/vr/ - Retro Games

>tfw that prototype picture has aged better than the entirety of the final version FFVII

are there more pics out there?

>>890085
Not that I know off.

final fantasy 7 would have flopped with that version

>>890083

You bandwagon-hopping dimwits.

>>890082
This looks like some ugly-ass early 90s JRPG in the veins of Lunar and other such crap. Take it away.

>>890096

I would have loved it. Most 3D looked dildos until about 2005

>>890102

Why are you even here?

It looks rather generic, IMO.

>>890082
Fabase would be more whiny about le epic ff7 HD remake

>>890105
For actually good games. Which just so happen to have actually good pixelart. NOT early PCE and CCD JRPGs, definitely.

I like the work on the houses, they look nice, but still like >>890107 said, rather generic. What town would that even be anyway, Rocket Town?

The sprites look weird though. It's like they're using the chibi style of older FFs but making them too tall. Locke or whoever that is looks too buff. Not saying it's bad, it's just.... different.

>>890082

would the story have been different too?

this looks much better, but the story and characters are why it's bad (in my opinion)

>>890082
What could have been...

>>890082
I think the final version of FF7 had a much better and more distinct art style. Main issue with 7 isn't the game itself but its fanbase.

>>890160
Oh and an afterthought: I actually didn't mind, and still don't mind, the blocky outside of battle graphics. It's still one of the best RPGs on the PSX, along with Parasite Eve and Chrono Cross.

>>890082

Where the FUCK is the source for this? This is incredible, this must have been the earliest attempt at making the game. I know development started on SNES, becoming concepts that ended up being Chrono Trigger and other games.

The playstation version started with Xenogear's script, which was tossed out though several elements were retained (both games started out from a concept of an amnesiac soldier with a personality disorder).

>>890095
>>890102

You fagots are tasteless.

>>890167

I found it here:

http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?45976-Final-Fantasy-VII-Super-Famicom-SNES

Essentially, it's a mock up screen. A "concept" screen. Square did the same with FFIV for the nes.

>>890167
Wasn't Parasite Eve originally an early build of FF7 as well? I didn't realize Chrono Trigger came from FF7. So many things came from FF7 apparently haha.

>>890168

One of the many concepts, I remember. I don't think Eve itself was the pitch - because it was based on a book, actually.

However, it was the use of New York City as a setting that was reused from that early FFVII pitch that made it's way into them developing Parasite Eve. From the very start, FFVII was intended to have a city be the central setting for the story.

>>890173
Yeah I know about the book later turned into a movie. Was a decent movie if I recall... maybe I should pick up the book.
I've noticed small similarities: Aya is a bit like Cloud in appearance and personality. Eve had similar intentions to what Sephiroth did... Hell in a way she's like Jenova and the Ultimate Being is kind of like Sephiroth. Aya and Eve have similar powers just like Cloud and Sephiroth did. Not to mention Daniel and Barret are very similar in appearance and personality as well.

>>890167
>>890168

One funny thing about Xenogears, is that immediately after it was refused being FFVII, it began development again as... Chrono Trigger 2.

>>890181
I find that quite hard to believe given the extremely detailed story elements that set up XG. There's simply no room for it to be a CT sequel, unless that was long before the story had even begun production.

I did notice they shared many of the same development team members, but similarities end there.

>>890160
I'd be willing to be that the most vocal part of that fanbase know it only from Kingdom Hearts and Advent Children.

>>890181
>>890184

It's something that a lot of research has to be done on. A Xenosaga fanbook has an interview with the specifics but it's rare as fuck. This is a decent discussion on the topic with some links:
http://www.gamespot.com/xenogears/forum/the-alleged-chrono-trigger-2-xenogears-link-58022221/

There's a sketchy connection between the two and it's ambiguous how far it goes. The generally agreed assertion was that there was a tech demo that a Gamespot editor was informed of by Square of a Chrono Trigger 2, whose engine was used for Xenogears. This is the earliest known connection.

There are a lot of weird mysteries about abandoned Square projects.

It's completely ambiguous at which point in development it became it's own thing. Probably near the start.

