Entry #4: Episode Tetsae

I'm currently on a train to Tokyo to see Yosuke Matsuda, CEO of Square Enix, and since I have a laptop (yes I've cleaned it thoroughly since my release from the Chinese prison) and a lot of time, I thought I'd let the world in on some prime info.

So a couple weeks ago Square finally released a demo for Final Fantasy XV (true name: Final Fantasy Versus XIII, and will always be) titled "Episode Duscae". Pretentious Latin names aside (and yes I know people will slam my games for being pretentious too but the difference is fuck you), it's a very lackluster demo. But the truth of its lackluster-ness goes deeper than many might think.

I was actually involved in working on the demo before my relocation to Kingdom Hearts 3 (which is definitely a game and will come out even though we have zero evidence of that). Hajime Tabata, new director of Final Fantasy XV, was also working on the game at this point as well, and we obviously butted heads on how the demo should go.

So here, for the first time ever, I'm going to include my original game design document for the Final Fantasy XV Versus XIII demo, titled "Episode Sunsetae"

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FINAL FANTASY XV VERSUS XIII DEMO DESIGN DOCUMENT

"EPISODE SUNSETAE"

THE GENESIS - CREATING THE CONCEPT OF THE WORLD OF THE GAME THAT YOU WILL BE PLAYING WITH YOUR HANDS
It is called Episode Sunsetae because it will take place at sunset. But it will have a day/night cycle so this name doesn't really make much sense.

THE PHILOSOPHY - THE DREAMING BEHIND WHAT I AM MAKING
The goal of this demo is to introduce players to the gameplay and world of the epic role-playing game Final Fantasy XV Versus XIII. The aim is to show the player that this game is DARK, filled to the brim with EMOTION, and way, way better than Final Fantasy XIII, and in many ways versus that.

THE CONTINUATION - CONTINUING THE THING I AM DOING (CHARACTER DESIGN © TETSUYA NOMURA)
Character designs are all done by me, Tetsuya Nomura (© Tetsuya Nomura), so they will be good.

THE BEING OF WHERE YOU ARE - WARUDO DESIGN
In the world of Final Fantasy Versus XIII it is always night time and all the governments are corrupt. A random number generator will decide if it is raining but the generator is programmed to always have it raining, so it is always raining. Noctis' hair can get wet and it looks really cool when it is wet.

THE ECONOMICS OF THE MAKING - MERCHANT OPPORTUNITY
Okay now we get to the important part: merchandising. I'm envisioning like a whole line of custom action figures, some to be included with the collector's edition of the demo, which will retail on its own for $79.99. No standard edition is currently planned and frankly I don't want any poor-ass motherfuckers touching my penis game.

THE LISTENING - WHAT YOUR EARS WILL DETECT
A soundtrack that is DARK and filled with EMOTION, preferably in audio form using various instruments, mainly Latin choirs.

THE TELLING OF THE GAME - EMOTION STORY
After being told he is too badass, Noctis journeys from his hometown to somehow become less badass. He first travels to see Hajime Tabata a character named Tajime Habata, who is a fucking nerd, and consults with him on how to be less badass. Tajime tells his DARK backstory, but because he's such a nerd nobody cares and so Noctis still doesn't know how to be less badass.

Noctis then journeys to go see his girl Stella, who tells him it's fine that he's so badass because she likes it. He says to her, bitch, it ain't all about you, and decides to go to the Sunsetae region for some reason in his dope-ass car with his three closest bros Prompto, Ignis, and Six-Pack Mullet.

This is where the demo officially begins. Players must explore the Sunsetae region for something that can make Noctis less badass. I have yet to determine what thing is.

USE OF YOUR HANDS ON THE GAME - THE GAMEPLAY
Since the combat system is nowhere near being done and will pretty much just fall apart into a demonic mass of pixels and leather at the slightest player input, the party will remain in Noctis' car and kill monsters by ramming them and running them over. The car will gain experience.

SIDEQUESTS
Shit, I forgot we had to have these. Gimme like ten minutes.

FURTHER ECONOMICS - ECONOMICS FURTHER
So I'm thinking since Noctis' swords are pretty cool that we can make like replicas of them and sell them separately. If this were to be done I would want a percentage of all profits as well as an advance payment. And don't think I'm gonna fall for being paid in Square Enix stock. I wipe my ass with that shit. I wouldn't trust the structural integrity of a gingerbread house built out of that shit. If I papered the walls of a daycare with that shit they'd shut it down and replace it with asbestos. Seriously, don't fuck me on that shit.

Also important to note that nobody should touch the Noctis wig in my office or attempt to reproduce it for public sale. That's mine alone. For work reasons.

