Fantasian Neo Dimension, Final Fantasy and 20 Years of Mistwalker – PlayStation.Blog
Fantasia Neo dimensions launches December 5 on PS5 and PS4. This Mistwalker RPG features the creative work of two industry icons, both of whom are legends in the genre. First, there’s composer Nobuo Uematsu, who lent his talents to the game’s score, the game’s last full soundtrack that he would solo produce, marking the end Over 30 years of incredible work. Last week, he walked us through some of his favorite works.
Today, we talk to the second creative force involved, game producer and Mistwalker CEO Hironobu Sakaguchi. The creator joined us earlier this year on the PS Blog to discuss the game’s release on PS5. Our new chat, which you can hear in full on the Official PlayStation Podcast later today, casts the net wide open to discuss his thoughts on the RPG genre, its relationship his long-term collaboration with Uematsu-san and marks the 20th anniversary of Mistwalker and the 30th anniversary of PlayStation.
Note: this interview has been condensed for clarity and brevity. Listen to the full conversation on the new official PlayStation Podcast, launching later today.
Playstation Blog: You are highly appreciated for your work in the field of RPGs and role-playing games are famous for their exciting co-op sequences with different characters. For you, what makes a great character party?
Hironobu Sakaguchi: You want your cast of characters to have diverse personalities and backgrounds, different character backgrounds and stories. As they move through this world and continue their adventures, I think seeing the transformation and change in the characters is one of the most fascinating things you can experience as a human. Play role-playing games.
Of course, in terms of game mechanics, this is equally important, specifically in Fantasian Neo Dimension, each character has his or her own rather unique set of attributes. Some characters may be more defense-oriented, others may be more proficient in magic, or some may perform DPS, in the form of physical attacks. But the unique attributes or elements they bring to battle will become invaluable. So, in Fantasian Neo Dimension, you can swap your party and party members without spending a single turn, which makes your party composition and combat quite dynamic.
PSB: The game features wonderfully handcrafted dioramas. Where did they end up? Have you applied any for your own home?
Sakaguchi: Unfortunately, dioramas, over time, the paint will peel and a lot of the clay will melt, and in general, they will deteriorate over time. By the nature of how they are made, very few survive as is and cannot be stored. So the ones that were preserved and given to different players as gifts or given to team members, the core team members that worked on the game and we saved get a large portion of the props in each individual diorama and those have been kept. transformed into those gifts. But in general, the so-called foundation, or many structural elements, of these dioramas had to be regrettably eliminated. So I would say that most of the dioramas you see in Fantasian Neo Dimension are no longer of this world, and I understand that seems a bit melancholy and almost fleeting in a way there, but there is a certain poetic beauty in it like Good.
PSB: Fantasian Neo Dimension includes select Final Fantasy tracks. Why those particular tracks and how did you decide on them?
Sakaguchi: I don’t know how well known this is, but I’m a huge Final Fantasy XIV fan and I actually live in the FFXIV world. And there are certain pieces of music that the composer of FFXIV, Masayoshi Soken, composed for that play that pay tribute to what Uematsu-san had done before. [games]. You could say it’s almost an arrangement of Uematsu-san’s various melodies and compositions.
When I was trying out Fantasian, I had FFXIV running in the background, I think it was one of the fight scenes. And playing Fantasian and hearing this music in my own environment inspired me to think “wow, this is really cool and I can feel the respect for the old Final Fantasy games”. And as a fan, it was a very, very interesting personal experience. So I talked to [FFXIV] producer Yoshida-san and said, on a whim, hey, is it possible to do something like this, and I responded positively.
And around that time, of course there was Final Fantasy VII Remake, the Pixel Remaster series. So in a way, I feel that Uematsu’s songs of course he composed all of them, including Fantasian, blends very well with the Fantasian experience. That feeling is very fun and quite natural. And I think it’s not often in a video game that you get to hear roughly this chronology of what Uematsu-san has been up to over the years, both old and new. And throughout the game, I think there’s a lot of respect for the music and history of Final Fantasy.
PSB: Can you summarize your career, what the long-term collaboration with Uematsu-san means to you?
