The Last Story’s Hironobu Sakaguchi has said he can get a bit tired of people asking him about Final Fantasy, which he created, and that he completely trusts what producer Yoshinori Kitase is doing with the series.
“I still go out drinking with Yoshinori Kitase, the current producer of Final Fantasy, once in a while, and on those occasions he does tell me that it’s all fine,” he told The Guardian. “Sometimes, I personally complain a little bit about certain things about the franchise,” he said. “But when I left Square, I left the franchise in Kitase’s hands, and he promised me he would protect and progress the Final Fantasy brand.
“He has been my right-hand man since round about the middle of Final Fantasy III, and therefore I have a lot of trust in him.”
Sakaguchi also admitted his “pre-Final Fantasy games failed” because he “kept copying what was on the market.” Using his experience in such matters, he said developers need to free themselves of market constraints and just so what is “good for the game.”
Taking his own advice, Sakaguchi while “turn-based RPGs are an established form of entertainment,” he and his team decided to shake things up a bit by incorporating real-time battles in the The Last Story instead of the former.
“The battle system is probably the most important aspect of the game,” he said. “We had an experimental phase of about a year, in which we had so many ideas, and the best have been incorporated in the final game.
“Of course, games are a form of entertainment, so new things will always be more exciting than old things. Turn-based RPGs are an established form of entertainment, and just like puzzle games never died out, I believe that turn-based RPGs will continue to exist.”
The Last Story is out in the UK today and will release in the US this summer.