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Versus XIII Leaks could hint to Verum Rex



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Idreamaboutcats

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The fact that Luxu doesn’t recognize him and questions who he is, is also telling that he clearly wasn’t anywhere involved with the war or the Dandelions, at least, not directly.
 

Chie

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The fact that Luxu doesn’t recognize him and questions who he is, is also telling that he clearly wasn’t anywhere involved with the war or the Dandelions, at least, not directly.
Or changed his name and face just like Luxu did, but without eachother knowing. But if the JP voice matches then yeah I'll agree there must be a connection with the bus driver.
 

Idreamaboutcats

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Or changed his name and face just like Luxu did, but without eachother knowing. But if the JP voice matches then yeah I'll agree there must be a connection with the bus driver.
Limousine, that or an Audi…
 

Chie

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Wow, I did not even notice I was saying that for the last two posts lol.
 

Ballad of Caius

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I don't think the MoM has changed appearances. I think the MoM has stayed the same age (assuming he hasn't aged) by just traveling to the specific points in time he needs to be at.

Other than that, I hope that the reveal of the MoM's identity is who he is and not someone realizing his identity, unlike Luxu. Luxu is just someone inside Braig, what I hope for is that the MoM is actually someone 100% organically himself and not possessing someone.
 

SS501

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When Final Fantasy XV got released in 2017, people were shocked that it was nothing like Versus XIII trailers. Actually not a single frame of any trailer released before 2017 is part of the main game. Naturally, some rumors started to appear related to the story who got completely rewritten when Nomura got replaced and they were running out of time.
Among some rumors, I remember reading a thread about an unconfirmed leak that was explaining what the story of Versus XIII was about. And of course, I thought that it would be interesting to put it in perspective with Verum Rex and how it relates to Sora.

Of course, none of it is official, probably false, but still, let's have some fun reviewing those key plots.

Spoiler warning for a game that never existed: VersusXIII

- Stella was supposed to appear only to Noctis. She was supposed to be a ghost which visited Noctis from the afterlife. The crystal commanded Noctis to kill her when they were children.
- The brother of Stella was named Lupus Nox Fleuret and was supposed to be another chosen from the crystal.
- Prompto and Gladio were supposed to betray Noctis.
- The story was supposed to explore the world of dreams. Not sure what this means except that Noctis had issues understanding what is real and what is a dream. That was the main focus of the story and Nomura favorite plot element. My guess is that this concept will be reused in Verum Rex (actually it is already reused).

Did you hear other rumors like that? What do you think about it?
Sorry for bumping this thread but i felt i had to set the record straight. The leak was fake.
For one Stella was not dead, SE released Roberto Ferrari's storyboard from 2013 when it was still being directed by Nomura.
Stella was alive, interacted with other characters, and shown speaking to Noctis through her mobile phone. Ghosts can't do that.
She was also shown to be injured and bleeding wearing her Versus XIII outfit (not the formal white party dress). Ghosts don't bleed.

"Lupus Nox Flueret" was a name found inside the files of FFXV, the "leaker" probably saw the datamine and took it from there.
The scene of Ravus (possibly named Lupus back then) where he fights Noctis inside the crystal/throne room was also still in.

The dream stuff, the "leaker" most likely got inspired by DDD, he most likely assumed that it would be believable because Nomura had already done a similar thing with KH.

That "leak" also talks about Gentiana, he fucked up. Her role in Versus XIII was nothing like what he described. Roberto Ferrari who said he had read the entirety of the Versus XIII script, described Gentiana's role and his storyboard from 2013 completely supports his claim. Gentiana was a Tenebrae general, Stella's guardian and acted as a messenger between Tenebrae and Insomnia.

I could go on but there is no point, it's obvious that the "leaker" wasn't aware of Roberto Ferrari's facebook posts (most likely because they were written in Italian) and hadn't seen the old storyboard released by SE.

