vanguard333

Does a game being rebranded and completely changed from what it was originally supposed to be count as "cancelled"? If so, then I can think of one: Final Fantasy Versus XIII: this is the game that eventually became Final Fantasy XV, but the original idea for it was very different, as one can see from the very first trailer for it: Apparently, it was going to be a much darker take on the usual Final Fantasy formula. Noctis' powers wouldn't come from being of the royal line, but from having a near-death experience as a child and being chosen by Etro: the goddess of death that the Kingdom of Lucis would've revered and had on their flag and in their art and architecture. Noctis would've also been in Lucis when it came under attack from the empire and taken over, and the fall of Lucis would've been one of the major set-pieces of the game. Instead of Lunafreya being his love-interest/plot-device that gets stuffed in the fridge, a character named Stella (that got replaced with Lunafreya when Tabata took over development) would've been both his love-interest and a reluctant enemy of Noctis with the same powers as him. The combat was also going to be very different; being something more like that in Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy 7 Remake. There were a ton of differences between the game originally envisioned and XV. Because I was never really interested in Final Fantasy until about a year or two ago, I didn't find out about this game until well after XV released, but I found Versus XIII very intriguing, and it is a real shame that the game was never made. In this scenario where the game could've released but XV still would've existed, Versus XIII could very well have ended up being my first Final Fantasy game, rather than Final Fantasy 7 Remake.

It was actually an ending; that the reason it only focused on the one character. Weird video/10 Here's the opening for the same anime arc as that ending (plenty of other characters in this one, as this arc was a very climactic one):

Weird that I don't actually remember this song, even though I've played through Radiant Dawn multiple times and I was sure I heard all the music that was in the game.

Ten years, to be precise, but it wasn't Final Fantasy XV when it began development. Short version is that the game went through horrific development caused by the upper management and even changed directors midway through. Here's the longer (but still relatively short) version: It was originally Final Fantasy Versus XIII: a spin-off that, while set in its own world, was going to be part of the Fabula Nova Crystallis series (think XIII and Type 0). It was going to be a much darker take on the Final Fantasy formula, and there were a lot of interesting ideas, but it couldn't leave pre-production because of a number of development issues: the engine they were forced to use just couldn't handle the game they were trying to make, and their small development team kept getting siphoned off. After seven years, Square Enix ordered that the game be rebranded as Final Fantasy XV, moved from PS3 to PS4 and made on an entirely different (and unfinished) game engine, and they made Tabata co-director. A year later, the game's original director, Tetsuya Nomura, was pulled off the project in order to focus on Kingdom Hearts 3 and Final Fantasy 7 Remake (the latter of which he didn't know he was directing until the game was announced), and Square Enix gave the order that Tabata had until 2016 to finish the game. By this point, the team was "exhausted and fretful", and huge amounts of the game's story and lore was having to be reworked because, as a mainline game, it had to have a worldwide release, and the Chinese Government didn't like certain aspects of the original game's lore (namely that Noctis' powers originally came from being chosen by a goddess of death). Due to a combination of censorship, change in direction and game engine, and massive time constraints, massive chunks of the game were cut, and the end product was ultimately a rushed shell of a game; scarred by the horrific development it went through. Interestingly, both Tabata and especially Nomura are still angry about what happened, but neither blames the other; they both blame Square Enix for what happened. Nomura in particular put a ton of references to Versus XIII in Kingdom Hearts 3 in the form of Verum Rex.

Reminding me of history class/10. Seriously; I had to watch this film in history class and compare Shakespeare's version of Henry V to the historical figure.

Male, simply because I'm a guy and when I play a custom character, I play with the idea of them being me in mind.

Weird/10

At that point, any plans he originally had for Elincia were probably out the window; with everyone in Tellius except for Goldoa against him and at his doorstep and with no one to sing the Galdr of Release, his plans at that point had almost fallen apart. You're welcome. Indeed. I suppose, but who would be easier to control: a princess who was never supposed to be heir, or someone who saw your army overwhelming the capital and still chose to fight? Plus there's also the fact that Ashnard's twisted version of social darwinism guided most of his decisions, and he saw Renning's strength and chose to use it for himself.

Elincia explains how Ashnard knows about her: Ike: “Does King Daein know of your existence?” Elincia: “Yes. I was told the royals of each nation were informed of my identity in the event of dire circumstances…” Greil: “If that’s the case, they must be searching frantically for you.” Didn't he do that because of how strong Renning was? That way he could turn Renning into a living weapon and Rider of Daein.

