Square Enix has confirmed that the widely respected First Production Department developing Final Fantasy XV (formerly known as Final Fantasy Versus XIII) includes many famous creators. Shinji Hashimoto (producer), Tetsuya Nomura (director and character designer), Hajime Tabata (co-director) and Takeshi Nozue (lead art director) are all on board for the development of Final Fantasy XV, as is Yoko Shimomura, the famed composer who is best known for her work in the Kingdom Hearts series.
Here are the games that will be leaving the Extra and Premium tiers of the PS Plus subscription service in the month of May, 2024.
Absolver Downfall
Abzu
Adrift
Ashen
Elex
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy VIII Remastered
Final Fantasy IX
Final Fantasy X | X-2
Final Fantasy XII The Zodiac Age
Final Fantasy XV Royal Edition
How To Survive 2
I Am Dead
Jotun
Last Stop
Minit
Moster Jam Steel Titans 2
My Friend Pedro
Observation
Sundered Eldritch Edition
The Artful Escape
The Messenger
This Is The Police
This Is The Police 2
World of Final Fantasy
Gary Green said: With my fondness for (most) Final Fantasy games and my side goal of finishing off games in my collection with loose ends, a return to Final Fantasy XV seemed inevitable. It also serves as my third Final Fantasy platinum trophy after VII and VIII, a reasonable substitute since Final Fantasy IX is nigh on impossible to master.
Final Fantasy 15's director has revealed why he left Square Enix back in 2018.
Hajime Tabata famously resigned from Square Enix two years after Final Fantasy 15 shipped in 2016. In a special livestream at the time, Tabata announced his decision to resign from the company, cancelling three of four new story-focused DLC episodes for Final Fantasy 15 in the process.
Man inherited a train wreck and was expected to release this game in under two years after it spent a better part of a decade in development hell. At one point there was even plans to make FFXIII Versus a musical. He did what he could.
Whatever the behind-the-scenes went on over the many years, at the end of the day it was a radical change in direction that I could not go along with. Also why I never bought 16.
The name that leaps out to me is Yoko Shimomura. Kingdom Hearts had some great music, and IMHO recent Final Fantasies have barely managed to get 1-2 tracks of music that were any good, with most of the melodies being indistinguishable from elevator music.
Some good music can go a long way to helping me forgive certain game design flaws. Remember how linear level design was in FFX? I don't--because the soundtrack was phenomenal.
Phenomenal team working on this game. Cannot wait wait for this to finally come out.
FFXV is going to be so good. All the people working on it are the best talent Square has right now. And the best part is that Toriyama has nothing to do with this project!
Tabata, Takeshi and Nomura. ;)
Tabata proved himself by directing the mess that Toriyama created, Parasite Eve 3rd Birthday. The only bad thing about that game was the story which was written by mediocre Toriyama. Square should fire that guy for good already so we don't have to play any more of his games. He always write the worst stories and he's a failed director obsessed with waifus.
Toriyama even almost ruin FF7 at one point but Sakaguchi was there to stop him. In an old interview Sakaguchi even joked that Toriyama has very weird ideas but to me he's just a pervert with no talent. How he earned such a high position at Square? We have Wada to blame for that and the fact that many key people left the company to fund Mistwalker (which sadly almost went bankruptcy for refusing to create games for PS3 and now they are stuck making social games), so Toriyama was the person with the most experience with the FF franchise. But still, Wada bet on the worst horse and thank god he's not he president anymore too, so I bet Square will be much better from now on.
It's rumored that FF15 is open world. I hear it's going to be huge. I'm glad that FF series went back to a darker, grittier world to roam, with amazing graphics and battle system . . . (don't get angry at me for saying this) FF15 could be the FF7 of nextgen.
If no one will say it I will. This is the "All-Star development team" that took 6 years to get this game going. And lied about it being exclusive to PlayStation. Yeah, I'm salty about it, so what lol It does look like a phenomenal game, though.