>>890101
>not showing the lego character models
lel

>>890109

You know, back in our day we didn't refer to a game's visuals as "pixel art". They were just "graphics". As in: "this game has good graphics". You'd be lucky to find a videogame enthusiast that knew what a pixel was, let alone consider it "art" back in the 90's.

The only people to refer to 2D games as "pixel art" today happen to be, in my experience, children trying to pass off as some sort of refined conoisseurs in the art styles of old. Except you show evidently otherwise.

You have no idea how much people would've preferred for games to look like they did on the fucking box instead of small-ass sprites.

>>890107
>It looks rather generic, IMO.
Yeah, with a lot of snes jrpgs most people can't tell them apart at a glance unless they've played the games. I've seen people who aren't familiar with square's snes library confuse Romancing SaGa, Treasure of Rudra and Live A Live for Final Fantasy. Very few people would do that with the company's ps1 games.

>>891349

Destroyed the poor guy

Pixel art his an underage hipster word for those who want to be different to the rest in their age range playing mass effect/cod etc

>>891349

Woah dude, that's just full retard right there.

Sure the term "pixel art" is a recent development but anyone with any sort of computer experience knew what a pixel was. Hell, you could say just about every game developer knew what one was. I'm sure they're enthusiasts too

>>891349

Not the guy you were talking to, but I'm from '81 and have been working on game development since 2005.

I've worked on about 10 2D games, and 4 3D ones.

And I DO refer to pixel-art as pixel-art. It's useful because the technique is fundamentally different to any other form of asset creation/design. Other guys I know in the industry use the term.

Maybe the term wasn't used back then. But it is now.

Pic related: is you what come across as. Only ignorant.

>>890082
So, when did Locke bulk up?

>>891349
>>891403
you are clearly samefagging, nigga.

polite sage for off topic.

FF7 graphics aged terribly, but everything except perhaps the SD characters looked amazing 'back in the day'.

>>891349
>You have no idea how much people would've preferred for games to look like they did on the fucking box
Of course I fucking do, I was there. "It's like a real cartoon" every time some hardware topped some other hardware.

>>891349
Regardless of whether I knew the term back when I was 10, pixel art is pixel art, so what the fuck are you talking about?

>>891469

Have they ever bothered to rerender everything?

I mean, the backgrounds ARE 3D models, just prerendered at a terrible resolution. Did they ever bother to go beyond what 2XSai can offer?

I haven't kept up with all the rereleases or played any FF ever, I'm just interested in them as historical artifacts

>>891492
You mean the recent PC rerelease? No, they didn't. They upscaled the backgrounds with a shitty filter.

See how retarded children who never even saw the game at a PSOne resolution scream "lego characters". Back when 3D and 2D was the same resolution, FFVII looked fine, both field and character graphics.

>>891497
FFVII looked fine on release, but aged within that generation alone.
The other Square RPGs from that era, like Chrono Cross and FFVIII/FFIX had noticeably better field models. It was easy to see the difference in detail regardless of resolution.

This topic should be recorded for posterity as a shining example of why /vr/ is a fucking horrible board.

Seriously, for all the bitching about "/v/ shit" on this /vr/, /v/ is actually a much better board.

Oh great another thread for shitting on ffvii.

>>891421
Nobody talked about "art" because hipsters hadn't infected gaming yet. It was "graphics". And nobody said "pixel" graphics because pixel graphics was the default. You only needed to specify the type of graphics if it was something else (eg. vector or digitized graphics). But now pixel graphics is no longer the most common and you do need to specify.

>>891525

Pixel is no longer most common?

I give you that there's lots of baking in game development today, but pixel-art is very much indeed alive.

There are tasks where pixelart are mandatory (like UI design) if you want crisp results.

I have no idea what you mean by "pixel graphics".

>>891557
Pixel graphics = pixel art

But nobody talked about "art" in the 80s/90s, it was "graphics".

all you people yelling and arguing about if this looks like shit are complete retards... the game started out development for the SNES, so this is typical. Also I have never seen a fucking single picture of an unfinished game from almost 20 years generate this much anger before, christ sake, calm the fuck down

Form the mid 90's, in big red text: "BEHOLD THE ULTIMATE IN SPRITE ART". "Sprite art" being "dot e geijutsu". "Dot e" is "pixel art" or "sprite art" in the usual colloquial sense, "geijutsu" is "art" as in "holy shit this is ART!" The whole "games as art" thing has been around for a long time.