I realize in retrospect that "heavily implied" was a poor choice of words. Looking back on the script, I guess I just inferred that on my first time playing through the game; that he'd want her alive to use to make the transition of power easier, especially since his real goal is just to use Crimea as a stepping stone for invading Gallia. Anyway; I think that that's probably the reason he wants her alive: so that the occupation of Crimea goes as smoothly as possible so he can move on to invading Gallia as soon as possible.

The invasion does matter though as a stepping stone for invading Gallia, and having a member of the royal family alive and submitting to you helps prevent things like rebellions and uprisings; the very things that happen in the game and lead to Ashnard's defeat.

Most invading conquerors usually kept alive someone from the pre-existing aristocracy to act as a puppet ruler and legitimize the occupation. The Roman Empire did it all the time: go into place, kill the armies, kill king if he opposes us and install someone the public recognizes that will do as we say. The story never outright says that this is the reason, but it heavily implies that this is the case.

A viral epidemic spreads across the continent. If a character gets infected, they lose 20HP per turn for every turn, and they spread it to all units that come within three tiles. There is no cure for the disease, and the infected continue to be infected until the end of the game. Oh, and this would be for a game made in 2019 and released in 2020-2021.

Interesting. The Gerudo symbol being worn by presumably a non-Gerudo (given what we see of their face) who can command Yiga Clan members (given that they're kneeling before them).

So he was alive and fat 100 years ago? Huh; interesting. I'm guessing that either this is him before he became leader, or he took command at a young age. Regarding the hooded character at 0:33, he looks sort-of like what I would've expected Kohga's successor in BOTW2 to look like: skinny, threatening, in-the-shadows, that sort of stuff. This person doesn't seem to be Yiga Clan, going by the lack of a mask, absence of any red in their outfit, and the completely different symbol on their back. By the way, does anyone recognize the symbol? It looks familiar, but I can't figure out where.

It probably isn't the same Kohga. It's true that Sheikah are long-lived, but one would think that, if the Kohga in BOTW had been around at the time of the Calamity, his reaction to seeing Link would've been different from, "Hey! You're that Link guy I ordered everyone to kill!" The absence of any familiarity with Link, combined with the fact that he doesn't seem very old (Sheikah may be long-lived but they do show their age; Impa is 120 and she looks 120, as does Robbie to a lesser extent) and I suspect that the one in Age of Calamity is not the same one. Creating a Champion mentions that the name "Kohga" is really a title he received from his predecessors when he became the leader of the Yiga Clan. So it very likely is simply the the case that they share the same name; most likely to hide whenever there's a change in leadership as @Interdimensional Observer suggested.

I honestly can't really remember the fights against them all that well; they're really unmemorable. The only thing I can remember about Garon was that the second fight against him clearly had it that something was supposed to happen involving the map, but I beat him on the first turn and never got to see it. I suppose it would have to be Anankos, if only because I remember that one the most out of the three, but even that one was surprisingly bland for a final boss fight against a maddened dimension-warping dragon with a crazy design.

Yeah; that seems to be the case, given the dialogue that you quoted. Jedah being moustache-twirling fits a game where Duma is evil, but the remake expanding on Mila & Duma and especially making Duma a tragic maddened dragon clashes hard with that. There are a couple lines of dialogue in the remake that suggest that they wanted to go for a more "fanatical well-intentioned extremist" angle with Jedah: But, alas; keeping him as a moustache-twirling villain clashes hard with this. I say this to any and all aspiring writers who might be reading this: you can have a villain that's pure evil, you can have a well-intentioned extremist, but you cannot have the same villain be both! It doesn't work. And the sad thing is that this clash of two different ideas for the same character, one from Gaiden and one trying to reflect the changes made in the remake, is probably far from unique to Jedah. I suspect that yet another problem with Alm is that he has this too.

Okay; I've already admitted that Ocarina of Time 3D was probably a bad example and I removed it from the original reply. As for FF7 Remake, I haven't played the original and I'm only on Chapter 9 of the Remake. But, from what I've seen of the original, from what I've played of the Remake, and from what I've seen from interviews with the developers, it seems that the main mindset behind 7 Remake was basically, "Let's do with this version what we would've done with the original if we had today's tech back in 1997", so they gave the game a complete overhaul from the ground up, to the point where yeah; it could be considered a brand new game despite still recognizably being FF7. (If someone here has played all the way through FF7 Remake and I'm completely wrong on this, please let me know, but please no spoilers). In any case, my original point was that SoV seemed torn on whether it wanted to be retro or a complete update, and I say it should've either gone full retro like Shadow Dragon or full update. Yes, it did to quite a bit in places to update the game, but the places where it updated and the places where it was kept unchanged seem at odds with each other. I saw people bring up Jedah earlier in the thread (mainly in the form of "Why would Celica trust a moustache-twirling villain like him"). One thing I noticed on my playthrough of SoV was that the game seemed to almost have two versions of Jedah depending on the dialogue and the particular scene: one version being a moustache-twirling villain, and the other being a fanatic well-intentioned extremist who would give and take anything to keep Duma alive because he genuinely believes Valentia can't survive without Duma. I suspected that this was another result of "What do we update? What do we keep?" You sound like you've played the original Gaiden; what was Jedah like in the original? Yes; getting rid of repeated maps would definitely have also been a good idea. What did you think of my idea of a "preparing for the siege" map between Alm becoming leader of the Deliverance and the actual siege map?

