Interviews// Final Fantasy XIII: Yoshinori Kitase & Motomu Toriyama

If I had a shortlist of the developers that I really wanted to interview (and I kind of wonder why I haven't written such a list yet), the developers of Final Fantasy would be right up there. Having consistently entertained several generations of gamers with epic quests and intriguing storylines, the series is cemented as one of the most popular of all time.

So imagine my fangasm when I had the chance to meet Motomu Toriyama and Yoshinori Kitase in person at a London press event. As the director and producer for Final Fantasy XIII respectively, each of their credits can be tied back to a fondly-revered JRPG or two. Most notably Final Fantasy VII, of course.

But as many importers of the Japanese version have noticed already, Final Fantasy XIII is a very different beast to the traditional party quest adventure that we all know and love. Most controversial the change is the game's pacing, providing a somewhat 'linear' experience at the beginning that pays off with an expansive world in the second half.

Being such an ambitious and different iteration of the RPG series, the conversation was dominated by the thought processes behind the game's design, whether we might see any deleted content return, and the state of the Japanese games industry.

SPOnG: Final Fantasy XIII has been available in Japan for some time now, and there have been comments from players that the gameplay up to a point is quite linear. It's a bit of a departure from the traditional Japanese RPG where the whole world map is quite expansive. What inspired you to take this direction with Final Fantasy XIII?

Yoshinori Kitase: As you know, the battle system in this game is brand new, even though it is based loosely on the Active Time Battle which has been around for years. We wanted to give the player time to adapt to the new system – to learn how the game works and what they can do in a more natural way. And that's the intention behind this criticism of linearity at the early stages of the game.

In the second half of the story, once you get down to Grand Pulse, it's a lot more of the open-field gameplay that RPG fans are used to. We hope you be a bit patient and enjoy what the game has to offer.


SPOnG: It was announced recently that there was almost an entire game's worth of content cut from the final copy of Final Fantasy XIII. Are there any plans to release some of that material at a later date, in the form of a downloadable content pack, perhaps a spinoff or maybe even a sequel?

Yoshinori Kitase and Motomu Toriyama: (Together) Kamikokurou-san! (Laughs)

Yoshinori Kitase: You may be quoting our art director (Isamu Kamikokuryou) who spoke of various things that we had to give up on (Ed: Read the news story about it here, folks!), but those decisions were made roughly two or three years ago. If we decided that it didn't look right back then, it would still not work very well if we decided to add it later as an additional pack. So things like that would go straight in the bin. We wouldn't return to it.


SPOnG: About the more open-field area of Pulse... are there many towns and villages to explore, or non-playable characters for you to talk to? Or is it simply a big expanse full of monsters that you go and kill? Could you give a little bit of detail as to how the game opens up at that point?

Motomu Toriyama: The world of Grand Pulse contains a few towns, which have some NPCs in them – but to be honest, there aren't that many. There's quite a small number of towns. The main attraction in this open world is in the missions that you find around the landscape, and in many of them you have to take on a powerful boss. Some of these are actually more powerful than the last boss of the main story. So it's quite challenging.


SPOnG: Coming back to the combat system – it's a massive departure from the norm in that you only get to control one person in your team. Do you worry that this direction may limit combat diversity at all, or may make players bored before they reach the more exciting and expansive sections of the game?

Yoshinori Kitase: As you say, if someone quickly understands the basic rules of the gameplay, he or she may be rather bored because they would like to make the best of the functions and features available in the game. What we hope however, is that the player would be able to learn all of the intricacies of the system rather than glossing over it.

The first half of the game is not simply understanding the battle system – that could actually be achieved in quite a short space of time. On top of that, we want to make players aware of the different strategies and underlying tactics that you can apply to different situations, and that takes quite a lot of time.

We have to balance the amount of action we provide with the right pace that makes it comfortable for the player, to the point where they can really enjoy themselves when they get that added freedom in Pulse.

The last thing we wanted to do was be in a position where we gave the player too much information to digest at any given time. If we do that, they would get confused about the game and how the system works. Rather than see that happening, it's better to see a few people get a little bit bored. Probably (laughs).


SPOnG: Finally, I just want to get your thoughts on the current state – and the future – of the Japanese games industry in the global market. A lot of Japanese developers have looked to heavily Westernise their games, and personally I'd hate to see that unique style and direction lost. What's your take on that?

Yoshinori Kitase: I absolutely agree with you - on a very personal level, I like great Western RPGs. Some of them are really good to play. But at the same time, from a creator's point of view, if everyone went for the same style and direction in making similar games, then what we are uniquely good at would be completely lost. And as a result, we would only be seen as making a second-rate, bastardised version of a Western game. That would be very boring.

So what I think we should do is borrow elements that we think are very positive in the Western RPG, digest them and then contribute to the creation of something totally new. I think it is our duty to eventually create something that has never been achieved by either Western or Japanese RPGs before.


SPOnG: By extension, I'd like to ask what you see as the future of Final Fantasy in that regard, given recent comments from Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada that suggested that Final Fantasy XIII might be the last of its kind in the series.

Yoshinori Kitase: I don't know if he said that personally, but if he did he probably did mean that there's a slim chance it might be the last of that kind, yes. But whether that will definitely be the case or not has yet to be determined at the company. It's not a confirmed decision for us, at all.

On another note, the company has recently been integrated with Eidos, and I recently paid a visit to the Montreal studio. There, I witnessed a very different and interesting styles of making games. It's a different sort of culture in Canada, with a different kind of attitude to what we're used to in Japan. I think it would be interesting to have some kind of collaboration with them on a project. Not necessarily with Final Fantasy, but that would be interesting for something in the future.


SPOnG: Kitase-san and Toryiama-san, thank you very much for your time.