1110°

FF13 Graphics Changes in Action

Some of the graphical changes made by Square Enix to later builds of Final Fantasy XIII are becoming clear when released screenshots are studied and compared by fans.

Two released screenshots are almost identical but are from different builds, giving fans an easy way to directly compare different versions of the game and look at changes made to the game engine. The question on the lips of many fans will be why these changes have been made - were they necessary changes for performance, or are they to accomodate the game's multiplatform status?
Alternative Sources:
FFXIII loses its edge - kingps3.com | By: toxic27
AP - contributor
Published: 157 days 7 hours ago | News | PlayStation 3 | Xbox 360 | Gaming
 
 

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Xiphos - 157 days 8 hours ago
1 -
I remember seeing those images as a PS3/360 comparison over at GameTrailers.

Whatever the case, I hope the whole game hasn't been graphically dumbed down to such a degree as the differences here. Everything looks so much better in the first one. Leave it to the current SquareEnix to actually make a good look worse as time goes on.
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AP - 157 days 8 hours ago
1.1 -
If that's the case, it's a lie - the second image came out on the Advent Children Complete Blu Ray, before ANY footage of the 360 version was shown - the first 360 Footage was shown at E3 2009, after the Blu Ray went to print.
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Xiphos - 157 days 8 hours ago
1.2 -
Who knows, can't believe half the crap you see/read over there.
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GWAVE - 157 days 7 hours ago
1.3 -
Though many people here simply see me as "some stupid Sony fanturd", I'll still say my piece:

This isn't because of the 360. Squarenixidos has proven many times this generation that they are slipping. Their game quality is getting worse and worse. Play "Last Remnant" if you don't believe me.

If I'm going to blame anyone for the drop in quality, I'd point the finger right at S-E.
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ApocalyPS3 - 157 days 7 hours ago
1.4 -
"were they necessary changes for performance, or are they to accomodate the game's multiplatform status"

Don't forget that they're building this game on a PC anyway, so the builds before any official footage from either console would've naturally looked and/or played better than what we're going to see in the end.
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Blaze929 - 157 days 7 hours ago
1.5 -
I don't think we should worry about the graphics possibly getting dumbed down, at least on the PS3. Square said they will use nearly 100% of the PS3's abilities. We shall be the judges of that when the game releases this year in Japan.

360 though, if they manage to get that version running similar to the PS3 version, then that will be VERY interesting.

EDIT: Why the dissagrees? Did Square not say they were going to use nearly 100% of the PS3's power?

http://www.1up.com/do/newsS...

The demo looked nice and that was only at 50% according to producer Yoshinori Kitase. I'm not saying I believe them but until we have the final product in our hands why is there a reason not to believe them? Thus eliminating the need to worry
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AAACE5 - 157 days 7 hours ago
1.6 -
They both look good to me, but you can tell the top one clearly has more detail than the lower picture.

You can see alot of the shadowing has been removed. It looks like Lightning has a blocky shoulder in the lower pic, as opposed to the top pic. The detail in lightnings hair is is removed. In the lower pic, Lightnings eyes do look a bit more realistic than in the upper pic.In the lower pic lightenings chin has a point in it as opposed to the top having a smooth surface, indicating they may be using less polygons for the character models.

We won't know the truth about this issue until SE themselves make a formal announcement.
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AP - 157 days 7 hours ago
1.7 - Bullshots!
Personally, I believe the early shots of the game were bullshots, and we're only now starting to see the (slightly jaggier) truth. I don't think it has to do with multiplatform stuff.

FF13 still looks amazing graphically, it just doesn't look as great as something like Gears or Uncharted.
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PixlSheX - 157 days 7 hours ago
1.8 - @Blaze
FFXIII is the first SE game on PS3 so i wouldn't eat that sh!t of "We are going to use nearly 100% of the PS3 power"

If i learned something about SE, is that they're good at lying.

If I'm wrong, please correct me.
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GUNS N SWORDS - 157 days 7 hours ago
1.9 -
this again, what a load of bs.

their newest trailer which was out two months ago showed no such down grade from the trailer that was shown almost a year ago.

http://www.gamersyde.com/ne...

and focusing on 360's specific version it showed no differences from the e3 jap trailer that was shown almost a year ago.

http://www.gametrailers.com...

i don't think ANY company would make a game that's quality would be worse than it's demo.
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CrazzyMan - 157 days 7 hours ago
1.10 - Well, atleast we still have FFXIII Versus, which may show the true potential of CT engine
But for now, we can thank M$ for this...
You can`t expect to run a game on a multiplatform engine as good as on optimized for one specific platform engine...

