Should the Final Fantasy series continue to use CG Cutscenes?

Also FFXV only has 3 because they kept rewriting the story and bc all the CG budget went to Kingsglaive. And even then the CG takes a massive crap over the in-game visuals, and even with XV's paper thin, unexciting main story, I could think of numerous instances that could've massively benefitted from a CG cinematic

I see FF's reliance on CG cutscenes starting with the 5th gen as the beginning of what eventually led to the sorry state the series is currently in, so I wouldn't mind seeing them go away. Graphics are getting to a point where quality cinematics can mostly be rendered in-engine anyway.

Real-time please. Especially in 2042 when the 8K SUHD Remaster comes out. Upscaled CG cutscenes look BAD.

If it fills in story they are too lazy to include otherwise *cough*FFXV*cough* then sure. Absolutely. Even if they can manage to finish the next game I'd like to see them.

Yes absolutely. There are things they can do in CG they could never hope to render in real time.



See FF Type-0 Summoning of Alexander as well. And FFXIII's CG omg...

Exentryk said:

Also, Officefan will die if they removed CG, lol.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

I would.

Modern FF without CGI cutscenes would be like Warcraft without CGI cutscenes. They both are probably going to be the last franchises to stop using them if that happens.

SE is killing it in that field. Who else is achieving that level of technical finesse in the industry?

I loved CG cutscenes because they can be so much fancier with how they edit together scenes for greater impact. To me, it's better than real-time cutscenes because the animations, lighting, cinematography and such are much smoother and cinematic. Very disappointed when FFXV had so few and unimpressive CG cutscenes, and the real-time cutscenes aren't directed or delivered with any visual panache. To me, they're integral to the Final Fantasy experience, even if it's just in the intros like FF14.

Please yes. I love seeing what their vision of the characters / themes / locations is without the restriction of console limitations. Often, you get to see the characters in a different light; eg. Sora's features look more distinctly Asian in the cutscenes vs. gameplay.

Full blown cg? Fuck yes. Now, keep the in game cutscenes all rendered real time and not prerendered and I am the happiest camper ever.

Just for the intro and ending imo. However, in the world of 4K resolution 100GB games.. I would be happy if they minimized it as much as possible or eliminated them completely. Try to do real-time when possible.

It can be done in engine these days, so do it in-engine. No pre-recorded in engine, no pre-rendered footage.

Things that can't reasonably be done in engine, sure, make a CG cutscene, but there's very few things that can't be done in engine based on what actually ends up in the cutscenes.

Aadiboy said:

It's not just about graphics, it's about what you can accomplish technically with cg vs in-game graphics. Think back to FFX, do you think they could have done that assault on Bevelle scene with the in-game graphics engine? Anything with fast or crazy action looks much better in cg, and now the cg blends in better with the in-game graphics, so it's a win-win situation.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

That was a different time though. Just look at the stuff they made with that Agni demo they released a while back. I can understand the sentiment of having CG cutscenes in there because it's a FF staple at this point, but it's more impressive having them use ingame assests.

I'm so glad a majority of people thus far in the topic have been saying yes. Thought most of u would have your souls sucked out by the "MUH IMMERSION/COSTUMES/SPACE/GRAFIX GOOD ENOUGH" crowd smh

They take up a lot of data space and aren't dub friendly (or rather, they make the inclusion of language options harder). I feel like having one for the intro and one for the ending like in Kingdom Hearts is enough, especially considering how pretty FFXV is in-game.

theofficefan99 said:

I'm so glad a majority of people thus far in the topic have been saying yes. Thought most of u would have your souls sucked out by the "MUH IMMERSION/COSTUMES/SPACE/GRAFIX GOOD ENOUGH" crowd smh

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Gamesfaq tier post right here.

I want a "CG cutscene" that seamlessly transitions to gameplay, revealing that it was real time all along. I want the game's graphical fidelity to be so high that it feels like a CG cutscene all the way though, ultimately I think SE think the same as well.

Probably not in this generation though. But at some point pre-rendering the CG will be redundant - the engine will be able to competently run the scene itself, ray tracing and all. At some point it will be more expensive to create and render out a scene in an external rendering software, created by an external team, then simply building the cutscene in-game using the same assets, for very little graphical gain.

theofficefan99 said:

I'm so glad a majority of people thus far in the topic have been saying yes. Thought most of u would have your souls sucked out by the "MUH IMMERSION/COSTUMES/SPACE/GRAFIX GOOD ENOUGH" crowd smh

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Oops.

