Article: Stella no longer in FFXV; key Versus XIII scenes axed; Duscae demo patch coming on the 9th

Linnaete

sus
Staff member
Editorial Staff
Veteran
Joined
Feb 19, 2009
Messages
6,411
Location
UK
Gil
1,043
Andre the Adamantoise
Chocobo Egg
Accessory (Head)
Accessory (Arms)
Build-A-Member
Chocobo Egg
FFXIV
Aoife Linnaete
FFXIV Server
Lamia
Free Company
None
[04/06] Stella no longer in FFXV; key Versus XIII scenes axed; Duscae demo patch coming on the 9th

tumblr_m71jatcoej1r1xsnbgx.jpg


Anyone still clinging onto those loose Shakespearean overtones from the Versus XIII days should probably let them go for good now. In today's Active Time Report, game director Hajime Tabata finally came out transparent about the aspects of the old Versus XIII that will no longer appear in Final Fantasy XV. The biggest casualty of this great purge is Stella Nox Fleuret, the rapier-wielding opposite to Noctis.

As explained by Tabata, "We wanted to keep her as a heroine in FFXV’s story, and pursued ways to tie her in to FFXV’s design as well, but we found it increasingly difficult to make sense of Stella’s character and role within FFXV. So then we thought, do we want to recreate Stella with a different role and image, or do we want to start over with a new hreoine? And after a lot of consideration, we decided not to include Stella in FFXV. Instead, we have a new heroine named Luna, who has a different role within the story. So we will be talking more about her in the future.”

Other casualties include the old party scene in the city of Insomnia. First seen in CGI form many moons ago, it depicted Noctis meeting with the Tenebrean princess by the foot of a large painting of the goddess Etro, with the two characters discussing the implications of seeing the "Light". A later rendition of the scene from 2011 shows Niflheim soldiers invading the city and the building. That scene is gone and will not appear in any similar shape or form in FFXV.

“Scenes like those had to be regressed because of a very critical factor. So now, the sequence is: Noct and his retinue leave Insomnia, and then… What was it? Then the Niflheim army attacks the crown city. There’s an extremely important reason behind this decision. In fact, it could be construed a spoiler, so I can’t tell you about it here.

“The third point is not a change. But as I just informed you, we decided to delete the scene of a party in Insomnia, which is a city like Shinjuku. So then we became concerned that the players who were looking forward to some gameplay in that city might worry that they would be losing that gameplay as well. So I thought I should let you know here and now that we are preparing situations that would involve gameplay in the Shinjuku-like city of Insomnia. We had previously released information on Versus saying you would begin combat right after the Niflheim army attacks the city, but the new gameplay would not fall in around the same timeline. As for when and in what kind of situation the combat occurs, we would like for you to wait for future updates, and play the actual game, but we are working on something great, so I hope you will look forward to it.”


That is not to say they are wildly straying from the original vision of scenario writer Kazushige Nojima.

“Quite some time has passed now… After we had switched from Versus to XV, the first decision we made was to make sure that FFXV would have a complete, coherent story in one game. That was an important decision—one made at the company level, too. So I started thinking about how we could get a full, coherent story in a single game. And the crux of that was which elements from Versus we could carry over and which would not fit into the new structure as XV.

“So I went through everything in detail, seeing which areas we would have to change. By that time, a fair amount of information about the Versus story had already been released, so we tried to keep as many elements from it as we could. We tried hard in a number of areas. But it would have been very difficult to carry over absolutely everything as it was. We considered what was possible with the new-gen hardware, as well as what elements absolutely must be included in XV but might fall through if not given top priority. It was not easy to nail down what was essential for the story to be contained in one title. Everyone involved was very sensitive in dealing with this, and we patiently debated numerous times, but we still couldn’t come up with a definitive answer.

“In the end, we decided to be as faithful as possible to Mr. Nojima’s story for Versus and focus on realizing the original story as much as we could. It goes without saying that I consulted with him on this. And he said that if I valued his original story, then it would still fulfill his vision, even if not every single element he came up with included in the end. So that gave us the confidence to set our goal, which was to create a narrative that utilizes Mr. Nojima’s original story as fully as possible.”

