Final Fantasy XIII-2 is out in Japan next month, with a UK release following in February. Swapping out Final Fantasy XIII's notoriously linear campaign for a time-travelling hub system, the game's an intriguing proposition to put it mildly, and we were eager to pick producer Yoshinori Kitase's brains following our latest hands-on. Here's the resulting chat. Check our hands-on and most recent preview for more.
So Final Fantasy XIII-2. It's the second time you guys have returned to a series within the main canon. Why go back to Final Fantasy XIII in particular?
As you know, we took a long time to make XIII, and obviously we took years and years to create the in game universe and set of characters so we generally felt through the development of XIII that it'd be nice to tell the stories about what happens to these characters after the end of XIII. But obviously with no actual plans.
And XIII was released back in March 2010 worldwide, since then we have enjoyed great commercial success of over 6.2 million copies worldwide, so that was one factor among things obviously. Because we had established the basis of game making with XIII with the know-how, the technology, everything else like that so we knew that we would be able to make use of it and we can make a game in a much shorter space of time to turn around so we put those things together to decide to make a sequel.
Would you ever remake some of the earlier games in the series simply because you like the setting?
In the transition between XIII to XIII-2, it was quite easy because obviously we kept all the data and the engine - we had just finished using them so it was almost like they hadn't gone cold. The technology was already warm and ready to use, so it was quite good. Also within the team, we still had a feel for the game, it was still new to us, still lingering with us, so we were ready to move on to the sequel.
But if we were to take one of the past Final Fantasy titles and make a sequel to it, I think that would be a lot more challenging because when they were on PlayStation and PlayStation 2 their actual game volume was a lot bigger, kind of. Graphically they weren't as advanced as they are now, but there were lots of towns and worlds and cities and whatever. So if we were to recreate the same kind of game - sequel or not - with the same volume, but give it a much higher level of graphical quality, it would us take three times, four times, even ten times longer to make such a game. So making a sequel for an old game would be a lot more challenging.
I imagine that must be especially true with games like Final Fantasy VII which had pre-rendered 2D backdrops. Turning those beautiful static shots into 3D environments would be difficult. Is that the main thing that's holding you back?
We have experimented - Advent Children is a film sequel to Final Fantasy VII, if you like - and we know that the hundreds of fans would like to see a hi-def version of Final Fantasy VII. But if we were to achieve the modern graphical quality at the same time putting in exactly the same world and everything, I think it would take ten times longer as compared to the time we took to produce XIII, for example.
So if we were to pursue the same graphical quality, somehow we would have to make adjustments about game volume in the world, we'd have to cut down certain areas, but if we did that our fans would probably be not very happy, so we have to achieve both goals so that if we ever decide to either remake VII or make a sequel for hi-def consoles, we're going to have to be very, very careful.
Do you think that fans sometimes don't appreciate that their memories of the game may be more precious than a sequel or remake could ever be?
If I may speak as a game creator, if we were to produce a remake of VII, for example, I would be really tempted to delete things and add new elements, new systems or whatever because if we were to make exactly the same thing now, it'd be like a repeat. It'd be an issue of repetition and not as much fun to make such a game. So I'd be really interested in rearranging games or reshaping games into something slightly different even though it's supposed to be the same game. But if we did that, the fans might be disappointed or "this is not what I was expecting" so in that sense maybe some might say that it's better to let memory be memory.
When we play the games we made years ago, sometimes we think "oh, that is not really cool" or "that probably should have been a bit better than that" and that sort of thing. But on the other hand, those slightly negative features and bits, some of the fans - really enthusiastic fans of these titles - that gives them an extra flavour or personality or whatever, so maybe they would rather we didn't do anything about it and we just leave it in as it is, so it's very difficult to decide what we should we keep in and what we should take out.
Final Fantasy X-2 was a light-hearted J-pop game. With XIII-2 you've gone with more of a macho feel. Was that a conscious choice?
