Alex_Mexico
Member
They already had one. It's called Final Fantasy VII. What they're looking for is to have their Avatar now.
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Hajima Tabata Talks About Building His Final Fantasy XV Dev Team
- Thread starter benzy
- Start date
> Everyone needed to face the reality that Final Fantasy hasnt been succeeding, and they needed to be prepared to overcome this.
What? It had only been two games, FFXII and FFXIII. The games before then, FFX and below, did pretty well. Sure, if you're counting spin offs and direct sequels - or worse, the MMOs, then sure, I suppose. That said, it's nice they acknowledged they needed to do something to make the games good and not repeat FFXIII....I have a feeling that we are in for a repeat, which might be a shame given some of the improvements he made.
Actually, this guy sounds pretty good from this.
What? It had only been two games, FFXII and FFXIII. The games before then, FFX and below, did pretty well. Sure, if you're counting spin offs and direct sequels - or worse, the MMOs, then sure, I suppose. That said, it's nice they acknowledged they needed to do something to make the games good and not repeat FFXIII....I have a feeling that we are in for a repeat, which might be a shame given some of the improvements he made.
Actually, this guy sounds pretty good from this.
XIV gave me tons of faith in Final Fantasy. Sorry you feel that way.
As someone who made it to level 50 in FFXIV, I disagree. While it was a neat MMO, I never once thought: "Wow, this is Final Fantasy!" It takes a lot of inspiration from Final Fantasy, but as a whole it's not the same kind of game as the others, baring FFXI which had the same problem.
This is really the main problem of Final Fantasy at this point, and why it's in crises It has no proper identity! The identity of each game is whatever Square thinks will make money at the time.
Was Final Fantasy X a cinematic Turnbased JRPG? Great! FFXI will be a MMO now because it makes cash! Next, FFXII will be an open world single player MMO based on the tactics series! Oh, people didn't quite like that. Next we'll do a linear CGI festival with angst, melodrama and Nomura! Oh, that did terribly! Next is another MMO...which failed so badly we had to remake it. Let's do a ARPG with a bro-trip now!
A franchise, by definition, needs some form of consistency, direction. And FF really doesn't have it. So, while I understand you like FFXIV, and it's a decent MMO, the fact that it and FFXI are marketed as numbered entries is really part of the problem.
EDIT: Also, should FFXIV really give you faith in Square when the original launch was so bad the CEO had to apologize, throw out the original dev team, and basically remake the game? Yeah, they got it right the second time, but that really doesn't inspire confidence in me. Sure, FFXV was terrible on release, but the Special Edition 2 years later totally fixed everything!
JoeyJungle
Banned
Probably referencing FXII's development hell, then jumping into the HD gen with FXIII's development hell, its bad reception, the bad reception to its sequels, FFXIV's tremendous flop (until ARR). The only really good stuff coming out of the franchise for the entire gen was the handheld games and the remakes on handheld/mobile (though mobile can certainly be disputed. They still sold well though).
potatohead
Member
Yep.
SomedayTheFire
Member
Final Fantasy X came out 15 years ago...
potatohead
Member
Really don't think the MMOs have anything to do with this series falling flat on this face. The MMOs are probably the most consistent delivery of FF games among the whole series since after FF XII, and including FF XI.
Everyone played FF, even many of the MMO FF players, for the singleplayer series.
After FF XIII everyone knew the series changed for one reason or another, and it just wasn't in a good way for the most part.
There series simply lost most of its unique identity after Sakaguchi left and the boardroom directors or whatever took over.
Yep. They haven't really been releasing many single-player FF Games, have they?
MissDeviling
Member
I do think FF as a brand has been losing its brand identity quite a bit since the last generation. While its visuals are very easy to identify (since Nomura's still designing even till today, and SE's really determined on the style of modelling for their characters), everything else is all over the place. While Uematsu was the composer for FFs 10 and prior, it's not so easy to expect a certain style of composition in recent FFs. Gameplay is also no longer the micro-managed ATB from 10 and prior, and has been changing from game to game after 10. Even level-design varies, from the healthily balanced 12 to the suffocatingly linear 13 to the vast world of 15.
I hope going forward SE will be able to confidently deliver a certain style while still being able to offer new experiences in each game, just as they did in the PS1 era.
