Couple of things I noticed...

[Enetirnel]

Clearly you all have discovered that which was supposed to be left alone. Agents will be dispatched to all locations to remedy the situation...

End Transmission

Like Smiley said, opened Pandora's Box.

These are interesting finds. I never knew there were similarities between RE and other games like this.

It's a bit strange, but if that rumor about some of the 1.5 team being snapped up by Square then it could explain Parasite Eve's similarities, the sudden graphics jump (from VII to VIII).

I found a couple more, however it seems to contain a concept image hidden and one of the promotional pictures used for RE2 (I remember there being a sort of copy of what was used for the OST cover).

First Aid Spray in Fisherman's Horizon - Inn 1F
RE2 promo/OST cover in Fisherman's Horizon - Train Station
H.U.N.K. (or another one from his team) on a bag in the Orphanage, Storage Room.

Or so they look like to me enlarged on the PC version, or even via an emulator such as ePSXe.

... Unless I'm going mad of course. ; Still... I never really paid much attention to those, but it does make me wonder.

[Gradon]

I love topics like these.

[Wesker_101]

Pretty interesting stuff. Parasite Eve 2 always reminded me of Resident Evil. I just never knew it was as direct as this. Nice work.

[Stars1356]

It cool when you find things like this in video games and wish developers would do more. I remember a RE 3 thread here that had stuff like this.

[Enrico Marini]

the sudden graphics jump (from VII to VIII).

That could be because VII was originally designed for the Ultra 64. And the N64 seems to, well most of the games I played back in the day, avoid "high" detail models and textures, opting for boxes and colours. Like FF7. But square could have pilferred staff from Capcom. Maybe thats why 1.5 didn't get released. The staff got pilfered near the completion of 1.5, Capcom got pissed and wouldn't pay them whats due, which ment that Capcom couldn't sell their work maybe.

I can sort of see what you are alluding to with the screenshots but would be nice to have clearer ones. It could just be coincidence.

Surprised no one has spoofed the FF8 intro with RE4's cutscenes, mainly the Squall/Seifer fight being mimicked by Leon/Krauser.

[RetroRain]

I always found the comparisons between PE2 and RE1.5 interesting, but lets just say for the sake of argument, that the team from Capcom that was working on 1.5 went over to Square, wouldn't Parasite Eve 1 be more like 1.5 than the sequel, because of the time span in which RE2 and PE1 were released?

[Carnivol]

The FFVII <-> N64 is a widely spread piece of misinformation. There's pretty much nothing about FFVII as we know it that has roots on the N64. Just saying ;)
(Though, your visual observations are correct about visual styles. Many newcomers to the world of 3D failed epically at proper texturing and such + a lot of N64 games utilizes simple colors and such instead of texturing)

[Delta]

Did the team have a grudge against Capcom after what happened?

[Enrico Marini]

Unfortunately we don't know if the rumour that Square pilfered Capcoms staff is true to comment. Its all speculation .

[Enetirnel]

That could be because VII was originally designed for the Ultra 64. And the N64 seems to, well most of the games I played back in the day, avoid "high" detail models and textures, opting for boxes and colours. Like FF7. But square could have pilferred staff from Capcom. Maybe thats why 1.5 didn't get released. The staff got pilfered near the completion of 1.5, Capcom got pissed and wouldn't pay them whats due, which ment that Capcom couldn't sell their work maybe.

I can sort of see what you are alluding to with the screenshots but would be nice to have clearer ones. It could just be coincidence.

Surprised no one has spoofed the FF8 intro with RE4's cutscenes, mainly the Squall/Seifer fight being mimicked by Leon/Krauser.

Actually, Final Fantasy VI had a graphic demo for Nintendo 64 however due to wanting to have a more mature game than what Nintendo would allow under their "family friendly" standard Square ended up having Final Fantasy VII on the PlayStation (due to dialogue, themes and so-on that were censored outside of the Japanese release).

Those screenshots from VIII and IX are direct ones from an emulated version as well as background rips that I've done and enlarged so you can see the actual detail on them.

Considering that at the time Biohazard was in development, the highest peak of their in-game models were the Battle Models that were overseen by Tetsuya Nomura - it's quite a difference, considering that Nomura's character designs had to be redone as they mere too childlike and/or manga-styled and Yusuke Naora made Nomura change them to look more sexualized.

If you consider the PlayStation port of Final Fantasy VI, which included pre-rendered full-motion videos and then compare that to Final Fantasy VII's FMVs as this port was in production whilst VIII and had a release a month after VIII was, you can see that it was quite a graphical step-up if the VI port was to show the standard quality of the rendering capabilities when you put them side-by-side with the ones from VIII.

That too, with RE4.

