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You also help write the setting and story for your games. The map screen in particular feels reminiscent of Ogre Battle. Carthage, an obscure Amiga strategy game from 1990 by Psygnosis. Minagawa, Yoshida, and myself have long been fans of Western games, and I think our work reflects that taste and gives the graphics in our games something distinct from other Japanese games. It depicts the war between Rome and Carthage, but it felt very fresh and looked extremely cool. The three of us have similar taste in graphics… when we were making Ogre Battle, we studied a variety of strategy games, but the one that really caught our eye was a real-time strategy game for the Amiga called Carthage. I’ve been extremely lucky to have teamed up with them.

Matsuno: A huge part of it is that I’ve been working with the same extremely talented designers, namely Hiroshi Minagawa (graphics chief designer) and Akihiko Yoshida (character designer). How do you achieve those visuals? Tell us your secrets. Vagrant Story, like all your games, possesses a wonderful visual aesthetic. I was determined not to make the same mistakes again. With FFT, however, the more critical feedback really caught my attention, and Vagrant Story reflects that a lot I think. I applied the things I learned from that in our next game, Tactics Ogre, and likewise, after that I built on the feedback for Tactics Ogre when I made Final Fantasy Tactics. People would call in and say stuff like, “This game doesn’t make any sense! Who’s responsible for this mess?! Put him on the line!” and I’d respond, “Ah, I’m sorry, that would be me.” (laughs) In this way, for 4 long months, I got to hear it all straight from the horse’s mouths… psychologically, it was exhausting, but it was also a good learning experience. To go back a bit, after we finished Ogre Battle, Quest was experiencing a staff shortage, and I had to do the user support by myself. I get sucked into stuff like that easily, so I always read them, and when I see criticism about our games, it makes me want to fix those flaws in whatever we’re working on now. The internet is connecting the world more and more these days, and players are writing reviews for all sorts of games online. But as for my motivation, if I had to say, it would be the internet that motivates me. Matsuno: I don’t know, I mean, when it comes to making games I’m content to putter along at my own pace, so the long development time doesn’t bother me much. If, as you say, you don’t begin with an initial vision for a specific game or world you want to create, then where do you find the motivation to throw yourself into a single development for nearly two years? However, from everything I’ve heard your contributions as the “unifier” is a huge part of what makes your games what they are. The whole team has this atmosphere of “no compromise!” -I can see you’ve assembled quite the talented staff. From the outside looking in, that aspect of their work ethic would probably be called passion.

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I really focus on the details and little things though, so that’s probably where that reputation comes from… maybe it’s because I’m an A-type (blood type), but I get really obsessed with details of a setting and world-including things that may not even be necessary.Īlso, when it comes to their work, a lot of people on my team are very… how to put it… stoic? masochistic? (laughs) Calling it “adversity” feels weird, but basically, the more impossible something seems, the more fired up they all get about it.

Matsuno: No, that is often said about me, but the honest truth is, I personally have a hard time coming up with big ideas. I had always thought that came from your own deep attachment and involvement with the games themselves. Especially considering that all the games you’ve worked on share a certain unique atmosphere, I feel. I admit, it surprises me a little to hear you say that. As you can see, the initial impulse wasn’t that I wanted to create a specific kind of game or world it started from my personal estimation of the commercial value of the idea, and whether it would pan out given the current market and player demographics.