The third volume of Iwata Asks: The Last Story has been translated on Nintendo of Europe’s website. AQ Interactive’s Takuya Matsumoto was brought in for the chat, and as you’ll see below, he had a tremendous impact on the game.
Head past the break for a comprehensive summary of the interview. The full discussion can be found here.
“Changing the Grammar of the Game”
– Matsumoto worked with Sakaguchi on Blue Dragon, have continued working with him for the last seven and a half years
– The Last Story’s development began as Sakaguchi came up with a planning document for the game
– Sakaguchi met with Matsumoto in Daikanyama, and the two discussed the state of video games
– The two men had similar ideas about the issues facing games
– Their focus was on the lessons they believed they had to learn from Blue Dragon
– That game wasn’t embraced by western players
– Sakaguchi and Matsumoto talked about the difference between Japanese audiences and western consumers
– They concluded that they might have chosen a relatively easy path by making too many games in the same style
– They talked about the games that were innovative at the time, and they had both been viewing the same clips on a video-sharing site
– Matsumoto and Sakaguchi were viewing footage of a particular game, and it came as a real shock
– They wondered, “Why didn’t I think of that?”
– Sakaguchi and Matsumoto vowed that they would create a new approach and would do so soon
– This led to the prototype “Tofu-kun”
– Rather than focusing on graphics, they looked at how the elements in the game would function and fit together
– About a year was spent on this prototype
– Matsumoto knew they’d have to make a new battle system and knew they would have to change the grammar of the game or else they’d endlessly repeat the same thing
– This is how they ended up making a prototype with a hero and three companions with blue blocks of tofu for their heads
– Enemies were red tofu
– Enemy leader was given a pair of red spectacles
– Tofu blocks were used for trial and error
– Could turn your attention to the leader in the prototype
– This gives the player the choice to focus their fire on him and could order their allies to prioritize this
– This was the foundation of the final battle system
– Emphasis on getting the collision detection right, including things like the player character concealing themselves in the shadows, squeezing themselves into tight gaps and alleys
– They wanted players to interact with a variety of complex and varied terrain
– Wanted objects that are typically used as background decoration to be used as interaction
– Matsumoto spent a lot of time fitting Sakaguchi’s story into the terrain of the game
– Sakaguchi developed the broad plot, and would sometimes look at the terrain and suggest events that might occur
– This was the first time Sakaguchi worked on a game where the events were intimately bounded up with the level design
– There were ideas the team put in to get attention or cause a stir which ended up being used in the final game
– Sakaguchi: “Sakaguchi: That’s right. Take the hero, Zael, for instance. He’ll always open doors by kicking them, and his companion will respond by saying: ‘There you go, kicking down doors again!’ At first, that was just a joke, but then people started saying it was a great feature. That’s why we ended up leaving it in the game as one of that character’s distinctive traits. There are a lot of elements in the game that originated with Matsumoto-san.”
– Zael has a poor sense of smell; his companions joke about how lucky he is when they encounter a really malodorous monster
– There was a process where the staff would come up with ideas and exchange opinions about what should/shouldn’t happen and this ended up combining to create the unique feel that the game world possesses
“Gathering”
– During the Tofu-kun prototype stage, Gathering was what they had the most issues with
– “Order” and “chaos” were key words in coming up with a new battle system
– Imposing order on the chaos of the battlefield would help you achieve victory
– Your opponent may achieve order, meaning you have to disrupt and unbalance them; drag them down into chaos
– This is difficult to achieve
– Need to maintain orders on your side and make it so any order your enemy has collapses into chaos
– Zael can use Gathering to grab the attention of all enemies
– They couldn’t get Gathering to work as it caused a lot of disorder on the battlefield
– The team was worried that using Gathering might result in you losing the battle
– Trial and error period went for a long time
– Central concept was kept in mind throughout this period (bringing about order)
– During the process, Matsumoto wondered if he’d been wrong when he said that Gathering symbolized order
– This is why they took a step back from that concept during the process; they wanted to take Gathering back to basics to see how they could use the idea in an interesting way
– Sakaguchi: “The biggest challenge we faced was the need to adjust the strength of ‘Gathering’ according to the enemies you were facing, or the situation on the battlefield. For example, one of your companions might be a wizard, and casts a spell during a battle. While he’s casting the spell, enemies might swarm round him. If Zael uses ‘Gathering’, he can then act as a decoy, drawing all of the enemies’ attention to him. But then we have to decide at which point the enemies should turn their attention back to the wizard once again. One enemy might sense danger and look at the wizard, while another might keep their gaze fixed on Zael.”
