Mistwalker's Hironobu Sakaguchi, who oversaw the Final Fantasy series up through X-2, has been around the role-playing block enough times to know what he likes about the genre and what issues could stand to be addressed. Having worked on Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, he's come to the conclusion that the increased focus on visuals often results in too much attention being diverted from the game's core.
During an Iwata Asks roundtable originally held in 2010 but only recently translated into English, the Gooch described to the Nintendo CEO his process during the development of The Last Story. In regards to moving from HD consoles down to the Wii: "We had to consider how we should convey the story to the players under such restrictions. Now that high-quality graphics rule supreme, you can reproduce what you want to communicate visually, but at the same time, I don’t know how to put this, but there's an element that's slightly excessive about it all..."
Instead, the Gooch welcomed the opportunity to return to the building blocks and craft a stronger, richer experience because of the shift in focus. He wanted to make sure the game itself was structurally sound, so his team spent a year and a half on a prototype that consisted of just square blocks for characters, a process that he last used on Final Fantasy VII. Since he didn't have to worry as much about the hardware's graphical pipeline, he was free to experiment more than he would have otherwise.
None of this, of course, is to say that visuals aren't important: "I was really averse to allowing the quality of the graphics to drop just because we were working on Wii, which doesn't have HD graphics. I do really think that, in the end, what we've created can hold its own against other hardware." Merely, the team was able to approach The Last Story from an angle that they wouldn't have been able to had this been another project for the Xbox 360 and PS3.
He continues, "There's a tendency for developers to allow all their energy to be diverted into maintaining the high quality of the graphics." His sentiments are similar to some that Jim Sterling has mentioned before and which I share as well. While working with high-end consoles can provide ample opportunities, it's very easy to get lost in the details. Final Fantasy XIII, for instance, was criticized for limiting the scale and scope typical of the Final Fantasy name in exchange for fantastic visuals. It's a simple matter of economics -- if money is being funneled in one direction, it's not going elsewhere. A fine balance needs to be struck, and sometimes, working with "less capable" hardware might be the ticket to help a team refocus its priorities.
The Last Story launches in Europe on February 24. At that point, English-speaking gamers will be able to find out for themselves if Sakaguchi and Mistwalker succeeded in their experiment. If the extremely warm reception of Xenoblade Chronicles is any indication, The Last Story might just pull it off yet.
Also, make sure to read the full interview. Iwata Asks is always good for some juicy tidbits.
Iwata Asks: The Last Story [Nintendo via BeefJack]
Contest:
4:30 PM on 02.08.2012 | 
Also known as "the last good Final Fantasy"
I remember pre rendered backgrounds, how every scene in the game was hand crafted and unique. You were always seeing something new and interesting, as opposed to the monotony of modern JRPGs. I'm not saying it would be feasible to go back to that style of design, but it is nice to hear the godfather of JRPGs himself say that maybe the graphics should be taking a back seat.
maybe the japanese should learn how to make a halfway decent-looking game on modern hardware, just fucking one, before they start whining about "excess"
You can make a turd look as clean and polished as you want but it's still a turd if you don't play with it right
Demand for higher visuals means more development costs means more control by publishers means less developer creativity and freedom.
Simple breakdown: Graphics are making games too expensive and heavily contributing to the death of originality.
Still, the Wii burns my eyes. That was too much in the other direction.
@OneRed
REmake still looks better than a wide majority of "modern" games in my opinion. Those backgrounds were beautiful.
It's apparently a feat Kitase can't pull off by himself, because then we got FFXIII.
It was a fun ride. The next great video game graphical advancement had always given me something to get excited about while growing up, even in the worst times. I honestly think that time is over, we have gone as far as we can go and we can all look forward to low budget gems like Bastion, Castle Crashers and the like for the lion's share of games, Yearly versions of AAA blockbusters that look no different than the year before and then subscription games.
I honestly think that this has already dawned on everyone in the industry and no one really knows how to introduce this truth to the consumer.
That was absolutely atrocious trolling, I can't think of any way for it to be more obvious. Just wow ... Seriously there are 3-year-olds out there who can troll better than you.
OT: The man makes perfect sense and says what a lot of people have being saying for quite a time now. Make the graphics fidelity plateau, stop investing in the newest tech, get your gameplay, AI, narrative, sound design, etc to the next level. We've seen the latest and greatest in graphics, can we just move on now?
Also, +1 to the REmake comment.