Final Fantasy X was quite a serious game as opposed to X-2 which was really poppy, sort of casual kind of game, we were aiming for a Charlie's Angels feel, if you like, with these three girls travelling together having these adventures.
But when we decided to make a sequel to XIII I decided not to go for the same sort of drastic style change - that would be quite negative, we thought. The initial scenario, when it was brought to me, had Serah as the only protagonist, travelling with Moogle as a companion, and their conversation was quite girly, almost camp and a bit over the top and I thought: "OK, that shift is a bit like the one from X to X-2". It's a bit dangerous, so we decided to introduce Noel as another male protagonist, so that we kept the serious tone of XIII but added a few new factors.
Do you need Sony's permission to remake PlayStation-era Final Fantasies for Xbox 360?
Well, XIII and XIII-2 are only two years apart so obviously we have to stick to the same platforms, otherwise we would have to give XIII-2 to the people who haven't played the previous work, but if we were to remake an old game that's ten years old or whatever, or make a sequel to that particular title, we don't have to worry about the same issue.
So we just play it by ear, we find out what is available, we consider our options. Multiplatform is great if it's possible, if not we can still go for it. We don't want to feel bound to any sort of previous arrangements, like we have to stick to the same rules.
For example, Final Fantasy XII was obviously on PlayStation 2 but since then we released a sort of spin-off title called Revenant Wings, a DS title. We looked at the target demography, what kind of user would be most interested in playing this sequel, remake or whatever, and went forward with the right decision.
Are you ever caught off-guard by how popular the Xbox 360 is in the west?
Obviously it hasn't performed as well in Japan.
You're right, obviously, that Japan is a very PlayStation-led market. However, we have always kept our sort of 'ear out' as it were to what is popular worldwide, and we obviously were very much aware that the 360 has a huge market outside Japan. So as I said once while we were making games in Tokyo, we don't really feel the importance of Xbox, but when I visit LA for E3 or Europe or a world tour or whatever, we just feel every day how important the Xbox market is for us, so that there will always be a need to make the game for both consoles.
Recently, with Kinect for example - it's a big thing in Japan, but we don't really 'feel' how popular it is now, particularly because it's not actually a console as such, it's more peripheral technology. Our basic attitude about this new technology is that unless you think you can make the best use of it, you might as well just not use it in the first place. So because we are making an RPG, not an action game - for action games, Kinect is very useful, everyone can see that - but I can't really visualise the interface that uses a Kinect in an RPG. Possibly mini-games, but not really.
When I was at E3, last time, one of the games used Kinect for voice recognition, so now you can have conversations with non-player characters, so it can be quite useful, and we will definitely look into that. But again, there is a huge gap in "temperatures" within Japan and outside Japan when it comes to Xbox and Kinect.
A lot of people have compared Final Fantasy XIII-2's time travel premise to Chrono Trigger. How far should the comparisons go?
Obviously Final Fantasy XIII and Chrono Trigger share the same theme of time travel, and obviously people talk a lot about Chrono Trigger in the context of XIII-2 and I can understand that. It's true that we racked our brains to work out how best to take that element of time travel from Chrono Trigger and express it for current gen consoles - which kinds of game mechanics would be appropriate and so on, we did think of that.
The main difference between the two titles is that in Chrono Trigger, you go back to one point in the past and you do this and that, and those changes could impact on the future. You can't really interact with what happens in the future.
But in XIII-2 because of this new feature called Historia Crux, the player can choose a location and time that they want to play by themselves. They get to make the choice about which area or era they want to explore. OK, you've played this world and that world, your characters are now a lot stronger, more powerful and all the rest of it, and then you can revisit some of the times and locations you completed before, except now as a more progressed character - which can sometimes help you find different time-gates, so that you can actually go back and go through and take a different route to another different time and location. So it opens the door to lots of different things you can explore. That's how we have advanced from Chrono Trigger, if you like.
Source: Official Xbox 360 Magazine UK
So Final Fantasy XIII-2. It's the second time you guys have returned to a series within the main canon. Why go back to Final Fantasy XIII in particular?