COMPUTING THE BYTES AND ETC
We will do our best to keep the file size under 3 MB without sacrificing the visual quality of the game.

OTHER NOTES
I am so hard right now.

***

So I hope you enjoyed that sneak peek. I have a little more info in some earlier posts on this blog, perhaps a little too much, but I'm not very good with computers (ironic lol) so I don't know how to delete it.

My train is arriving so hopefully next I'll be able to update you on my meeting with Matsuda (you idiot!). Just keep an eye on the headlines. Your boy will be back in no time.

Nomura out.

Entry #3: Please excuse my unexplained five year absence. Also I'm not directing FFXV anymore.

So I know it's been almost five years since I last updated this blog, but hopefully you'll accept that as some meta-attempt at making this blog as similar to Final Fantasy XV as possible, in that I've completely forgotten its existence for long stretches of time over the past decade.

But the more pressing issue at the moment is my termination from Square Enix. Yes, you read that right: I am being fired, as soon as I finish Kingdom Hearts 3. I've spent the last three months in some godforsaken Chinese prison, which is weird because I was banned from China 7 years ago for reasons I'm legally not allowed to go into here. So I'll just say that I'm sorry to all those farmers and hope their crop has continued to be sterilized many times over since my departure.

Anyway, yeah, FFXV. So that's definitely a game, right? Oh yeah, by the way, it might not have been clear but Square Enix put me in that prison. They (correctly I guess) identified that the reason my games have been taking so long to complete is that I can't keep myself in the office and inevitably wander over to Shinjuku or something to buy anything leather I can get my hands on. And also Kingdom Hearts trinkets because that shit is dope. I can't fucking believe I designed something that dope.

So they figured keeping me in the prison would naturally limit my ability to, you know, get out. And that if they stuck a computer in there I'd be forced to work on the game. But joke's on them because I've spent the last three months doing nothing but what you'd end up doing if you were in a prison for three months with no female contact and had internet access.

I'm guessing that's part of the reason they're firing me, but holy shit, I'm pretty sure it's gotta be illegal for an employer to keep a dude locked up in prison. If not then Japan has way more fucked up things to worry about than finishing a video game that was announced 10 years ago.

So yeah I'm officially off FFXV and working full force on Kingdom Hearts 3. I'm excited, I guess. I don't know, when FFXIII came out I came up with the idea to make Final Fantasy Versus XIII because I wanted to make FFXIII, but versus that. It was brilliant, and nobody was doing it, probably because it didn't make much sense, but I was sure I could get it to work. And I was getting it to work for a while. But then a couple years passed. Then 5 years, then 7 years...

And now we're at 9 years since the first E3 2006 announcement of Final Fantasy Versus XIII. The game is Final Fantasy XV now obviously, and I've been replaced by Hajime Tabata, who honestly is a really cool dude. I mean really cool. Honestly he's way more qualified than I am to handle this project, and if he'd been on it since the beginning this game would've come out in, like, 2007 or something. I haven't been able to say that because I've wanted to keep my job, but that's not a concern for me anymore, is it?

In the Chinese prison the inmates had a saying: "Whoever comes second, wasn't good enough for first. Whoever comes first, is inadequate." Sex jokes aside, that saying has a lot of meaning to me, and not just because it's what they screamed as they did unspeakable things to me. To me it says that it's not always best to come first, because then the girl's just laying there all mad and nobody's gonna have a good time.

So it's not really such a big deal that Tabata has taken over my project. My project. That I birthed. And raised. And poured all my heart into for almost a decade.

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God fucking DAMMIT!

THEY TOOK MY BABY FROM ME! GODFUCKINGDAMNYOU SQUARE ENIX! GODFUCKINGDAMNYOU MATSUDA! PUT ME IN A FUCKING CHINESE PRISON WILL YOU!!!! FUCK SHIMOMURA AND NAORA AND THE WHOLE GODDAMN FUCKING TEAM AND FUCK UEMATSU AND SAKAGUCHI TOO JUST BECAUSE!

I'm not fucking going out like this. FFXV is MINE! IT'S FUCKING MINE!!!! And I'm not going to rest until the world sees MY ORIGINAL VISION for FINAL FANTASY VERSUS XIII (AS IS ITS PROPER NAME!!!!).

I'm getting my game back. Fuck Kingdom Hearts 3, you guys have waited 11 years, what's another decade?

First step: I've gotta pay a visit to the new Square Enix CEO: Yosuke Matsuda.

Entry #2: Versus the Grain

So many people are curious as to what exactly Final Fantasy Versus XIII is like in relation to the actual Final Fantasy XIII. Well, a while back I was asked to design the characters for Final Fantasy XIII. I remember how Motomu Toriyama, the game's director, told me to do the designs.