Go_Ly_Dow
Member
KoopaTheCasual
Junior Member
Yea. Hate him or love him, he clearly seems to be the most "forward thinking" exec on Square's creative team, next to Yoshi-P
the_sun_king
Member
BlueTsunami
there is joy in sucking dick
As someone who has worked in the industry, you completely nailed every aspect of what things are like at most major publisher-developers. It's not a question of talent, it's management. I've seen projects cancelled, producers just walk, and studio heads up and leave halfway through a project. It sucks. Big game dev sucks. It's years of devotion, late nights, weekends, thankless grinding making the most minor of things happen in a single corner of this multi-million dollar behemoth. And it can just suck based on the most minor of things. I was around long enough to watch a AAA title taking shape. I would go to the kitchen and walk by tons of people slaving away at production, and they were making something truly awesome.
But mismanagement turned it to shit. Mismanagement is why I no longer work there, either. It's fucking rampant in the industry, and it's why you see AAAs that take 4 years to make getting slammed in reviews. Unless you're a one man indie dev, you are never just a single person working on a game, you're a team.
I'm glad to see Tabata stepping up and being a hardass. I hope he can make Final Fantasy a real challenger again, because it's been mired in bullshit for far, far too long.
Gooch left. That was the end of the old FF era. Now SE will try different things with FF, and they will continue to do so because the one who decided what is FF is gone. If they can maintain the production value and occasionally come up with some masterpieces like FFXII, I'm fine. FF fanbase is so divided that no matter how SE make the game, people will complain.
Just look the FFXVI wish thread a month ago. Half the people wanted turn base while the other half wanted action. How can you please them at the same time?
Tabata honestly sounds a lot like Rod Ferguson (who's at The Coalition now). He came onto Bioshock Infinite in the later months after it had languished in development for a long time, and instilled a culture of deadlines and getting shit done. It's not a job that anyone really wants, but it's definitely needed.
Vigilant Walrus
Member
That's crazy! May I ask what studio you worked for? Was it a well known company?
I had a coworkers whose boyfriend worked for a number of years for Microsoft. In his entire division he was the worst performing worker for as long as he had been there. He hated his boss and felt his boss was after him. But the fact that he scored the lowest in sales and in customer service ratings was used by his boss to beat him down in something that sounds "abuse-ish". After a whole the guy got sick. Would have stomach problems and the poor office enviornment started affecting his health and general happiness. so many hours every day at work being miserable and feeling angry and scared of his boss.
Boss gets replaced, and a new manager comes in. He does a interview with everyone, and relocates a few people including the guy. Two months later, the guy is the top performing guy in the entire division.
I asked how this was possible and what this new manager did to make the guy go from being a trainwreck to the top performer in the branch, and she just said "good management".
I've been told that being a manager is different from being a traditional CEO or top boss. A Manager manages day-to-day. A manager is there in the trenches with the footsoldiers and understands his workers, their strengths and weaknesses but also have the larger picture. A good manager has insight that the top boss doesn't.
Therefore the manager is so important. They see it when the team focuses on the wrong things. When all the resources are spent on superficial systems when the basics are not good enough. when brilliant workers are prone to make mistakes or have a workflow that slows down other teams, or when two teams are working against each other, or when a team lead goes down with stress.
There are so many things that can go wrong. Every day is a fight. Every day is every worker trying to cover there base. if someone slips up the chain is broken.
It's just so hard to explain to others. I see posts that suggest everyone to fire every employee who worked on Versus because they are useless.
How can you say that? How can you say they are worthless? you dont know the limitations of the tools they had. And if you dont know the japanese work culture of them working themselves to dead in a stagnant economy I don't fully understand.
For all the time passionate gamers like to talk how useful and useless developers are, some of them seem to have a low patience for all the things that can go wrong. Great people who worked really hard still are on teams that releases games that gets poor reviews. When you have hundreds of people working on one game, its a special thing when the game is great. Most developers dream of shipping a game that goes into history as something memorable. its a lot harder than most people can imagine.
Whoa!:O I've never heard of him! I'll have to google him.
It's troubling how many Japanese development work cultures might be stuck this way (I'm looking at Nintendo), where seniority dictates everything instead of talent/skillset and efficiency of resources.
I'm glad Tabata was able to go in and refocus the team to deliver results.
It seems like once Wada was gone, new players came and took charge of the main SE projects to get SE back to a position of respect instead of the floundering descent it had from divinity during the 00s.
I'm glad Tabata was able to go in and refocus the team to deliver results.