As you know, we took a long time to make XIII, and obviously we took years and years to create the in game universe and set of characters so we generally felt through the development of XIII that it'd be nice to tell the stories about what happens to these characters after the end of XIII. But obviously with no actual plans.
And XIII was released back in March 2010 worldwide, since then we have enjoyed great commercial success of over 6.2 million copies worldwide, so that was one factor among things obviously. Because we had established the basis of game making with XIII with the know-how, the technology, everything else like that so we knew that we would be able to make use of it and we can make a game in a much shorter space of time to turn around so we put those things together to decide to make a sequel.
Would you ever remake some of the earlier games in the series simply because you like the setting?
In the transition between XIII to XIII-2, it was quite easy because obviously we kept all the data and the engine - we had just finished using them so it was almost like they hadn't gone cold. The technology was already warm and ready to use, so it was quite good. Also within the team, we still had a feel for the game, it was still new to us, still lingering with us, so we were ready to move on to the sequel.
But if we were to take one of the past Final Fantasy titles and make a sequel to it, I think that would be a lot more challenging because when they were on PlayStation and PlayStation 2 their actual game volume was a lot bigger, kind of. Graphically they weren't as advanced as they are now, but there were lots of towns and worlds and cities and whatever. So if we were to recreate the same kind of game - sequel or not - with the same volume, but give it a much higher level of graphical quality, it would us take three times, four times, even ten times longer to make such a game. So making a sequel for an old game would be a lot more challenging.
I imagine that must be especially true with games like Final Fantasy VII which had pre-rendered 2D backdrops. Turning those beautiful static shots into 3D environments would be difficult. Is that the main thing that's holding you back?
We have experimented - Advent Children is a film sequel to Final Fantasy VII, if you like - and we know that the hundreds of fans would like to see a hi-def version of Final Fantasy VII. But if we were to achieve the modern graphical quality at the same time putting in exactly the same world and everything, I think it would take ten times longer as compared to the time we took to produce XIII, for example.
So if we were to pursue the same graphical quality, somehow we would have to make adjustments about game volume in the world, we'd have to cut down certain areas, but if we did that our fans would probably be not very happy, so we have to achieve both goals so that if we ever decide to either remake VII or make a sequel for hi-def consoles, we're going to have to be very, very careful.
Do you think that fans sometimes don't appreciate that their memories of the game may be more precious than a sequel or remake could ever be?
If I may speak as a game creator, if we were to produce a remake of VII, for example, I would be really tempted to delete things and add new elements, new systems or whatever because if we were to make exactly the same thing now, it'd be like a repeat. It'd be an issue of repetition and not as much fun to make such a game. So I'd be really interested in rearranging games or reshaping games into something slightly different even though it's supposed to be the same game. But if we did that, the fans might be disappointed or "this is not what I was expecting" so in that sense maybe some might say that it's better to let memory be memory.
When we play the games we made years ago, sometimes we think "oh, that is not really cool" or "that probably should have been a bit better than that" and that sort of thing. But on the other hand, those slightly negative features and bits, some of the fans - really enthusiastic fans of these titles - that gives them an extra flavour or personality or whatever, so maybe they would rather we didn't do anything about it and we just leave it in as it is, so it's very difficult to decide what we should we keep in and what we should take out.
Final Fantasy X-2 was a light-hearted J-pop game. With XIII-2 you've gone with more of a macho feel. Was that a conscious choice?
Final Fantasy X was quite a serious game as opposed to X-2 which was really poppy, sort of casual kind of game, we were aiming for a Charlie's Angels feel, if you like, with these three girls travelling together having these adventures.
But when we decided to make a sequel to XIII I decided not to go for the same sort of drastic style change - that would be quite negative, we thought. The initial scenario, when it was brought to me, had Serah as the only protagonist, travelling with Moogle as a companion, and their conversation was quite girly, almost camp and a bit over the top and I thought: "OK, that shift is a bit like the one from X to X-2". It's a bit dangerous, so we decided to introduce Noel as another male protagonist, so that we kept the serious tone of XIII but added a few new factors.
