Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
The new dimension of imagination It was released on December 5 on PS5 and PS4. This Mistwalker RPG features the creative work of two industry icons, both legends of the genre. First, there’s composer Nobuo Uematsu, who brought his talents to bear on the game’s score, the last full game soundtrack he would produce solo, capping off an incredible 30 years of work. last week, He walked us through some of his favorite pieces.
Today, we’re speaking with the second creative force involved, game producer and CEO of Mistwalker, Hironobu Sakaguchi. The creator joined us earlier this year on the PS Blog To discuss the game’s release on PS5. Our new conversation, which you can listen to in full on the official PlayStation Podcast later today, expands the network to discuss his thoughts on the RPG genre, his long-standing partnership with Uematsu-san, and celebrating the 20th anniversary of Mistwalker and the 30th anniversary of PlayStation.
Note: This interview has been condensed for clarity and brevity. Listen to the full conversation on the new official PlayStation Podcast, launching later today.
Playstation Blog: You’re highly regarded for your work in the RPG space, and RPGs are known for coaxing teams with disparate personalities. For you, what makes a great character party?
Hironobu Sakaguchi: You want your cast of characters to have a wide range of personalities, diverse backgrounds, and different character and story settings. As they traverse this world and go on their adventure, I think seeing the transformation and change in characters is one of the most engaging things you can experience as an RPG player.
In terms of game mechanics, of course, which is just as important, and specifically in Fantasian Neo Dimension, each character has their own unique set of traits. Some characters may be more defense skewed, others may be more adept at magic, or some may do DPS, in the form of physical attacks. But that unique trait or element they bring to the table in combat will become invaluable. So, in Fantasian Neo Dimension, you can switch your party and team members without consuming one of your turns, making your team composition and combat completely dynamic.
PSB: The game features amazing handcrafted figures. Where did they end up? Have you adopted any of them for your home?
Sakaguchi: Unfortunately, the diorama, over time, the paint will chip, a lot of the clay will melt, and in general, it will deteriorate over time. Due to the nature of how they were manufactured, very little has survived intact, and it is impossible to store them. So, items that were given to different players as gifts or given to team members, core team members who worked on the game, were kept, and we saved a large portion of the props in each individual diorama, and they were kept and turned into those gifts. But in general, the so-called base, or many of the structural elements of this diorama, unfortunately had to be discarded. So I would say that most of the dioramas you see in Fantasian Neo Dimension no longer exist in this world, and I understand that might seem a little sad, almost fleeting in a way, but there’s a kind of poetic beauty to that okay.
PSB: Fantasian Neo Dimension includes select tracks from Final Fantasy. Why these particular songs, and how did you decide to choose them?
Sakaguchi: I don’t know how popular this is, but I’m a huge Final Fantasy XIV fan, and I practically live in the world of FFXIV. There are certain tracks composed by FFXIV composer, Masayoshi Soken, that pay tribute to what Uematsu-san did in previous (games). You can tell it’s almost an arrangement of Uematsu-san’s melodies and different compositions.
While I was testing Fantasian, I had FFXIV playing in the background, which I believe was one of the battle scenes. Playing Fantasian and hearing this music in my own environment made me think “Wow, this is really cool, and I can feel the respect that was paid to the old Final Fantasy games.” As a fan, it was a very enjoyable experience on a personal level. So I talked to (FFXIV) producer Yoshida-san and said to him, is it possible to do something like this, and I had a positive response to it.
Around the same time, there was of course Final Fantasy VII Remake, the Pixel Remaster series. So I felt that in a way, Uematsu’s scores, of course, because he composed them all, including Fantasian, meshed very well with the Fantasian experience. It was a lot of fun, and completely natural. And I think it’s not often, in a video game, that you hear almost such a chronology of what Uematsu-san has done over the years, old and new. And throughout the game, I think there’s a lot of respect towards the music and history of Final Fantasy.
PSB: Is it possible to summarize what your career and long collaboration with Uematsu-san means to you?