– The staff varied enemies’ formation and tactics for each battle, which would make Gathering having the same effect be unfortunate
– They decided on taking a systematic, unified approach to Gathering, and then doing a lot of work to adjust its range
– In the end they were satisfied that they were able to make it so Gathering brought about order on the battlefield
– There’s an element called “surrounded” in which enemies swarm the player and lay into you; must do something or you’ll be in trouble; the staff made it so the first use the player has for Gathering is to help them escape this kind of situation
– Matsumoto: “And then you can use it to help your companions out of a fix, letting you savour that sense of being a hero. By using ‘Gathering’, you take a gamble, and you have to work out a way to escape from the enemies that head towards you. This is a large part of the fun of using it.”
– You don’t have to use Gathering to defeat enemies
– You have a companion with you that has a skill with a similar effect
– Each member of the dev team had their own way of playing
– Sakaguchi recommends protecting yourself, then taking a step back and analyzing the situation
– There was a “replay” function that didn’t make it into the final version of the game
– It included a few seconds of footage automatically recorded which you could rewind and watch again
– Replay was abandoned because it would have disrupted the flow of battle
– The team compensated for removing replay by making it so the action pauses for a moment when you input a command, letting you see the battlefield from above
– There were similar features that resulted from trial and error, but most system features were added afterwards
– Programmers could implement a suggestion quickly
– Scaling walls was added during the development process
– Stages had to be reworked when a new system element was thought of
– Matsumoto felt automatic attacking was a major task for the team
“Everyone Can Play in Their Own Way”
– The camera system, which doesn’t require a fixed view during event scenes, partially came about from wanting to give players freedom
– Iwata: “Iwata: I do think that video-sharing sites have really changed games. With footage where the purpose is to reveal what happens in the story, it robs players of the motivation to play the game themselves, which is obviously a huge problem. But even with footage that was intended to show the game’s appeal, simply watching those videos can give people the feeling that they’ve played the games themselves. I think this is particularly the case when you’re watching stunning footage of the main story in the game. In this context, I would say that your idea is extremely interesting, and very significant.”
– Sakaguchi says The Last Story will let players make their own videos and people watching the footage will wonder how they would have approached that particular section
– There are different ways to play even though it’s the same game
– You can get a different meaning from a scene by not focusing on the character that’s speaking
– Items from treasure chests or that get dropped by enemies are random, making replaying the game enjoyable
– Can change what the characters wear
– There are other elements that let players play the game in their own way, such as choosing character choice snippets from the main game and getting them to speak while playing online
– The Last Story’s dialogue is one of its most notable features according to Iwata
– They wanted to make it so you could use the voices online since there are so many good lines
– Sakaguchi: “The story of how the voice parts in the game developed is interesting. At the start, members of the dev team would just record their own voices to use during the game’s development, and they got better and better at doing these voices. In the location known as the Arena, there are two commentators, and we felt that a member of the dev team might be able to do funnier lines than a professional actor. There was a certain merit in that slight amateurishness – we thought it had a certain charm and character that wouldn’t necessarily have been there if we’d used a professional.”
– Sakaguchi proposed retaining a member of the dev team’s voice in the final game, but that idea got rejected
– This staff member begged them not to use it
– When the real lines were recorded, the team had the actor listen to the voice they already had in the game
– Sakaguchi: “We hadn’t wanted to go overboard in terms of the amount of expressiveness in the voice, and the slight amateurishness of our staff member’s voice was a surprisingly good fit. It wasn’t an easy thing to say to a professional, but we actually requested that he adapt his delivery to fit the style established by the original voice. By being so particular about this, we did manage to get a really good live feel to that voice in the end.”