Characters who have survived the purge include the raven-haired woman we only partially see a glimpse of in the 2013 re-reveal trailer, and the blonde female dragoon from 2011's Advent Children Blu-ray special trailer.

--------------

In addition to the above, players will be able to gain access to a patched version of the Episode Duscae demo this month on the 9th at 8AM PDT/11AM EDT. This will be a free download available for demo holders, so anyone who has not acquired Duscae since March will be out of luck.



--------------

The game will not have a trailer at E3. Expect it at Gamescom in August.

In the meantime, here's a Game of Thrones-ey concept art of young Noctis and presumably King Regis. Winter is coming?


gxszEE8.jpg


Nova Crystallis 1 | 2
 
Last edited:
This game doesn't even make sense any more. Whatever, take out her character then. She was the only one I was really looking forward to. Thanks, Square.
 
Honestly, I can't necessarily say that I care anymore. We knew very little about the characters before other than a few details here and there. There was so little information that I couldn't work up the ability to get anywhere remotely near to hype. As far as I got was, "oh, that's neat". Considering the fact that we've been waiting for this game for years now, that it's come from PS3 to PS4 and became FFXV, it goes without saying that a lot likely had to be changed. It's not exactly unreasonable for SE to pull something like this, but an annoyed reaction out of fans isn't unreasonable either.

As stories are written, they're often changed in ways that don't make sense to have certain characters around. I can't exactly write a story with Bugs Bunny in it while I'm also trying to figure out how the main characters escape from a planet to get to space. Sometimes, you just have to give it up and write a character off so you can progress the story along. It sucks, but it's a harsh reality.
 
What did we really know about this game when it was Versus XIII? Not much. Other games have cut characters before, not a big deal. I'll wait for the final project and give my opinion then.

Oh I also like how they said that XV will be a "complete, coherent story in one game." Because that hasn't been done in Final Fantasy 14+ times :wacky:. Still bet we get XV sequels, prequels and spinoffs instead of a XVI for this (ps4, xboxone) generation
 
Oh I also like how they said that XV will be a "complete, coherent story in one game." Because that hasn't been done in Final Fantasy 14+ times :wacky:. Still bet we get XV sequels, prequels and spinoffs instead of a XVI for this (ps4, xboxone) generation

:hmmm: I see where you're coming from, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. It looks to me like they need and want to turn a whole new corner in this series. Besides, if they really wanted to have prequels and spin-offs with this title, they probably would have left it as Final Fantasy XIII-Versus and cashed in on the then newly generated fans.
 
The one good thing I can take out of all that is that the whole story will be in this one game. Maybe this means that there won't be low-budget sequels?
 
UPDATED POST WITH TRAILER FOOTAGE, CONCEPT ART AND NEWS THAT FINAL FANTASY XV WILL BE SKIPPING E3.

----------

I have only ever cared for Stella's 2008 design. So as far as I am concerned, having long scrapped it, they have just replaced generic anime doll girl A with generic anime doll girl B.

No sequels make me wonder how they expect to make decent returns on a project that has been this long in the making, this difficult and this costly. Though at the same time, since the original visionaries of Versus XIII are no longer involved, I can understand why the current project leaders want to just get this done and move onto something else.
 
The problem is that they claim that they tried to work with the original as best as their ability. Which if that were true, there would've been absolutely no reason to remove Stella at all. They could've expanded and added in what they didn't understand and form it into something they could understand. Especially with so little knowledge.

I was extremely looking forward to stella but now she's gone and we have "luna" who at this point appears to be a childhood friend of noctis who is a princess.


the other reasons i could care less. but changing a character out right when there was already mass appeal, what was so difficult to understand?
 
We knew very little about Versus XIII years ago. Perhaps the mistake that Square-Enix made was actually that they revealed anything at all when it was all far too early.

How much about FFIX and its characters did we know as it was being developed? What about FFVII? VIII? X? Bits and bobs we’d read about, but only when the game was close to being ready and people could have faith that it’ll actually be in the game. Things like scrapped characters, plotlines, and scenes weren't really known to most of us for most FF games during their development. Sometimes these details are slow to emerge (if at all) even after a game is released...