It seems like once Wada was gone, new players came and took charge of the main SE projects to get SE back to a position of respect instead of the floundering descent it had from divinity during the 00s.
Nightengale
Member
#truthfact
I cannot say how often I have been indebted to have great manager. (Not in game dev, but part of small team in large organisations)
People who are capable of both macromanaging and micromanaging the team, people who can protect his/her team from the politics and bullshit of upper management and steer the small ship that is the respective team to their fullest potential. I am a terrible people person, but my career goal next is to be a great team lead just because of how inspiring I've seen great, small team-based manager/leadership is.
You put it best by saying "there is so many things that can go wrong." When I consider the amount of cross-disciplinary excellence that a game needs more than the industry I'm in, I'm surprised games can get shipped. This isn't hyperbole.
As someone who is in a far less complicated industry, there are days where I'm surprised gears are even moving. There are so much bullshit that people take for granted, when it is the strength of the individual that makes that small rotation even happen.
Well he still directed their biggest turds so far so....
This is what FF15 needed (and probably the whole SE in the long run) but it's likely that it's much less fun working there now. I have seen similar happen in my company (not software related field) and it took a long time for many employees to get back even half of their work morale that they lost from the big change.
sublimit
Banned
Interesting interview although i felt the translation was a bit off at times.However one of the things i want to know (and probably never will) is what exactly happened during the development of Versus (both inside Nomura's team as well as SE in general) and how exactly the transition from Nomura to Tabata happened.We know some things about that time but still there are so many questions and things about Versus development that are still covered in secrecy.
I wish Nomura was allowed to talk freely about that.
I wish Nomura was allowed to talk freely about that.
Napalm_Frank
Member
The thing about dissing XIII is that they better follow up with a great game. Thus far the only thing that I am 100% convinced is better than XIII are no more extreme linearity. If the combat doesn't feel much better than what I felt in the Platinum Demo I would already consider that a step back from XIII where ironically I felt more in control despite that being perhaps the biggest complaint about the battle system.
The biggest problem with XIII wasn't anything to do with the technical side of things, Crystal Engine shenanigans ect. It wasn't able to tell the story right. Narrative will be the thing that makes or breaks XV. I just hope the localization team is up to snuff to reduce the JRPG jank and that they don't end up with XII type of situation with the open world where the narrative can come to a screeching halt because of it. Because MGSV this sure ain't.
The biggest problem with XIII wasn't anything to do with the technical side of things, Crystal Engine shenanigans ect. It wasn't able to tell the story right. Narrative will be the thing that makes or breaks XV. I just hope the localization team is up to snuff to reduce the JRPG jank and that they don't end up with XII type of situation with the open world where the narrative can come to a screeching halt because of it. Because MGSV this sure ain't.
I would go with this new direction if Tabata wasn't the one directing it... my expectations of FFXV are very low as thus far his games have been pretty underwhelming and what I've seen of XV isn't any better.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
It would really be nice if the story was good again. At this point I'd settle for "good anime", because XIII taught me to expect "brain dead stoopid anime". I don't dare to dream of "arthouse anime" at this point.
Remember when Final Fantasy was probably the best story in all of gaming relative to its contemporaries in the early 90s?
Hope the team can stick together and doesn't get punished by sins of the father when FFXV inevitably sells under ridiculous expecations.
Seems like he has a well running machine and can start putting out games at a decent clip now.
Hey I liked Type-0
and I even liked most of my time playing Crisis Core.
Seems like he has a well running machine and can start putting out games at a decent clip now.
Hey I liked Type-0
and I even liked most of my time playing Crisis Core.
Yabberwocky
Member
Really, really interesting interview, thanks for linking, OP! Tabata's refreshingly blunt, heh. The man is going to need a big ass glass of beer when all of this is done.
Oh, man, they had such a great run. FFVII was what started my love affair with gaming. I know it's not perfect, but it was a big holy shit, games are telling stories like this?! moment. Having an unreliable narrator protagonist in an interactive medium - and how many amazing moments came about because of it in-game - blew my puny young mind!
I'm cautiously optimistic for FFXV, though, as they seem to be focusing strongly on character with a strong supporting cast (which FFXIII sadly lacked). Even if the story is quite simple, it could work well.
Oh, man, they had such a great run. FFVII was what started my love affair with gaming. I know it's not perfect, but it was a big holy shit, games are telling stories like this?! moment. Having an unreliable narrator protagonist in an interactive medium - and how many amazing moments came about because of it in-game - blew my puny young mind!
