Is it just me, or did FFXI have better animations for cutscenes?

[DWolfwood]

After perusing some threads, I came across a cutscene from WotG, and looking at the game, it just brought this all back to me.

I've felt for a long time that the animations for characters in cutscenes is pretty horrendous. It's always made me cringe with few exceptions, and it's one of the hurdles I've had to deal with when trying to recruit friends to play the game. "Holy crap those cutscenes are bad." I know they attempt to do the majority of cutscenes with emotes, but I never got this feeling while watching FFXI's cutscenes. I know they did it to an extent as well, but that game never felt as stiff as this one.

Does anyone else feel the same? Here's the cutscene I was watching that helped me remember: https://youtu.be/3eg_Xz-OFyI

[Felis]

The only problem with the XIV cutscenes is that the devs limit the animations most time to already existing character emotions, instead of increasing the numbers of different animations just for cutscenes.

[Nalien]

I'd say XI was just as bad, if not worse, actually... Treasures and Wings definitely saw a step up in cutscene quality though, but I'd say XIVs already doing pretty fine there...

Character animations are pretty meh in both games, I'll just be thankful we don't have those horrible skin flaps for talking in this game... Not that it was better when they gave some NPCs teeth, XIs Cid was... He was something... "Talking" at least looks fairly natural here, even if facial expressions are usually... Odd... Heck, did XI even have facial expressions in cutscenes for most of its life?

Then again, I don't find XIV to be that cringe worthy as it is... Any such issues usually arise from poor voice acting, rather than the animations themselves...

[Crysten]

NPC walks on screen.

NPC does mixture of standard emotes.

/handover

WoL responds with a /handover and/or a /nod.

NPC turns 180 degrees while in the walking animation.

NPC walks off screen.

My eye twitches.

[DWolfwood]

...did XI even have facial expressions in cutscenes for most of its life?

Not that I know of. XIV is definitely better about it with this. We didn't expect much in terms of facial animations back then. Not really sure any games had much really.

[Nalien]

My eye twitches.

I think the problem is less the quality of the cutscenes, and more the quantity, then.

If we're talking about the mindless fetch quests and their following cutscenes, then I'd really say XIV and XI are pretty much tied there... XI was pretty much exactly the same... The only difference is XIV has hundreds more of these mindless quests to fluff out leveling...

Treasures and Wings had some really great cutscenes, but I can't recall more than a handful that were particularly great. They were starting to show off with their animations at that point, but XIVs been doing that since the start... Comparing the OPs video to fetch quest turn in cutscenes really isn't a fair comparison, I'd sooner compare it to stuff like the final Aery cutscene, the Grand Melee, or even various Hildibrand cutscenes... Some of the final 2.55 cutscenes might be the best comparison, though. Scratch that, lets compare the same combat style at least.

[Ibi]

Not that it was better when they gave some NPCs teeth, XIs Cid was... He was something...

I'm sure I don't know what you mean.

[DWolfwood]

Scratch that, lets compare the same combat styles at least.

I think that's probably the most fair comparison to the video I linked. That said, I think if we look at the animations that were made exclusively for these cutscenes, the WotG one stands out further. There's not much in that video, and I guess one could argue that's because it was serving as the teaser for Rogue/Ninja, but nonetheless, seeing the dancer look over her shoulder naturally, stretch, kick that shield and get knocked away, then dive under him; it just seems really cool, and I can honestly pull some more from previous expansions if we want to compare more.

[Nalien]

I'm sure I don't know what you mean.

I'll just be glad you didn't have a gif handy... That... thing... in motion is not something I wish to relive...

I think that's probably the most fair comparison to the video I linked. That said, I think if we look at the animations that were made exclusively for these cutscenes, the WotG one stands out further. There's not much in that video, and I guess one could argue that's because it was serving as the teaser for Rogue/Ninja, but nonetheless, seeing the dancer look over her shoulder naturally, stretch, kick that shield and get knocked away, then dive under him; it just seems really cool, and I can honestly pull some more from previous expansions if we want to compare more.

I think the only thing I can really complain about with XIV is the player character, but well... XI doesn't have the same complaint because you did nothing in cutscenes... XIV they try to involve you and put you in the cutscenes reacting, but since our characters are so customizable, they're limited in what they can do there and just default to emotes, which don't transition naturally and just end up looking off...

As far as NPCs go though, I think XIV does perfectly fine. We've got plenty of impressive cutscenes, and they've gotten better (Heavensward seems to rely less on standard emotes with NPCs), my only issue comes with the voice acting and lip syncing (or lack of). That final Shiva cutscene (that one) was great IMO, but I think the voice acting and lip syncing let it down in places... Those were issues XI really didn't have to deal with, though.

[Khalithar]

.[/S] Scratch that, lets compare the same combat style at least.

I wish they'd give the player characters some of those dramatic battle cutscenes, SWTOR does a lot of class specific fight cutscenes in a similar fashion to the one you linked but it's our character doing the cool stuff rather than the NPC's having all the fun.