That we know about scrapped ideas for FFXV is in some ways quite ridiculous. What is more ridiculous is that you'd think that us knowing about ideas being scrapped would signify transparency and being kept in the loop. On the contrary we've been kept in the relative dark for years.


They made trailers and concept footage of cutscenes for Versus XIII to generate hype for the PS3/360 era of Nova Crystallis. When it came to developing and delivering a game to go along with these scenes they hit some hurdles, and then we know the rest of this painful journey. The game messed with people’s heads because it was revealed far too early, and now that the game is finally taking shape and is possibly even going to be released before the birth of our grandchildren, we’re all left a bit confused about it because it isn’t the game that people were hyped over years ago.

I hope Square-Enix noted their mistakes!
 
This game doesn't even make sense any more. Whatever, take out her character then. She was the only one I was really looking forward to. Thanks, Square.

To say she's been taken out is a bit of a misnomer. She's just been replaced with another character. The reason for the wording is, I assume, just to imply that her script has been removed and rewritten with a new personality, story function, personal history, etc. I mean, from the video at the end of the FFXV demo we see Luna's full name is 'Lunafreya Nox Fleuret'. They didn't even ditch the whole name, and 'Luna' isn't a big departure from 'Stella'. Heck, if Stella's existence hadn't been publicized before Versus XIII became XV, they might have even kept it. As it is using that name and changing her role would've gone over poorly with fans. Easier just to know going in that the Stella we nearly knew won't be there and there'll be someone else in her place.
 
the difference i see here is that we saw a strong character that didn't play the typical "princess" role. what we got to see in Luna however is completely different. granted we saw a very short scene, but now it has made a major shift just with that scene. we can see where SE is placing her role.
 
I think my main thing is although we (obviously) didn't know much about the characters, many still developed a sense of familiarity with them throughout the years. That may sound rather odd, but let's say they replaced Noctis instead. I can understand why that would be disappointing for many fans. As we see screenshots and trailers, we start to look forward to the characters and their development. I was really looking forward to Stella's role, even if they changed her design a bit. No I don't know anything about her, but it doesn't change the fact that many wanted to see her character role / development through to the end, and how she'll fit right into the plot.

Not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things since at least they've graced us with another heroine in Luna. It may take some time to get used to, that's all.
 
You have to furrow your brow at the marketing pitch they have been going for since TGS 2014.

I have no particular affection for Stella, given how little we actually knew about her. However, we could extrapolate some good guesses as to what the original vision for her may have been. A genuine equal to Noctis in might and magic, to highlight that whole "Versus" motif of the old Versus XIII. Perhaps they love each other, but in Romeo and Juliet fashion, political circumstances that are far greater than their relationship and control dictate that they fight as opposing agents. At the same time, both are bound by this unremitting connection to the "Light" and similar near-death experiences. It would have been an interesting angle to take and Nomura expressed many moons ago that Stella would be an atypical Final Fantasy female character.

And true, we have no idea what Luna will be like, except for the fact that she won't be what I have described above. She is not just a renamed Stella; Luna is an entirely new character who just so happens to borrow thematic motifs and design language from Stella. But thus far the replacement female characters portrayed thus far for FFXV do nothing but stir disappointment. It's either Cindy with those camera angles, or a teenage looking young woman looking either perpetually anxious, or is clutching her neckline like an anime character.

Until marketing from August onwards makes concerted effort to assuage this little concern of mine and feature more prominence of the raven-haired woman and Luna in a different context and situation, FFXV has been a regression.
 
I think my main thing is although we (obviously) didn't know much about the characters, many still developed a sense of familiarity with them throughout the years. That may sound rather odd, but let's say they replaced Noctis instead. I can understand why that would be disappointing for many fans. As we see screenshots and trailers, we start to look forward to the characters and their development. I was really looking forward to Stella's role, even if they changed her design a bit. No I don't know anything about her, but it doesn't change the fact that many wanted to see her character role / development through to the end, and how she'll fit right into the plot.

Not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things since at least they've graced us with another heroine in Luna. It may take some time to get used to, that's all.