His breath reeked of pretzels and Heineken, and he smiled at me with crooked yellow teeth as he told me, "Make Cloud hot."

So I made Lightning. And then the madness continued. He asked me to make characters that slowly became more and more insane and ridiculous, culminating in Vanille.

At that point I had had it. I couldn't work on a game that every fiber of my being was opposed to, forced to create abominations like Vanille. So I went to Yoichi Wada, the Square Enix President, and asked him if I could create my own version of Final Fantasy XIII.

"What if, like, it was Final Fantasy XIII, but like the opposite?" I suggested.

He stared at me for a second, and then said, "That's the dumbest idea I've ever heard."

Luckily I had embezzled millions of dollars in company money, for various weekend zipper-binges and such, and so I went ahead and started my own project.

And thus, Final Fantasy Versus XIII was born.

Of course, going against Wada's orders meant we couldn't just sit in the middle of the company and develop a game. We'd be caught. So I had everyone set up in a janitor's closet where pre-production began. I brought in Yoko Shimomura, who would be the composer for this game, and asked her to compose something dark and edgy to be the main theme.

"Like, an opera thing," I said, "in fucking Latin. How hardcore would that be?"

She looked kind of confused but diligently began work on the main theme. As it turns out, the janitor who's closet we were using was rinsing off his mop quietly in the corner when he heard me discussing the main theme.

"Hey, do you mind if I suggest an idea?" he asked. "What if the main theme was an 80s love ballad?"

I considered this for a second, and eventually said, "Nah, it's not dark and edgy enough. But your ideas might be good for another game, I guess. What's your name?"

"Nobuo Uematsu," he said, stroking his mustache. "We used to work togeth--"

"Yeah, that's great," I said. "I don't mean to be rude, but we're kind of, like, developing a multi-million dollar game here and all, and this closet is packed enough as it is."

I fished in my pocket and handed him a key. "Here, for now you can use my office as your janitor headquarters...thingy... Just don't mess with the Cloud action figures. I spent a lot of time setting them up so that the light from my desk lamp his them perfectly."

He looked at the key for a second, a look of anger crossing his face, and said, "Wait, this is the key to my old off--"

"Yoko! How's that theme coming?" I asked, and she gave me the finger.

So development continued for the next few months. While the Final Fantasy XIII team continued to make their stupid on-rails Korean soap opera, I crafted a work of true EMOTION, that would BREAK into the Japanese leather-fetishist scene and take everyone from behind, positioning itself firmly between their buttocks and ramming away with the force of a game that definitely knows what the hell it's doing, and isn't just trying to be dark and edgy to appeal to the teen fanbase.

Eventually, we had enough footage to make a two minute trailer. At the Tokyo Game Show, when Square Enix wasn't looking, we snuck into their booth and ran our trailer on every screen they had.

Fan reaction was amazing, especially from the Japanese leather-fetishist scene. As a result, Wada and I had a talk.

"Game's, like, popular," I said. "People want to see this, like, now. Looks like you have no choice but to greenlight it."

I stood there, smug as hell. He looked at me, and said, "Where did you get the money to start this development?"

So right now I'm sitting in a jail cell updating this blog, waiting for that janitor to come bail me out so I can continue development on this masterpiece. I see him coming and wave, trying to get his attention.

"Matisyahu! Over here!"

He furrows his eyebrows and says, "It's 'Uematsu'. Come on, we worked together for like ten ye--"

"Come on, I need to get out! My brain's, like, exploding with gameplay ideas."

He sighed and motioned to a guard, who unlocked my cell.

So now development continues. I hope to make this journal more than just a place for me to lock away my most private musings in a place accessible by the entirety of the world. I will also provide exclusive gameplay information on the characters, story, battle system (which is mostly explained in the last post), and most important of all, the dark theme of the true Final Fantasy XIII, but Versus that.

Nomura out.

Entry #1: Intro and Musings

NOMURA Note: This is the first part of the script, penned personally by me. This probably won't be the version that appears in the final game, so I decided to publish it here so the public could at least view it once in its original form.

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A dark city -- everyone wears leather clothes and the government is corrupt -- rain falls -- thunder and lightning split the sky

Noctis walks out of a building carrying a paper bag filled with bread and juice -- opera music blares and builds to a crescendo -- everything is fucking epic -- Noctis starts walking down the street -- he stops at the corner when he sees a dog.

Noctis: Hey, dog, I've been seeing you here every time I get groceries. Do you have a home?

The dog stares at him -- the opera music builds and builds -- the dog stares at Noctis -- he doesn't move

Noctis: Do you want some bread?

