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Final Fantasy XIII: The Final Countdown
We ask Kitase if, as he settles into his 40s, he ever thinks about those members of the Final Fantasy audience who have also grown up with the series. After all, even those players who only joined the fanbase with the seventh game in the series, the first to make a truly global impact, are now entering their 30s. Surely the expectations of these players and the things that they look out for in games are different now to what they were ten, 15 years ago. Is Square Enix interested in changing the tone or theme or style its output to meet these changing needs of the audience?
“I actually think that it’s a very natural thing for players to grow out of the Final Fantasy series,” he answers. “In terms of the age group we target with each new game, it remains the teens to 20-somethings. That said, you’re right in saying that some of our staff have been working on the series for many years. They are having new experiences and growing and they inevitably do bring those new ideas and perspectives to their work. In Final Fantasy XIII, for example, we have a greater spread of older characters in the story than we have had in the past. Satzu is older, has a family and is not really the kind of character one would normally encounter or play as in the series. But, that said, I think it’s better that we keep the focus on the young generation rather than ageing the series’ appeal. If players choose to stick around and continue playing the games as they grow older then that’s great, but hopefully new generations will find the appeal, grow up with the series and then pass that down to the next generation as they themselves grow older”. 
The decision to aim the series towards younger game fans is one Square Enix has had to consciously take in the past. In Final Fantasy XII, Yasumi Matsuno originally intended for Balthier, a much older member of the core cast, to take on the role of lead protagonist. Reportedly, it was felt that casting players as a 40-year-old man would alienate a large slice of the fanbase, so the decision was taken to focus on the much younger character of Vaan.
With this in mind, we ask Kitase if he feels as if there will be scope in the Final Fantasy of the future to have an older lead character? “Our first concern is always to create a character that is convincing for the story,” he says. “That is the most important thing when choosing a lead character and so, if the storyline called for an older character, then that is absolutely something that could happen in Final Fantasy. The 13th game really follows in the footsteps of titles like Dragon Quest IV in presenting an ensemble cast, allowing us to create lead characters that will appeal to a broad audience and offer different points of view on the wider story. I think this is one of the most effective ways to reach a broad audience with a game like this, offering different perspectives and roles to play through the story, many of which will mimic the different perspectives of the audience.”
This feature originally appeared in E201.
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I actually think that it’s a very natural thing for players to grow out of the Final Fantasy series.
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I'm one of those players. If its not the cheesy narrative or redundant text, then it's the hideous random encounters that put me off Final Fantasy/and JRPG'S in general.
There was a time i would've played a JRPG over any other genere of game. Now though, i much prefer a western RPG i.e. The Witcher, Oblivion, Mass Effect, etc than the "more of the same" JRPG.
>>There was a time i would've played a JRPG over any other genere of game. Now though, i much prefer a western RPG i.e. The Witcher, Oblivion, Mass Effect, etc than the "more of the same" JRPG.
What JRPGs did you enjoy? Why did you enjoy them?
This transition seems to be recent, as you list some rather new RPGs for the western category.
While the squarely teen-focused story in games like FF10 is grating, the use of random encounters is another design feature that is not particularly 'Japanese'. If anything, the battles in earlier FF games weren't random enough: each area looped through a small selection of scripted encounters that quickly became repetitive, unlike the procedurally-generated (i.e. actually random!) encounters of games like Dragon Quest.
The real problem was the needless awkward transition to a separate battle screen, which FF12 decisively did away with. And according to the article, FF13 works similarly.
I once dug up an old old review from some long dead gaming magazine on Dragon Quest. They expressed their confusion at the random encounters "why would a slime and a rabbit team up to fight against me?" And remarked it was a forgettable series that wouldn't last. (also an article remarking the 'realistic graphics' of Total Recall' on some 8bit system). I guess there's just some things I take for granted, slimes and local fauna teaming up to fight the lvl 1 heroes.
Seems to be something they got from Wizardry though, so not Japanese in origin, but did get adopted. Same with the random encounter battle screens.
I liked those though. I enjoyed Shattered Lands and those other old pre-Windows D&D RPGs where I could hide behind corners or throw fireballs down hallways, but the big and beautiful Amano sprites in Final Fantasy really got me immersed in the experience. I guess technology today though lets you just fight in the regular map.
Is FFX's story line really any more 'teen-focused' than any of the other listed RPG's though? What's the criteria for that sort of thing?
Well, in FF10 the characters that are most important to the story (Tidus and Yuna) are teenagers. The game's themes are very teen-orientated (breaking with tradition, first love) and may seem either irrelevant in concept or naive in treatment to people outside of that age bracket.