But its more than just replacing her with a different heroine...why replace her int he first place if all they really needed to do was just update her background information to match the character she portrayed?

because its going to be more than just that. What we saw from Stella was much more involved. We saw a character who was actually in the middle of it and played a complicated role with Noctis. Something we all wanted to see.


At this point, Luna doesn't appear to play that role. NOw its something we can all distinguish. She is currently being portrayed as an old long lost friend. Which from what we seen as well portraying the princess role, it just doesn't "Excite".

I dont feel like this team is doing their absolute best to keep it to the original. I feel like they missed the point. Many of the things that Tetsuya Nomura had pointed out was the themes. Sure brother had only recently been pointed out but the many complicated sides of Noctis were also one of the greater points. Things such as speaking to himself in split personality and how he tries to act cool but is actually really shy. Something that we "CLEARLY" saw in that scene with Stella and Noctis.


This is no longer Versus XIII, no matter how much they claim they are trying their best to keep it to the original. new development team? perhaps. but i feel like Versus XIII is heavily underdeveloped from the start. Story-wise they had a concept, but with a new team they know nothing about.
 
This is no longer Versus XIII, no matter how much they claim they are trying their best to keep it to the original.

Actually in this latest Active Time Report Tabata came right out and said this isn't the same game. They're preserving what they can, but only so long as it is consistent with the vision they want to achieve as part of this being a numbered entry instead of a spinoff. That simple name change puts a different set of requirements on the story from Square Enix's perspective, which I can understand.
 
Actually in this latest Active Time Report Tabata came right out and said this isn't the same game. They're preserving what they can, but only so long as it is consistent with the vision they want to achieve as part of this being a numbered entry instead of a spinoff. That simple name change puts a different set of requirements on the story from Square Enix's perspective, which I can understand.
The problem is that changing Stella's character doesn't make sense. Or at least the vision that was shown to fans.

everything else was minuscle. Removing specific scenes doesn't equal removing an entire character and replacing them all together.
 
Well, when you're writing a story, you're going to change things. This isn't an opinion, this is a fact. Hell, I'm writing a story at the moment that I'm really kind of digging. You see, there's a problem, though. The main character I have planned isn't working as a main character. They make a great supporting character, but as far as main character goes, they just aren't cutting it. This is because I've added things to my story. These things I've added are pretty neat in my totally unbiased opinion of my writing skill, but because of the nature of these events, I've come to realize that my planned main character can't be the main character. Either they become a supporting character, or I go full on George RR Martin and I do some thing where I have multiple main characters and each chapter is told from a different perspective.

So, you see, something's got to give. I don't want those events in my future unpublished forever novel to be thrown out the window. So I started writing up a main character things would work for. My previous main character still exists, but she's not the main anymore.

Writers can do many things here. They could keep Stella, yes. Hell, it's more than likely. But removing a character from a story completely isn't something a writer does lightly. (Unless you're George RR Martin, in which that character was likely removed through murder as you roll around in a pool of your own money while jacking off furiously with the tears of your devoted fans.) You can either make the character something else, remove the character, sacrifice that quality of the story as a whole to force something you can't make work, or attempt to appease everyone and make everyone happy by ultimately sacrificing the quality of your story for fanserice (looking at you Sherlock Series 3).

Now, with that being said, I honestly don't believe SE all that great at telling stories anymore. Since FFX I've been disappointed with the series. They've proven they can still make a game fun (FFX, FFXII, and FFXIV). But their stories are just... not good. I love FFXIV to death, but their high points in story telling aren't anything amazing, and their lows are very, very, low. So the fact that they've actually taken a step back, thought about what's best for a story, and taken a measure to address this has me hopeful.

This proves that SE is starting to second guess their writing for a change. They're doing something they believe is best for the overall plot by removing a character who, to be perfectly honest here, we didn't know much about anyway. Of course, this could blow up in their faces. Remember when they thought that FFXII needed Vaan? But that was a character added, not removed.

So yes, call me nieve, but I'm actually somewhat hopeful that they're paying this much attention to their writing instead of going "throw some shit at the wall and see what sticks". I don't expect people to agree with this. However, I would rather have amazing scenes and amazing story telling instead of average scenes and yet another Shakespearean love story in a JRPG because they didn't want to remove one character.
 
