ASCII latest book on Square Enix’s projects “CLOUD message” is out today. It has the same theme as last year’s Cloud Vol. 1 but there is no DVD this time, hence the slightly cheaper price (1575 Yen at Amazon Japan
). All the major projects were covered, including Final Fantasy Agito XIII, of which yorozuu posted the “Creators’ Message” online. Nothing new is being revealed but read the original article in Japanese here or see my rough translation after the cut.

Hajime Tabata (Director), Tetsuya Nomura (Character Designer), Yusuke Naora (Art Director) and Takatsugu Nakazawa (Co-Director) were interviewed and they were asked to express Agito XIII in a word. Tabata says its has a documentary style war story that can be enjoyed among friends; Nomura only mentions ambush attacks; Nakazawa says its a Final Fantasy game that can be played anytime, anywhere in anyway you prefer; and Naora says its a FF with multiplayer.

The devs then shared what does Agito XIII means to them. Tabata says it’s the first FF game that he works on from the very beginning and would like to try his best to make sure the game plays a big role in Final Fantasy XIII; Nomura want to expand the world view as much as possible; Nakazawa says his expectation for the game is constantly increasing; Naora says he want to challenge the limit of PSP.

Finally, they were asked to differentiate Agito XIII from other games. Tabata points out that Agito XIII is the first numbered game in the FF series to appear on the PSP and all the staff are working on it passionately; Nomura mentions the possibility of changes are quite high; Nakazawa says there are just too many to mention; Naora says the mixture of traditional and excitement could become a new trend.

As I mentioned earlier, these are just my rough translation. I’m sure there will be better translation elsewhere later, hope you enjoy reading it :) The book is picture intensive with short interviews (scans here), I probably won’t get it, bought too many games already :)

Posted in PSP on Friday, December 12th, 2008 at 12:38 pm | Comments Feed | You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.