The Last Story #HO

- “For me, image illustrations and characters are very important.” - Sakaguchi

• Sakaguchi says the vision of the world was possible due to Fujisaka
• Sakaguchi gave Fujisaka a simple plot outline, but didn’t have too many requests
• Sakaguchi loves Fujisaka’s work, especially that of female characters
• Sakaguchi joked that if the girl in the Last Story logo were real, he’d give up everything for her
• Iwata says that many people at Nintendo have fallen in love with the character as well
• Sakaguchi says there were areas where he modified the character personality and world setting to match Fujisaka’s visuals
• early development of the game started with Sakaguchi, Fujisaka and someone with a programming background speaking over lunch
• the discussion included such things as Japanese and Western RPG style
• this is how the plot came together
• it took awhile to put together the prototype
• the game slowly changed over a period of about one and a half years.
• the design approach was similar to Final Fantasy VII’s creation, explained Sakaguchi, although the prototype phase was longer here
• during the prototype phase, the game used blocks for its characters
• there was also a square “test dungeon” which still exists in the ROM
• this is where the team goes to test out changes made to the game
• Sakaguchi said that so many systems were tested/thrown away that they could have made two games
• one system idea that was thrown away was spawn points that spewed out UFO-like discs
• elements of this and other unused systems were adapted into the final game
• “The true drama for the story emerges during battle” - Sakaguchi
• Sakaguchi believes that providing cover for someone else during a story sequence makes it possible to draw out player feelings to a certain level
• if this happens during actual battle, the player will feel a deeper bond with the ally
• “This time, we wanted to make the systems first, then later insert cut scenes that matched up with this.” - Sakaguchi
• “When I actually saw it for myself, it gave me the impression of a game unlike what I’d seen before.” - Iwata
• “What particularly impressed me was that even though a climactic point is occurring in the story, the camera view is not forced to that climactic scene.” - Iwata
• “I feel that doing it this way helps connect to the rich feel of the world. If it’s a climactic scene, rather than forcing the viewpoint, we’re making it so that the world that the player is seeing is everything. For example, if you imagine that something is taking place in an area where you’re not looking, don’t you get a little excited?” - Sakaguchi
• this approach came from trial and error
• Sakaguchi feels that newness is important for entertainment, and even if it’s a bit rough, it will make you feel a lot of excitemen
• Iwata was also surprised to learn that you could fast forward through event scenes
• this means you don’t skip the scene, you can still read the subtitles but it goes a lot faster
• there is one town in The Last Story, Ruli City
• Sakaguchi wanted this to be a town that players would love, due to the amount of time you spend there
• Iwata described the town as astonishingly detailed and deep.
• when you bump into someone on the street, he might shout at you “What!?”. However, once you’ve become stronger, the person might apologize for the collision
• “It’s an extremely big town, where a variety of things will occur. Even I’ll still get lost in some back roads.” - Sakaguchi
• “The people in town will dance, play the accordion, sit at the fountain — there are exclusive motions just for the town.” - Fujisaka[/i]