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As Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi wrapped up the second and final part of his latest RPG, Fantasian, he had family in mind. Much like he did during the development of Final Fantasy 6 – a game he was working on when his daughter was born.
“I wanted to have a scene in Final Fantasy 6 where there is a child being born,” he tells me. “This idea of bringing new life to the world and what it means and the kind of gravity that has.”
Speaking to IGN on Zoom ahead of the launch of the second half of Fantasian, Sakaguchi is warm and easy-going, often laughs and compliments my cat when she drops the call (her name is Robo, after a character of Chrono Trigger, on which he was a designer). He often talks about his family while we chat, telling me at one point that his daughter is getting married in October. While working on Part 2 of Fantasian, he often thought of the family-themed parallels between that and Final Fantasy 6.
“In Fantasian there is certainly a relationship portrayed between a parent and a child and there are certain connections that I of course draw from my real life experiences which, maybe naturally or maybe it could be a message that I mean or put subtly in the story. I would say it’s partly age, partly personal experience, but there’s a lot that you wear in development like that. “
It’s understandable that Sakaguchi gave particular thought to his personal life and career throughout the development of Fantasian. He’s said in other interviews (and reiterated during our discussion) that while he doesn’t commit to this being his last game and still has some ideas for things he’d like to create , he would nonetheless be “very satisfied” with Fantasian if it turned out to be “the icing on the cake” of his career.
“I think [composer Nobuo Uematsu and I] left nothing on the table and there are no regrets about how it turned out, ”he says.
Part 1 of Fantasian launched earlier this year on Apple Arcade, Part 2 has just been announced for release this Friday. It follows the story of a young man who lost his memory and was pulled through the dimensions. While in many ways a traditional turn-based RPG, Fantasian is immediately visually striking thanks to its backgrounds, made up of nearly 160 handmade dioramas, all digitized in 3D to serve as ‘play environments.
These dioramas were, naturally, one of the most intensive parts of Fantasian’s development, and one of the things Sakaguchi refers to when talking about the amount of effort it took. I ask Sakaguchi what exactly we do with 160 handmade dioramas once they have been scanned for use in a game. He tells me that they are currently disassembled and stored in a warehouse on the outskirts of Tokyo owned by one of the diorama artists – a practical solution, but one which also illustrates the scale of the project.
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“Ironically, because of the sheer volume, the other day I wanted to take pictures of the king’s throne, the throne room,” he says. “I asked [the artist], ‘Hey, can you get this throne?’ and it took him three days to put it all together because he stored them safely and took apart some parts that don’t need to be together when stored. So to find what we were looking for and create this photograph, it took us three days to go through all of the dioramas. “
Sakaguchi said in interviews for the game earlier this year that a game development pipeline with dioramas like this “probably shouldn’t exist”. I ask him if, now that he’s finished one, he still feels the same.
“I think there is something to be said about ignorance being bliss,” he laughs. “Before we delved into it, I thought it would be a little more manageable, but of course taking these physical and craft dioramas and really capturing the essence of it, and falling into a game, that is, of course. , mostly digital, this turned out to be a bigger challenge than I think any of us expected. So it will depend on how the fans react. We will see what they say, if fans really love and crave that diorama feel and look, so maybe we can see it again, but I think I definitely underestimated, shall we say, how bad the pipeline could be. hard.”
That challenge was heightened somewhat by what Sakaguchi acknowledges to be an expansion in scope as he worked on the storyline. He tells me that although he got a general overview of both parts at first, he “got a little greedy” with what he wanted to add – especially since he started working on part 2. He designates encounters with Fantasian bosses as a special item. he wanted to flesh out more, suggesting that the AI and algorithms for the bosses in part 2 are much more complex and rewarding than those in part 1. The final boss, he tells me, is a 40 to 50 encounter. minutes all by itself.
Such a fight may be surprising compared to other mobile titles, but it’s a fairly typical, meaty length for the traditional JRPG genre that Sakaguchi has historically dealt with. He tells me he’s actually a little surprised at how well Fantasian has been received specifically because of those more traditional items, which he says have become a little less popular over the decades since he first cast them in Final Fantasy.
But the genre’s popularity wasn’t quite what Sakaguchi was looking for when making Fantasian anyway.
“There was a point in video game history where some of the styles of turn-based games in general tended to go away and people wanted the action, they wanted real time, they wanted to get that back. snapshot to their entries, and the trends have moved away from that kind of RPG style, ”he says. “I would say maybe even now there are a lot of fans gravitating towards that kind of more instantaneous and action-packed experience. For that reason, I guess it was a little unexpected how great the game was. received.
“But for me, personally, let’s be honest, I’m nearing the end of my game development career and as one of my last projects I wanted to do something that I personally thought was very enjoyable and fun. And something that I knew I was really good at at crafting. Maybe that’s what we poured into Fantasian. Regardless of the playstyle, we’re in a time where fans are more receptive. to different styles of experiences, so in this case, Uematsu-san and I took all the energy we had left and put it into this thing.
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Development on Fantasian is mostly done for Sakaguchi, so he recently spent a lot of time creating trailers and promotional material. While family themes are certainly not the only common threads in the game – at one point in our interview, Sakaguchi tells me that part of the game’s discussion of order and chaos was inspired by the Origin novel. by Dan Brown – it’s the family that Sakaguchi keeps coming back to it over and over, even at this point in the process. He tells me that recently, as he was listening to a particular song with vocals on the Fantasian soundtrack and putting together in-game footage for promotional material, he was reminded again of the importance of parent-child relationships, saying his work on the game made him think about it even more.
“Just listening to the music, letting it affect me and editing these clips also reminded me of when my mother passed away. And last night actually my wife and I ended up spending about three hours talking about our parents and different kinds of human relationships. So I would definitely say that wouldn’t have happened if Fantasian hadn’t been completed and if I hadn’t developed Fantasian.
Maybe Fantasian will end up being Sakaguchi’s swan song, or maybe not. Either way, Sakaguchi wants to leave players with a positive message. He refers to the game’s boss fight challenge, saying he hopes people have a sense of accomplishment and accomplishment by the end of Fantasian’s final encounter.
And in terms of story, he wants Fantasian’s ultimate message to be one of hope for the future.
“I tried to write a very uplifting and warm experience for the players … plus the feeling of accomplishment which I hope will give them a little boost and give the player energy to then move forward or act on something they meant.
“This is, for me, what I hope the whole experience leaves behind.”
Rebekah Valentine is a reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @canardvalentine.
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