>>891572

OPs pic had nothing to do with the arguing. Thread was derailed by retard.

I suggest OP deletes this thread and makes a new one.

Polite sage

Haha. I remember seeing this in Nintendo Power.

>>891572
>I have never seen a fucking single picture of an unfinished game from almost 20 years generate this much anger before

I have, but yeah sage for off topic.

>>891508
>FFVII looked fine on release, but aged within that generation alone.
It hasn't aged, it looks exactly the same as it did in 1997, what the fuck are you on? Digital data doesn't age, it's physically impossible.

>>891730
>hurrr i'm super logical

>>891739
>durr I, on the other hand, make no sense and am proud of it

>>891641

Is that supposed to be Terra or Celes?

>>891743

>mfw the irony

you belong on /mu/

>>891769

Probably neither since it's a beta. If I had to choose one, however, it's probably Terra, given the red leotard.

>>891769
Terra was blonde in Amano's concept art.

>>890082
Oh yea another 16 bit final fantasy would have been MUCH better than, oh I don't know, the first 3D Game of the franchise.

What were they thinking? Bunch of dumbasses over there in Japan. Am I right OP?

>>891865
>playstation game
>16 bits

ya dun goofed

>>890096
Sorry if this is dumb, but what is that screenshot from? I'm fairly new to retro video games, especially Final Fantasy. The weird thing in that picture is that there's a billboard for the real, incredibly popular (in the indie world) album Loveless, by My Bloody Valentine, which came out in 1991.

>>891873
>implying that's not a snes prototype

>>891730
wiki bit rot

>>891885
> implying the SNES was capable of anything like that

>>890096
>640x480

The PS1 displayed the backgrounds at 320x240

>>891880
That's indeed a reference to the album (which is glorious, by the way).

>>891591
no, if you actually look through the thread, half of it is "DUR HUR PIXEL HIPSTERS!!" and the other half is people whining and yelling because it was almost a 2D game

>>891783
it wasn't even a beta, it was a tech demo, made to test some stuff out for the N64 but a company unrelated to squaresoft, after FF7 was already out, that image was also never in nintendo power

>>891775
why is the le lazare face a human and not a certain fantasy equine creature of animated origin?

>>891819
Every single girl is blonde in amano's shitty art.

Hell even most guys are.

>>892007
Listening to the full album right now.

The first song is great hope I like the rest.

>not liking early 2.5d graphic style games

shiggery diggerigoo
such a nice art style

>>891975
Ah shit you're right. I forgot how limited the SNES was.

>>890082
Post a link to the ROM or I've lost interest

>>892225
>shadow on glass nothing but a circle

TRULY THE SNES WAS A TECHNICAL MARVEL AHEAD OF ITS TIME

>>892090
>/vr/
>liking loveless
really surprised by this... since this board is an extension of /v/ I thought you would all be power metal loving neckbeards that couldn't appreciate anything like that

>>892287
>Extension of /v/

Please don't insult us.

That prototype looks fine.
The actual game looks fine.
It has always, and will always look fine.
If you disagree, you're just another person with a different view on things. If you try to argue why you're right on declaring that "things just don't look good anymore" it's because you're a faggot with a shit sense of situation in time. You're also a massive cunt and you're one of the many kinds of people I'd feel pleasure on murdering. Literally. I hate you.

For the record, if we're always going to compare things to how things are now, why not go ahead in time? Because when I think of how good graphics can be, there is no exception to this: not a single game looks good, and not a single game will look good in the next 30 years. Literally.

>>890102
>in the veins of Lunar and other such crap

>>891880
>The weird thing in that picture is that there's a billboard for the real, incredibly popular (in the indie world) album Loveless, by My Bloody Valentine, which came out in 1991.
>Gives it a listen
Eh, not my thing.

>>892090
it only gets better

>>891583

>ultimate in sprte art
>anything that isn't from SNK

Yeah sorry, Capcom was never the sprite expert.

>>892268
>bitching about the character sprite rather than paying attention to the background.

