What factors and choices did the team use to convey “this is FINAL FANTASY”? Obviously, the combatants, arenas, and summons are sourced directly from all the classic FF titles, but were there other bird’s-eye view design pillars referenced by the team to keep the same spirit in place?
As this game is a kind of FINAL FANTASY All-Stars, the development team was constantly thinking of how to make it so people who had played the original games would fondly recall their memories of them. This covered everything, from the obvious stuff like how the characters are modeled, to the moves they use and all the dialogue they speak, right down to the subtle details in the stages.
We also included the EX Skills and summoning system in order to recreate the same feeling from the FF series’ classic RPG battles, where characters work together in parties, fighting with swords and magic, but as a high-speed action game.
The way that you can customize your moves and character’s appearance also very much has the DNA of FF in mind, although it is not quite as deep a system as in a true RPG.
I would be overjoyed if players get the feeling that these kinds of battles could well have happened in the original FF games.
One other thing that cannot be left out is the sort of story that we can only tell in this kind of “All-Stars” game, so you can look forward to seeing a tale and dialogue that could only work with these characters.
Takeo Kujiraoka, Game Director