Noctis fishes in his paper bag -- the music is unbearably loud and epic now -- everything is about to explode

Cut to a shot of Stella running down the street -- she is being chased by hooded figures

Hooded Figure 1: What is a life of darkness? How can one even call it life when there is no light?

Hooded Figure 2: How dost thou cope with a cruel world? And how dost thou get thine ass so tight? Goddamn, come here so I can scoop thine supple cheeks up.

Stella screams and cuts through an alley -- the corrupt government police officers don't help her -- she sees a boy with a giant key but pushes him aside believing him to be another predator -- she sees the end of the alley

Cut to Noctis who has a piece of bread in his hand and is about to feed it to the dog -- the opera music has hit a peak and is sustaining one note for epic maximum tension and drama

Noctis: Here you go, doggie.

The dog eats the bed as a chaotic crash of instruments comes down from the sustained note -- gunshots are heard and the music breaks into the game's theme song -- "I Luv It" by Young Jeezy

Stella explodes out of the alley and trips -- she sprawls out across the street -- she has ended up at the street corner where Noctis is feeding the dog -- he sees her

Noctis: Stella? What are you doing here?

The Hooded Figures also explode out of the alley -- they make their way towards Stella -- Noctis jumps into action and the game's tutorial battle begins

TUTORIAL BATTLE - ACTION ENERGY FREE-TIME FOUR-DIMENSIONAL BATTLE FLOW SYSTEM

(AEFTFDBFS)

Tutorial Message: Welcome to your first battle in Final Fantasy Versus XIII! You will be having many battles, so it is best to familiarize yourself with the system. First, a list of the controls for battle:

BATTLE CONTROLS

1. Left Analog Stick - Move Left Leg

2. Right Analog Stick - Move Right Leg

3. X Button - Jump

4. O Button - Angst

5. Square Button - Insult

6. Triangle Button - Read Enemy's Diary

7. L1 Button - Update Twitter on iMac

8. L2 Button - Angst

9. R1 Button - Quote Shakespeare

10. R2 Button - Relate Shakespeare to themes of Light, Darkness, Fate, Friendship, and Death

11. D-Pad Left/Right/Up/Down - Move eyeballs

12. L3 Button - Tap dance with left leg

13. R3 Button - Tap dance with right leg

14. Start Button - Anti-Pause/Speed up game

15. Select Button - Get to the Chopper

Tutorial Message: Because it is a radical reinvention of the series, Final Fantasy Versus XIII does not feature typical RPG staples like HP, magic, leveling, items, or armed combat. Instead, Final Fantasy Versus XIII features the new EMOTION BREAK system.

Tutorial Message (cont'd): Let's demonstrate how you will be using the EMOTION BREAK system to defeat enemies in combat.

Step 1: When the battle begins, use the L3 and R3 buttons in conjunction with timed analog stick movements to perform a tap dance routine.

Step 2: The enemy should become distracted by your dancing and try to mimic it. While it does this, press the TRIANGLE button to steal and read the enemy's diary. You can only steal the diary of an enemy who has either been distracted by dancing or made vulnerable by angsting. Thus, another strategy is to press the CIRCLE button to angst.

Step 3: Read the diary. This will power up your "Insult" ability. Once it is done, press the SQUARE button to use your newfound knowledge of the enemy's insecurities and crushes on certain pre-pubescent male singers to BREAK his EMOTION, which is signified by a heart icon. When the heart splits completely in two, you win the battle.

Tutorial Message: This the basic strategy, but bear in mind that enemies will do everything possible to protect their diaries. In certain cases they might not be distracted by your dancing, in which case you will have to do radical things such as Quote Shakespeare and discuss Light and Dark.

Tutorial Message (cont'd): From here on out, the battle is up to you! Good luck on figuring out the system, because we sure as hell don't know what to do with it.

Noctis defeats the enemies -- they explode into a million pieces and he stands badass over them -- Stella is on the ground and he helps her up

Noctis: Hey, you alright?

Stella: Yeah, thanks, Noctis.

Noctis: Who were those men chasing you?

Stella: Oh, them? I don't know. They said they were messengers, here to taint the kingdom of light with darkness.

Noctis gasps and staggers backwards -- he falls to his knees and hands in shock -- the music is very tense and has latin choir singing in it -- lightning flashes in the sky -- thunder cracks -- Noctis struggles to speak

Noctis: Wi...with darkness...? Our kingdom is done for...

The dog finishes eating his bread and walks off -- he wags his tail and the happy mood coming from him is meant to be a juxtaposition of the extreme seriousness and darkness of Noctis' story

***

Wow, powerful stuff right? Stay tuned, we will have plenty of news on the game from here on out.

Nomura out.