Hironobu Sakaguchi Did a PAX Prime panel

[Freya]

And it was awesome. 9 is one of his favorites. (Told you) He wants to be the dancer class, even though he can't dance. SE said no Chrono Trigger 2 :(

GO WATCH. (http://www.twitch.tv/pax/c/5027921)Worship the ground of the founder of Final Fantasy and CEO of Mistwalker, Hironobu Sakaguchi.

What think

[Wolf Kanno]

I've watched the first half so far and it has been really entertaining, Sakaguchi strikes me as a cool dude you could easily sit down and have a drink with. :cool:


For those who don't want to bother with the hour long video...

Early Highlights of the first half:

:choc: Sakaguchi would love to have friends follow him on Facebook but unfortunately he's maxed out his allowable invite so he can't friend you.

:choc2: Sakaguchi still meets up with several Square employees like Kitase and he still meets up with the original development team of FFI and II.

:onnanoko: A manga writer friend (missed his name) taught Sakaguchi the importance of making strong characters and their relation to the world in order to make a compelling story and he feels this is why FFIV resonates with fans so much.

:cactuar: Sakaguchi feels that FFVI was made at a pinnacle of the FF team's skill level and this is one of the reasons why this game has resonated so much with fans.

:ffvising: Sakaguchi would love to see an HD remake of VI as he still has fond memories of its development.

:zidane: Sakaguchi would also love to see a VII HD Remake but is fine with the game being left alone and remembered for what it was.

:ffvilaugh: He also wouldn't mind seeing a de-make of the game into an 8 or 16-bit title and its something he and his FF cronies discuss from time to time.

:moomba: He explains how VII involved bringing in teams of people who had experience with film making to help the FF team in making the first 3D FF title and the passion of both of these two teams was so great that it can still be felt when you play the game and he feels this is one of the reasons why the game was so successful because fans could actually feel the passion and hard work

:ffvishock: He talks about how he didn't understand what went into building the cgi and doing camera work but would still tell the programmers how he wanted a scene where the camera zoomed out to show off Midgard and then would zoom back in and the head guy apparently thought he was crazy but Sakaguchi was amazed how the team made it happen.

:ffvisexy: He is okay with fans using Sephiroth as their email handle, it is free.

:quina: IX is his favorite and when they approached it they were hoping to make a game that embodied the SNES era FFs with the technology and skills they gained making VII and VIII and its this sense of nostalgia that makes it special to him, he also loves Vivi.

:ffviwag: Though he likes Nomura, he didn't feel Nomura could create a visual style that embodied the older games which is why art direction fell to Minaba instead who had worked on the SNES era FFs.

:luca: As Freya points out, he most identifies with the Dancer class.

[Vyk]

Wow, thanks for taking the time and effort. That was a really interesting read, which I would have very little time to watch before I head off to work. Much appreciated. Looking forward to the second half :P

[Mirage]

Are you sure it was on facebook?

In either case, interesting panel.

[Wolf Kanno]

The second half! At this point Sakaguchi is answering questions about his work with Mistwalker and general questions about the RPG genre.


:jess: Sakaguchi reveals he's a big fan of Akira Toriyama's work (Dragon Ball) and was really honored and happy to work with him on Chrono Trigger and then later on Blue Dragon. Toriyama actually would check in occasionally to see how development was going and was a bit more involved than people think.

:erm: Sakaguchi reveals a rare photo of Akira Toriyama with the Blue Dragon team and then realizes he might get into trouble for this because Toriyama is incredibly secretive and finding photos of him before he became famous is very difficult. I assume its because the man is trying to hide the fact he's a vampire because he looks like a guy in his early 20s, not a man about to turn 60. :D

:shifty: Though nothing is in the works at the moment, Sakaguchi and his team would love to make sequels to Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, and The Last Story.

:cry: Sakaguchi reveals that Akira Toriyama rejected his first draft of the story for Blue Dragon and even though he wants to make a sequel, he feels it will be challenging not to be intimidated by Akira Toriyama to write something up to his standards. :lol:

:tumble: The speaker mentioned he asked Nobuo Uematsu what it was like to work with Toriyama but Nobuo mentioned he never got a chance to meet him. Sakaguchi laughs and mentions that Uematsu is a hermit who keeps to his little part of the studio and rarely ventures out which is why he never met him. Sakaguchi says jokingly in English that Uematsu is a "lonely guy" which got laughs all around.

:omgomg: Sakaguchi says the best part about Toriyama is that he always has a great idea when you ask him for ideas and he's really quick and imaginative. The worst part was that he's a bit of a dinosaur when it comes to embracing technology and mentions he's still using version 2 of Photoshop and other ancient programs.

:squeeze: When asked about what Lost Odyssey brought to the world of RPGs, Sakaguchi mentions that he did Blue Dragon with the intention of working with Toriyama and likewise, Lost Odyssey was a chance to work with Takehiko Inoue (manga creator of Slam Dunk and Vagabond) for the character design and for writing he got to work with the talented Kiyoshi Shigematsu who wrote the Thousand Years of Dreams sections of the game that became the foundation for the game's story.

:bow: Sakaguchi explains that Lost Odyssey was his team trying to adapt this story into a game format and worried it would feel too "sectioned off" with the novel feeling too different from the game but was happy with the end results feeling the team was able to execute a good interconnection of the story and the game.

