Re: Final Fantasy 13 (PS3/XBOX 360)
Eurogamer Interview
Eurogamer Interview
"When you are still in Cocoon the gameplay is still quite story-driven, and our intention is, by doing so, we allow the players to learn the basic operation of the game and to discover the basic story, the basic concept of the game. So it's a sort of intuitive stage in the game. Indeed, it's understandable some people might call it linear. That's where that comes from.
"But in the second half, once you get down to Pulse, it's quite free gameplay, it opens out. So if you like that particular game style, maybe you should be a little bit patient."
Producer Yoshinori Kitase, a Square legend who directed no less than Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VII, also urges gamers to take their time with Final Fantasy XIII and not to be put off by accusations of conservatism. "You mentioned linearity earlier - as Toriyama-san said, that's intended to draw new gamers into the story and allow them to learn how it works," he counters. "And also the battle scenes - when we, well not this team, but when the company produced XII, some people said OK, well it was very seamless but it wasn't all that spectacular, the wow factor was missing.
"We took that to heart. We thought we wanted to create something visually really impressive and something really exciting. So for example, in XIII as opposed to XII, you actually have to encounter the group of monsters to go into the battle. We would have thought that would appeal more to Western gamers than Japanese gamers. There are elements that we still hope will appeal greatly to Western RPG gamers."
"But in the second half, once you get down to Pulse, it's quite free gameplay, it opens out. So if you like that particular game style, maybe you should be a little bit patient."
Producer Yoshinori Kitase, a Square legend who directed no less than Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VII, also urges gamers to take their time with Final Fantasy XIII and not to be put off by accusations of conservatism. "You mentioned linearity earlier - as Toriyama-san said, that's intended to draw new gamers into the story and allow them to learn how it works," he counters. "And also the battle scenes - when we, well not this team, but when the company produced XII, some people said OK, well it was very seamless but it wasn't all that spectacular, the wow factor was missing.
"We took that to heart. We thought we wanted to create something visually really impressive and something really exciting. So for example, in XIII as opposed to XII, you actually have to encounter the group of monsters to go into the battle. We would have thought that would appeal more to Western gamers than Japanese gamers. There are elements that we still hope will appeal greatly to Western RPG gamers."
"We did actually take a look at games like BioWare's, and Fallout as well," he says. "But rather than that, we took more inspiration from FPS games like Call of Duty and Halo. Those games seem to present a very real-time, tense atmosphere on the battlefield where the player gets involved in the fighting. That's the kind of thing that we looked at more intensely."
Not all fans wanted a follow-up to the bold and divisive XII, of course, and Square Enix must be used by now to the seesaw of approval in the Final Fantasy community from one title to the next (no-one ever likes two in a row, it seems, but one man's VII is always another man's VIII). One constant, however, is wholesale change to the battle system.
"It is the natural tradition in the Final Fantasy series that each numbered title should come up with a new battle system," Toriyama notes. "Therefore you may find the battle system in XIII very different from past titles - with the intention from us indeed that the battle system should be very enjoyable for action gamers as well.
"If you study the battle system of this game, you will understand that there is something called Paradigm Shift incorporated, which is a brand-new concept." Paradigm Shift allows you to switch the playable character between classes - such as Medic or Ravager, an offensive mage - on the fly during battle, which automatically changes the AI behaviour of your party members, too.
"Indeed, you basically operate the playing character only, but at the same time you will get the kind of feel as though you were, in a way, controlling all three members of the party. It's not just that you have to concentrate on one character - it's one main one and two others."
Not all fans wanted a follow-up to the bold and divisive XII, of course, and Square Enix must be used by now to the seesaw of approval in the Final Fantasy community from one title to the next (no-one ever likes two in a row, it seems, but one man's VII is always another man's VIII). One constant, however, is wholesale change to the battle system.
"It is the natural tradition in the Final Fantasy series that each numbered title should come up with a new battle system," Toriyama notes. "Therefore you may find the battle system in XIII very different from past titles - with the intention from us indeed that the battle system should be very enjoyable for action gamers as well.
"If you study the battle system of this game, you will understand that there is something called Paradigm Shift incorporated, which is a brand-new concept." Paradigm Shift allows you to switch the playable character between classes - such as Medic or Ravager, an offensive mage - on the fly during battle, which automatically changes the AI behaviour of your party members, too.
"Indeed, you basically operate the playing character only, but at the same time you will get the kind of feel as though you were, in a way, controlling all three members of the party. It's not just that you have to concentrate on one character - it's one main one and two others."
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