Edit: I should also note that "Lupus" (wolf) most like WAS his name. Back in Versus all nations had their very own Summon representing them (something XVI does now too). For example Insomnia had Odin (although his design was not the typical Odin design, he was half horse half a skeleton knight and his head was similar to Lucis emblem before XV censored and changed it to the shape of the capital), for Nifelheim it was Bahamut. Tenebrae most likely had Fenrir as its summon since Ravus' outfit had the design of a purple wolf on it (much like Nifelheim had the design of a red dragon on their clothes and flags). The purple wolf in Ravus' outfit was replaced with a blue unicorn in XV.
 
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AegisXIII

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Sorry for bumping this thread but i felt i had to set the record straight. The leak was fake.
For one Stella was not dead, SE released Roberto Ferrari's storyboard from 2013 when it was still being directed by Nomura.
Stella was alive, interacted with other characters, and shown speaking to Noctis through her mobile phone. Ghosts can't do that.
She was also shown to be injured and bleeding wearing her Versus XIII outfit (not the formal white party dress). Ghosts don't bleed.

"Lupus Nox Flueret" was a name found inside the files of FFXV, the "leaker" probably saw the datamine and took it from there.
The scene of Ravus (possibly named Lupus back then) where he fights Noctis inside the crystal/throne room was also still in.

The dream stuff, the "leaker" most likely got inspired by DDD, he most likely assumed that it would be believable because Nomura had already done a similar thing with KH.

That "leak" also talks about Gentiana, he fucked up. Her role in Versus XIII was nothing like what he described. Roberto Ferrari who said he had read the entirety of the Versus XIII script, described Gentiana's role and his storyboard from 2013 completely supports his claim. Gentiana was a Tenebrae general, Stella's guardian and acted as a messenger between Tenebrae and Insomnia.

I could go on but there is no point, it's obvious that the "leaker" wasn't aware of Roberto Ferrari's facebook posts (most likely because they were written in Italian) and hadn't seen the old storyboard released by SE.

Edit: I should also note that "Lupus" (wolf) most like WAS his name. Back in Versus all nations had their very own Summon representing them (something XVI does now too). For example Insomnia had Odin (although his design was not the typical Odin design, he was half horse half a skeleton knight and his head was similar to Lucis emblem before XV censored and changed it to the shape of the capital), for Nifelheim it was Bahamut. Tenebrae most likely had Fenrir as its summon since Ravus' outfit had the design of a purple wolf on it (much like Nifelheim had the design of a red dragon on their clothes and flags). The purple wolf in Ravus' outfit was replaced with a blue unicorn in XV.
Thanks for the info. Even if all of the dream stuff is fake, it's weird to see that the cancelled dlc of noctis was supposed to be about his dream inside the crystal. Maybe that's why people thought it would be the most versus13 callback of them all.
 

ZeVaine

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I'm excited for us to experience the various ideas that Nomura had for FF13 Versus, with this new coat of pain and context in (or perhaps just remotely adjacent to) the KH universe. I think Nomura really spent a lot of time and effort with many story ideas (I believe he states something along the lines of no one actually knows what that original story was, even if they recognize some aspects that of it that looks familiar or similar) and concepts that he had to shelve for years - and I love how he's finally managed to try and get those lost ideas put into a future product somehow.
 

SS501

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Thanks for the info. Even if all of the dream stuff is fake, it's weird to see that the cancelled dlc of noctis was supposed to be about his dream inside the crystal. Maybe that's why people thought it would be the most versus13 callback of them all.
The dream inside the crystal if you read the novel, is all about the original versus xiii timeline as it begins with Noctis fighting the imperials on the stairs of Insomnia just like the Versus XIII announcement 2006 trailer. In the novel Noctis while dreaming also keeps commenting on how familiar all this is to him, as if a version of himself really did experience all that. This is most likely alluding to the "alternate universe" concept that XV's DLCs had going for them (like Ignis alternate ending) more than the "dream" concept of the leak. It was just the developers trying to give players more of the cut Versus concepts through the mechanic of dreaming inside the crystal. The Versus XIII outfit DLC added in Dissidia is also named "Garb from another world" in Japanese and "otherworldly garb" in English, as if to suggest that Versus XIII is an alternate universe of FFXV.

