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UK PSM Interview with FFVIII Team - Source: FF:WA
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UK PSM Interview with FFVIII Team - Kazushige Nojima (plot), Yoshinori Kitase (director), Yusuke Naora (art director), and Tetsuyu Nomura (character design).
UK PSM: Final Fantasy is moving closer and
closer to becoming an interactive movie.
Do you use motion capture to attain this realism of character?
Naora: As for the general imagery, FFVII was dark, weird... All sorts of darkness! [Laughs.] We wanted to leave that because we already did the darkest of darkest with the previous game! Thus for FFVIII, we intentionally chose a very bright style. Considering most of the FFVIII staff were involved in FFVII, it was quite a conscious group decision
to move to this very bright side.
UK PSM: Again thinking about movies, modern films
have to go through test screenings with the public before they hit the screen. Was there a similar pre-release process where you
tried the game out on games for FFVIII?
Nojima: A version was given to players right
at the very end of the development stage.
I think the feedback from gamers should always be balanced - 50% for and 50% against. Why? Because when 100% of players are in total support of the game, it means they have seen it elsewhere...
UK PSM: What do you think is the particular strength of the Final Fantasy series?
Kitase: My personal feeling about the
Final Fantasy series is that we put everyday
emotions - sadness, happiness, rage - into the characters.
Along with the continual development of the hardware, that is what we are good at.
UK PSM: The characters in Final Fantasy VIII are very well defined - more so than any previous game. What's the development process in creating the likes of Squall and Seifer?
Kitase: As far as the characters' general appearance or
CG movies are concerned, Nojima gives him input on what is required, but in most cases
he re-does his work without us pushing him. We might say "okay" but if he doesn't like it, he changes it again and again!
UK PSM: It must be a shame to have to leave such well-defined characters at the end of a game's development. Isn't there any way that we could get to see something like the earlier adventures of Squall, say?
Naora: Each character is made 'complete'.
You experience each character from the very start to the very
end - their past, how much they have improved themselves, how much they have grown... You have
lived with the game and know everything about that character. What else is there left to do with such a creation? Thus no matter how good the character
you have created is, you have to leave it. It makes for another level of beauty.
UK PSM: The use of CG in Final Fantasy VIII is breath-taking. With the onset of PlayStation2, will
this be something that we see increased in future Final Fantasies?
Kitase: Currently, we are recruiting specialists
from the animated world for CG work, rather than pure
game designers. For FFVII and VIII, we have been actively inviting non-gaming people, and for
the Final Fantasy movie currently in production, the Hawaii studio invited people from Hollywood to come in - thus we have these Hollywood specialists in
our team already. For the PlayStation2 version of Final Fantasy, perhaps we will get even more staff from this non-game world...
UK PSM: It's been said Final Fantasy VIII is much
harder than the previous game. Was this a conscious decision to make it so?
Kitase: We producers don't think that FFVIII is much harder
than FFVII! However with FFVIII, we have tried to bring in a mode
of play which requires more active thinking from the players.
Yes, you can play it all the way through without thinking much about
strategy or combination of energies but you have to move very, very slowly.
However, if you become more involved with the game
and think more 'actively', it's much more fun. The harder
you think, the better you play. It's wrong to say simply 'easier' or 'harder'...
UK PSM: Another new element of Final Fantasy VIII is
the card game. Whose idea was that?
Kitase: We had both a specialist programmer and a card
game 'planner' to program the game itself. However,
the concept came from everyday Japanese life. In some parts
of Japan, card-trading is very popular and many people
have it as a hobby. So we thought in the FFVIII world, we
would like to make card trading just as popular.
In FFVIII, card-playing is fun.
UK PSM: Japanese gamers are very different to European
ones in that the hardcore 'otaku' gamers like to dress
up as their favourite game characters - the Tokyo Game
Show had a lot of people dressed up as Squall and Rinoa.
What do you think about this phenomenon?
Nomura: Not much! [Laughs.]
Naora: Isn't it scary to think about
the impact a game can have on people's lives?
That said, I really admire them for the time, energy
and money that they spend on their costumes...
UK PSM: So what did you find the biggest challenge
while you were making Final Fantasy VIII?
Kitase: The biggest challenge was in the CG development, because
the technology in this field has leapt forward
so much. By using this and new 3D technology, we were
able to incorporate more realistic facial expressions
and emotions. Such increasingly realistic characters mean
you must have a sophisticated script. And such sophisticated
characterisation means more sophisticated dialogue. In order
to balance this with the gameplay, however, we also had to
incorporate pioneering technology. The Guardian Forces,
for example. You must always take care of the total
balance - visuals, music, gameplay...
UK PSM: Final Fantasy VIII has arrived on shop
shelves around the world. What games are the team working on now?
Kitase: At the time, we're not committed to a particular
project. We have just finished the non-Japanese version
of FFVIII so most of the staff are taking a holiday!
UK PSM: Do you get time to play games
yourselves - and if so, what kind?
Nomura: I don't have time - I wasn't given any holiday at all!
Naora: I like fighting games.
Kitase: I play Age Of Empires with my wife.
Nojima: I like racing games.
UK PSM: Finally, an obvious question. Why call it Final Fantasy?
Naora: That's usually a Japanese-only question - now we
know non-Japanese people are interested. Every
time we produce a Final Fantasy, we think it's
going to be the last one. A final Final Fantasy?
I don't know... [Laughs.]
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