Is Hiroyuki Ito working on FFXV?

[Jormungand]

Found an interesting bit of info while randomly browsing wikipedia:

During the creation of Dissidia 012: Final Fantasy, the battle system director, Takeo Kujiraoka, attempted to consult with Hiroyuki Ito about the fighting style of Vaan. However, due to Ito being busy leading development of large-scale, unannounced project and also not being an employee of 1st Production Department, Kujiraoka could only reach him via e-mail.

The source is listed as Dissidia's Ultimania guide which was published last March, so the info is more than a year old. Pretty interesting nevertheless, as "large-scale" combined with Ito leading development very strongly suggests Final Fantasy.

For those unfamiliar with Ito, he's been with the company since 1987 and has been responsible for lots of good things about the series. His main roles include creating both the ATB system in FF4 and ADB system in FF12; developing the job systems in FF5 and FFT; the materia system in FF7; the junction system in FF8; and directing FF9 and FF12; leading development on FF12 IZJS; and event planning/directing for FF6 and Chrono Trigger. Not to mention he is highly regarded by both CEO Wada and Hironobu Sakaguchi, the latter of whom has said that if anyone can save Final Fantasy, it's Ito.

Overall, not too shabby a résumé. If he does happen to be in charge of the next FF, I'd say chances are it'll be a good one.

[Typho]

Yes, please.

[Macstorm]

I stated that I hoped as much in an editorial I wrote just a while back. Would love it if that's what he was working on.

[DaylightDies]

I really don't follow the behind the scenes people behind my favorite series, but it seems like he might be the guy for the job.

What needs "saving" though? The only thing that the series needs saving from is Square Enix itself:

DON'T make another MMO as a numbered game, it dilutes the series, call it Final Fantasy Online.

STOP treading water with remakes and come up with more original ideas

REMEMBER why FF fans love FF- and cater to OUR group.. even if it brings in a few less sales- WE are reliable sales, and right now, a good portion of us are very ANGRY with the series.

TELL ONE STORY- you don't have to create the entire history of a universe. Make likable characters, and contain it. Your latest failures in story could use this advice.

* I liked FF13 and loved FF13-2

[DarkRPGMaster]

I know this is an opinion-based statement you've made, but I feel the need to ask and argue a few things.

DON'T make another MMO as a numbered game, it dilutes the series, call it Final Fantasy Online.

I do have to ask, how does making a MMO a numbered part of the series dilute it?

STOP treading water with remakes and come up with more original ideas

I understand the feeling here, but sadly the masses eat up remakes like they're something that comes only once a decade. SE fans seems to be the ones who'll buy the same game over and over, sadly, so SE would be a fool to pass making more money to fuel their other projects.

REMEMBER why FF fans love FF- and cater to OUR group.. even if it brings in a few less sales- WE are reliable sales, and right now, a good portion of us are very ANGRY with the series.

Oh boy, this is the one statement I have the biggest problem with. Sorry to say, they're already catering to the biggest fans...the ones who love it when they try new things and make up different worlds for each new installment. Also, please explain how people are angry with the series, as the only hate I really seem to see online are trolls or just people who don't like how they haven't redone something they've done before (which SE seems to never really do with a FF game).

TELL ONE STORY- you don't have to create the entire history of a universe. Make likable characters, and contain it. Your latest failures in story could use this advice.

The history of the universe I agree feels a bit too much, but I do enjoy how they spent the time to make such a huge mythology behind a game. Also, likeable characters is a bit subjective, as some characters who are hated by some are loved by others. The failures in story, since I haven't played FF13 or FF13-2 myself, I cannot give a statement on whether I consider if they were bad or not.

[Clix]

The major issue with recent stories has been largely a pacing issue. If you aren't going to pad out the story to match the length of mandatory gameplay segments, you should probably start cutting gameplay segments and just make them optional areas. This is significant if your game doesn't have much gameplay variability like FFXIII. FFXIII would have been much more enjoyable if roughly 20 hours were trimmed off the gameplay, keeping the awesome gameplay from being stale.

[Confessor Rahl]

Move along people, according to RPGmaster, nothing is wrong with Final Fantasy, everything is perfect and rosy.