:holmes: Concerning his thoughts on The Last Story and what it brought to the genre, he says what stood out the most to him was their approach to the gameplay and system mechanics as they wanted to really focus on it first and come up with a system that would be fun before really solidifying other ideas about the title. The team spent a lot of time playing around with new game engines and ag dolls or grey boxes and it was very experimental for everyone. The last time he ever did something like this was when the he was working on FFVII and figuring out the 3D mechanics and how the leap from 2D to 3D would work.

:peachdance: When asked about The Last Story getting a sequel, Sakaguchi replied in English, "You talk to Nintendo" which got a lot of laughs.

:save:At this point the speaker talks with the audience about convincing Nintendo to make a sequel to The Last Story for the Wii U. After being told what they were talking about Sakaguchi looks at the speaker and says in English " And maybe PlayStation 4 too?"

:omg: When asked about his thoughts on both Western RPGs and what they bring to the genre as well as Japanese developers slow embrace of some of the more favorable WRPG elements, Sakaguchi replied that he loves Open World games and stands in awe of them, he also feels he probably couldn't create something like them but he is excited about what they bring to the genre and loves how people can still introduce new concepts into a genre that makes people excited.

:ffvishock: He goes onto say that as a game creator, they should look at new ways of challenging the formula instead of being restricted by a formula.

:bou: On being asked why he and Square didn't seem to really embrace Action-RPGs as well as his thoughts on The Legend of Zelda, Sakaguchi, he replies in English "Oh yeah, I love Zelda!" when he's being asked the question about his work on Action-RPGs, he actually mentions Seiken Denetsu he actually says Secret of Mana in English :love:

:hattip: Sakaguchi talks about how Seiken Denetsu and Brave Fencer Musashi were games that he and his team at Square had used to challenge themselves to branch out into different ways of approaching the RPG genre.

:praisethesun: When asked about his thoughts on Dark Souls, Sakaguchi laughs and gets a bit nervous and the speaker let's him pass on the question.

:bounce: The rest of the panel is Sakaguchi showing off his new game Terra Battle (which I made a thread about here (http://home.eyesonff.com/showthread.php/159099-Terra-Battle).) and he talks about how the game has a special download starter they are experimenting with where for every milestone made from downloading this game they will add new content or create goods based off it, the end goal is to garner enough interest to make a console version of the game.

:hat: The core of the game is based on a programmer at Mistwalker who came up with the concept.

:cheers: When he talked to many of his old friends and former co-workers about the game, he was able to get them all involved with donating their work to the game for some of the milestones. Because of this he thinks of the game as a festival where he gets to collaborate with all of his friends.

:mymelmagic: At this point they show a video detailing the concept of the Download Starter and shows off not only the goods given for milestones achieved (like music from Nobuo Uematsu, characters from famous FF veteran Yoshitaka Amano, and a new scenario for the game written by Yasumi Matsuno) as well as footage of the game which involves text based narration and a combat system where character use their fingers to move units into special formations to create special attacks. Moving your untis through your other party members or enemy movement also moves them allowing you to quickly create ideal formations for your party while moving the enemy into a disadvantage formation.

:plumcheer: The speaker asks about the milestones being based only on downloads, Sakaguchi explains its a play on the concept of Kickstarter but makes it clear they are not asking for money, the game is FTP and the only thing that matters is how many downloads they get.

:jiro: There is a pre-registration on the main website which you can get a code from the game's twitter account that will reward the player free energy to use.

:mamu: Bahamut is in the game and there is apparently a way to turn a character into him.

:lol: Sakaguchi jokes about how Matsuno is apparently a slow starter on projects and even though he has him already starting on his portion of the game for the milestone, he's hoping he'll actually be ready when they achieve it. He also hopes they hit the milestone so the work he has already put into the game doesn't go to waste.

:plotting: When asked about what the console version would entail, he says they are still conceptualizing what to do with it but he was thinking about making it like an MMORPG where players have to work together to make the correct formations to perform attacks and healing abilities but nothing is set in stone just yet and he's not sure if they will actually meet their goal.

:confused: In terms of what console it would appear on, he says it hasn't been determined but he's open to releasing it on all available consoles and PC.

:joker: When asked about the new 3DS that Nintendo just announced, Sakaguchi talks about how Nintendo keeps everyone on their toes with their console releases but he's excited and hopes to get a chance to work on it.

:wcanoe: The last few minutes concern the autograph session and a twitter contest called #TheGoochPAX which involves pictures of Sakaguchi and the speaker wearing silly mustaches at which point Sakaguchi mentions that their is no difference from the fake one and his real one. After that the panel ends.

[Ayen]

Sakaguchi's reaction to Dark Souls sound a lot like my reaction >.>

I support a 16 bit Final Fantasy VII game.

[VeloZer0]

Thanks for writing this all up. I despise watching interviews, but when it is nicely summarized they usually make interesting reading.

[Wolf Kanno]

Thanks for writing this all up. I despise watching interviews, but when it is nicely summarized they usually make interesting reading.

You're welcome, to be honest it was a fun video because Sakaguchi is such an animated speaker so it turned out to be more fun than I thought it would be. I miss his artsy blogs from the Mistwalker website. :cry:

[Rostum]

Thanks. I always love to see what Sakaguchi is up to these days, and what his views are on the industry and RPG genre. :) I really do miss him being a part of Square.