I'm cautiously optimistic for FFXV, though, as they seem to be focusing strongly on character with a strong supporting cast (which FFXIII sadly lacked). Even if the story is quite simple, it could work well.
Whompa02
Member
I don't get the, "this is not final fantasy" comment about any particular game in the franchise. They're all so different despite some traditional trappings that are more or less for the sake or retaining some sort of consistency within the franchise/brand.
If you ask yourself, "what is final fantasy" how can you really define it outside of saying, "there's a few unique creatures in it with similar naming conventions." And that's really it. Outside of that there's some nuanced things that share similarities, and call outs, but by and large, the franchise tries to reinvent itself almost every time. Sometimes really dramatic changes too, for better or worse.
I dunno, that's how I feel. I feel like it's even more evident when the last released numbered game is a friggen MMORPG and the one before that was...well not that at all.
If you ask yourself, "what is final fantasy" how can you really define it outside of saying, "there's a few unique creatures in it with similar naming conventions." And that's really it. Outside of that there's some nuanced things that share similarities, and call outs, but by and large, the franchise tries to reinvent itself almost every time. Sometimes really dramatic changes too, for better or worse.
I dunno, that's how I feel. I feel like it's even more evident when the last released numbered game is a friggen MMORPG and the one before that was...well not that at all.
Eh? I never called the series Stagnant. Reread my post; if anything I'm arguing the opposite.
I bet they'll never use this franken-engine again.
If you give people a wish list in what they want in a game, this always happens. If you ask people what kind of game they want a publisher to make, some will say "CRPG!", others will say "FPS!" Some want a turnbased game. Heck, they'll ask for this even if the developer in question has never even touched the genre!
If you ask fans what they want in a new entry, you get the same thing. People who never played the series, or played it and hated it, will put in their two cents and call for a compete overhaul!
Just look at some of the older FFVII remake threads - especially before they showed the combat. A lot of the people there admit to either not liking the original or never even playing the original, and then immediately say they want the game to go action based. That doesn't even make sense! If hated the game, or never played it you're not even a fan at that point! But, you still are going to post in a speculation thread and say you want to demand that the game be an action game?
It's impossible to please everyone at the same time, you're right, but that's because people on the internet just spout off whatever they feel like - even if they never played the game! At points like these, it's simply up to developers to stick to their guns and not try to stretch themselves to satisfy every desire that pops up.
Bartholomuse
Member
Wasn't this fairly obvious when they moved KH3 from Luminous to UE4? Japanese devs are moving en masse to it.
DiipuSurotu
Banned
Holy shit @ SE officially dissing the FFXIII series.
Where are the "FFXIII was not a failure, it did sell 7 million copies" people now?
Where are the "FFXIII was not a failure, it did sell 7 million copies" people now?
In a 2013 interview with Nomura he said that in 2012 he was the one who put Tabata on the team as co-director, and he said that his co-directors are the ones who manage all the day to day work and who support him.
Before it released Titanic was predicted to be a money-losing boondoggle. That does not describe FFVII pre-release, people knew it would be big.
UpDownLeftRight
Banned
I think at the very least we'll see elements of the engine make its way into another one. The main reason other games haven't used it is apparently due to it being technically incomplete. I couldn't say whether or not building the game engine and game in tandem is a good idea, but I will say there are at least some parts of then engine that do a very good job at their task. For instance the lighting is pretty good and the results from the PBR can be great so I'd expect some of the work they put into that side to be migrated to a successor in the least.
I'd be surprised to see them stick to third party engines all together going forward. Personally I think they're using them to get the ball rolling on other projects since they basically have no in house choice to go with until XV ships. Of course, their reasoning could simply be to appease the public rather than based in any logic but I've no idea how building an engine works to say one way or the other.
Makoto Yuki
Banned
It never really had a consistent identity to begin with. I mean almost every game since VII, maybe even VI, had people complaining "This isn't Final Fantasy!?" So I don't see the relation between there series' lack of identity with it being in crisis.
The main crisis the series has seen is the transition between generations. The NES, SNES, and PS1 all had successful trilogies. The PS2 had 3 mainline games as well, but you start to see cracks. FFX had a direct sequel that reused tons of assets to save money, FFXI is an MMO for better or worse, and FFXII might as well be part of the Tactics series because it's set in Ivalice (though an entirely different time), not it's own unique world.