That's just why I'm wondering, and as for Parasite Eve mimicking 1.5 a bit more - it's more than likely (considering that Nomura has a habit of taking on multiple projects) that it might have already been in development, however if the 1.5 team really were snapped up mid-development and then were spread across VIII, IX and Parasite Eve 2 then they probably would have had to follow along with the initial project plans (not to mention, Square teams don't always get along with new team groups - they still aren't getting along with the Enix staff after the merge from what I've been told from a friend at EA who has been going back and forth from Japan).

[Carnivol]

Actually, Final Fantasy VI had a graphic demo for Nintendo 64 however due to wanting to have a more mature game than what Nintendo would allow under their "family friendly" standard Square ended up having Final Fantasy VII on the PlayStation (due to dialogue, themes and so-on that were censored outside of the Japanese release).

That's not true.. Final Fantasy VI - The Interactive CG Game / SGI ran on an ONYX workstation (using mouse gesture based controls for assigning commands). There's nothing about that thing that ever got even remotely close to being on the N64. There are plenty of well documented articles on that subject out there.

As for FFVII going PS1 and not staying on Nintendo platforms... there are so many urban legends on that subject... The most likely thing is that Nintendo at the time kept running things the way they'd always done things, while the PlayStation offered cheap development and publishing alternatives through the use of CD-ROM media. So SquareSoft, like many others, jumped onboard the bandwagon of cheap CD-ROMs.

There are also some interesting ghost stories on the subject of Angel Studios (developer of Resident Evil 2 N64 | now Rockstar San Diego) approaching SquareSoft - wanting to do an N64 port of Final Fantasy VII, but getting shot down as it'd reflect badly upon them if their multi CD-ROM AAA title could be done on a cartridge based format with such extreme space limitations.


As for the subject of Nomura and FMVs;
I still seriously doubt Nomura was actually ever really "overseeing" anything of importance at that point in time, considering how he was pretty much just a mere artist who's obviously gotten more credit for his work than he deserves. A person who was fortunately, at the time, held with a leash by proper art directors

And if anyone wants to see SquareSoft's own FMV evolution, watching the FMVs from FFIV, FFV and FFVI on PS1 is probably the way to go. Also, if I remember correctly, the majority of the FMVs in Final Fantasy VII were outsourced, while future stuff has been mostly done in-house.




As for the whole 1.5 -> PE thing. Seeing as Resident Evil 1.5 appears to've been thrown together in a relatively short time period, it's not unlikely to think that the background renders might've been outsourced to someone, somewhere (or whoever made them were just contracted for that part of the project and left once their contract ran out), which could add to the whole thing on how someone might have gone from 1.5 to PE (Though, it's worth noting that PE was a Square USA project.) But then again, I'd say most comparisons people have done are borderline grasping at straws.

[Enetirnel]

That's not true.. Final Fantasy VI - The Interactive CG Game / SGI ran on an ONYX workstation (using mouse gesture based controls for assigning commands). There's nothing about that thing that ever got even remotely close to being on the N64. There are plenty of well documented articles on that subject out there.

As for FFVII going PS1 and not staying on Nintendo platforms... there are so many urban legends on that subject... The most likely thing is that Nintendo at the time kept running things the way they'd always done things, while the PlayStation offered cheap development and publishing alternatives through the use of CD-ROM media. So SquareSoft, like many others, jumped onboard the bandwagon of cheap CD-ROMs.

There are also some interesting ghost stories on the subject of Angel Studios (developer of Resident Evil 2 N64 | now Rockstar San Diego) approaching SquareSoft - wanting to do an N64 port of Final Fantasy VII, but getting shot down as it'd reflect badly upon them if their multi CD-ROM AAA title could be done on a cartridge based format with such extreme space limitations.


As for the subject of Nomura and FMVs;
I still seriously doubt Nomura was actually ever really "overseeing" anything of importance at that point in time, considering how he was pretty much just a mere artist who's obviously gotten more credit for his work than he deserves. A person who was fortunately, at the time, held with a leash by proper art directors

And if anyone wants to see SquareSoft's own FMV evolution, watching the FMVs from FFIV, FFV and FFVI on PS1 is probably the way to go. Also, if I remember correctly, the majority of the FMVs in Final Fantasy VII were outsourced, while future stuff has been mostly done in-house.




As for the whole 1.5 -> PE thing. Seeing as Resident Evil 1.5 appears to've been thrown together in a relatively short time period, it's not unlikely to think that the background renders might've been outsourced to someone, somewhere (or whoever made them were just contracted for that part of the project and left once their contract ran out), which could add to the whole thing on how someone might have gone from 1.5 to PE (Though, it's worth noting that PE was a Square USA project.) But then again, I'd say most comparisons people have done are borderline grasping at straws.

