{"id":200696,"date":"2020-01-02T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-01T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/test\/wordpress\/?guid=39704a29faf72b02ef07245aa6483c78"},"modified":"2020-01-02T01:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-01-01T17:00:00","slug":"an-interview-with-final-fantasys-yoshinori-kitase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/test\/wordpress\/2020\/01\/02\/an-interview-with-final-fantasys-yoshinori-kitase\/","title":{"rendered":"An Interview With Final Fantasy’s Yoshinori Kitase"},"content":{"rendered":"

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As a longtime producer and director of Final Fantasy games, Yoshinori Kitase is one of the key minds behind Square Enix\u2019s flagship RPG series. We talked to Kitase about guiding the brand, keeping development ambitions in check, and remaking a classic like Final Fantasy VII.<\/p>\n

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Is it correct that the only company you\u2019ve worked for in the game industry is Square Enix?<\/strong>
\nYes. I was in an animation studio for a year before I came here, and that\u2019s it.<\/p>\n

How did you get involved at Square?<\/strong>
\nI entered the company in 1990, which is right about when we were moving from Nintendo to Super Nintendo. Obviously, the graphics weren\u2019t anywhere near where they are today, but when I started thinking that I wanted to move from the animation world into the games world, I really wanted to go somewhere that had a very strong emphasis on storylines \u2013 which is why I was interested in joining Square.<\/p>\n

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Final Fantasy VI<\/p>\n<\/article>\n

What drew you away from film and animation toward games?<\/strong>
\nI have always liked video games; I\u2019ve always played them and been interested in them. But when I was studying, I was focused on film, which led into animation. The company I was working for at the time did mostly commercials, and video shorts, and things like that. But I really wanted to start making things that were longer-form. As a hobby, I played a lot of games. Right about then \u2013 it was just really good timing \u2013 I played Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy and realized that games were a very good medium for telling longer-form stories. I thought, \u201cThis is going to be the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

You\u2019re the producer on the remake of Final Fantasy VII, a game that you previously worked on. How has the experience been trying to reimagine it for a new audience?<\/strong>
\nWhen we made the first game, we had total freedom. We could do whatever we wanted. The second time around, there were lots of fans of the first game. We had to cater to them to a certain extent, which a good thing, but also very difficult. Over the past 20 years of people who played the series have this image of \u2013 for example, Cloud \u2013 that\u2019s been building and building. And this image of what Final Fantasy VII is and who these characters are is pretty concrete. So, in making Final Fantasy VII Remake, we had to think ourselves, \u201cWell, is it going to be okay to make a new Cloud?\u201d Are people going to say, \u201cActually, no, that\u2019s not Cloud. He wouldn\u2019t do that.\u201d Or are people going to be receptive to it? It\u2019s been really interesting to try to figure that out.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Click here to watch embedded media<\/a><\/p>\n

How do you balance your own desire to do something that\u2019s creatively interesting, rather than retreading familiar ground?<\/strong>
\nI don\u2019t think this is just me \u2013 I think everyone here wants to make something new. It is a really wonderful thing to have a game you\u2019ve worked on be so well-loved by so many people. Even when we were traveling to promote Final Fantasy XIII, we had people constantly asking, \u201cSo, when\u2019s the Final Fantasy VII remake coming out?\u201d At this point, the graphics are pretty old. I want people to be able to see it as something new. I want people to be able to experience it through fresh eyes. So, I think that feeling of wanting people to experience it anew is part of the reason I decided to go toward a remake.<\/p>\n

I really love films; Star Wars Episode IV was real-time for me. It\u2019s been, what, almost 50 years since Star Wars Episode IV came out? Even looking back at it now, I still find a lot of the special effects to be quite impressive \u2013 they feel quite fresh in a way. But, for people my son\u2019s age, he looks at this and says, \u201cIt looks like they just got a bunch of toys that they\u2019re playing with.\u201d I realized that even if, to me, it still looks like something cool and new \u2013 that\u2019s how it looks to someone who is used to the newest and best CG. I really think that anybody can go back and play the original Final Fantasy VII and it would still be fun, but it\u2019s going to look like that to them \u2013 and I want to be able to bring people something that looks new and fresh.<\/p>\n

