For reasons beyond my comprehension, Final Fantasy 14 players threw a fit back in 2021 when Square Enix added more polygons to its in-game grapes, making them look more in line with what you'd expect from a modern game. Now, I can only imagine those same players would be having a great old time in Pokemon Legends: Z-A, as it seems to have a very similar breed of blocky, polygonal berry.
The good people over at GameSpark were rummaging around Lumiose City when they decided to inspect some grapevines near a building, as one does, and when they got up close they realized they're just as low-res and goofy looking as the ones from Final Fantasy 14. And you know what, yeah, it almost looks like Game Freak stole the grapes straight from Square Enix's fantasy MMORPG.
Here, have a look:
Near the height of GrapeGate 2021, our pals over at PC Gamer sat down with various game developers and asked them the important questions, like "How many game developers does it take to make a banana explode good?" (It's about six.)
"Every feature you add to a game adds future potential 'technical debt' in QA testing and bug fixing down the line," Unfortunate Spacemen creator Geoff "Zag" Keene said at the time. "As complexity goes up, other departments have to grow to account for it. It adds up."
Point being, it makes sense for developers to siphon resources from set dressings and assets no one's paying attention to in order to minimize processing demands. In other words, be nice to Pokemon Legends: Z-A's grapes. They're doing their best.