Ocarina of Time didn't need that much updated compared to something like SoV though and they still updated it in most of the areas where it did need updating; mainly in graphics, but also in things like marking where the water level rooms are in the water temple, making the iron boots equipable without needing to go into the menu, making the Dark Link fight more intuitive, etc., but if that isn't enough, then fine; ignore that example then. I still had another example. I suppose. Still, the story could've at least made some effort to compensate for the limitations inherent in the map, and they could've updated the map in a couple places (such as maybe having some stuff between taking control of the Deliverance and retaking the castle, such as a mission that's designed to explain how the heroes actually manage to get into the capital and actually lets us see Alm actually think it through). True; it was mainly in the beginning. Still, it was a huge effort that I'm glad they did (even though I never lost a single unit in any of my playthroughs, so I didn't find out about it until I saw the game script for the early chapters).

True, though I will just say that Path of Radiance made a huge effort to account for character deaths in its script.

Yes, but gameplay & story segregation is generally considered something to be avoided, and gameplay & story integration is generally considered something to be appreciated. Also, regarding your example, it would be hard for him to save either Rudolf or Berkut since both are very intent on impaling themselves on his sword for different reasons. I suppose, and had SoV gone full retro like Shadow Dragon, I probably wouldn't have noticed too much, similarly to how I didn't care too much about Shadow Dragon's plot still being barebones. The problem comes from the fact that the SoV's schizophrenic on whether it wants to be retro or an update; I personally think that it should've gone for the full update route like Final Fantasy 7 Remake without the weird anti-time-travel reapers, but that's beside the point. As it is, there are FE games with world maps that have come along and given a much better since of struggle. As much as I love describing Awakening's plot as mediocre and generic, and as much as I like saying Chrom's a good representation of that, he still clearly struggles. He has an entire chapter where he and his forces are fleeing Plegia after his sister's death, and there's also, well, his sister's death. Also, as for the Dracozombie thing, was there a line of dialogue that explained it but got removed? I ask because because, on my first and only playthrough, I noticed the dracozombie thing, realized, "Oh; the game's telling me I have to finish the Celica stuff before I can proceed further", but I couldn't find any dialogue or anything that explained what was going on. I could've sworn that I went over the dialogue wondering, "Where's the explanation for the respawning dracozombies?"

Exactly. To add to that: even then, other lords who were raised up in environments of having to take command could still be argued to struggle: as barebones as the plot of Shadow Dragon is, it does place a fair bit of emphasis on how Marth has to step up to the plate as heir to Altea and the Falchion, and how it is a struggle for him to do so. Alm just steamrolling through everything is not something I've seen much of in Fire Emblem, even in games where it would be a bit more excusable.

I see. I honestly don't; I just see "struggle" as the character trying to overcome something. It could be a character flaw, but it doesn't have to be one, and thinking that it has to be a character flaw has actually led to the problem of writers running out of established character flaws for their characters to overcome and having to either reintroduce prior flaws or make up new ones that the characters didn't exhibit before. For another example, in The Hobbit, Bilbo's struggle doesn't come from a character flaw, but instead comes from him being way out of his comfort-zone; he's never left The Shire before and he's certainly never burgled before, let alone stolen back a treasure hoard from a dragon, and the journey and loss of the comforts of home weigh on him immensely. You are right in that there doesn't necessarily need to be struggle for a protagonist to be compelling, but in writing, unlike in math, counterexamples do not inherently disprove the rule (since writing rules are more akin to guidelines). I was just trying to say that it is one major ingredient for making a compelling character.

Who said anything about flaws? I was just talking about struggle; as in struggling to overcome something (it could be a character flaw, but it doesn't have to be). For the Ike example, I didn't once bring up a character flaw except for his recklessness in chapter 2, and even that I phrased within the wider context of him struggling as a rookie mercenary. This part I agree with, and is pretty much my exact point only worded slightly better.