FF12's major characters (Ashe, Balthier and Basch) are in their twenties or thirties, and grapple with weightier, more adult themes, such as the conflict between their personal goals and political reality. SE management forced PDP4 to include two teen characters in the hope of shoring up the support of the core audience, but the story couldn't find a lot for them to do. In the best tradition of compromise, that move didn't seem to really satisfy anybody.
Dragon Quest doesn't have a very detailed story until episode 5, in which you guide the main character from his childhood through to the point at which he is raising children of his own. Its family/legacy theme is pretty universal.
Do you think the age of the characters is a reason to set it in the Teen bracket though? There's been many stories in films, books, and whatnot with teenage protagonists and global audiences.
Just purely for example, look at Romeo & Juliette. Full of teen drama, teen angst, teen first love and teens defying their elders. It's a story people enjoy even if they are not teenagers.
The age of the characters alone is not enough to pigeonhole a story, but FF10's entire perspective is teen fantasy. Romeo and Juliet are, quite realistically, unable to effectively single-handedly overthrow a thousand year old belief system and government that controls their entire known world.
>>We wonder whether this shift in theme from world saving to personal salvation signals a deviation for the game from the usual Japanese RPG narrative tropes. “There’s a trend these days to strictly categorise games as western RPGs or Japanese RPGs,” says Kitase, irritated as we imply that the series somehow defines or is defined by its genre.
hear hear, RPGs are RPGs. I enjoyed Shattered Lands and Fallout alongside Final Fantasy III n' Secret of Mana.
Strong agree.
Daaaaamnnnn son, that shit looks good! Is all I have to say about the demo, that cybernetic behemoth is so fucken badass, the rendering is crazy good. I'm really hoping that silly looking breaks thing becomes less important after a while (No doubt in my mind as with most special moves you're given in the beginning by halfway they'll be useless), throwing someone up in the air and having your way with them will be fun for the first 100 enemies (maybe) but I can see it becoming too much of a good thing. Apart from that it looks all good, loving the work Kitase :-) I can see FFXIII and Versus being my two favourite titles this year.
I've never played any Final Fantasy or any other JRPG in my life because I just don't get the turn-based system... Could somebody please explain to me its benefits? Wouldn't it be better if they went the 'Mass Effect' way?
>>'ve never played any Final Fantasy or any other JRPG in my life because I just don't get the turn-based system...
Did you never play Baldur's Gate, Fallout, or Wizardry?
There's a lot of western RPG's that are also turn based, they did them first before Japan.
If anything, action based RPG's are more a Japanese trend that's recently been seen in western RPG's.
Turn-based gameplay places a greater emphasis on strategy and tactics, since the player's success doesn't depend on her manual dexterity. The style that one prefers depends on personal taste, but there's nothing inherently 'Japanese' about turn-based systems: Dragon Quest borrowed the idea from games like Wizardry and ultimately Dungeons and Dragons.
Although previous Final Fantasy games have been extremely shallow - to the point where you are left simply mashing the attack button regardless of where the game is running in real-time or not - there are reasons to be hopeful about FF13. The team has stated that they are increasing the difficulty of individual battles so that there is a realistic chance of the player being defeated. If executed well, there is every chance of the game having turn-based combat that betters Mass Effect, which seems to have spread its manpower too thinly between an unsuccessful attempt to imitate the action of a Halo or Gears of War and more traditional RPG elements.
Thanks for a very informative reply! I can see what you mean by having time to think of a strategy, but don't you think it sort of interrupts the action-flow? Is it true that the turn-based mechanic was originally created because of hardware limitations in PC games?
RPG games basically descend from role playing games where you sit around a table, talk, and roll dice.
Some orcs appear, the game master tells the players 'what do you do', the players then think 'ok, the wizard will throw a fireball, ranger will shoot an arrow, etc.' So it's got its roots in this turn based atmosphere.
The flow isn't interrupted, as everyone is involved in 'what happens next?'
It's more like reading a book than watching TV I guess.
Or perhaps like football, where the action is broken into segments where players have time to huddle and plan their plays.
Yes it interrupts.
The pros it would be that strategy become more rilevant, the cons is that with only 3-4 characters and without the possibility of moving them on the field that strategy is very thin.
So they are a sort of very VERY semplified strategy games, boring as action title as there is not action and boring as strategy games as battles are too simple and very very ripetitive.
Consider that generally you just go with some normal attacks and maybe a potion.. this is all the "game" for at least 80% of the time you pass with it.