I highly doubt the next Playstation and Xbox will resemble a mid grade to high grade video card swap like in a PC. DirectX 11 for one thing has so much potential that is being held back by current consoles. There are other graphical enchantments such as Ray traced lighting (although admittedly that probably won't be for another generation or two) and a lot of developers complain about there not being enough ram on current consoles. How about 1080p native resolution for all games and not just some. That's just the tip of the iceberg of where graphics could go next gen. I personally think as long as developers continue to demand more from consoles the tech will exist. However I do hope as we go into the next generation developers start concentrating more on game play again and less on graphics as stated in the article, and if it was to the point where graphics had to be scaled back to the sort of incrementation you described, I'd be happily pleased and surprised.
@kara
Nintendo figured this out ages ago, and the mentality behind the wii/ds was their solution. And seeing as how they are the leaders this gen by a vast margin, I think it worked out quite nicely for them. ^_^
Without the highest level of detail, how could they see a football player's testicles rupture and truly feel it(either the testicular explosion or the testicle)with any degree of verisimilitude?! That's why Japan is lagging behind the West in terms of sports games.
That and they don't really make Western sports games, like, at all.
That's just an excuse, though.
Would he want video game adaptations of Princess Nine or Eyeshield 21 to settle for graphics that only look as good as the manga/anime which spawned them?!
Make a solid, fun, and enjoyable experience.
THEN make it look good.
If this was the stance he took on The Last Story, then I'm sure we're in for a wonderful gaming experience.
<3 Sakaguchi
When you play something like MGS3 or RE4, you kind of start to see how poor some "current gen" efforts really are.
Its only games like Portal 2 or Skyrim where I think we're really pushing meeting the potential of this generation and there are already developers all-too-eager to jump onto the next big thing.
Remember how Nintendo kept pushing the SNES til the very end? We ended up with stuff on SNES that was competing with the earliest Saturn and PSX games in terms of visuals, all because they thought out of the box.
The one area where I think "crying for the next big shiny piece of hardware" is justified is in the RAM and processor limits, those affect *all* elements of a game, not just the shiny bits.
Of course then again if many of the "AAA" devs weren't so desperate to squeeze every last ounce of bloom out of the system, they might have more performance space to improve the rest.
As far as the final paragraph, hell for a recent example look at GTA. San Andreas was a vast, rich world with tons of things to do, whereas in 4 the visuals were put ahead of everything else and we were left with a dull experience after the story's conclusion.
Game developers and *especially* the publishers have their priorities completely screwed up this generation. Whereas it used to be about fun and variety is now all about shiny objects, squeezing every last nickel out of DLC and "if our game doesn't kill Call of Duty it's a waste of space".
The people that like these types of games dont give a flying fuck about graphics as long as the art design is consistent and appealing.
The aesthetic reminded me a lot of Half Life 2's city sections. Nothing was shiny, everything had that dull finish to it, and it was just so clean. I feel like if devs and publishers alike stopped confusing pleasing graphics for a pleasing aesthetic, there would be many more examples of what Mirrors Edge did.
Honestly, I would love it if Mistwalker started developing rich mobile JRPGS that used 16-bit graphics. The SNES really hit that sweet spot of sufficient graphical power to look timeless pretty while still imposing enough constraints to make developers really pull out some ingenious tricks to convey amazing story with rich gameplay.
art style, emotion, gameplay> polygons
If anything I have seen more differentiation this gen than any other from rpgs on all systems
"Honestly, I would love it if Mistwalker started developing rich mobile JRPGS that used 16-bit graphics."
blue dragon 2,3 ash archaic, which were all fairly successful
Graphics aren't the enemy. It's the excessive developers who are the enemy.
But your average american fucktard will bitch about JRPG and act like they aren't hypocrites.
Gamers need to learn to play EVERYTHING, and be HAPPY about it. This tunnel vision gaming is awful.
GameSpot called Xenoblade as their Wii GOTY of 2011 and a serious Overall GOTY 2011 candidate...
I'm just so in love with FF12 right now. Hands down best FF created and it shits on 13, 13-2 in every way.
The gameplay is what makes me go back to the older games. Graphics are nice, but everyone knows gameplay is what sells a game.
The Witcher II, Uncharted, Batman: Arkham Asylum or City, Dragon Age: Origins, INFAMOUS, Mortal Kombat 2011, Metal Gear Solid 4, Bayonetta, Vanquish, Crysis. There's so many.
I just don't agree with it.