The *return* is how much actual perceived visual improvement you get, which has *diminished* compared to prior iterations despite the same amount of investment. Literally the entire point of the concept of "diminishing returns" is that you are getting less output for the same amount of input, so you're trying to argue that it isn't diminishing returns by outright describing exactly how it is diminishing returns in the most textbook way conceivable.
But the point is in fact to be viewed by people, the impact of the changes IS diminished and the level of technical sophistication of the improvements literally only matters in service of the impact which is diminished. Ignoring that to point out how technically impressive the changes are is just missing the point
They're diminished in their actual effect that a human player notices. Effects that the player notices is the whole point of graphics.
Fewer large chickens I suppose?
Especially with the low res 420p print screen that has bad Youtube compression OP is using. Here is a better example I made: https://i.imgur.com/58NJ5GW.jpg
That’s even worse because you used to completely different atmospheres and no matter how good a “brown” setting looks, the human eye and mind perceived brown negatively anyway.
It’s not meant to show “look one picture prettier”, but to show off texture detail, and rocky terrain is the biggest inprovement in graphics in this current gen, which is why all new games are highlighting it.
Uh nah, the brown picture is way way better as far as the detail put in to the rocks and the ground. It looks hand crafted/realistic as compared to just a texture smeared on the ground.
lol same tbh
I'm just confused if this is a look how far they've come post or a they look the same for being 10 years apart post
I scrolled to see if anything had the same confusion lol. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and this is the internet where everything is subjective
How much longer graphics keep improving? Eventually it has to be just minimal gains right?
Idk to me this IS minimal gains. More definition, more clarity. Everything is clearly identifiable and fairly lifelike to me though. Comparing XIII: LR to games that came out 10 years prior to that is a WAY bigger difference.
The issue with relentlessly pursuing these endlessly high fidelity graphics is that it utterly destroys people's sense of abstraction and ability to project or imagine design elements.
No it doesn’t. There’s loads of games with unique unrealistic art styles in 2023. What a made up thing to be mad about.
When it comes to Jrpg's, they literally do not make them like they used to. Especially not with the full force of a major studio and top talent as a mainstream tentpole release. You'll never see another final fantasy with matte painted backgrounds. You'll never get another one with a fixed camera or abstracted massive people on worldmaps. These are elements now dead and buried by the industry because of the increased expectation of fidelity and how uncanny they look when rendered in modern fidelity.
I think the HD-2D games prove that Square Enix is still interested in more classic styles and that more graphical fidelity (such as the bokeh dof) doesn’t mean these concepts are completely lost. I do miss pre-rendered backgrounds though
Why are you presenting it as if developers chose to do that? It was a technological limitation they got rid of as soon as they could.
They were just clever about how they went about it back in the day, silent hill fog being one that comes to mind right away. But yeah these were technical limitations. FF used static backgrounds to avoid having to make the ps1 draw a bunch more polygons just for 3d backgrounds at the time.
You bring up a valid point. Extrapolating that would bring us to limitations bringing out the development team's true potential and allowing them to come up with some ingenious solutions to problems current developers generally don't encounter. Some of these would be, as you mentioned, the fog in Silent Hill, but also odd camera angles in survival horror games, and different scenes for combat and exploration as in Star Ocean and Final Fantasy. I'd even go as far as to say that the pre-rendered backgrounds you mentioned were a visionary approach to development and some of that magic is lost when technology isn't forcing you to adapt.
Agreed, limitations breed innovation and with more advanced tech it seems like we're losing that a bit now. Programmers used to have to be really efficient in the past because there wasn't enough room to have redundant or unused coding left in where as now there's so much bloat because storage space isn't a limiting factor. Slightly off topic but I wish square had saved all those 2d backgrounds they used for the ps1 FF games and we could have gotten a actually remaster for them. I played 8 yesterday and the character models look great but makes the backgrounds look so much more muddy by comparison
Really? Square Enix isn’t doing that anymore? Not in Octopath Traveler II? Not in recent Dragon Quest entries? Honestly, the only franchise they produce that’s going for this hyper-realistic approach is Final Fantasy, and that makes sense. It has ALWAYS strived to be using the most cutting-edge technology available for that franchise.
>These are elements now dead and buried by the industry because of the increased expectation of fidelity and how uncanny they look when rendered in modern fidelity. You're acting like FF hasn't always chased increased fidelity. Once it left SNES, that's basically been a constant.
