Art Director Sheds Light on Final Fantasy XIII-2 Development Process

[Strawberry Eggs]

Isamu Kamikokuryo sat down to talk with Famitsu recently about the upcoming entry in the world of the thirteenth Final Fantasy. Minutiae and pretty colours abound!

Story

[omegabyte]

Perhaps this means we'll see grown up versions of Hope and mini-Sazh?

[DarkRPGMaster]

Matsuda design = win

[chaoticprime]

I honestly do not care if they resurrect Vincent Van Gogh to do the character faces. All I care about is the game play, and to a slightly lesser extent the music. The visual aesthetic is only important to me to a certain degree, that was met right around 1996. If I can tell what is happening on screen, I am happy. I should not have to buy a Square game and focus on the "good parts." Either make a game, or make a movie, or write a friggin' book! I never thought monopoly would work better if Uncle Moneybags looked like Brad Pitt dressed as a parade float.

[Castomel]

It's a story about a conversation with the game's art director. If you weren't expecting commentary about the game's art direction, I'm not exactly sure what I can do for you here, other than perhaps to suggest that you might want to temper your expectations of what such a conversation might involve. Failing that, don't read it? :3

[Zaku77]

Not to mention why do you even like RPGs then? Even the best battle systems get stale 50 or 60 hours into something. I think you'd like fighting games more if gameplay is all you care about! lol

[SiliconNooB]

Right, art direction is the ONLY thing that matters in RPGs, which is why FFXIII is the greatest game of all time!

[omegabyte]

Right, art direction is the ONLY thing that matters in RPGs, which is why FFXIII is the greatest game of all time!

If Art Direction was the only thing that mattered, Eternal Sonata would be the greatest game of all time. FFXIII is pretty to be sure, but ES beats it on a sheer artistic scale. Actually, I can think of a lot of games that would beat it. Okami, Odin Sphere, Bioshock, Little King's Story... technical proficiency isn't the only thing that determines the quality of art direction. It's ART, after all. Creativity, style, and imagination frankly bear a greater consideration.

[Spartakus]

I think art style is hugely important. The visual as well as the aural aspects are what make up a game's beauty, and beauty is an essential part of enjoying life. The wrong art director would easily ruin the whole game for me, but Square-Enix always manages to do it just how I want it and that's one of the reasons why I like their games so much.

[SiliconNooB]

All of a game's facets are important to me, but if there is one area where a game could stand to be lacking it is in the art/graphics department!

[Nightfox]

Well something subjective like art direction isn't going to be universally appreciated, even what someone would consider the absolute best someone else would think is awful. It's clear as day in people's reactions to anything remotely manga-looking in this generation of games, for an extreme but common example - the same could be said of some people's comments of "Western" RPG art. I don't think it's THE most important aspect to a game, but it's crucial for impressions and even for some people to get into the plot.

Still pretty intriguing to combine the talents of the artists at S-E for the design tasks; I may not be the biggest fan of XIII but at least that sounds fun. I think Hope grown up is the best candidate for one of the more prominent "new" main characters rejoining from the old. Dajh is probably still going to be too young in 5 years to be interesting.

[StormofSwords]

Very excited for this.

[chaoticprime]

Well something subjective like art direction isn't going to be universally appreciated, even what someone would consider the absolute best someone else would think is awful. It's clear as day in people's reactions to anything remotely manga-looking in this generation of games, for an extreme but common example - the same could be said of some people's comments of "Western" RPG art. I don't think it's THE most important aspect to a game, but it's crucial for impressions and even for some people to get into the plot.

Still pretty intriguing to combine the talents of the artists at S-E for the design tasks; I may not be the biggest fan of XIII but at least that sounds fun. I think Hope grown up is the best candidate for one of the more prominent "new" main characters rejoining from the old. Dajh is probably still going to be too young in 5 years to be interesting.

You win this thread.

[HiroLunet]

Dajh is probably still going to be too young in 5 years to be interesting.

Eh, it's a JRPG. Look what Polom and Porum did at 5 years old. 11 year olds should be capable of taking on the world by JRPG standards

[SiliconNooB]

Still pretty intriguing to combine the talents of the artists at S-E for the design tasks; I may not be the biggest fan of XIII but at least that sounds fun. I think Hope grown up is the best candidate for one of the more prominent "new" main characters rejoining from the old. Dajh is probably still going to be too young in 5 years to be interesting.

If I remember correctly Nomura only designed character faces for X-2 also, though I can't for the life of me remember who designed costumes.

[Nightfox]

If I remember correctly Nomura only designed character faces for X-2 also, though I can't for the life of me remember who designed costumes.

Oh good point... well some of those outfits (especially Rikku's) were pretty cool and atypical of Nomura, so I'd definitely believe another artist or two stepped in for the design. It looks like Shintaro Takai is the other headline artist according to wiki... I'm at work right now so I'll have to do some digging later to confirm

And HiroLunet, though I agree the age thing has never stopped anyone before especially in Japanese RPGs, I guess it's just hard for me to picture Dajh, who was really innocent and completely oblivious in the first game, taking on a more proactive role in the story. But hey, I'm ready to be proven wrong, just a theory anyways!

[SiliconNooB]

Dahj should be about ten in XIII-2, but as you say I have a very difficult time picturing him as playing an active role. You used to be able to get away with that sort of thing using pixel graphics, but things have become too realistic to get away with it now days IMO.