However, let`s wait for the FINAL build, though Square become cheap company, they still are known for a HIGH quality graphics. =)
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RustInPeace - 157 days 6 hours ago
1.11 - @ 1.5
S-E may have said they were using nearly 100% of the PS3s power, but with new games such as Uncharted 2 not quite using the PS3 to the fullest and looking as good as it/that does already, I highly doubt that S-E can do such an undertaking which no other dev team has done yet. Also, for a multiplat game, if they "were" to use the fullest of the PS3, wouldn't that throw off their claim of "equality" between then multiple versions? I'm not saying that the 360 can't do it, but the PS3 could possibly have a slight edge against the 360 version if 100% of its power were used. I think they're just boasting to put the fans at ease, although many fans have pretty much let it been known that the quality of S-E games have sunk within the past few years in the eyes of the gamers, especially ANYTHING involving this particular game.
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7ero H3LL - 157 days 6 hours ago
1.12 -
( CrazzyMan )

"Well, atleast we still have FFXIII Versus, which may show the true potential of CT engine
But for now, we can thank M$ for this...
You can`t expect to run a game on a multiplatform engine as good as on optimized for one specific platform engine...

However, let`s wait for the FINAL build, though Square become cheap company, they still are known for a HIGH quality graphics. =)"

dumb comment, you say that it's all bad and ms is to blame for it.......then you say "let`s wait for the FINAL build"

are you trying to sugar coat your fan-boyish comments?

the final build isn't out till 2010, till then I'm guessing your just going to still keep saying the same sour sh1t huh.
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ABizzel1 - 157 days 6 hours ago
1.13 -
Well this is going to end badly.

There is a difference, but my guess is that the original was from the PS3 version of the game which has been in development for the longest, and the later is from the 360 version. We know the 360 version is a port of the PS3 version, so this might be what the game looks like after the porting process from PS3 to 360 until it's optimized for the 360.

I hope the quality of the PS3 version hasn't suffered, and that this is just the 360 before it's optimized to match the original.
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MGSR THE HD VERSION - 157 days 6 hours ago
1.14 -
it's amazing how most of you guys lose hope.

just cause it went multiplat.

besides i remember those screens, they're old, they were out before this E3.
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Immortal Kaim - 157 days 6 hours ago
1.15 -
Guys, we have all seen the E3 trailers of both the PS3 and 360 versions, as well as played the PS3 demo, neither look as bad as that second shot. Infact, after viewing the footage again, I would say they are on par with the first screen shot.
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Mozilla89 - 157 days 6 hours ago
1.16 - Oh boy....
And here we go...
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Jaces - 157 days 4 hours ago
1.17 - @Blaze
Yea, how many times have we heard that developers have/are using 100% of the PS3's capabilities/power?

Enough to know 100% of what they say is bull. Personally...if XIII turns out to be another XII, then count me out. XII bored me to tears.
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badz149 - 157 days 4 hours ago
1.18 - haha...
luckily I don't really care for FFXIII from the beginning because I've never played any FF before and never will play XIII! but if vsXIII will have a gameplay anything like KH, then, I think I'll buy it! by the way, where's my KH3, SE??

it's only logical for SE to do something quite extreme in order to cater to the DVD from the original BD plan! if on the PS3 it will be anything around 25GB, then they will need at least 4 DVD if they are going to do the same thing (theoretically) and if they were planning to use a 50GB BD, then more DVDs will be needed OR they can compress everything and stay at 720p or less for the whole game, (because I read somewhere that they are going 1080p for cutscenes) that will make more sense cost-wise and quality-wise and will require less storage space! I don't think they will want to make it look superior on 1 particular console because they also said something like there will be no returning back to earlier area during the game which I think is to minimize disc changing on 360! - correct me if I'm wrong!

so...out of the 2 possibilities, I think, SE will go with the 2nd! because if I'm Wada, I'll go for that! (but I don't want to be Wada, because he's STUPID!)
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mastiffchild - 157 days 3 hours ago
1.19 -
Well, the originals might have nothing to do with the PS3 and these nothing to do with 360,imo. We just don't know at all.

I will say, though, that it's inevitable that the game will be visually inferior as a multi to what it would have been as an exclusive. And I mean exclusive to either console as well. Any multiplat is victim to the shortcomings of both consoles and can't use the full strength of either as a result of the dev not wanting to alienate people. We've all seen the results possible with a long dev cycle on PS3 exclusives(and I think will see the same kind of thing with AW and SCC to a large extent), results which leave all multis way behind and SE won't be any different. In fact as this is their first PS3 game they might find it even harder now the extra restrictions of the 360s limits have been added to the mix to get the PS3 version running well at a similar level-we've seen it before and in Ghostbusters case even with PS3 as lead platform.