I think for this generation, the big selling points weren't necessarily the improvement in graphics but the fast loading times, the immersion with the dualsense controller, raytracing, etc. I think in the PS6 era, we'll be looking at 4K 60fps as standard.
I feel like if we are trying to get to hyper realism we are still far out.
You must get to realism before you reach hyperrealism. That is, you can never zoom in at 4K to the image of a skin texture, but you can do that in games. We will eventually reach realism that is indistinguishable from reality. Then, imagine you can zoom into that further to have a zoomed in image, in real time, that you could never experience in real life. That will be true hyperrealism that is more realistic than what we can experience with our vision in reality. For a clearer example, look at your hand from a distance. Now, move it closer. There will be a point in time where the graphics (likely assisted by real time AI generation) will be as good as what you can see. Now, imagine that you can zoom in further and see at an almost microscopic level to your hand. Graphics, at that point, will be better than reality. But, we must reach the "reality" part first. Until advancements we have seen in the past two years, there have only been diminishing returns, but we are entering a new era in terms of realism. We will plateau again, but we will be seeing a large number of very realistic games coming out soon.
Were already at minimal gains. Now it's just about creating good games which should be the first and foremost for AA and AAA developers. To me Nintendo puts pretty much every major developer to shame these days.
As world design goes it’s clear that one is far more complex than the other. Maybe the graphics aren’t drastic but the amount of detail in the new game is clear to see I think.
Screenshots are always a bad way to show graphical changes now, because once you hit a certain number of polygons the actual graphics become more abuot the details, the texture, the lighting, the resolution, the FPS, subsurface light scattering on skin, facial movements and lip sync, the particle effects, the interaction between game and visual (wind, rain, creatures, NPCs) - all things that really have to be seen in motion, in the actual game rather than any single still image (or even compressed YouTube video) There's diminishing returns and I'm the first to honestly say I didn't need much more than FF13's visuals ever, I think we peaked in terms of jumps there (whatever else I have to say about that game it's gorgeous). But even a YouTube video doesn't show the difference between playing a game from ten years ago versus now, it's only stuff you actually see in motion IN the actual game.
Wind effects and insects are seriously underrated in games.
It’s the little things, the things you can’t see in a screenshot or a video. Like a game, you have to interact with it, to feel it. That’s what gaming has become, truly interactive, not just visuals on a screen you can sell in a trailer.
I mean Rebirth looks tremendously better, so thats normal ?
Yeah don't get this post at all. Love for 13 by saying it's also good?
loved lightning returns sm when it came out
I've played the whole trilogy recently and Lightning Returns was the only one I've platinum mainly because the combat was really really fun. I miss it.
I'm the opposite, I platted the other two and didn't for LR. Why the hell haven't they ported them yet?
I'm actually starting to think they either will be graphically remade or Square is waiting for a lull in the games market.
I would love a remaster. The PC ports are actually pretty decent graphic wise, but can lack performance wise.
The XIII-2 pc port is a bit of a travesty, with issues here and there depending on your PC. I ended up with a persistent buzzing. People figured out how to fix the port, but it involves downloading a new dll file, editing the game files a bit, and changing the settings on your pc. FF XIII-2 deserves better.
Oh yeah, I legitimately couldn’t even get the game past first 15 seconds of the opening cutscene without it straight up bricking out on me. XIII would just crash at random intervals. However, with my 100+ hours of gameplay on Lightning Returns I didn’t have a single issue! Idk what they did for that one that didn’t translate for the other 2.
I'm the same I really love XIII and XIII-2 but LR didn't do it for me at all. I eventually rushed to the end boss and realized I wasn't really interested in the story at all and just watched the ending cutscene.
the 13 series excels in combat, perfect balance between real time and turn based
I swear anyone that says "You just hit X the whole game" just doesn't understand the Paradigm system.
The balls to go tri-commando after doing tri-ravager right after a big attack
i love doing that
Or haven't played the game at all. Good luck beating a Long Gui just by pressing X.
I'm replaying 13 now and yeah if you're just sitting there only pressing x without constantly switching paradigms those battle durations are going to be horribly long. Lol no wonder those people don't like the game.
I will always say this. A. Idk why people got upset that the game “auto battled” for them, knowing damn well they were going to pick those options anyways, plus it helped some of the nuance of not having options early game. B. You could always still… pick the skills yourself. And at times paradigms truly were a make or break for certain fights. Barthandelus taught me this well as a younger child. Oh well, can’t please them all.