Sakaguchi: Recently, I had the opportunity to stand on stage with Uematsu-san at the Tokyo Game Show, and the feeling was completely different from when we interacted privately with each other, on stage, I think there was a kind of sincerity completely different. emerges, one of which is that whenever Uematsu-san composes something, he pays close attention to making sure the player’s emotions are guided and portrayed in the right direction, and he tries to Try to evoke a variety of emotions from your players. But of all the emotions, it seems that the warmth or passion that humans can experience is the one that especially stands out and reminds us how wonderful it is to be human after all.
So, having worked together and collaborated with Uematsu-san for a long time, maybe that’s a little too sentimental, but I think at the core of it is how we both feel and resonate, and this is something that, you know, we kind of reacted to and on stage at the Tokyo Game Show, was there kind of an emotional component, an emotional component. If you translate that into something perhaps a little more palatable, I think the product of a video game is of course a digital experience. However, even through this digital, inanimate object, you can still evoke a variety of emotions in humans and remind us what it means to be part of a large ecosystem than this.
PSB: Mistwalker celebrated a major milestone this year, 20 years since its founding. Do you mark it in any particular way?
Sakaguchi: It’s interesting that you mentioned that, as I figured, and this year is our 20th anniversary. I just thought to myself, Oh, maybe he’s right. So when I founded Mistwalker, of course I left Square Enix behind and founded this independent studio. Part of the reason is that at Square Enix, a lot of my responsibilities have shifted from game production to management and operations and almost running a business, which of course has some fun elements, but I realized that I wanted to live to create, and I think that’s what Mistwalker was intended to do, and that’s what I found most enjoyable about the creative process, making the game. So here we are, 20 years later, and I can still create, and probably for many more years to come, but the fact that Mistwalker has allowed me and our team to be able to find a home for our creativity That amount of creativity, I think it really shows it’s done its job.
PSB: What do you want to see happen in the RPG genre in the coming years?
Sakaguchi: I think implementing and using the latest and most advanced technology to maximize expression and strive to reach the next level of what it means to bring an experience or story to a person is which is quite important for the RPG genre. And I think that’s the common denominator or the running point for the Final Fantasy series as a whole. But of course, the RPG genre is about more than simply implementing and integrating the latest technology. There are many different types of system mechanisms and improvements that can be made. Likewise, dioramas, or in this case, artistic expression, I think, is another area that RPGs could see themselves moving into. That’s what we did in our case, instead of just using the latest technology to try to express and portray the story through something that allows the player to feel the warmth that I intended. mentioned a little earlier. I think all of these things contribute to a step forward in a certain direction. And to do that, I think it’s necessary to look beyond what technology can do but how you can convey these stories. And in some ways, I think that will lead to a much more diverse category and category of RPGs, which is probably what the genre should be.
PSB: YYou must have collected so many memorabilia from trophies, awards, etc., that I imagine you have very little space left at home. Are there any special memories that impress you?
Sakaguchi: I don’t really have that many souvenirs. In fact, I throw most of them in storage somewhere and tend to forget about them. But if there is one item that is perhaps superior to the others then I would say it is the physical version of [the original] The ultimate illusion. Because if I hadn’t created that, I don’t think my creative career would have gone as far as it has in this so-called timeline. So I think about having children [the original] Final Fantasy and the subsequent series it spawned were a huge crossroads in my life.
PSB: PlayStation celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. Which PlayStation games do you personally enjoy? Or what’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think about PlayStation?
Sakaguchi:I would have to say Final Fantasy VII. Because at the time, the PlayStation’s specs were unlike any other console on the market at the time. It’s superior to anything and it’s just a great, great platform. So it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that without the PlayStation, there wouldn’t be Final Fantasy VII. I don’t even think we would think of making a game that way. So of course, throughout my conversation with Kutaragi-san, we hinted that the birth of the PlayStation was also responsible for the birth of Final Fantasy VII, and all the doors that Final Fantasy seven opened up both me and the world. company. So this is again a huge revolution, a huge change in the entire gaming industry and I think both in terms of hardware and software, a huge leap forward.
