Love and Deepspace Male Lead Accused of Copying Noctis from FF15 — 9 Similarities Alleged, but Community Calls BS on Screenshot Overlay Method

A bombshell dropped on Weibo that's now making waves on NGA — one of the male leads in Love and Deepspace (恋与深空), Li Shen (黎深), has been accused of bearing striking similarities to Noctis Caelum from Final Fantasy XV. The original poster compiled a list of 9 parallels, each backed by overlay screenshots, and the allegations spread like wildfire.

The NGA thread poster shared the Weibo exposé with the comment: "Just saw this while scrolling Weibo — the original poster nailed 9 points, complete with screenshots for each one." The post quickly gained traction, drawing in a flood of onlookers eager for the drama.

But the comment section didn't exactly rally behind the accusations. One user admitted: "Hard to say if it's straight-up plagiarism or heavy 'inspiration,' but there sure are a lot of matches." Another quoted the classic community wisdom: "A competent company should know how to avoid even the appearance of copying." At least some players were leaning toward "over-referenced, if not plagiarized."

However, the majority of commenters zeroed in on the elephant in the room: **the methodology itself is suspect.** One user asked bluntly: "Is this all just screenshot overlays? Did anyone actually rip the 3D models and do a proper mesh comparison? Overlaying screenshots from different angles isn't exactly convincing evidence." Another piled on: "Using screenshot overlays to 'prove' plagiarism in a 3D game is honestly kind of wild."

The skepticism was brutal. Multiple commenters pointed out that 3D model screenshots are inherently unreliable for comparison due to camera angles, lens distortion, and pose differences — the only definitive way to prove model theft is to extract and directly compare the actual 3D assets. One user wrote: "Just rip the models and overlay them directly — that would settle the debate instantly. Why go through this screenshot charade?"

One particularly spicy comment mocked one of the overlay comparisons — apparently the poster tried to match a phantom sword with a bow: "That phantom sword vs. bow comparison had me dying. The poster would've been better off not including it — I genuinely can't see the resemblance unless both characters pull weapons out of thin air." Others also noted that some of the female character comparisons were from player-customized avatars (you know, character creation screenshots), which has absolutely zero relevance to plagiarism claims.

Worth noting: another commenter mentioned that a different Love and Deepspace character was previously compared to Cloud Strife from FF7. One user summed it up perfectly: "Holy shit, Papergames (叠纸) really is a hardcore Final Fantasy stan — we already thought they copied Cloud, and now Noctis too?" Looks like this isn't the studio's first rodeo with FF comparison allegations.

As of now, the developer has not responded to the controversy. The core tension is clear: the 9 listed similarities are eyebrow-raising to say the least, but the screenshot-overlay method used to 'prove' them is fundamentally flawed for 3D content. As one commenter put it: "I'm not sure this level of design similarity counts as plagiarism, but even if they didn't copy, they probably 'referenced' pretty hard." Grab your popcorn and wait for an actual dataminer to rip the models and settle this once and for all.