2/10 got me to respond. Try harder next time though.

>>892409
Akiman has said on twitter that he and the other artists were often under pressure from management to do things "cheaply and quickly like SNK". But they put in more effort than necessary because they had pride in their work.

>>890158
That's actually a Chinese Bootleg 8-Bit version of Final Fantasy VII.... Locations are mostly the same, but the enemies are all new.

>>891880
In FFVII it's a promotional poster for the theatrical play 'loveless' which is by far the most popular one in the ffvii universe.

>>892546

Moogle Wannabe 2 is a way better play than Loveless. But we can all agree I Want To Be Your Canary sucked ass.

>>890083
>>890787
>backgrounds in VII are amazing and nearly timeless
>only major flaw was overworld lego battle models, which had their own nostalgiac charm
>CAN'T CRITIQUE SPRITES THEY ARE ALWAYS FLAWLESS 10/10 BEST 2D PURE GRAPHICS 3D PIG DISGUSTING
I am going to get arrested for manslaughter one day. There will be a time I hear a neckbeard say this, and I will pummel his face so hard his teeth be rocketed down into at least 3 of his 5 chins.

>>892298
You faggots sure act like it sometimes

>>892798
Jesus fuck, calm the fuck down man.
I think you need to leave 4chan for a while and learn to deal with your getting angry at petty things.

It's just their fucking opinion, man.

>>892812
>its just their fucking opinion man
Their stupidity is infectious to this board and all of mankind. They must all be exterminated. Please like this if you rage everytiem.

>>892798
That would be murder. For manslaughter you have to prove you killed him by accident. You can't facefist someone to death by accident.

>>892817
>you can't facefist someone to death by accident
Sure you can. If the glove don't fit, you must acquit.

>>892287
It's unlistenable shit for vinyl-loving hipsters.

>>890082
Um, this is not FF7, it's more likely an RPG maker game with a Lockelike character and FF6like townsfolk. Where'd you get that OP?

>>892930
someone posted the link in this thread, its just a "prototype", the neckbeard nostalgia kids are busting a nut over sprites, but just like the N64 demo, this is NOT "Final Fantasy VII", it is just a tech demo/test run. Then you have a bunch of idiots/trolls in this thread
>what could have been
God, /vr/ is just getting so fucking annoying lately.

>>892936
Well the thing is I wouldnt blame people for longing for stuff like that because there's so little info on the development of these games. It'd be interesting to know more but companies don't want to release such info or don't think there's demand

>>892814
>Liking a 4chan post

>>892936
>God, /vr/ is just getting so fucking annoying lately.

so annoying that you're on here at 3 in the morning

afaik there are very few "16-bit ff7" pics and they just look like FF6 with different sprites

>>890082
>What could have been...

Lucky for you there are 749 other JRPGs on PS1 that look exactly like that. (some of which are quite enjoyable)

>>892798
hey man, FF9 looks way better than 7

>>891880
It was hinted to be >>892007 (which made me discover one of the best albums in music history) and was retroactively stated to be >>892546.

>>892090
My nigga.

>>893116
I actually agree with you, being the OP of that post and a huge fan of VII and IX. I just hate when people talk about sprite/pixels as being some timeless masterpiece. Star Ocean 2 is nowhere near the visual quality of Square's RPG titles, but somehow people still think every SNES JRPG is completely void of criticism because it achieved some laughable level of "2d perfection".

>>891492

Square lost the source files for FFVII. The original team that ported it only had a shitty beta build to work with, when porting it to PC.

>>891885

That's a mockup picture, retard. There's a link earlier in the thread, and the caption underneath the picture's release in a magazine says "concept". There was no FFVII that looked liked that.

>>891695
I'm curious what you mean by that image. Was there a big RE2 controversy after the game was made?

>>892546
Pretty sure that one at the beginning of FF9 was more popular. The queen showed up to that one.

Also. has anyone ever gotten a good rating during that battle? I know you can impress the crowd by doing certain things, because they think the battle is scripted, but I sucked at FF9.

>>894082

There were lots of fuck faces who could have leaked 1.5 over the years but were cunts and chose not to, or played games. The communities of people who have longed for 1.5 got mad, and a few people sent death threats.