About VI, I know that. Simply referring to the tech demo that Square had put together as an example of what they could do on the N64 at the time. Of course, each tech trial/demo they actually did always created masses upon masses or rumors for games previously released and/or currently in production at the time of the demo's display.

The PS1 did offer cheap development, however if I recall the programing and rendering was a higher jump for a fair amount of companies, so some still stuck with the older styles/more sprite-based for a while. Nintendo had been trying for disc-based ones since the Famicon but hadn't been able to pull it off properly due to technical issues of disks erasing if magnetized, copyright issues... Then there was the contract fiasco between Nintendo & Sony over the console creation but that's a whole other story.

I've heard that one myself (about the N64 port, which I can't recall if it had ever been followed up on properly at the time), but when looking at the final product of VII and staff quotes at the time of it's development - it probably wouldn't have been passed by Nintendo for a few reasons censored outside of the Japanese release as they were a tad tighter on content on their consoles at the time. Most likely, a fair few reasons between development and censorship/refusal by Nintendo.

Nomura was working on the Battle System models and was the lead character designer (although, under supervision by Naora - however, had also been a graphic director, debugger for FFV and an additional character designer for VI until he took over for Amano from VII). For the battle systems, he covered storyboards for summons, monsters eventually logo designs and also had plot influence. Though, the reason I mainly brought Nomura up is that he did actually have band posters in the original release of VII and has been cited quite a few times stating that he gets his inspiration from various sources such as films, music videos and so-on.

Even if the FMVs were outsourced, they would have been following some of Nomura's designs as if I'm remembering correctly, brought the idea up about Aerith.

I believe the pre-rendered background were in-house (design and rendering), with the previous history of throwing extra tidbits in - all I'm saying is that it doesn't really surprise me but it is interesting to see a few RE ones in the games.

Even with PE being a Square-USA title, there were still staff that were from the Tokyo office that had a hand in it, VIII and IX. It does sound logical if that had contracted some of the 1.5 staff - but there were quite a few rumors about that team, so it could be possible considering the Tokyo team.


Personally, I believe that someone at Square was more than likely a fan of the Biohazard games and threw a few references in as they've done it before (and they still do it) and I find them to be rather interesting to look for in games (which is actually why I posted the thread). A rumor is still a rumor on the 1.5 team, so can't exactly say much about it aside from further speculation and/or "wouldn't it be cool?" scenarios.

*Shrugs* Sorry, probably not making sense - too damn tired.

[Carnivol]

The PS1 did offer cheap development, however if I recall the programing and rendering was a higher jump for a fair amount of companies, so some still stuck with the older styles/more sprite-based for a while. Nintendo had been trying for disc-based ones since the Famicon but hadn't been able to pull it off properly due to technical issues of disks erasing if magnetized, copyright issues... Then there was the contract fiasco between Nintendo & Sony over the console creation but that's a whole other story.

The FDS' format was limited on the Famicom because of the inability to use additional mappers beyond what the FDS hardware itself brought with it (but read/write access was a big plus in many ways, no need for additional parts for things such as s-ram, which is probably why the N64's DD used disks instead of discs.) The whole thing with the SNES CD was hardly a "fiasco," more just a typical deal that in the end didn't work out. There are also many well written and properly documented articles available on this subject too. (The only fiasco part would be Sony managing to salvage their end of the bargain and make a console out of it). Previous sprite based graphics had probably no influence on people's choice as far as developing on N64/PS1/SATURN goes. Pretty much everyone were sprite based before the mid-90s consoles popped up.

I've heard that one myself (about the N64 port, which I can't recall if it had ever been followed up on properly at the time), but when looking at the final product of VII and staff quotes at the time of it's development - it probably wouldn't have been passed by Nintendo for a few reasons censored outside of the Japanese release as they were a tad tighter on content on their consoles at the time. Most likely, a fair few reasons between development and censorship/refusal by Nintendo.

Nothing seen (content wise) in FFVII hadn't already been done by SquareSoft (or someone else) on the SNES. SquareSoft were probably those who had the least amount of issues with their localization process as far as censorship goes (or retooling of games to make them better appeal to the western market in general). So most likely it'd be the least of their concerns when it came to "jumping ship." Not to mention some of the content seen in games on the N64 through its life cycle far exceeds (in every possible way) what SquareSoft/Square-Enix has ever produced, both before and after - in terms of content that normally would be subjected to censorship.



As for Square USA staff and future SquareSoft projects - most of the westerners (the majority of PE's staff) seems to've bailed, while the Asians (who most certainly were working on location, as seen in the Square USA tours, Making of videos and various interviews for Parasite Eve) might have moved over to the JP branch after the US branch cut down the internal development of games. Where they came from before that? Who knows... quite a lot of them appears to have PE as their first title (and for some; only) title. Though, a good few of them seems to've found a home on the PS1 era FF games.