Final Fantasy XIII: Square Enix Interview

We catch up with Square Enix Corporate Director Shinji Hashimoto and Final Fantasy series Producer Yoshinori Kitase to find out about one of 2009's biggest games.

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Kikizo: When you release those trailers and images and get such a strong, positive fan reaction, does it put pressure on the team?

Kitase: It's not so much pressure, but with the internet these days, we can get feedback right away whenever we release something. A lot of people have opinions, you know, "This part looks so cool!" or "This part sucks!" Things like that. We look into that feedback. If something gets an especially positive or negative reaction, we'll take that into consideration and work it in or out of the game.

Kikizo: So where do you get the feedback from?

Hashimoto: That's a secret! [laughs] Aside from the internet, when we have events, the staff are always peeking from from the curtains to see how the audience reacts. We take that into account, too!

Kikizo: In your opinion, what are the core values of a Final Fantasy game - the things that make Final Fantasy really stand out from the pack of RPGs - and how do you feel FFXIII embodies these values?

Kitase: Oooh, that's a complex question.

Hashimoto: It is!

Kitase: You go first. [laughs]

Hashimoto: Well, different games aim to have some sort of "key element" that will differentiate them from other games on the market. For FF, we feel that the key element is that we constantly try to reach the highest potential, the highest quality standards in that particular generation. We're always trying to raise the bar and outdo ourselves. We try to do that in every generation, and when we succeed, I think that's when users really look to us and say "that was a great game!" And that's what we want to achieve with FFXIII, as well.

Kitase: One thing to add to that is an anecdote from a while back. Hironobu Sakaguchi - who as I'm sure you know used to head up the Final Fantasy series - he and I once had a conversation about this exact subject... half-jokingly. I asked, "What do you think should always remain in a Final Fantasy game to make it what it is? Really, what makes Final Fantasy?" He replied, "Well, as long as we have those message boxes with the blue backgrounds and the white text and borders, we'll be fine!" That's a top secret story that's never been told until now! [laughs] But since we've had such an advancement with the graphics, we haven't even been able to maintain that... so, Sakaguchi-san, I'm sorry! [laughs]

Kikizo: We're starting to see a lot of very text- and dialogue-heavy games starting to get worldwide simultaneous releases. Do you think this would be possible to do for a Final Fantasy game?

Kitase: We're definitely trying to decrease the time gap between Japan and the other territories. We want to start the localisation process earlier this time around, so that we can cut out the lag between the releases as much as possible. But as I'm sure you know, in RPGs, there is a lot of varied, situational text. We're working as hard as we can, but we probably can't eliminate the release gap just yet.

Final Fantasy XIII is planned for release in 2009 for PS3 and Xbox 360.

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