So while IDK much from the screenshots I do know that had this stayed exclusive to PS3(or, indeed gone to 360 exclusively) we'd have a better looking end result-it's just the way things work and, among other reasons to feel mffed, PS3 only gamers can feel a bit gutted that they won't ever get the FF13 they expected. I might be wrong and SE could shock me totally but I doubt it and if these shots ARE anything to go by then it's even less likely to happen.
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1ikedamaster - 157 days 3 hours ago
1.20 - Heh...
The bottom pic is clearly the ps3 version.(I kid)

Top pic looks better but most would probably prefer the softer-looking version.
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Bob Loblaw - 157 days 2 hours ago
1.21 - Fvcking Square always cutting corners
The lighting in the second screen literally looks like a high quality PS2 game's!

THIS is why PS3 fans are disappointed about FF13 going to 360. 360 fanboys were saying that PS3 fanboys aren't as pumped because it's not an exclusive, exclusivity doesn't matter; it's because the game will be dumbed down so it can run on 360 and fit on 1 disc.

Imagine KZ2 on 360; it would look like CoD4 and stuff would have been taken out to fit on a 9 gig DVD.

Bigger storage + More power = Potentially better game and that's a fact! Imagine what Bungie and Epic could do with 5 times more space and much more power...
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TheReaper42 - 157 days ago
1.22 -
the 2nd shot was a screen capture off of youtube. There I've said it, don't bite my bubbles please.

2 things I can tell. 2nd pic looks blurrier. 2nd pic, the girls actually LOOK like girls... the 1st pic had a guy/girl lightning (can't really tell) and a doll girl on the right.

Basically art direction changed with some bloom/blurriness.
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Shbzshar - 156 days 23 hours ago
1.23 -
@Bob loblaw

hahah... go finish your bob loblaw law blog man ...
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FarEastOrient - 156 days 22 hours ago
1.24 -
I already mentioned it before, but there has been downgrading of the Final Fantasy XIII game ever since the start of the Xbox 360 build. Even though Iwada said that the Xbox 360 build wouldn't start until the PS3 version is complete, we can say that he lied since he promised that both versions will look identical.

If you want to compare the capabilities of consoles and their ability to play Square Enix games, compare the live game code engine of Final Fantasy XIII Versus compared to the live code of Final Fantasy XIII after it went multi-platform. I've mentioned this on TQcast gamer show when talked about game screens of Final Fantasy XIII when it was still exclusive compared to screens of today.
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morganfell - 156 days 21 hours ago
1.25 -
They are definitely using lower res textures. And lower res textures mean they can fit more of the game into a smaller space. Now which console has a disk space issue? Mystery solved.

The change is likely due to the discovery by SE on just how much disk space was going to be needed. This was something not evident until levels were fleshed out. Now they know and we know and we all see the result. After all, there is no logical reason for a game to get uglier during the dev process except the platform cannot handle it - and we know the PS3 can from the demo - or else a system lacks storage space and we know the 360 lacks that.

Thanks Microsoft for dumbing down FFXIII for the entire world.
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NeoCloud - 156 days 21 hours ago
1.26 -
I have the PS3 Demo Version and it looks really good [even at 50% thats what SE is telling us].But if you want to blame someone dont Blame the X360 or the PS3, blame SquareEnix.
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vhero - 156 days 19 hours ago
1.27 -
They said in an interview over 2 years ago making for one console meant they could get the best out of the game. Switching to dual consoles means they have to dumb the game down I just didn't think it would be so bad.
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commodore64 - 156 days 16 hours ago
1.28 -
..... Don't mean to incite a riot here, but there seems to be a lot of ps3 fans thinking that the lower quality screenshot must be from the 360 version which by implication means this is holding the ps3 version back somehow.

No factual evidence for such speculation exists, of course, and thereby it all remains bog-standard case of speculative delusion.
I think the gamerzone would be better if we just stuck to the facts.

Thus:
Factually, we all know that multiplats run demonstrably better on 360, most of the time:
http://misterslimm.wordpres...

So why would this multiplat game be any different than the clearly established trend?

I have a sneaking suspicion, that, when all is said and done, the 360 version will easily match or shame the ps3 version, and in the latter case, n4g will surely blow up at 1 million degrees!

----------
edit:

No, it ain't 2006, read the article I provided.
Multiplats continue, in 2009, to run better on 360.
That's a fact.

Also, wasn't Ghostbusters led on ps3?
Once again, we all know how that worked out.
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morganfell - 156 days 16 hours ago
1.29 -
Unlike most other multiplats, this title was designed for the PS3 using an engine built for the PS3. When the PS3 is the lead platform the results are differnt. Your reasoning (?) is so 2006.
1.30 Megatron08 | 156 days 15 hours ago - User only got 1 bubble - Show
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Jaces - 156 days 15 hours ago
1.31 - @Commodore
As true as that may be, is it such a gap as to be able to claim one version is more superior than the other?