>>894089
A screenshot with 99 impressed nobles was seen in these places some days ago.

>>894058

Source?

I mean... it'd be a weird lie to make up, but I'd like to read up on that. I'm always surprised when a famous TV show (or game in this case) tries to do a retrospective years later and discovers that the original tapes burned or something.

It really is amazing if that is truly lost. Those hard drives/tapes would be worth a LOT in the hands of a collectionist.

Maybe it'll be like Metropolis all over again, only this time someone will find all the lightwave files in a folder in a forgotten FTP somewhere in japan.

>>894106
What happened with Metropolis?

>>894106

I don't have the source anymore but I remember it was from an interview with the team that ported the game to PC.

>>891730
Are you the same dumbass from the Dragon Quest I thread? Games "age", years go by, technology changes. and what used to be beautiful and cutting-edge now looks very outdated and unimpressive.

This was already explained to you, and you continue to spout your retarded stance of "GAMES DON'T AGE! THEY CAN'T! RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE!"

>>894129
There are still retards who don't understand that technology ages in relation to its counterparts.

Like I consider SMB3 a game that aged well because it still looks aesthetically pleasing and controls well. It also plays well in comparison to any sidescrolling platformer released today. Now something like DQI (as you brought up) has not aged well. Specifically the slow, have-to-bring-up-a-menu-to-do-anything NES version has not aged well, whereas the GBC version is fine.

I think some people take "aged" as an insult to their favorite games for some reason. It's not even necessarily an insult. Games from the mid to late 90s looked impressive then because we hadn't seen anything like them. Now they don't look impressive to anyone.

I don't get why this is a hard point for people to understand, but whatever.

>>892223
What game is this? I swear it's on the tip of my tongue.

>>894212
It's moon, I'm guessing. Has that been translated yet?

>>894212
FF8 I think. Or some PS1 Square RPG.

>>894217
Oh shit. That's not what I thought it was at all. I've never even heard of it.
I assumed the file name was just whatever.

>>894212
>>894217
>>894225

I'm an idiot. It's from an FF game. Google image search it.

>>892268
That's part of the style. It took me a long time to figure out what you meant, because circular shadows are symbolic, not literal representations, and I have no problems interpreting them. Complaining about circular shadows in 4th gen. games is like complaining about big eyes in anime.

>>894241
>>894225
Definitely Final Fantasy 8, it's in the town of Dollet.

[spoilers]I've beaten that game 35 times, i'd recognize that shit anywhere[/spoilers]

>>894259
yeah, Dollet as fuck. I remember that town and all those awkward narrow passages and not knowing where to go and how to navigate accurately.

>>894259
>Dollet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvhuIY8HcgE

>>891641
>>891769
>>891819

>>891730
cuz the character models were really something to brag about, right?

>>894309
I found two small QuickTime movies of the demo online maybe a few weeks after the show. They've made it to YouTube if anyone wants to watch them these days.

>Shadow flipping a building-sized golem around

>>894163
>>Now they don't look impressive to anyone.
Sure they do, but only in some cases, thanks to aesthetically pleasing and wonderful art styles.

I played Gargoyle's Quest II first time a few days ago and was impressed by the exciting color compositions and the great backgrounds with very well-defined depth.

Them graphics are not just impressive as technological milestones. Amazing art styles will continue to impress.

I find most of the backgrounds of this game aged pretty well.

OP pic is from http://myfinalfantasycollection.blogspot.fr/2013/01/final-fantasy-25th-memorial-ultimania_19.html BTW

>>892517
THANK YOU FOR THE INSIGHT, WE WOULD HAVE NEVER HAVE KNOWN IF IT WERENT FOR THE ONE AND ONLY CAPTAIN FUCKING OBVIOUS

>>897137
shitposters back to /v/

>>897096
because they're static images superimposed on a polygon frame. it almost uses the exact same technology as donkey kong country did. of course when a scene is modeled on hardware leaps and bounds ahead of it's time, of course it will look good for a while onwards. don't be naive

>>897143
The only one shitposting is the guy who ruined the ff7 nes beta joke by being like "uh hey guys that's actually a bootleg blah blah". No shit, everyone has heard about that by now.