Reyes said:

Gamesfaq tier post right here.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

I mean I wasn't being serious. But I am glad most people are saying yes :p

Paches said:

Last 25 minutes made me not even care what the point of it all was. It was just a spectacle at that point.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Same!

Jotakori said:

Yaaassss yas yas yes they should keep them! Even as today's in-game graphics get better and better, it's still blatantly obvious what is a nice finished off cg cut scene versus in-game cut scene. And they always get me hype af. Like the driving force for me sometimes when I play games is when I can get to that next super polished gorgeous cut scene, they're such a treat.
When I play games that don't have them I always feel like something is missing.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

My sentiments exactly!

Echo said:

Yes absolutely. There are things they can do in CG they could never hope to render in real time.



See FF Type-0 Summoning of Alexander as well. And FFXIII's CG omg...

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Anyone who believes that real-time cutscenes are comparable to CG cutscenes should watch this video. That's simply not possible in real-time. No way around it.

I mean, look at this shit

Why not? I absolutely adore SE's CG work.

Akinsa said:

I want a "CG cutscene" that seamlessly transitions to gameplay, revealing that it was real time all along. I want the game's graphical fidelity to be so high that it feels like a CG cutscene all the way though, ultimately I think SE think the same as well.

Probably not in this generation though. But at some point pre-rendering the CG will be redundant - the engine will be able to competently run the scene itself, ray tracing and all. At some point it will be more expensive to create and render out a scene in an external rendering software, created by an external team, then simply building the cutscene in-game using the same assets, for very little graphical gain.



Oops.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

I mean, aside from diminishing returns in terms of budget, pre-rendered will always be able to do more, especially when it comes to physics simulations of billions of particles, like fine grains of sand/dirt on large scale, which is not suitable for real-time hardware/software, and won't be for a very long time.

Yes, but they need to really look at being more consistent / utilising them more effectively.

The in-narrative ones (so excluding Kingdom Hearts, where they feel more like amazing OPs and EDs that bookend the experience) haven't wowed me since FFX - with FFXII, XIII and XV being really weak in terms of where they're being used and what they're trying to accomplish.

No, I don't think any games should be taking up massive chunks of my hard drive solely because of a video I'm only going to watch once.

I heard Quantum Break on PC streamed it's prerendered cutscenes. I think at the very least, that should be offered up as an option prior to the installation of the game if the devs are going to insist on using prerendered cutscenes.

Yes, they reserve those CG scenes for pivotal moments and I love them. They're usually a step ahead of what's possible to render in-game using current technology anyway.

When they make sense.

I criticise XV heavily over this. The lack of cutscenes is a major disappointment for me.

At least FFXIII excelled at this and I enjoyed them very much.

I don't really mind downloading a game that is 100G....

Well actually I do. I hope Steam can give me the option to not download the CGs in all different resolution and languages. Otherwise I'm willing to sacrifice CG for space.

Yes. I think they were used to great effect in XV. It didn't have as much as XIII but XIII had them for the most random events. None of XIIs were really that memorable either aside from the beginning and end (partially because the in-game graphics look so much better now).

KZXcellent said:

One thing is they do seem to view Visual Works cinematics as a part of the FF Series DNA. It was nice to pop into the Dissidia Beta and be treated to a cool looking intro that wasn't even necessary. The game on it's own looks fantastic and could have easily gotten away with using in-game models but the hype intro was appreciated.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Just like everything else isn't even as good as 012's.

They should and they will. Visual Works is literally there just for that purpose and I don't think it's going anywhere. XV not having a lot of CGI is most probably only because almost every VW ressource went into Kingslgaive.

Absolutely.
It feels like a treat every time.

I viewed them as a staple of the series and a visual treat on the PS1 era. Every single time there was a big cutscene I knew we would get some key story/character development.

FF should definitely keep the CGI scenes; they have become a minimum expectation for the series since FFVII. Plus the CGI scenes in FF are some of the most impressive and memorable scenes that the gaming industry has to offer.

Yes. In game visuals are still no match to SE's CG skills. It's one of the hallmark features of FF. Worrying about the space they take up is missing the point. FF aesthetics are not (and should never be) concerned with such practical matters.

Without question.