The problem is that changing Stella's character doesn't make sense. Or at least the vision that was shown to fans.

It probably doesn't make sense because we know practically nothing about the storyline. Saying that she could easily have been adapted without any concept of the story and plot is more guess work than anything.
 
It probably doesn't make sense because we know practically nothing about the storyline. Saying that she could easily have been adapted without any concept of the story and plot is more guess work than anything.
its not guess work. its easy to do with what was revealed. Stella had few scenes, interact with Noctis, and at one point fight noctis. confiremd by reviews, Stella and Noctis relationship would be complicated. We didn't really had to know every single scene to know what the goal of Stella was.

But now, removing Stella, is not only replacing her name, her background, but also her ROLE. and thats something that shows a lot in the current trailer.

Well, when you're writing a story, you're going to change things. This isn't an opinion, this is a fact. Hell, I'm writing a story at the moment that I'm really kind of digging. You see, there's a problem, though. The main character I have planned isn't working as a main character. They make a great supporting character, but as far as main character goes, they just aren't cutting it. This is because I've added things to my story. These things I've added are pretty neat in my totally unbiased opinion of my writing skill, but because of the nature of these events, I've come to realize that my planned main character can't be the main character. Either they become a supporting character, or I go full on George RR Martin and I do some thing where I have multiple main characters and each chapter is told from a different perspective.


So, you see, something's got to give. I don't want those events in my future unpublished forever novel to be thrown out the window. So I started writing up a main character things would work for. My previous main character still exists, but she's not the main anymore.


Writers can do many things here. They could keep Stella, yes. Hell, it's more than likely. But removing a character from a story completely isn't something a writer does lightly. (Unless you're George RR Martin, in which that character was likely removed through murder as you roll around in a pool of your own money while jacking off furiously with the tears of your devoted fans.) You can either make the character something else, remove the character, sacrifice that quality of the story as a whole to force something you can't make work, or attempt to appease everyone and make everyone happy by ultimately sacrificing the quality of your story for fanserice (looking at you Sherlock Series 3).


Now, with that being said, I honestly don't believe SE all that great at telling stories anymore. Since FFX I've been disappointed with the series. They've proven they can still make a game fun (FFX, FFXII, and FFXIV). But their stories are just... not good. I love FFXIV to death, but their high points in story telling aren't anything amazing, and their lows are very, very, low. So the fact that they've actually taken a step back, thought about what's best for a story, and taken a measure to address this has me hopeful.


This proves that SE is starting to second guess their writing for a change. They're doing something they believe is best for the overall plot by removing a character who, to be perfectly honest here, we didn't know much about anyway. Of course, this could blow up in their faces. Remember when they thought that FFXII needed Vaan? But that was a character added, not removed.


So yes, call me nieve, but I'm actually somewhat hopeful that they're paying this much attention to their writing instead of going "throw some shit at the wall and see what sticks". I don't expect people to agree with this. However, I would rather have amazing scenes and amazing story telling instead of average scenes and yet another Shakespearean love story in a JRPG because they didn't want to remove one character.

What you said would have made sense if.....this was the same director and same writer. At this point, new team, new writers and trying to keep to the original design is being not because they can't do it, because they don't understand it.

At this point, they aren't asking for help. For example, replacing Stella. It doesn't look like it was done by the previous developers approval or that they sought out to save the character. It seems more like it just didn't "appeal" to them at all.

they had more technical reasons for the others. When it came to stella, there just wasn't much to reveal. Hopefully they give a better answer once the game is released and the ultimania is also released.
 
I think you've misunderstood the point a little. You originally said that the removal of Stella didn't make sense. The question here isn't whether or not Stella had a goal, it's about whether that goal fits in with the storyline as it now stands. Like Abstract Debauchery said, as stories develop, particular characters and the roles they may become obsolete and no loner serve a function. Although the developers are trying to keep a lot of the original story they can't keep it all in light of recreating the game as a stand alone title rather than a spin off. We don't know the current story so we can't say whether or not they could keep Stella in due to the newer additions and development in the game's plot; which again, we know nothing about.
 
Back
Top