FFXIV V1.0 vs FFXIV V2.0 - The Black Mage Job Cutscenes
0Final Fantasy XIV Copyright (C) 2010-2015 SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD. All Rights Reserved.
Every so often people want to argue that V1.0 did something better. True, the cutscenes were often more "cinematic" in nature, but were they actually better?
In checking through archival footage, I noticed that the Black Mage job cutscenes (at least the first set) were nearly the same dialog in both versions of the game, so I decided to actually check it myself.
Thus this establishes a base-line from with to draw a comparison.
Difficulties:
1. Finding or making usable footage.
2. I picked the WHM outfit and gear because that's simply what I have available to narrow the lighting comparison. At the actual point in the game where the BLM story plays out, you'd need to be wearing Thaumaturge or any non-job specific caster-gear. Since it's white, it's also best representative of lighting bloom effects. Also the cutscene staging refers to both the gender and the class/job the player is playing.
3. Timing everything. From the game server time (before noon) to establish the same lighting and weather, to how long to hold a NPC conversation. V1.0 auto-matically pushes dialog forward sometimes to keep the cinematic tension, while V2.0 doesn't.
4. Hardware requirements are terrible. The visual quality in the video is not Representative of how the game's fine-details look.
I padded the video's only to align the times (and I cut one 10-camera second pan in the V1.0 footage as it never stops.)
But are they any better? Not really.
V1.0 was marginally better with dealing with Depth of Field (DoF), where as V2.0/V3.0 DirectX11 nearly eschews the DoF effect entirely.
V1.0 had higher detailed models for for some outfits and they had race-specific customizations, where as V2.0 "nerfed everyone's butts" so most female Miqo'te (and now Au Ra) players tails clip through outfits that were designed for Hyur/Elezen who don't have tails.
V1.0 has some better animation sequences in cutscenes where in V2.0 the character would just stand still or walk normally. (Notice how the Lalfells move and walk differently in the otherwise same scenes)
That said
V1.0 's lighting and shading was actually much worse. Both V1.0 and V2.0 have color, but V2.0 isn't as oversaturated.
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