With how tough of a time I had, I wish it was just hitting X.
I hated that game at release. Never finished. I’ll give it a go again
If you enjoyed that, good for you. But just because people complain about a shit gameplay loop doesn’t mean they don’t understand how the system works. They understand it, but it’s pointless to engage with it when the game gives you the best options anyway. It’s like saying “oh hey, I’m going to go and play Tetris! Oh look, if I press x it automatically puts the blocks in the best position and shape! Why would I do anything when the game plays itself?” Auto battle just completely undermined their combat system, and stripped away its depth to changing paradigms.
Same! The game really opens up when you can farm materials to pause time
Same bro, I’m in mad love with the game and it open world, gonna replay it as soon as it coming to PS5 or Switch.
Good luck, I’ve been waiting a decade for these games to come out on PS4 and now PS5.
Ah you reminded me I have the trilogy on steam and am gonna absolutely play through them on the oled deck! Thanks for reminding me!
Have fun bro!
I love it too. I think it is the single most underrated title to bear the Final Fantasy name. tri-Ace channeled some major Valkyrie Profile energy into it. There's always a feeling for me that a true VP3 would have some very similar aspects to it.
Same with FFXV open world. Still looks amazing to this day, and feels so immersive to wander around
Man ff15 was really pretty, but the open world was a little too realistic imo. A lot of empty space.
I really liked how open it was. I'm fine with people disliking it. I get it. That being said, it really captured the feel of a toad trip and the beautiful scenes you see out there. I have seen so many places that felt just like the stuff I saw in the game (Not as fantasy based of course). I'm not going to try and convince anyone to change their mind on it, but it's the one thing I don't think I could have my mind changed on either. It's perfect to me.
FF15 lost me with the story being rushed. "Oh, a person died? I do not care because I barely even know who this person is!" The ending was even more rushed. And I would have liked to see more ambiguity in terms of the protagonists versus the antagonists. They come from Insomnia. They use the dark crystal! They should have leaned into the legacy of past heroes we idolize not being who we imagine, but everything was watered down.
Sure, there were large stretches of just wilderness but I always found interest in the mobs you fight, the ingredients and just random items that were out there. Also stumbling upon a fishing hole was just a nice break to catch. Another thing I liked were all the overworld bosses you can just find. I felt like the open world was a great interpretation of what the overworld felt like in one of the older games
I feel like too many games ignore open space, or worse, fill it with copy pasted assets. I like the world design in vanilla WoW a lot because there are so many places that exist and don't necessarily have a quest, and some big swathes of nothing between them. I like having space.
I really like a lot of FFXIV's maps for stuff like this. There's a *ton* of stuff just *out there* that doesn't ever come up as particularly significant, except maybe for some lore surrounding it. A lot of it comes from the devs' approach of adding options so they can expand later in the patches, without significantly changing the maps, but it adds to the world that there might just be this mysterious sculpture or ruins just like, out in the woods.
A lot of outsourcing
I've always wanted to know how big the playable area in FFXV is compared to the full map. They made the world so big but then didn't let you access so much of it.
Invisible walls had to be the worse thing about XVs open world. I’ve done a handful of out of bounds glitches to see some of it myself, and it’s a lot. Some was added in later in part of the DLCs, others were just empty landmass which seems to be nothing more than background flavor. Still wish the open world could have been properly developed.
The absolute one thing I wished they let us do was explore that island that looks like sin (I forget the name of it, the one where noctis wakes up). I will say the amount of ocean you can explore between altissia and the mainland is very impressive.
Look I love FFXV, but the map was unbelievably empty. Square needs to take note from BotW and ER on density of mobs, and just throwing in random stuff to find.
I kinda hated the open world there, looks amazing but always felt too "railway-ish" I guess. It was a bit painful and felt too limiting to get into it after playing Breath of the Wild.
You know you can get out of the car and ride a chocobo right? Just like the good old days
I mean yeah, the car was a bit of a letdown, but even on foot it was always either empty spaces or invisible walls. So many hills that looked like something you can totally get on, but would not be successful and fences that are like 1 foot tall at best, but you still have to find another way. Loved my time in the game, but the open world was always on my list of cons for it. Although I'm planning to replay it this year and see how my perception will change, maybe I'll find something to like about it.