Sakaguchi: I recently had the opportunity to go on stage with Uematsu-san at the Tokyo Game Show, and it felt very different from when we were interacting with each other in private, on stage. I think there was a different kind of honesty that we were dealing with that came to the surface, One of them was that when Uematsu-san is composing something, he is very careful to make sure that the player’s emotions are channeled and sculpted on the right path, and he tries to pull a wide range of emotions from his players. But among all the feelings, it seems that some kind of warmth or affection that humans can experience is one that particularly stood out and reminds us how beautiful it is to finally be human.
So, after Uematsu-san and I have worked and collaborated together for so long, maybe it’s a little emotional, but I think at its core, how we feel and resonate, and that’s something that, you know, we kind of bounced around on stage at Tokyo Game Show, It’s that kind of emotional element, the emotional element. If you translate it into something that’s maybe a little more palatable, I think a video game product is, of course, a digital experience. However, even through this inanimate digital object, you are able to bring out this wide range of emotions in humans and remind us of what it means and what it means to be part of this larger ecosystem.
PSB: Mistwalker celebrated this important milestone this year, 20 years after its creation. Did you define it in a certain way?
Sakaguchi: It’s interesting that you mentioned that, since I was counting, and it’s our 20th anniversary this year. I thought to myself, oh, maybe he was right. So when I founded Mistwalker, I left Square Enix behind and formed this independent studio. Part of the reason why I was at Square Enix, a lot of my responsibilities shifted from making games to managing and running and almost running the business which, of course, there were some fun elements to it, but I realized that I wanted to live for creativity, and I think that’s what it was meant to be. That Mistwalker does, and that’s what I find most enjoyable as part of the process of making and creating games. Here we are, 20 years later, and I’m still able to create, and probably for years into the future, but the fact that Mistwalker has allowed me and our team to be able to find a home for that creative energy, I think really shows that he’s done his job.
PSB: What would you like to see in the RPG genre in the coming years?
Sakaguchi: I think implementing and using the latest technologies to maximize expression and striving for the next level of what it means to deliver an experience or story to someone is very important to the RPG genre. I think this is something that is a common denominator or throughline for the entire Final Fantasy series in general. But of course, the RPG genre is more than just implementing and integrating the latest technologies. There are different types of mechanisms and system improvements that can be made. Likewise, I think diorama, or in this case, artistic expression, is another area that RPGs can see themselves moving into. This is something we did in our case, rather than exclusively using the latest technology to try to express and portray the story through something that would allow players to feel that warmth that I mentioned earlier. I believe that all this contributes to taking a step forward in a certain direction. And to do that, I think it’s more than just looking at what technology can do, but how you can deliver these stories. And in some ways, I think this will translate into a more diverse catalog and range of RPGs, which is perhaps what the genre should be.
PSB: YYou must have collected so many memorabilia of your titles, awards, etc., that I imagine you have very little space in the house anymore. Are there any particular memorabilia that stand out to you?
Sakaguchi: I really don’t have a lot of memorabilia. In fact, I store most of them somewhere, and tend to forget about them. But if there’s any one element that perhaps stands above the others, I’d say it’s the physical version of Final Fantasy (the original). Because if I hadn’t made that, I don’t think my creative career would have gotten as far as it did on that so-called timeline. So I think the birth of Final Fantasy (the original) and the subsequent franchise it spawned after that is a pretty huge thorn in my life.
PSB: PlayStation is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. What PlayStation games have you personally enjoyed? Or what’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of PlayStation?
Sakaguchi: I would say Final Fantasy VII. Because at the time, PlayStation’s specifications were unlike any other console on the market at the time. It was head and shoulders above anything, and it was just an amazing, amazing platform. So it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that without PlayStation, there would be no Final Fantasy VII. I don’t even think we were thinking about making a game this way. So, of course, throughout my conversation with Kutaragi-san, we implied that the birth of PlayStation also led to the birth of Final Fantasy VII, and all the doors that Final Fantasy 7 opened for me and the world. a company. It was again a huge, huge revolution, a huge shift in the entire gaming industry, and I think on a hardware and software level, it was a huge leap forward.