[DarkRPGMaster]

Move along people, according to RPGmaster, nothing is wrong with Final Fantasy, everything is perfect and rosy.

I'm not saying everything is rosy. I'm trying not to take any one side here, but personally I feel the problem with the series atm is the lack of a proper 'cycling' or 'shuffling' of teams for each game. Plus you DO have to remember that the last main series FF game I played was FFXII, so I have no real grasp on how the series is as of right now when it comes to my own personal tastes. The lack of a PS3 (not getting a 360) can cause that. Plus as much as I dislike certain key aspects of FFXII (I'm sure you all remember that wall of text), I'm not exactly going to bash an entire series for just one 'bad' (IMO) game in it.

[DaylightDies]

Having two numbered games being online RPGs completely dilutes the series.

The numbered games need to be especially special. Sometimes Final Fantasy will branch out and do different things, that has happened all along time (Mystic Quest, Tactics, sequels and spinoffs) which is fine, but shouldn't be part of the main series. If Final Fantasy Tactics was Final Fantasy 8, would it still be an awesome game? Yes, but I'd still be upset that they numbered it.

Just like tactics, it's so easy to call the game Final Fantasy Online. It's Final Fantasy, for people who like MMO's. It's not a Final Fantasy for Final Fantasy fans, and thats why it dilutes the series to take up two installments in the main series.

The more they use the numbers for, the more it dilutes the series. They can use the Final Fantasy name to push units, that doesn't bother me, the number does.


As far as remakes, I won't deny there is a market for them. The problem with them, is there is no forward growth. The same fans will buy the same titles, and the cycle repeats. The resources are just better spent elsewhere, with an occasional remake here and there.

[Jormungand]

Just like tactics, it's so easy to call the game Final Fantasy Online. It's Final Fantasy, for people who like MMO's. It's not a Final Fantasy for Final Fantasy fans, and thats why it dilutes the series to take up two installments in the main series.

Eh, for me, XIII diluted the series more than XI and XIV combined. My point is, it's very much a matter of perspective. If the original Final Fantasy had been made ten years later and Final Fantasy II was online, there would be no debate. Final Fantasy has always branched out. Sometimes it hits and sometimes it misses, regardless of the number that comes after the title.

[TG Barighm]

Well, FF14 is/was a mess so I can't say, but I hear FF11 still did a good job of feeling like an FF game, it was just online. As long as an FF game feels like an FF game, I can't see how the series is diluted. Well, the later half of FF12 certainly wasn't right, but there were reasons for that.

[Shadowcat]

to me SE hasn't made a good offline FF game since the PS1 days. I played 10 almost up to the end when the fact that it was a boring road trip got on my nerves, and I played FF12 until the fact that I was playing something that could have been totally mistaken for a bad FFXI expansion pack got to me and I skipped FF13 after reading all the reviews about the nasty AI controlled characters and the fact that it was more like a bad interactive movie than a JP RPG.

I don't consider myself a troll but here's what I think is wrong:

1. AI controlled battle systems- Games should be interactive and at least with the ATB it was constantly asking you what do and what commands to issue. With the new AI in FF13 I heard that you can walk away from it and not even play for half the game!(even on bosses)[FF12 is worse with this] If you get to set jobs/macros the characters cast random spells and only act out set strategies(rather than the players having the ability to adapt on the fly). Honestly sometimes with the old system I could get pretty creative and come up with weird things to use on the bosses that the designers never even thought of just by toying with the command system. I'm not saying the ATB should come back but some other solution must be invented.....

2. Exploration- The bad road trips need to go away for good. In the older games there was always a sense that you were a tiny spec in a huge world even if you were trying a speed run....and it was always one more town, desert or forest to run through...

3. All characters have the same abilities- FF6 started this but letting everyone lean magic but as time has gone on(starting with FF7) it's become worse and worse. Give each of the characters unique abilities like the old school and not just make them all the same in battle

[Drav]

If Square Enix are turning the next Dragon Quest game into an MMO, then I don't like the odds that the next Final Fantasy game will be menu driven and feature a world map.