None of the DLCs were directed by Tabata, who going by his interviews and the content he cut from the base game, seemed to hate anything to do with Versus and tried to distance XV from Versus as much as possible. Most of the DLCs tried to bring back Versus concepts one way or another, even Armiger unleashed brings back a ton of cut animations from 2013 gameplay trailer and even adds in animations shown in the Versus XIII 2006 trailer.

Even Episode Ardyn contradicts the base game directed by Tabata. For example in the base game Ardyn says that "You'll never guess whos name "Izunia" was" subtly implying that Izunia was probably the name of the people who usurped his throne (aka Noctis true family name). In Episode Ardyn which was not directed by Tabata, the team completely retconned this and stated that the Izunia name was a random name of no importance that he got after becoming an imperial citizen, bringing back the drama and tragedy of Ardyn being betrayed by his own brother instead of some other family.

To me it seems like the devs really wanted to show people a glimpse of Versus XIII, as if the game the devs wanted to make was Versus instead of XV. Using the crystal to show Noctis dreams of an alternate reality was just their way of doing it without completely breaking the story of base XV imo.

They had done this in the past too with the dreams they crystal showed to Regis in the Omen trailer, showing him "a possible future out of many" with Noctis fighting Luna, referencing Noctis fighting Stella in that Versus XIII trailer. What they called dreams in XV was just "alternate universes" where the story played differently. It's worth noting that Omen Trailer wasn't made by Squre but by an outside studio who was tasked with making a trailer based on an old script and old outdated concepts.

Edit: Oh it's also worth noting that "crystal making you dream" is a concept from the FNC mythos that Versus was based on that FFXV pretty much completely ignored and scrapped any references to it. In FNC people who fall into crystal stasis see "dreams" of different possibilities. In FNC the word "dream" is always in quotation marks implying they're not actual dreams.
 
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AegisXIII

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The dream inside the crystal if you read the novel, is all about the original versus xiii timeline as it begins with Noctis fighting the imperials on the stairs of Insomnia just like the Versus XIII announcement 2006 trailer. In the novel Noctis while dreaming also keeps commenting on how familiar all this is to him, as if a version of himself really did experience all that. This is most likely alluding to the "alternate universe" concept that XV's DLCs had going for them (like Ignis alternate ending) more than the "dream" concept of the leak. It was just the developers trying to give players more of the cut Versus concepts through the mechanic of dreaming inside the crystal. The Versus XIII outfit DLC added in Dissidia is also named "Garb from another world" in Japanese and "otherworldly garb" in English, as if to suggest that Versus XIII is an alternate universe of FFXV.

None of the DLCs were directed by Tabata, who going by his interviews and the content he cut from the base game, seemed to hate anything to do with Versus and tried to distance XV from Versus as much as possible. Most of the DLCs tried to bring back Versus concepts one way or another, even Armiger unleashed brings back a ton of cut animations from 2013 gameplay trailer and even adds in animations shown in the Versus XIII 2006 trailer.

Even Episode Ardyn contradicts the base game directed by Tabata. For example in the base game Ardyn says that "You'll never guess whos name "Izunia" was" subtly implying that Izunia was probably the name of the people who usurped his throne (aka Noctis true family name). In Episode Ardyn which was not directed by Tabata, the team completely retconned this and stated that the Izunia name was a random name of no importance that he got after becoming an imperial citizen, bringing back the drama and tragedy of Ardyn being betrayed by his own brother instead of some other family.

To me it seems like the devs really wanted to show people a glimpse of Versus XIII, as if the game the devs wanted to make was Versus instead of XV. Using the crystal to show Noctis dreams of an alternate reality was just their way of doing it without completely breaking the story of base XV imo.