Do you need Sony's permission to remake PlayStation-era Final Fantasies for Xbox 360?
Well, XIII and XIII-2 are only two years apart so obviously we have to stick to the same platforms, otherwise we would have to give XIII-2 to the people who haven't played the previous work, but if we were to remake an old game that's ten years old or whatever, or make a sequel to that particular title, we don't have to worry about the same issue.
So we just play it by ear, we find out what is available, we consider our options. Multiplatform is great if it's possible, if not we can still go for it. We don't want to feel bound to any sort of previous arrangements, like we have to stick to the same rules.
For example, Final Fantasy XII was obviously on PlayStation 2 but since then we released a sort of spin-off title called Revenant Wings, a DS title. We looked at the target demography, what kind of user would be most interested in playing this sequel, remake or whatever, and went forward with the right decision.
Are you ever caught off-guard by how popular the Xbox 360 is in the west?
Obviously it hasn't performed as well in Japan.
You're right, obviously, that Japan is a very PlayStation-led market. However, we have always kept our sort of 'ear out' as it were to what is popular worldwide, and we obviously were very much aware that the 360 has a huge market outside Japan. So as I said once while we were making games in Tokyo, we don't really feel the importance of Xbox, but when I visit LA for E3 or Europe or a world tour or whatever, we just feel every day how important the Xbox market is for us, so that there will always be a need to make the game for both consoles.
Recently, with Kinect for example - it's a big thing in Japan, but we don't really 'feel' how popular it is now, particularly because it's not actually a console as such, it's more peripheral technology. Our basic attitude about this new technology is that unless you think you can make the best use of it, you might as well just not use it in the first place. So because we are making an RPG, not an action game - for action games, Kinect is very useful, everyone can see that - but I can't really visualise the interface that uses a Kinect in an RPG. Possibly mini-games, but not really.
When I was at E3, last time, one of the games used Kinect for voice recognition, so now you can have conversations with non-player characters, so it can be quite useful, and we will definitely look into that. But again, there is a huge gap in "temperatures" within Japan and outside Japan when it comes to Xbox and Kinect.
A lot of people have compared Final Fantasy XIII-2's time travel premise to Chrono Trigger. How far should the comparisons go?
Obviously Final Fantasy XIII and Chrono Trigger share the same theme of time travel, and obviously people talk a lot about Chrono Trigger in the context of XIII-2 and I can understand that. It's true that we racked our brains to work out how best to take that element of time travel from Chrono Trigger and express it for current gen consoles - which kinds of game mechanics would be appropriate and so on, we did think of that.
The main difference between the two titles is that in Chrono Trigger, you go back to one point in the past and you do this and that, and those changes could impact on the future. You can't really interact with what happens in the future.
But in XIII-2 because of this new feature called Historia Crux, the player can choose a location and time that they want to play by themselves. They get to make the choice about which area or era they want to explore. OK, you've played this world and that world, your characters are now a lot stronger, more powerful and all the rest of it, and then you can revisit some of the times and locations you completed before, except now as a more progressed character - which can sometimes help you find different time-gates, so that you can actually go back and go through and take a different route to another different time and location. So it opens the door to lots of different things you can explore. That's how we have advanced from Chrono Trigger, if you like.
Source: Official Xbox 360 Magazine UK
if they're gonna delete crap I'd prefer they forgot VII ever even existed. 
Nomura's a better director anyway. 
I wouldn't mind learning a little more about Vincent Valentine either, although perhaps I should play Dirge of the Cerberus for that? 
I just think I'd rather play each Final Fantasy game in its original form. The D.S. remake of Final Fantasy IV was okay, but a part of me felt more drawn towards the 2D style. It's the way it was meant to be! 
When it comes to VIII and IX, they're not THAT bad... just use a smaller screen. 
The characters in VII are a little funny, yes, but that's part of the game's charm.
Why can't Serah be a little more...realistic. There really aren't that many girls who are OOT girly.