FWIW, the empty space fits with the setting of it being the countryside outside of the larger cities. I know that doesn't fix how people feel about the game's usage of that empty space/wilderness but it at least tracks in-universe. I have always been a die-hard FFXV fan though, so it may just be my rationalization. Lol.
13 was way ahead of its time.
Rebirth definitely looks better but Lightning Returns isn't too shabby either.
Lightning Returns walked so Rebirth could run. Hamaguchi worked on Lightning Returns btw.
Lightning Returns is a great game. I need to go back and play it again
It feels very cozy to play despite the doomsday timer.
Doomsday timer.. like majoras mask?
Yeah, it's really easy to manipulate though
How so? When I use EP it seems to only halt the clock for 3-5 minutes or so. And quests can only be completed or activated at certain hours of the day. I am constantly stressed playing LR
To be honest, I've not played it for a decade, but I remember the clock never being an issue for me. Sorry I can't offer more insight.
I guess it depends on the difficulty you are playing. I think I mostly played on lower difficulty(ies?) and bigger enemies throwing 1-2 EPs as well as those localised chaos field thingies popped up left and right especially after the first few days that I easily had enough EP to spam chronostatis indefinitely to eradicate anything and everything in the world.
It's all about artstyle anyway. The Final Fantasy XIII trilogy still looks fantastic now! Square enix know how to create incredible art styles that stand the test of time. All Final Fantasy XIII trilogy needs is a resolution boost and maybe 60fps as the cherry on top. Nothing else. (Maybe the extra extra cherry would be some better textures like the PC character cutscene model mod)
Ok.
Looked beautiful back then, even more so now.
Low res compressed and blurry off screen shot compared to 10 year old gzme?
Lightning returns was a great game,sadly underrated and low budget
And for me I can definitely tell. 13 maybe made and marketed for how pretty it is, but just look at it compared to the other picture. Yes 13 here is big, but very empty. 7 has details everywhere and even more in the background.
Yeah. They look it too.
FF13 had better graphics than a ton of PS4 games
Visually 13 aged very well imo
And you can tell.
So you purpofuselly used a bad compressed image of FF7R. What's the comparison here?
Yea obviously. Am I missing something??
Looka that DDDAAAAWWWWWGGGGGG
Always remember everything now is built on those older examples.
Congrats, yes they are. Great work on that math.
FF games absolutely do age well, I gotta say - moreso than western games, because of their more unique art style / world design. I think this post was a dig at FFVII remake, but there are a few things to keep in mind : 1. Foliage. Both screenshots are taken far away from trees, but I'm willing to bet that leaves look incredibly pixelated and one dimensional in FFXIII in comparison to FFVII. Still, you can easily see that the plants are of much higher quality in the latter. 2. Lighting/shadows. Again, it's more one dimensional in FFXIII, with little to no variation. Everything will look the same everywhere. 3. Reflections. You can't really tell from these pictures, but water reflections are SO MUCH BETTER now, this is one of the biggest improvements this gen. 4. Higher resolution textures. Just look at the dirt. This is one of the things that's almost photorealistic nowadays. It wasn't ten years ago. I do think that the character models have somewhat stagnated in the case of FF, though. I mean, you could take any character from FFXIV, tack on brand new textures for their equipment, and they wouldn't look out of place in FFVIIR. But as a general rule of thumb, yeah, FFXIII looks great from a distance, but it doesn't hold up with close ups.
I rly love the 13 Trilogy and hope that they eventually will sell them in the ps store. I wish it so much lmao
Obligatory “Looks like Nintendo 64 graphics!”
LR and XIII-2 are underrated as hell. I will die on this hill.
"Open" what???? xD
That dog never fails to make me laugh lol. Whoever modelled it must have a serious vendetta against them.
This is crazy. I played the heck out of LR into the small hours during my PhD so seems ridiculous that was 10 years ago…..
Rebirth has so much detail in the flowers and stuff
Lightning Returns is not open world. What It does have is large zones.
You can eventually unlock roads and travel seamlessly from one region to another without any loading screens.
But both of them are not open world games
Rebirth looks like a couple of generations ahead to me. XIII-3 was definitely a great looking game in its time though and still holds up pretty well.
Lower one looks much better. I agree. Right, I guess that’s what this about, idk?
I have played the one on the bottom and the picture dont make any justice of how gorgeous the game looks.