They had done this in the past too with the dreams they crystal showed to Regis in the Omen trailer, showing him "a possible future out of many" with Noctis fighting Luna, referencing Noctis fighting Stella in that Versus XIII trailer. What they called dreams in XV was just "alternate universes" where the story played differently. It's worth noting that Omen Trailer wasn't made by Squre but by an outside studio who was tasked with making a trailer based on an old script and old outdated concepts.
You seem to know a lot about the history of the project. If Verum Rex ever comes a reality, it would be very instructive to talk to you to compare what is reused and what is a new concept. :)
 

SS501

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You seem to know a lot about the history of the project. If Verum Rex ever comes a reality, it would be very instructive to talk to you to compare what is reused and what is a new concept. :)
Haha to be honest i was always in love with the concept of Versus XIII and i have spend a ton of my free personal time to research the project, its lore and story, its development history and its differences with FFXV. I've been on this wild ride since 2006.

I'd love for Verum Rex to reuse as many concepts as possible, just so my soul can find peace after all these years. Sadly i don't think it will be possible if Verum Rex is to be done inside the KH universe and with Disney breathing down their necks. Fingers crossed Nomura will find a way, but his latest interviews regarding the matter don't inspire confidence, as he keeps insisting that Verum Rex and Versus XIII are entirely different.
 

AegisXIII

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I don't know. It seems that they have a HUGE lore that has never been exploited. It's hard to justify to throw all of that in the trash. They might do some adaptations, but part of it will be reused. Maybe that's why kh3 feels more convoluted than ever with this power of waking thing. They might have used a concept that has been maturing for 10 years in versus13 and it's too vaste to be properly exposed in one game.
Not to mention that versus13 already had some ties with kh3. I remember Nomura talking about the similarities between Sora and Noctis (now Yozora).
 

SS501

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Would you look at that, Magia and Aegis are talking to each other.
We live in the other side of KH, otherwise known as Unreality/Fiction. Confirmed. Joking aside though that made me laugh lol.

I don't know. It seems that they have a HUGE lore that has never been exploited. It's hard to justify to throw all of that in the trash. They might do some adaptations, but part of it will be reused. Maybe that's why kh3 feels more convoluted than ever with this power of waking thing. They might have used a concept that has been maturing for 10 years in versus13 and it's too vaste to be properly exposed in one game.
Not to mention that versus13 already had some ties with kh3. I remember Nomura talking about the similarities between Sora and Noctis (now Yozora).

I am secretly hopping that Versus XIII will be revived in its original form sometime in the future due to Nomura's comment where he said "Nobody knows Versus XIII's story except me because the project hasn't been released yet".

If Nomura hasn't given up then i sure as hell won't.
 

Idreamaboutcats

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(Wall of Text)
Found it! Good lord reading this book was such a bore, no offense. I speed read, okay, I’ll come clean, I practically skimmed it once on kindle and never picked…err…loaded it up again, so I admit I definitely missed some details. I still stand by my words that I don’t hate the book…I just found it utterly as bland as Noct and Luna’s “romance.”

That said, it’s nice to see some things brought to light. The forums have been sounding like, oh, I don’t know, a circlejerk echo chamber lately! I could use the distraction, especially about VXIII, what it could’ve been, and what it means for Yozora and Quadratum.

I wonder what’s inside Quadratum’s version of the Metropolitan Building and the Shibuya Hikarie then. We’ll probably never see that Etro painting ever again, but with luck, maybe a painting of MoM’s face instead, or at least whatever’s inside Kingdom Hearts…
 
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The Dead Skin

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We're really digging this up again... I got so much abuse even talking about this game back in the day.

Oh well. I'm older and more comfortable now.

None of the DLCs were directed by Tabata, who going by his interviews and the content he cut from the base game, seemed to hate anything to do with Versus and tried to distance XV from Versus as much as possible.