“The Story at the Core”
– Sakaguchi wanted to give the player complex choices
– He also knew they needed a solid story at the game’s core
– Sakaguchi thinks you need a large-scale story at the start to impress upon players that certain rules are specific to the game world and let them try out the controls
– The game system’s finer details and online mode are elements that you can enjoy after you’ve really immersed yourself in the game world
– Matsumoto was on the same wavelength with Sakaguchi from the start
– Sakaguchi’s willingness to reassess the way he’d done things up to that point inspired Matsumoto to look at what he had created up until then and think about what sort of game we wanted to present people with
– Matsumoto believes RPGs satisfy experienced players and new players
– He also believes RPGs should be made to appeal to a wide variety of players
– Matsumoto regretted not making Blue Dragon kinder to players
– Sakaguchi says a lot of players won’t play an RPG through to the end
– Sakaguchi: “I’d say that in the initial stages of the project, about thirty percent of what we were doing was coming up with innovative system elements. Then, in the middle stages of the project, we were focussed on making the story fresh and surprising. Finally, in the latter stages of the project, we were focused on bringing out the excitement of the all-out war aspect of the gameplay. We wanted players to be able to enjoy all of these different flavours. To tell the truth, I was rather anxious in the later stages of the project. I knew that we were going to have to change the flavour at the end.”
– The team faced problems with enemy behavior; they made it so players need to develop new approaches in order to break the deadlock during certain battles
“That Ogre is Amazing!”
– Matsumoto says trying the new ideas and dealing with the fallout was one of the most difficult parts of the development process
– Sakaguchi overheard some staff saying, “How long does Matsumoto-san plan to keep listening to Sakaguchi-san?”
– This was probably because some felt the project was never going to end
– This is the first time Matsumoto has made so many adjustments over such a long period
– Adjustments were made right up until the end
– Iwata: “Ah, what you just said reminded me of the first time I worked with Miyamoto-san. He said to me: ‘When you make a game twice, then the fun begins.’ What he meant is that there are always going to be those things you won’t be aware of until you’ve got the entire game working. But it’s all about how much energy you’re able to spare to keep making adjustments when you have a limited amount of time.”
– Sakaguchi: “That’s right. With games being made all over the world, if you want your own vision as a creator to come across, you really have to keep your mind fixed on what you want to create, no matter how hard that might be. That’s why I wanted to keep working for as long as I was allowed to do so.”
– They were originally working towards a slightly earlier release date, but Sakaguchi is grateful for the extra time
– The person responsible for the project at Nintendo gave Iwata updates, and they were thinking about what they could do to help realize their vision
– There was over-elaborate programming into making the chains for an ogre, and they loved working on things like that
– Sakaguchi: “I was concerned about the schedule, but the overall feel of the game is very important, and I thought: ‘Wow! That ogre is amazing!’”
– Because Matsumoto was a programmer, he had a good working relationship with the team
– There were times when Sakaguchi lost his temper
– Matsumoto and Sakaguchi communicated through email because Sakaguchi is located in Hawaii
– The chapel dungeon, which is the first real dungeon Matsumoto made, was used as the final dungeon in the game
– The brochures Matsumoto collected during his time in the UK were used for the level design in The Last Story
– The chapel dungeon wasn’t going to be used in the main story initially since they were planning on using it for a sub-quest, but they changed things
“Staying True to What We Imagined”
– Sakaguchi believes he finished the game without having wavered in terms of what he set out to achieve
– Sakaguchi had to control the urge to give people what they want
– They were able to experiment with Gathering so long because they had built a solid base
– Sakaguchi feels they were able to realize the vision he had when he originally discussed the idea over drinks in Tokyo
– Matsumoto: “What I find most amazing about Sakaguchi-san is how strict he is when it comes to achieving his goals. As someone who is not prepared to go to quite the same lengths as him to get the final product he wants, I found myself overwhelmed by this both on Blue Dragon, and this time round.”
– Iwata: “So there we have it: the true feelings of someone who has worked intimately with Sakaguchi-san for seven and a half years. Now, there are those who say that in the creative industries, people’s power wanes as they get older. But I don’t believe that at all. I think there’s a huge gap between different individuals. Three years ago, a game creator of Sakaguchi-san’s stature saw a video that overwhelmed him and left him struggling for a way to respond. But he spent the subsequent three years fired-up and full of passion, putting his heart and soul into the creation of The Last Story. I think that if players understand the passion that has gone into this title, they will respond to it. The game is almost out. It may sound hackneyed, but I’d like to ask players to hold on for just a little longer. Sakaguchi-san and Matsumoto-san, thank you both very much for joining me today.”