Is there still a committee at Square Enix that guides Final Fantasy as a brand?<\/strong>
\nIs it that famous!? Yeah, it does. It still exists. [Laughs] It\u2019s apparently world-famous? With some Yoda character like at the Jedi Council meetings?<\/p>\n

Yeah, exactly! Is it like that?<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] Mr. [Shinji] Hashimoto is the brand manager, so I guess in a sense he is kind of Yoda!<\/p>\n

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Final Fantasy VIII<\/p>\n<\/article>\n

What are those meetings like? Is it producers from Final Fantasy titles who get together to talk about the future \u2013 what ideas fit and don\u2019t fit for the series?<\/strong>
\nObviously, Final Fantasy is a series that has a long and involved past. So, mostly what the committee does is make sure that the assets that make up the series\u2019 history and image are preserved. But there\u2019s really no element of these people saying, \u201cYou can\u2019t do this,\u201d or \u201cYou can\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The committee really exists to make sure \u2013 for example, characters like Cloud \u2013 if there\u2019s going to be some sort of tie-in with a big company, maybe he\u2019s in a commercial, it\u2019s the committee\u2019s position to say, \u201cOh, he wouldn\u2019t say that,\u201d or \u201cNo, there\u2019s no way he\u2019d wear that.\u201d Give those sorts of guidelines to protect and manage what we\u2019ve already laid down.<\/p>\n

But as far as new creations, my view of the committee is that it\u2019s not there to limit people. We want to make a very open and welcoming base for the producers and directors of any new Final Fantasy games to create whatever they want. There\u2019s not going to be anything like, \u201cThis is the kind of animal that Chocobos are, and they\u2019ve always been like that, so you can\u2019t do this with them \u2013 they would never do that.\u201d It\u2019s never been like that for the people creating the new games.<\/p>\n

Of course, everybody in the committee has different opinions. That\u2019s just my opinion. There will be people who say, \u201cNo, no, the Chocobo has never done that. Why should it start now?\u201d But my personal attitude is, \u201cJust because a Chocobo has never done that doesn\u2019t mean it can\u2019t. Why not show people a new side of Chocobos?\u201d<\/p>\n

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Final Fantasy X<\/p>\n<\/article>\n

When you\u2019re working on a game, to what extent do you feel free to make the game you want to make? How much do you need to consider other titles and competitors?<\/strong>
\nWhenever new games come out while we\u2019re in the process of developing something \u2013 for example, Spider-Man \u2013 we buy a copy of the game and we all play it in an open space to see what sort of technology, elements, and graphics they are using. There are many times when these games are trying to achieve something similar to what we are trying to achieve, so by playing them, sometimes we can find hints as to how to further something we\u2019ve gotten to a roadblock on. But if we constantly look at these games and say, \u201cWe want our graphics to be better than that,\u201d or \u201cWe want this function to be better than that,\u201d if you keep doing that, things just spiral further and further, and so does the release date. It\u2019s just never-ending. For that reason, it\u2019s very important to have a core idea of what story you want to tell and what sort of thing you want your audience to experience. Of course, lots of these games have lots of very good elements do them; it\u2019s important to have your core idea so as not to be influenced. Because if you don\u2019t, it\u2019s really easy to think, \u201cWhat if we added this? What if we added that?\u201d But due to this, you will lose the central focus of your game, so it\u2019s very important to remain strong in that.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s really rare for someone to be at one company \u2013 and to work primarily on one franchise \u2013 for as long as you have. These days, what about your job do you find the most exciting and challenging?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019ve been with the Final Fantasy series since Final Fantasy V; from I to IV, it was Mr. [Akitoshi] Kawazu and Mr. [Hironobu] Sakaguchi. And someday I imagine I am going to be entrusting the Final Fantasy series to somebody else. We\u2019ve already got Mr. [Naoki] Yoshida doing Final Fantasy XIV \u2013 and I\u2019m not saying it\u2019s going to happen right away or tomorrow or anything like that. But the process of trying to create Final Fantasy as a series that will keep going and appeal to a new generation of fans \u2013 and entrusting this series to the next generation of creators \u2013 is one of the challenges I\u2019m looking forward to in the coming years.<\/p>\n