[omegabyte]

to me SE hasn't made a good offline FF game since the PS1 days. I played 10 almost up to the end when the fact that it was a boring road trip got on my nerves, and I played FF12 until the fact that I was playing something that could have been totally mistaken for a bad FFXI expansion pack got to me and I skipped FF13 after reading all the reviews about the nasty AI controlled characters and the fact that it was more like a bad interactive movie than a JP RPG.

I don't consider myself a troll but here's what I think is wrong:

1. AI controlled battle systems- Games should be interactive and at least with the ATB it was constantly asking you what do and what commands to issue. With the new AI in FF13 I heard that you can walk away from it and not even play for half the game!(even on bosses)[FF12 is worse with this] If you get to set jobs/macros the characters cast random spells and only act out set strategies(rather than the players having the ability to adapt on the fly). Honestly sometimes with the old system I could get pretty creative and come up with weird things to use on the bosses that the designers never even thought of just by toying with the command system. I'm not saying the ATB should come back but some other solution must be invented.....

2. Exploration- The bad road trips need to go away for good. In the older games there was always a sense that you were a tiny spec in a huge world even if you were trying a speed run....and it was always one more town, desert or forest to run through...

If you walk away from FF13, you will die. Period. At least until the post-game when you can over-level your characters. There is no way to "automate" it. If you're not changing your paradigms every 2-10 seconds, you're going to find yourself very, very dead. Each chapter has a level cap, and the monsters and bosses for those areas are scaled to that level cap so that it's always a good challenge. That's probably the main reason that FF13 is still better than FF13-2, because FF13-2 screwed that part up and you CAN walk away from it.

Try playing the game before criticizing it's use of AI.

[Shadowcat]

If you walk away from FF13, you will die. Period. At least until the post-game when you can over-level your characters. There is no way to "automate" it. If you're not changing your paradigms every 2-10 seconds, you're going to find yourself very, very dead. Each chapter has a level cap, and the monsters and bosses for those areas are scaled to that level cap so that it's always a good challenge. That's probably the main reason that FF13 is still better than FF13-2, because FF13-2 screwed that part up and you CAN walk away from it.

Try playing the game before criticizing it's use of AI.

I said "half the game". To put it this way for about 30+ hrs of FF13 you can spam auto battle and walk away. Also anything that uses paradigms/AI job macros deserves to die as no you have a game with "set strategies" where you don't even really have to even think as the AI does all the thinking for you. As the AI plays for you and all you do it's switch what mode it is in and watch it play for you casting and attacking randomly. Just because you keep having to change the mode of the Ai constantly does not make it any more interactive than say Dragon's Lair. (as a matter of fact I think that's a good analogy for how FF13 plays. "Press the right AI direction on the keypad at the right times to win. If you miss you die!")

PS: Dragon's Lair although considered a classic has a terrible "simon says" mechanic. This is what I'm comparing the "swap AI" to win system to.

[Savorien]

Do people on this forum ever talk about the things they enjoy?

[Paws]

Besides Shadow, who mouths off about how games he's never played are crap and is smacked down for it every time, usually yes.

[Wheels]

I said "half the game". To put it this way for about 30+ hrs of FF13 you can spam auto battle and walk away. Also anything that uses paradigms/AI job macros deserves to die as no you have a game with "set strategies" where you don't even really have to even think as the AI does all the thinking for you. As the AI plays for you and all you do it's switch what mode it is in and watch it play for you casting and attacking randomly. Just because you keep having to change the mode of the Ai constantly does not make it any more interactive than say Dragon's Lair. (as a matter of fact I think that's a good analogy for how FF13 plays. "Press the right AI direction on the keypad at the right times to win. If you miss you die!")

Actually that's a pretty terrible comparison. Also, how many Final Fantasy games have the issue where for the early you can just spam "attack" and win? A lot of them! FFXIII's issue is the "early game" lasts way too long (and no not 30+ hours).

[Kaiser]

Move along people, according to RPGmaster, nothing is wrong with Final Fantasy, everything is perfect and rosy.

seriously, he argued with me about ff XIII months ago, even though he never played it.
being clueless about something has never stopped people from trying to argue, even for the sake of argueing.

I tend to ignore the fruitcakes now and move on.

[Niknar]

Having two numbered games being online RPGs completely dilutes the series.

I just have one question for you. Have you actually played Final Fantasy XI?