No. Aside from Ghostbusters, which was an atrocity, there is no significant difference between the two versions when put side by side. Perhaps slightly better lighting or shading among some "jaggies" but that's about it.

Let's be honest, if a 360 version of a game ran worse than it's PS3 counterpart, you'd still get the 360 version. If not then I've misjudged you but from a fanboys perspective I'm spot on.
1.32 ps3d0 | 156 days 15 hours ago - User only got 1 bubble - Show
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meepmoopmeep - 156 days 14 hours ago
1.33 -
i've played the demo many many times

the graphics aren't bad at all.
they're on par with most of the graphic heavy hitters
released this gen already.
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scissor_runner - 156 days 13 hours ago
1.34 -
Some thing tells me MGSR THE HD VERSION that most of these guys where not FF fans in the first place. Seriously even if it is dumbed down then it is still better than the last one that came out. Does it matter more for your system to win the power battle or for you to get the game you wanted.

This same thinking is maybe why other smaller devs will just let you destroy the reputation of the bigger devs and publishers. With out the bigger devs/publisher there would be no HD gaming LOL.

Keep this up and HD gaming will self destruct. I know you all will blame nintendo but the way you guys are acting right now will surely do more damage than people having fun.
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Gamertags - 154 days 11 hours ago
1.35 - Most of us already know that...
the 360 version of this game will probably be the superior version in terms of graphics. As we have already seen time and time again, the 360 counterparts are usually sharpers with better frame rates.

I hope they are exactly the same as I am tired of hearing all this fanboyism.
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Arnon - 152 days 20 hours ago
1.36 - Read up, folks...
The 'new' images that look worse, are from Jump Festa 2008.

http://forums.gametrailers....
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Delta - 157 days 8 hours ago
2 -
i like the older build. How about you?
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Allelujah00 - 157 days 4 hours ago
2.1 - Same here
However, once it went multiplat, SE probably saw the difficulties it was having running on the 360.

For christ sake M$, why must you ruin our fun. :(
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Game13a13y - 156 days 22 hours ago
2.2 - you know which version i like?
the version back before SE announced it going multiplat. who cares about equal quality and same release date between PS 3 and 360 versions. just release the better version first (which is the PS3 version of coz) then let the 360 fans wait for their waterdowned version. SE really dropped the ball on this one.
3 La Chance | 157 days 8 hours ago - User only got 1 bubble - Show
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tordavis - 156 days 10 hours ago
3.1 -
Laughs at all the tools who think the 360 is gimping the PS3 version.
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DragonWarrior_4 - 157 days 8 hours ago
4 -
I dont know why this is an issue. I just got done playing some FFX a minute ago and let me tell you what. Despite it being in 480i, the graphics never crossed my mind because the story, music, and characters are so compelling it was as if I was watching a movie. The last thing you fanboys have to worry about is the graphics. The game is gonna look great. Lets just hope that the story, music, and characters are going to have the same quality as the previous titles. Besides FF X-2 and FF12.

Personally im not too crazy about the characters shown so far, but only time will tell. Till then just play all the other games that deserve your attention.
4.1 La Chance | 157 days 8 hours ago - User only got 1 bubble - Show
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iamtehpwn - 157 days 7 hours ago
4.2 - Really now?
I'm playing Final Fantasy X @ 1680x1050,
and the graphics on the game are absolutely amazing.

I play Final Fantasy X INTERNATIONAL in entirely Japanese.
Here are some screens:

http://img39.imageshack.us/...
http://img7.imageshack.us/i...
http://img36.imageshack.us/...
http://img193.imageshack.us...
http://img44.imageshack.us/...
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Marceles - 157 days 7 hours ago
4.3 -
Brings me back to when FFX first came out on PS2...just amazing. The last 2 you didnt have to add lol, cut scenes tend to look worse since the resolution stretches it out :P, but the gameplay shots don't look much older than RPGs this gen surprisingly.
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atwon23 - 157 days 7 hours ago
4.4 -
I didn't buy an hdtv for nothing. So for me graphics are of some importance. If a good story was all that mattered I would just read a book.

@below

I like older rpgs a lot. But I have older systems to play them on. I don't want an older looking rpg on my Ps3\360.
4.5 DragonWarrior_4 | 157 days 6 hours ago - deleted by mod -
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AP - 157 days 6 hours ago
4.6 - FFX Looks Amazing!
Still looks superb! And FFXII looks even better. Wow. This game will be amazing looking, I'm sure.
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tplarkin7 - 157 days 6 hours ago
4.7 - FFX was fun, but....
FFX was a technological disappointment when I played it 8 years ago. Fixed cameras, pre-rendered backgrounds, and blocky real-time graphics. The cutscenes were well done.

Skies of Arcadia was a better game then.
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