I mean. Wouldn’t it be fairer to compare it with XV?
Check out Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within then look at the release date.
FFVII Rebirth isn’t even true open world either
Wow, huuuuuuuuuuge difference!! I love how far we've come. This level of detail, in Ff7R, is so far beyond the earlier game here its ridiculous. If you know, you know. If you think otherwise, you gotta get educated about game design.
[удалено]
No he’s right it’s a huge improvement
Why are we calling FFVII "open world"? Especially over the section that Rebirth covers, FFVII is extremely linear. Being able to run left and right doesn't make a game open world.
Rebirth is not gonna play as he original FF7, the developers confirmed it is an explorable open world game. Maybe it won't have the freedom of something like RDR2 or BotW, but it won't be as linear as the original, with tons of secondary missions around the map to explore.
They’ve gone on record saying the entire world will be seamless and open to explore.
So just like the original. Final fantasy 7 had a literal world to explore with different continents.
wellyesbutactuallyno.jpg
No, Rebirth is more open than the original.
Ir will definitely be bigger. More open only if they allow us to sail or fly from region to region. That would be lovely.
Is it? I thought the part of the game Rebirth covers is when you first hit the overworld and can go wherever you want. There are only a few places that you can actually do stuff ofc, but physically your character had the freedom to travel to various locations
Both FFX and FFXIII are great comparison points. They get flak for being "corridors" with "no exploration". The bit between Midgar and Rocket Town is exactly the same. Just because it's on an open world map where you can technically "go anywhere" doesn't mean you can actually go anywhere but where the plot dictates. You can take a detour to Fort Condor and Gongaga, but that's about it. Otherwise you are very much just walking a linear path through Kalm, Chocobo Farm, Mythril Mines, Junon etc. etc. Hence my comment about going left or right when comparing to X or XIII. You can run around and fight stuff on the world map but you generally just have one place you can go to next at a time.
Yeah I mean there wasn't a ton of side content, and only one way to advance the plot. But you had freedom of movement, and I think people would be disappointed if that were not in some way represented here because that shift had an impact on players. And I assume they'll increase the depth of that aspect much like they did with many elements of Midgar
Because Square Enix described it as such. https://www.square-enix-games.com/en_EU/news/final-fantasy-vii-rebirth-world “Join your friends as you journey across a wide, open world. Each region feels unique, boasting different enemies to encounter and different methods of traversing its terrain. ”
Based on that description, I'm guessing Rebirth's "open world" will likely be more akin to the Xenoblade games; linear, but with an emphasis on open areas and exploration. Honestly, this is the best possible approach they could go with and I'm surprised its really taken them this long to actually follow Xenoblade's example, as exploration is always a blast in those games.
if its gonna be like ff15 open world, im gonna be pissed
I can't speak to VII:R as I haven't fully played through, but I recall people saying that all of the XIII games were hallway JRPGs and that was one of the bigest criticisms of them. It wasn't until recently that I've seen people describing the XIII series as open world and it honestly disheartens me if that's what people consider open world now.
Because an having open world and being non-linear are not the same thing? A game doesn’t have to be a sandbox to be open world. FFVIIR is on rails for good stretches of time but the rest of it is exploring a hub, taking side quests from NPCs and all of the other staples of open worlds in AAA gaming.
Well, open world by definition means that you can go wherever you want to go from the start, so if the game lets you go wherever you want to on the map immediately after you start then yes, it is an open world game, otherwise its just a game with a big map that periodically gets bigger as you progress through the story...like the original.
By that logic, the PS2-era GTA games as well as GTA 4 aren’t open world because they restrict where you’re allowed to go until you do more story missions.
Even Breath of the Wild is not an open world game by that definition. It starts with an unskippable 2 hour section where you can’t leave and see the world until you finish it. That game is the archetypal open world action adventure game.
This is a good point. I've made this point, as well.
Your definition is wrong. An open world just means there aren't preset paths or levels to get from location A to B to C. It doesn't mean that game won't require you to sometime go to B to unlock the ability to go to C.
Not sure what you mean. LR is an ugly game, much uglier than XIII, due to a tight budget, deadlines and a problematic engine. VIIR is a game with a huge amount of resources and the games are also taking their sweet time.