Since you seem to know an encyclopedia's worth about Versus: did Tetsuya Nomura and Hajime Tabata have a personal falling-out? There's a story I heard from someone on Twitter a while ago, but haven't been able to verify even with Google:
  • Nomura "discovered" and befriended Tabata at SQEX, and used his leverage as co-producer of the Compilation of FFVII (alongside Yoshinori Kitase) to give Tabata projects - starting with smaller fare like Before Crisis and leading up to Crisis Core and Type-0
  • Some time between Type-0 and XV, they had a falling out and Tabata started "tactfully" trashing Nomura in interviews
I still can't find those interviews, since I don't know what keywords to look for and the ones I do know are too broad.
 

SS501

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We're really digging this up again... I got so much abuse even talking about this game back in the day.

Oh well. I'm older and more comfortable now.

Since you seem to know an encyclopedia's worth about Versus: did Tetsuya Nomura and Hajime Tabata have a personal falling-out? There's a story I heard from someone on Twitter a while ago, but haven't been able to verify even with Google:
  • Nomura "discovered" and befriended Tabata at SQEX, and used his leverage as co-producer of the Compilation of FFVII (alongside Yoshinori Kitase) to give Tabata projects - starting with smaller fare like Before Crisis and leading up to Crisis Core and Type-0
  • Some time between Type-0 and XV, they had a falling out and Tabata started "tactfully" trashing Nomura in interviews
I still can't find those interviews, since I don't know what keywords to look for and the ones I do know are too broad.

Evidence suggests that it's true that there was some kind of falling out between them. We can't be sure but judging by how Tabata talked about Versus and how he mercilessly blamed everything on Nomura, it's the logical assumption.

Nomura was in fact the person who helped Tabata climb the ranks and served as his mentor of sorts. He personally handpicked him to direct projects. This info can be found in various old ultimanias or crisis core interviews where they talk about how the projects begun and how Tabata got involved in them, you can find most of them in Lifestream net i believe. They always talk about how Nomura trusted Tabata and how he kept giving him project after project. Tabata also co-directed KH:Coded in the same way (they were having drinks with Tabata, Nomura was kinda drunk, then he started drawing up ideas on a whiteboard and the next day they started working on it seriously with Nomura placing Tabata as the director of the project).

Now here is where the shitstorm begins.

Nomura in 2013 when asked about how Tabata joined the FFXV project as a co-director, said that Tabata always expressed interest in the project and wanted to join, so Nomura said that he "personally asked him into the team". You can find this interview in Finaland, titled "JE 2013: Interview with Tetsuya Nomura".

A year later after it was announced that Nomura left the project to work on KH3 and "other projects only he can do" (later we learned this was referring to 7R), Tabata started promoting XV by himself and when asked the same question he painted a completely different picture that made himself look like a savior, saying that he was personally asked to join the FFXV team by Wada (the back then CEO of SE) because the project wasn't doing well. Can't remember exactly which site, he gave many interviews during that period (around TGS 2014), might have been the one on Kotaku, not 100% sure.

We don't know who is lying here, we can't be sure. The fact Tabata throws Nomura under the bus though says a lot. First by contradicting Nomura, then by saying the project was troubled and that he was asked to help, painting himself as a more competent person and as someone who was brought in to save the day.

In multiple interviews after that, he would always talk about Versus in a condescending way, saying it "wasn't even a real game and more of an idea" while at the same time contradicting himself in other interviews and saying that it was about 20 to 25% complete or talk about how much was cut. He would go on to say things like "the game needed to release at some point and a date just wasn't being decided, so the first thing i did when i took over was decide a release date for 2016".

That last part is a confirmed lie. Roberto Ferrari on his facebook page while complaining about the game's development (and frankly, talking shit about Tabata and his team in multiple occasions) said that FFXV in 2013, had a release date set for Spring 2014. We know XV was supposed to be released in multiple parts like 7R and the 1st part was set for 2014.

Now, if i went on about all the times he talked shit about Versus i would need 10 pages so i'll get right to the most important one. The interview where he literally contradicted every single piece of info and development history we ever had about Versus and every other project that was tied to it.