There jrpg good strategy games, as the first final fantasy tactics (PS1 and PSP), but they are considered another genre, less mainstream, and there the gameplay is much more satisfacory as you control an army and can move players on the field, they just do not stay still in a row :)
Final fantasy lately is very much based just on cinematics, western people I suppose just yawn but continue in the borting gameplay just to see the next fmv.
And yes it was due to limits, these three characters in a row waiting their turn to attack is an evident compromise, you see bioware has gone from turns to action nowadays, the problem with japanese audience probably is that they got this limits as "genre" so, now it is still risky for japanese developers to pass this way of putting combat in rpgs.
>>so, now it is still risky for japanese developers to pass this way of putting combat in rpgs.
Square Enix also made Kingdom Hearts, a game entirely action based in gameplay. It sells quite well.
With the 16bit era, they had the Secret of Mana series of action-RPGs too.
Legend of Zelda series could also be considered an action-RPG
I guess it depends on where you draw the line between when an action-RPG becomes just all Action game.
Maybe they could do a 'Fallout 3' sort of thing... I think they nailed it with the VATS system!!!
Am I the only person who would be ten times more excited about a PS3 remake of FF7 than the upcoming release of FF13?
Hmmmm so someone still has a bit of a crush on Aeris huh? Come on playboy get over it. I would be gutted if Square put it's dev efforts into a game I've played far too much, a new world and storyline without predetermined limitations excites me a lot more. FF7 would just cause a big clusterfuck of pissed fans hating on Square for not doing something the right way. Mmhmm, murky, treacherous waters them be.
Probably not.
But FF7 has been done already. There's little point in remaking it, because its forte never was graphics or such - so it wouldn't contribute anything new. And top that off with the massive hype it would receive, and how everyone already knows the story.
I mean really, seeing Aeris die with particles and lightning effects still wouldn't make it the sensation it was 1997.
>>because its forte never was graphics or such
But it was. Popping in the demo disc, seeing Midgard loom above, summoning leviathan and witnessing his 3D tital wave, it was an overwhelming display of the 3D power of the Playstation.
Then FF8 came out as a game that just pushed the Playstation to its limits.
>>still wouldn't make it the sensation it was 1997.
not everyone was playing FF7 twelve years ago though, many FF fans now weren't even born then. Square Enix could use it to introduce new fans to their classics, and bring back old fans who want to relive those moments.
I don't have the least interest in Final Fantasy, but I like how PS-exclusives are capable of spawning on the Xbox.
Since Tekken 6 was announced to the 360, all I need is MGS and I have no reason to buy a PS3 anymore :)
I think I'm the only person not really excited for Final Fantasy XIII. I've never finished a FF game b/c they couldn't hold my interest long enough. FFXII was very close to keeping my attention but then I bought Lost Odyssey. Game Over!
I do think that the mutli-console development will force other developers, Tri-Ace & Namco-Bandai, to improve their RPG offerings. Look at End of Eternity! It's a Tri-Ace game that looks ahead of Star Ocean: The Last Hope that released in March. This is what the genre needs to stimulate excitement again. That, or another Lost Odyssey. :)
I'd like to own a PlayStation3 but I can't afford to, Final Fantasy XIII coming to the XBox 360 is great for me. I've been a fan of the series throughout it's Nintendo and Sony incarnations. I tend to follow Square-Enix wherever they go.
It's clear that FFXIII came to the 360 to have a wider audience so they can recoup the large investment SE have put into it.
You only have to listen to him talk about pressure and the success FFXIII needs to work that out.
Whether Microsoft paid SE to bring it to the 360 or it was Square's sole decision, it's common business sense to bring it to both platforms.
Wouldn't quite say dominance more like relevance. The PS2 was such a runaway success that the Xbox just wasn't worth SE's time. Now that the 360 has got a nice install-base in the west SE have to take it seriously as a platform. If I'm not mistaken the Japanese release of FFXIII will be non-english so for those of us that don't know the lingo we'll be waiting like the other western PS3 owners.
I just find it incredible. I don't have a console bias, but If you had told me the very "pro-Japanese" company Square was bringing Final Fantasy to the Xbox platform - I would have said "Yeah...keep dreaming, fanboys."
This is really something.
Yeah, old news bud.
Unbelievable! Coming to the 360 in North America & Europe absolutely solidifies the Xbox's dominance. I would have never believed it! Square loves exclusivity, but this proves that they don't feel the PS3 has the clout to move the install base outside of Japan.
True, yes. But they haven't started the port over to the Xbox360. For the people that have the PS3 they will be getting the game a lot sooner then those with an Xbox360.
Not true. Square has confirmed that it will release day & date on both PS3 and 360 outside of Japan.
If I want to can get it when it's released in Japan and it'll play on my PS3, no region locking you see.