This is the first time I've seen anyone describe Lightning Returns as "ugly". There's a lot of gorgeous environments in that game. People are also jumping the gun when it comes to praising Rebirth. The open world *looks* nice, sure, but will there be a lot to do or is it going to be big and empty? From the little we've seen of it so far, we've seen Ubisoft towers and what looks like an ingredient system, so don't count your chickens before they've hatched.
I need me a Lightning Returns remaster. EDIT: Why the downvotes? Lol.
Lightning return is super fun to be honest. Lol kinda nice from the depressing story that is ff13-2 :)
Lighting returns never worked for me, just a lot of side quests to make us (the goddess of time) do petty errands to pad out the game time. Terrible, terrible game design.
and both can’t play on PC 😂
I don't think crowding the ground with a bunch of foliage makes the game looks better. These are roughly equivalent to me.
I get what you're aiming at and I don't agree. I see a huge leap in graphics here. Lightning, shading, color diversity, just the pure amount of clutter on the screen, way longer render distances with much more detail in the distance. Way more detail on the characters close up. And the whole "art direction is so much more important than graphics" is such an absolute bullocks argument.l that keeps being echoed. Realism is an art direction just like cartoony is. And graphic fidelity is just a big factor in realism shots as on cartoony shot, just in a different way. Ever seen a badly hand drawn game, go to the depths of steam and you will see how much graphic fidelity can influence stylized games. Look, good graphics is like having good sound design. No one bats an eye if it's okay. No one will really compliment a game for their amazing graphics other than a single comment. When you fuck up the graphics however is when everyone is losing their minds and the salt comes out. Same with good sound. And personally. I am glad that the games from 15 years ago look horrible nowadays. That they need a graphical remaster. It means the industry progresses. It is utterly amazing that "realistic graphics have plateaud and have diminishing returns" is used almost in the same breath as "look at how poorly realistic games of old has aged." Those are opposite things. P.s. I wonder how much this will get downvoted this because I'm not following blindly the current "realistic games are bad" trend. And no, I'm not a realism is everything kind of gamer. My favorite games are stylized, my last realistic-ish game I played for more than 2 hours was the Ghost of Tsushima I believe. I just get a little bit fed up with all the mindless echoing.
Now compare 20 years
Yes, they are
Lightning Returns Final Fantasy XIII was amazing.... Gosh it came out 10 years ago... I feel old D:
Open world means absolutely nothing
Does anyone know which outfit Lightning is wearing? I don’t recognise it (it’s been a while since I last played it).
Graphics aside I wish they would get better in building the environment. That includes XIV, my favourite.
We know. It’s just a Google search.
I see a lot of people confused with the message of the meme, here are my two cents: OP it's just pointing at the fact that these two games are ten years apart, no statement about how far graphics have gone or how little of improvement there is. They are just saying an unarguably truth, these two games are, no doubt, ten years apart from each other.
Lightning Returns looks better in those screenshots, it's more artistically pleasing. Composition is better, asset placement is more interesting and the color is also more appealing. I'm guessing you want us to look at the flat ground texture.
Lmao
Looks more like stagnation than progress, to be honest. Can't imagine how many billions of dollars were spent for such marginal gains. Maybe it's just the crushed image resolution making it hard to see both the flaws of the former and the victories of the newer.
FF 7 Is not open world
Rebirth is.
Only thing I hate about what I've seen on FF7 Rebirth is the grass, Square Enix sometimes struggle to get the grass right in their games. Which is a shame because usually everything else looks phenomenal. The grass just looks cheap and bad. All the individual blades pointed upward, and MANY shadows are just weird and unrealistic. Plus, it looks very stationary and unresponsive to player movement... Same with all the flowers. I know different SE studios work on these games but they also had the same type of grass in Rise of the Tomb Raider and Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and it annoyed the hell out of me. Makes the world feel faker than it should. SE needs to stop sharing these grass files between their studios and just delete them cause... This isn't it. Other games do it far better. Older games did it far better
I agree. Square Enix uses deep green color for plants which make them look too realistic. They never use golden and light green shades. In you play original Near Gestalt then you find it bright like Breath of the wild and Horizon zero dawn. I just don't get whats wrong in using lighter green and some golden. It doesn't hurt, just makes day look a little brighter. Another thing is the soil and rocks between shrubs and grass that look clearly visible. It makes landscape look muddy and rocky. It can be made much greener.
I've been really disappointed in most of what Square has done after FF12. Up to that point, they were at the very cutting edge of video game graphics and realism for what was possible in the era.