His EDGE (issue #314) interview. In this interview he says that his own team did not want to join with Nomura's team in 2012 and that they disliked Nomura and his team. He himself says that he did not want to join the project at all because of how troubled it was. He says that the team was doing a bad job, that they were overambitious and that it just wasn't working. That the project was being worked on for too long. That the project lacked vision and leadership etc etc. He pretty much throws Nomura under the bus and then runs him over with the bus multiple times. He says the project was on the verge of cancelation in 2012 because of that. He says Nomura's team's morale was super low when Tabata's team joined. Indeed Versus was on the verge of cancelation in 2012 and the team's morale was super low but not for the reasons Tabata implies. Roberto Ferrari thankfully, shed some light into this but that's a different topic i could talk about in another post if you want.

This interview is in all honestly full of lies. While Versus XIII did have problems realizing its vision, it wasn't because of its team or its director but because of its faulty engine and the fact that VsXIII's team kept being taken away from working on the game to help finish FFXIII and later in 2012 lost the majority of its team members as they went to help remake XIV 2.0 from the ground up which was also the reason the project was on the verge of getting canceled.

It's actually funny because most of the things Tabata said in that EDGE interview could be applied to the development history of Type-0 including being on the verge of cancelation, but that's also irrelevant to this discussion lol.

Lastly throughout a lot of his interviews, Tabata kept saying that he took over in July of 2012. As in, he became the sole director in 2012 right after the project was rebranded internally as XV. He also said that the first decision he made as a director was to condense the story in one game instead of multiple games. This is confirmed lie as well. Tabata joined in July of 2012 as a co-director and even during E3 2013, Nomura was saying that XV's story is too grand and that his intention is to make sequels which is why he put "A World of VERSUS Epic" at the end of the trailer. Then sometime after that Wada stepped down as CEO of SE, the transition slowly started happening after Matsuda became the new CEO and said that he is planning to review all the projects and restructure the entire company. Nomura stopped working on XV (probably because he was in negotiations of some kind) and then finally decided to step down as director in December of 2013, at the same exact time Roberto Ferrari decided to quit and followed Nomura (this was in his own words, he said he disliked the direction of the project, had a fight with the art director and his team and decided to follow Nomura). For XV after that point, the entire first half of 2014 was a time of pre-production and changing the game completely. Most of the character design changes and Stella getting scrapped etc happened in 2014.

Wan Hazmer who worked on both Versus XIII and XV and then quit SE in 2016 right after the game's release, has pretty much shat on Tabata's claims. He said that Nomura was actually a very efficient developer, he cited an example and said that the team was having trouble designing the cutscene in the 2011 trailer where the Airship crushes into the building, he said they spend a week thinking it over with the team and when they told Nomura he managed to solve the issue in a couple of hours. He lastly said that Versus XIII's issues were not the fault of the team but "because of unavoidable circumstances", by that he is most likely referring to the Crystal Tools engine fiasco and the VsXIII team being taken away i mentioned earlier.

Ferrari has also expressed deep admiration for Nomura, his wish to work with him on KH, and that working with Nomura was the first time in his career working in Japan that he felt that he was being respected as an artist. As for XV's team, he shat on them, their management, their constant lack of vision and the fact they kept changing his designs and the story of the game. He specifically blamed Tabata's team for all this referring to them as "the new guys" because Ferrari was working on Versus since 2010. He also blamed SE's upper management because Versus XIII's team as he said, went from 200 people to 20 in 2012, likely referring to the time VsXIII's team was gutted to work on XIV 2.0.

So yeah, i imagine that there is a reason Tabata was so aggressive and that something DID happen between the two because before that point the 2 were pretty close friends with Nomura being a co-producer and character designer for all of Tabata's games up to that point including Type-0. Meanwhile goddamn Sakaguchi made an appearance and received special thanks in the big Uncovered event, people that had even the slightest attachment to this project received special thanks etc while Nomura, the creator of the project and character designer was nowhere.

Semi-related fun fact: Nomura in Feburary of 2014 stated that he bought 2 cats after someone suggested it to him.
In 2019 in the Famitsu article that was all about his cats he said "when I got a little depressed I was recommended to get cats.".
Interesting that the period he got depressed aligns with the period he left XV.

