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Hajime Tabata: How long did you play the game for, so far?About four hours, from the very beginning.
OK, so that opening area is one that you'll be able to have a lot of fun in. But if you played the game for 40, maybe 50 hours, you'll have come across areas where the playability, as it stands, isn't quite where we want it to be. And there are still some bugs in the game's later areas, and other parts where the optimization isn't quite at the standard we're aiming for.The real issue is that if we tried to deal with the issues the game has with a patch, because we were thinking that way initially, there'd still be a lot of people around the world who would only be playing from the disk, without connecting to the internet for the update. They would see the game in what we consider an unfinished state, and that was a real problem for me.That's quite a noble way to approach this. A lot of big studios would simply aim to hit that big deadline and fix the game afterward. The people who never downloaded the patch would simply be, I suppose, collateral damage.
We want to make this experience right for everyone who plays it. Like I said, originally I thought a patch would be OK, but I heard some good information that a lot of people still play their games offline, even people who have the internet at home. When I heard that, it changed my thinking on it.
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The decision didn't take too long. Once I had made the decision myself, I spoke to all of the important stakeholders in the game, and we announced it straight away. It was two weeks ago when I was really certain, in my mind, that moving the release to November was the right thing to do, and the discussions happened quickly after that, likewise the announcement to the public. We sent word out to all of our international partners, to get the message out there as soon as possible. But I think it was a good decision.And what about the reaction to the delay? A small minority of internet dickheads aside, I think those who've been waiting years for this game aren't about to kick up a stink over two more months.
I know that people have different opinions on what we've done here, but I do try to avoid the forums where people say things without having to take any responsibility for doing so. I much prefer to listen to the opinions of journalists and speaking to fans face-to-face about things. That's where I think the most valuable information comes from.
It all comes from the core concept of this idea of going on a journey with your mates. And we figured that, given that's the central idea, we don't need to go through that process of having to recruit allies. Starting with the party as a fully developed team, albeit with any backstory filled in by the movie and the other media around the game, made total sense—these guys already have a solid relationship with one another.
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The feeling among the team on this game was that we really didn't need to do things as we had before, on previous Final Fantasy titles. We didn't need it to be over the top. Nevertheless, there were definitely people who initially found it hard to find the reality line that we were looking for.Last night, all of the staff on the game that are over here now, at Gamescom, were discussing the relationship between fantasy and reality in the game, over dinner. We were talking about the behemoth, Deadeye, the monster that turns up (as seen in the Episode Duscae demo). Yes, this is a monster—but we didn't want it to be just that. We made it so that it was a very individual creature. He behaves differently to other behemoths. He has a history that's unique to him. So that's one side to this reality we're aiming for—but it was hard for some people to get onboard with that that entails. Nevertheless, I think we've found our reality line, and it's quite distinct from where previous Final Fantasy games have been. We've taken a step toward making Final Fantasy more grounded.
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Truthfully, the character we see most people cosplaying as is Cindy. We always see people dressed up as her at events. The four guys are all popular, too, but until recently Prompto (slim, blond, no glasses) seemed like the least popular. We couldn't put our fingers on why, but that's been turned around now, as a lot of people like him. In Europe and America, I've noticed that Gladiolus (dark hair, big muscles) seems to be popular.While the story of March's Platinum Demo has very little to do with the events of FFXV, it's definitely helped me establish a connection with Noctis, and more important what he's fighting for. It deepened that sense of what home really is to him, before starting the main game, which in turn intensifies the impact of what forces him away from it. Is that something you intended?
Well, thank you for noticing that. We're glad that it worked that way. We really felt that showing his childhood—and the other characters too, across different parts of their lives—through other media surrounding the main game, it makes them feel that much more real. Everything is linked back to that need to have an individual personality for everyone, or everything, of significance in the game, from the humans to the monsters. We want the real people in the game to be real people.
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I'm not sure that there were any elements from past games that I had to include. I certainly can't think of any now. But the whole philosophy here was to create a world that you could explore freely and have this spirit of travel and adventure in proceedings. That's why we have the seamless battle system in there, because without it the game would have to stop and start all the time. It's essential to the whole feel of the game.But we couldn't have this as just an action game—we needed to make sure that there were meaningful party members around you. How they behaved around you, and interacted with you, was so important. So designing that system as we have, I think it brings an extra depth that maybe wasn't there in previous games.While the combat split people initially, the more recent feedback we've had on it is very positive, and that's very reassuring. We have a lot of confidence that it's a lot more tactical than perhaps some people are expecting it to be, and the party development system, and how you customize your load out. People seem to be liking it.
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I did have the worry, a concern, that because there are so many products out there around the game, that it would confuse some of the players, and the fans. But I've been sure that every one of these things has its own position and serves a specific function. And also, that they all feed back into the main game, so they're not totally separate. The relationship between the game and all of the side projects is something that we took a lot of care over.This game's been a long time coming, of course. You took over as director, exclusively, in 2014. What has the process, the experience, taught you about making games, and what lessons are you taking forward into new projects?
I've learned a lot from making this game. And it's worth saying that through the process of making XV, we now have a solid production base, which represents groundwork for the future. I have so many expectations for what we can do now, with the experience we have; I think we can move forward as a team and make even better games.What taught me a lot, though, was the global strategy for this game. This whole thing, like what we're doing now, with me going abroad before the game is finished, talking to people while the game is still in development, that's something that I never really did before. I don't think that we, as the Final Fantasy studio, ever really did this before.I was in London, just the other day, after we'd had a meeting about the delay. I had a day off, and I walked around, and I was thinking about how much more we could do with this game, with future games. I was looking at all the European architecture, and thinking about how we could mix that into these games, to make these fantasies more realistic, but also more fantastical. It was really inspiring.But this, all the making of XV, it's all been fun—a lot more fun than it has been stressful. Of course, it's not been without some stress. That will always be there, whatever you make, because of the fans' expectations. They're so high for this game, and that does weigh on us when it comes to working out the best ways forward. But also, that expectation is a joyous thing.Final Fantasy XV is released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on November 29. Find more information at the game's official website.Follow Mike Diver on Twitter.Read more gaming articles on VICE, and follow VICE Gaming onTwitter.