Transitioning to HD consoles was even more difficult, only two mainline games: both incredibly divisive, if not the most divisive in the series. XIII had it's own trilogy (the only one I thoroughly enjoyed was XIII-2) and FFXIV was terrible - ARR is a miracle. You gotta hand it to SE for taking a shitty subscription MMO and making a mostly well received one in a world that is latching onto F2P.
Spiritwalker
Member
What he's done is admirable, no doubt, but I'm still not sold on the game being any good. His previous efforts were mostly bad and mediocre.
Tabata and Yoshida are amazing and they've legit done an amazing job. I get people like Nomura, but he would never be able to do this.
Worth nothing that FFXV has been rebooted in 2012, from the ground up, back to the drawing board, and not "been in development for 10 years" like a lot of people make it out to be. Both Tabata and Yoshida did an amazing feat, and past FFs or Versus' troubled development history shouldn't cloud people's opinion of both directors.
I'm legit super excited to see what's next for Tabata.
Worth nothing that FFXV has been rebooted in 2012, from the ground up, back to the drawing board, and not "been in development for 10 years" like a lot of people make it out to be. Both Tabata and Yoshida did an amazing feat, and past FFs or Versus' troubled development history shouldn't cloud people's opinion of both directors.
I'm legit super excited to see what's next for Tabata.
potatohead
Member
Did he even say they've found their way again? Really curious.
Miss the Gooch at the helm.....
No apologies make it any better than an OK game with high production quality FMVs save for the fact it has the name Final Fantasy attached to it.
DiipuSurotu
Banned
Yeah, if you replace all mentions of "Hajime Tabata" with "Director of 3rd Birthday and Type-0" then suddenly all his statements become a bit less exciting.
However I have hope in FFXV because he actually built his team from the ground up this time unlike in his previous projects.
A director doesn't do everything alone, the whole FFXV team is filled with young people with a passion for Final Fantasy, I'm more worried about FFXV's scenario writer (Saori Itamuro) who's only experience is Dissidia.
I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt, if the story fails, there's still the world to explore every inch of (like Xenoblade Chronicles X).
Famitsu:
That said, are you saying that Final Fantasy is currently having a sense of crisis?
Tabata:
Yes, there was a sense of crisis. However, there’s been more of that since I’ve taken over. When we decided to advance through with the game as Final Fantasy XV, the reaction from our company, other companies, and especially foreign developers, shared more and more of the sense of “the Final Fantasy IP is in a worse spot than I realized.” After being put in a position of feeling the real heat, I’ve come to realize it as well.
Famitsu:
That must’ve been a heavy way to start.
Tabata:
Yes, indeed. However, even with this sense of crisis for the IP, there was also the fact that we haven’t been able able to properly make what we aimed to make. I understand that Final Fantasy XIII also had some rough criticism, but that is not what was aimed for, and I’m sure the objective for it was much higher than that. In the end, it became a title known for being linear. That was not something that was aimed for, but considering the way things were being done, they were not able to break the walls of HD production, and I believe that the truth of the matter is that they simply weren’t able to make a proper landing. If anything, how to break through such a reality was what made it heavy, in that sense. The heaviness of “the Final Fantasy IP is in a tough spot” was at its peak there.
Damn, this interview is real, as usual with Tabata. He is exactly what SE and FFXV needed. Good management is everything, especially in these insane AAA productions. It doesn't matter how many super talented people you have in a team if there's nobody who can lead them, structure the workload, make difficult decisions and set clear goals. And that's not an easy job. So many games fail because of bad management (see the official FFXIII post-mortem).
Another interesting quote about FFXV's development from last year's Edge Xmas issue with the big Tabata feature:
Tabata:
"The Final Fantasy XV team structure is flat. There’s none of the traditional hierarchy that you find in large-scale game development. If there are lots of report lines, I find that important information stops at the top, and people on the ground don’t know what the issues are, or what key decisions have been made. I dislike that approach.
Instead, everybody has the right to pitch in with the decision-making and to help resolve the issues. We have some meeting rooms on the floor, but generally I encourage the team to meet in the open space so that everyone else can hear what’s going on.
One of the policies I’ve created for the team is that, even though each individual has different opinions, I want everyone to report to me about issues. I try to fix things immediately, rather than leaving them to fester for a couple of weeks. Everybody is free to report everything, and then fix it straight away."