Edit: Holy shit this post is longer than i thought it would be and too fucking chaotic. Anyway, if you need to ask something specific or if you need me to link you to a specific interview tell me, i'll try to find it.
Edit2: I think it's the first time i type so much in a single post, my head started hurting lmao.
 
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The Dead Skin

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[wall of text]

Edit: Holy shit this post is longer than i thought it would be and too fucking chaotic. Anyway, if you need to ask something specific or if you need me to link you to a specific interview tell me, i'll try to find it.
Edit2: I think it's the first time i type so much in a single post, my head started hurting lmao.

Holy shit... I don't know how I can possibly thank you for an infodump like that.

For now I'm only interested in Roberto Ferrari's ventposting. But that stuff takes effort to dig up, so I'll just ask you to take a breather, rest and only come back when you're in better shape. You could use a break, really. =( ♥
 
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SS501

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This is a pretty good compilation of official info, the problem with it is that a lot of it is PR speak and/or straight up lies, especially interviews from 2014 and 2015 were in full damage control mode because they were trying to sell us a game and paint a beautiful picture that everything is ok and going just as planned. They either contradict past official info, future official info or unofficial info we got later through unofficial statements (such as Ferrari's facebook posts).

For example this
Additionally, it was also stated that the transition from Versus XIII to Final Fantasy XV was overseen by Tetsuya Nomura during the transition, and subsequently this included changes such as the removal of Stella Nox Fleuret, and the inclusion of a wholly new character of Lunafreya Nox Fleuret.

The info that "Nomura oversaw the changes including Lunafreya" is from late 2014, it comes from Tabata when he said that he had extensive talks with Nomura to ensure that his characters would be faithful to his vision. Here's the thing though, like i said earlier, we know Nomura left in December of 2013 (which is funny because you'll find countless articles where the authors state Nomura left in late 2014 because they think it happened when SE announced it which isn't true) and wanted nothing to do with the project. He literally abandoned it like Spartans abandoned their sick or disabled children in Ancient Greece. Tabata and the marketing team just wanted to preserve the image of Versus back then, that everything is going as planned and not much has changed. In a 2017 interview Tabata admitted that this was just a facade and that not much was kept from Versus, that their strategy was to show to the public that versus was preserved to avoid backlash. This aligns with the 2016 plot leaker saying the exact same thing.

For example it's highly unlikely for Nomura to have overseen the change of Stella to Luna, because Lunafreya was created by XV's art director Yusuke Naora in mid 2014, literal months after Nomura left. Roberto's facebook posts support this since he said that Stella was still in the game when he left and that he had absolutely nothing to do with the redesigns after that point. If Nomura had overseen and approved the transition of Stella to Luna he would have undoubtedly designed her too, there was nothing to design because the character of Luna didn't exist until after Tabata fully took over and changed XV.

And another thing. In the same interview where Tabata says that Nomura oversaw the changes he also says that he talked with him to preserve his characters. In a 2015 4gamers interview he literally admits to changing every single character in the main party because he did not like them. He also talks about giving Prompto some of Noctis elements like the hobby of taking photographs (Which in Versus XIII was a hobby of Noctis, taking photos with his phone). Then we have another unofficial source, Noctis' JP VA saying that Versus XIII Noctis and XV Noctis are completely different characters right down to the way they speak and even the tone of their voice, he said that he had problems adapting to the new Noctis and even had to take a break from recording because of it. So chances are that Tabata was bullshiting when he said that he had "the talk" with Nomura.

This is the problem with all these interviews, there are countless interviews for XV and half of them contradict the other half because Tabata during the marketing period was speaking lie after lie. You have to keep going back and forth re-reading countless interviews over and over and cross checking facts, finding contradictions etc etc

I don't blame anyone who doesn't know what exactly happened in this project because getting to the truth is a HUGE and hard task. Not many have attempted it. Then there is this guy called Bazztek who always spreads misinformation and things get even worse while trying to google this stuff. It's a huge mess :(
 
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