Final Fantasy XVI’s director wants to shake up the series with epic monster battles

The factor Naoki Yoshida is most enthusiastic about in Final Fantasy XVI is the eikon battles.

In talking to The Verge, Yoshida, the sport’s director, talked about how earth-shattering, knock-down, drag-out fights between a few of the franchise’s most outstanding and standard monsters featured closely on this newest single-player, non-remake entry in the 35-year-old JRPG series.

Summons — aka espers, aka aeons, aka eidolons, aka GF (lol) and now eikons — have been a fixture in the Final Fantasy series, representing a form of “break glass in case of emergency” choice in fight. Over the years, gamers have had various ranges of management over them with the energy to name them forth for a one-time large hit like in Final Fantasy VII and IX, problem instructions to them immediately like in Final Fantasy X, or to summon them as NPC fight allies like in FFXII. But Final Fantasy XVI appears to provide extra to summon fight than simply having a giant dude present up to beat on different dudes for you.

Image: Square Enix

“We have these epic summon versus summon battles,” Yoshida stated, talking by a translator. “And these are not only going to be in cutscenes. The players will be able to actually get into those battles and control an eikon of their own and feel the excitement from the inside, not just from an outside type of view.”

Eikons are at the coronary heart of all the trailers, media, and lore we’ve seen of Final Fantasy XVI to this point, and focusing the sport on these creatures of immense and superior energy is essential to Yoshida’s imaginative and prescient.

“We envision Final Fantasy XVI as like a giant, high-speed roller coaster that will take players on a thrilling ride both story- and gameplay-wise.”

Final Fantasy is in the center of a “hot Garuda summer” interval. Final Fantasy XIV continues to get pleasure from worldwide recognition whereas followers are eagerly anticipating the arrival of not solely a Crisis Core remake however the launch of the second installment in the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy. No matter in case you are a single-player or MMO Final Fantasy fan, you’re consuming properly. But the arrival of XVI revives considerations about Square Enix’s capacity to make a profitable, unique, single-player Final Fantasy title.

Image: Square Enix

The annoyingly titled Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin made waves for being a weird “cringe but make it camp” game outdoors of the conventional motion RPG format, but it surely didn’t get pleasure from widespread success. Additionally, Final Fantasy XV was a industrial hit however a important failure plagued with delays, scope changes, platform adjustments, and leadership changes making a messy hodgepodge of a sport (though sprinkled with some truly brilliant series-defining moments) with a back-half that’s nearly wholly indefensible.

Going into XVI, Yoshida and his staff have been conscious of the issues that dogged FFXV’s manufacturing.

“One of the first things that we did back in the early days of Final Fantasy XVI development, when we were still just a tiny team, was first focus on what kind of game system we’re having,” Yoshida stated. “And then once we had that, we finalized the meat of the script and narrative.”

The consequence, Yoshida says, is a sport that’s at the moment totally playable from begin to end, hopefully with out the fear of needing DLC or books to fill in gaps or higher categorical the sport’s story after the reality.

Fans are excited for XVI in a approach they could not have been for different Final Fantasy video games due to Yoshida. He is a giant motive why Square Enix was ready to salvage Final Fantasy XIV from a barely playable mess into the critically acclaimed game that was, simply final 12 months, so standard gross sales and free trials had to be suspended to alleviate server congestion. I wished to know what, if any, of his secret FFXIV sauce made it into FFXVI.

But Yoshida stated that engaged on Final Fantasy XVI didn’t name an excessive amount of upon his expertise with Final Fantasy XIV as a result of they’re two very completely different video games for gamers who need very various things.

“Working on a mainline title and learning who the fans of Final Fantasy are and what those fans expect from the series is what’s proved the most invaluable,” Yoshida stated.

Yoshida defined that the expertise of growing these video games is like the distinction between a marathon and a 100-meter sprint. He’s a marathon runner, used to stretching out a narrative so as to preserve followers and repeatedly taking part in, and he wanted to prepare himself, so to converse, to run a lot sooner over a a lot shorter distance.

“Compared with an MMO, single-player games are more about providing instant gratification,” he stated. “They’re short bursts of extreme excitement and then, when you get to the finish, ending on a bang that has people think ‘Wow, that was a great game.’”

Yoshida isn’t the solely particular person from the FFXIV staff engaged on FFXVI. Fans are equally excited to see XIV’s composer Masayoshi Soken engaged on XVI’s music. I requested if Yoshida had any perception into how Soken has been dealing with the new task.

Image: Square Enix

“Final Fantasy XIV has always been considered like a Final Fantasy theme park, and this has allowed for a lot of different types of music styles,” Yoshida stated. “Final Fantasy XVI, however, is a more focused experience fixed firmly on Clive Rosefield and his journey. As such, I envisioned a more focused experience when it comes to music as well.”

Yoshida shared that Soken confided in him that he’s really been having a troublesome time adapting to work on a single-player sport.

“Focusing on one theme has been actually very challenging for him,” Yoshida stated. “It’s been a long time since he’s had to do that and not be able to just do whatever he wants.”

Yoshida feels that Final Fantasy XVI is a coming of age of kinds for him. He talked about his time taking part in the first Final Fantasy as a toddler and the way his creativeness made him really feel like he was taking part in a film. Now, with all the developments in expertise, he doesn’t have to depend on his creativeness anymore.

“I look at Final Fantasy XVI as like taking the best part of a movie and the best part of a game and putting those together to make a truly interactive type of game / movie,” he stated. “The most exciting part about developing this game has been the eikons with the sheer size and scale of their battles. When I was a child playing Final Fantasy I, with its pixel graphics, this is how I imagined they would look and being able to see them now has been really exciting.”