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

[Reaperking386]

I think it was more dramatic and the music really added onto the effect.

[Aryalandi]

Treasures of Aht Urhgan kicked off having the pc do quite a bit more in cutscenes, Wings of the Goddess though is where they actively started to put themselves in to the action every time it was needed, including attacking enemies and defending allies. That was around the time when it was apperent that SE was going to move away from supporting the ps2, Chain of Memories was more akin to the way we have scenes in XIV Heavensward.

The thing is that in XI the characters interact with you more, you actually get to respond to things fairly frequently especially if you are with characters like Prishe who is essentially your bff by the end of her story.

Seekers of Adoulin and Rapsodies of Vana'diel takes it even further because it was made after the game started focusing on the pc, animations and things like that were made just for pc's to do more, que a closeup of my character talking, then taking an energy ball from the new heroine to protect a small child with, and edging past a group of monsters~ all in the very first cutscene of the expansion.. i was kind of amazed. The cutscenes keep to that level in everything afterwards.

In XI you get cutscenes even when you are doing a lot of the normal quests and you get a sense of importance and development both for yourself and for the Npc's you interact with. The world its self is expanded upon, you get to learn about each nations history and get a general feeling that the world is alive and full of people who all have histories and lives that they are living and that you have become an important part of it. People you help remember you afterwards and will comment on that fact.

Characters in XI as a whole treat you more like a person and a part of their lives than a lot of the characters in XIV.
Think of the ending of the Iroha questline if you played it, that is generally the way all of your close companions thought of you, Vana'diel loves you for your actions, you are a hero to the people yes.. but people remember you as an actual person rather than as a near mythical figure. You as a person hold an important place in their hearts for always being there. It is never just a case of killing a god and going home like its a business arrangement.

I like the fact that characters like Haurchefant exist for that exact reason, he doesn't care that you are the legendary warrior of light, he loves you because you are a person and because you are his friend. Heavensward has introduced a lot more of that and it is a nice change of pace.. just wish they would stop using it to traumatize my characters DX

The music during cutscenes in XI is all custom tailored to the scene so that I believe needs to return in full. XI music quality never failed to get the feelings of the scene across.. which to me is one of the things that Final Fantasy is famous for.

And.. wow I went off topic
Ok.. ahem, I would say that no XI does not have "better" cutscene animations than XIV per say.. it just has more of them especially for the pc than current XIV.. also Prishe dropkicking people in cutscenes cannot be matched. Ever.

[Yasuhiro]

And I'm quite happy with kitties here, they are finally beautiful ,not the homely abominations that were Mithra..couldn't stand them there.

Dem fighting words, Mithra were felines, Miqote just hyur with cat ears and tail.
Mithra will always be superior.

[Canadane]

I know it's taboo to bring up what was considered a failure of a game into the discussion but cutscenes was one thing 1.0 got right. Then... I guess we settled for less and what we have now is "acceptable".

https://youtu.be/aU5N24_5VIk

Taboo? No, if anything you should be more vocal about it.
Need to really bring back the motion capture cutscenes, imo

[bass9020]

Taboo? No, if anything you should be more vocal about it.
Need to really bring back the motion capture cutscenes, imo

We can only hope ONE day this will make a return. Maybe the next FF MMO!

[LineageRazor]

FFXI cutscenes were pretty wretched at the start, but later on they became amazing. Some of the battle cutscenes in Rhapsodies of Vana'diel in particular, but Wings of the Goddess had some great ones, as well. The comment above about your character becoming more "involved" isn't a bad point, but I don't think that's what accounts for the improvement. ALL characters, NPC and PC alike were given better animations. I chalk it up to the staff simply getting a whole lot better at what they were doing. Practice makes perfect, after all!

That said, it's kinda tough to compare the epic cutscenes in FFXI to the cutscenes here, because the cutscenes here rarely have to do with anything, well, EPIC. By and large, the vast majority are just conversations. Not much opportunity to show off animation skills when folks are just standing around talking. Pretty much all of the epic battle scenes are actual instanced battles, not cutscenes. On the rare occasions when they DO do battle cutscenes, such as the fight against the Sahagin where Yugiri and Thancred got to show off, it wasn't bad at all, imo.

[Xlantaa]

They need better animations for normal stuff too, not only the cutscenes. Most battle animations are OK, and the battle is quick so doesn't matter. But, the other animations are just... meh. EVERY action uses the same animation (potion animation for all item used), running is robotic, most the emotes are robotic too (with exceptions like dances and that), run, actions, jump and all are very basic. I like the 1.X animations like run and that. They should bring it back. This were more natural. Also add more variety. No se the item animation for everything.

I prefer a complete rework on animations much more than improve graphics.

[Gramul]

I'd say XI had better cinematography for the most part. But the Hildebrand cutscenes are a strong step above the rest.

Now the early 1.0 XIV cutscenes where fantastic. Especially the unused Titan one.

[NaesakiAshwell]

I feel like as time goes on the animations will be improved anyway but there is still one thing holding it all back.

Now I'm probably going to get get slammed for saying it but I think part of the problem is the limitations of the PS3 version, but at the same time they can't just halt support, it needs to be phased out gradually ideally by the time 4.0 comes around at the earliest.

I am genuinely curious what percentage of the player-base is on each platform, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume the majority of the PS3 players are the Japanese demographic since they are taking to the PS4 more slowly than the west has.

Now before any one accuses me of hating, this isn't about PS3 players being bad or anything like that, far from it (The platform doesn't make the player bad, a bad player is a bad player regardless of it), I think they are being denied the greater experience that the PS4 and PC version can provide while in the same boat those versions are being denied a lot of things simply because of the PS3 version.

I think SE offered incentives before for people to upgrade from the PS3 to the PS4 version? I reckon if they want to entice more PS3 users to upgrade to PS4 they are gonna have to offer bundles and maybe a cheaper sub for X amount of time for choosing to spend a good chunk of money on a new console.

[Warlyx]

nothing beats COP 1-1

https://youtu.be/xkMChPk84uo?t=88