Yes they should. They are very important part of Final Fantasy for me now. I was really disappointed how little FFXV had. Hopefully VII remake and XVI have a lot more of them.

The most beautiful cg quality I've seen for a FF game was in this trailer, but sadly they didn't make it to XV.

the first minute and at 6:00-the end.

CG cutscenes are nice and everything - and SE is historically good at picking the moments that are worth the work - but I think just having actually well thought out and composed cinematography is the more pressing issue. FFX shots looked great in so many scenes. FFXII has the best looking cutscenes in the series. And I only mention those two games because they were the ones that hit a graphical fidelity that made you (or well, me) really care about that element, but there are great shot compositions in the PS1 games too, as fixed camera angles facilitate.

So basically, I can take or leave CG; my main hope is no more awkward scenes with characters literally just standing around.

Edit:

John Omaha said:

I see FF's reliance on CG cutscenes starting with the 5th gen as the beginning of what eventually led to the sorry state the series is currently in, so I wouldn't mind seeing them go away. Graphics are getting to a point where quality cinematics can mostly be rendered in-engine anyway.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

"Style over substance" is the phrase I think the majority of the series problems boil down to, from FFVII onward.

I feel like people forget that Square Enix has at least two renders of each CG scene on disks. One for English lip-sync and one for Japanese lip-sync. That's not a little bit of data, that takes up a lot of data on disk. Space that could be used for other things. I am not suggesting the removal of CG scenes, but too often I see people complain about how much space the games take up and/or take issue when there isn't a bunch of CG. You can't have it both ways.

I am all for good CG cutscenes that make sense and are placed well. XII and XIII had a lot of random CG that didn't make much sense with really only one or two CG scenes in each that were memorable or placed well. KH gives me one at the beginning of the game and one at the end. I've always liked that approach.

I love CG. I am a huge fan of it especially coming from VW. But the days of having a dozen 25-40 second CG scenes is over. And I prefer the KH/XV approach where there aren't as many CG scenes but they're longer and more rewarding.

KZXcellent said:

One thing is they do seem to view Visual Works cinematics as a part of the FF Series DNA. It was nice to pop into the Dissidia Beta and be treated to a cool looking intro that wasn't even necessary. The game on it's own looks fantastic and could have easily gotten away with using in-game models but the hype intro was appreciated.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

This one is so hype. Visual Works outdid themselves. You all need to see the final boss CG cut-scene from Dissidia NT. It's 7 minutes long and it's all the heroes and villains fighitng one another and it's the best CGI cut-scene I have ever seen, no joke.

AzureFlame said:

The most beautiful cg quality I've seen for a FF game was in this trailer, but sadly they didn't make it to XV.

the first minute and at 6:00-the end.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

ugh... can you not?

Seriously tho that first minute was so fucking beautiful, along with the part with Noctis getting up from his throne with Ignis in the room.

*sigh*

They should keep doing it, obviously. But I think a starting middle and ending scene are more than enough, there's no need for more. They usually stick, like for blizzard's cgi, with player's mind for long so it's never reallly wasted resources. And they also cut and reuse them for commercials and posters.

Honestly I feel like there's massively diminishing returns at this point. Opening, ending, some establishing shots of large-scale locations - that's all that's needed, if that. FF15 made pretty good use of them, I thought.

No reason not to use them since it only enriches the experience.

Do you want the cutscenes to be in real time or just use in-engine assets while being prerendered?

Minimum Specs (720p):

• OS: Windows 7 SP1 / Windows 8.1 / Windows 10 64-bit
• CPU: Intel Core i5-2500 / AMD FX-6100
• GPU: GeForce GTX 760 / GeForce GTX 1050 / Radeon R9 280
• Memory: 8GB
• HDD space: 100GB or higher

My hard drive says no.

Ehh, I wouldn't miss them. As it is, they've been greatly reduced lately to just 2-3 key moments in the game. The tech is there to do the whole game, opening to credit roll, in engine now. Pre-rendered environments died with the PS1. It's about time pre-rendered cinematics did too. They're no longer necessary to have a narrative-driven cinematic game.

They are overindulgent and boring to me but they rank very low on the list of things that mainline Final Fantasy needs to fix to appeal to me.

We saw Kingsglaive running in real time on a Nvidia GPU.



When that level of fidelity becomes playable in its entirety, they should just drop CG cutscenes and incorporate Creative Works into their developement teams and basically aim to have cutscenes on the same level of CG ones.