Final Fantasy XIII was a worldwide success, but it certainly had its critics in the West for its backwards facing design decisions. Now that the game has released, writer and designer Motomu Toriyama is willing to admit that problems were present even from the beginning.
“Final Fantasy XIII was first introduced through a concept trailer shown alongside the announcement of the Fabula Nova Crystallis project at E3 2006 (Fabula Nova Crystallis represents a suite of games and other entertainment media related to Final Fantasy XIII). The trailer was merely a visual concept, and we had not yet created anything playable at that point,” said Toriyama. “I felt that this trailer set the bar for the quality we were aiming to achieve, in terms of battle speed and cutscene imagery, and believed that this sentiment was shared by the rest of the team.”
“However, it became clear that, at the time, there were actually very few members who saw the trailer as a representation of what we wanted to achieve with Final Fantasy XIII,” he said. “This lack of a shared vision became the root of many conflicts that arose later in development.”
“What’s more, Square Enix was aware of concerns for Western gamers, but the feedback they got ended up being too little, too late. Even before the current generation of consoles was introduced, it was obvious that the game market in the West was gaining momentum, and we couldn’t ignore it,” noted Toriyama. “The sentiment that stood out the most to us at the time was the increasingly harsh criticism towards JRPGs. Linearity and command-based battles were two of the features being perceived negatively. This was something that the team was very conscious about, and there were concerns about whether JRPGs would still be accepted in the West. Because Final Fantasy XIII’s mission was to succeed worldwide, we could not ignore this issue, as we felt it could deeply affect the future of the franchise.”
“Around the same time, we were experimenting with Western development methods, and there were talks within the team of global focus groups, which we had rarely conducted with previous projects. At the same time, Square Enix set up international focus groups for certain titles, including Final Fantasy XIII,” he continued. “Unfortunately, we were already quite far along in development, and knew it would be too late to implement most of the feedback from the player test sessions. Even so, we still signed up for the opportunity, as this would be our only chance before the game s release to see how Western players would respond to all that we had been working on.”
“There were some minor hiccups, as we did not have much time to prepare for the focus group sessions, but we were able to successfully conduct player tests and interviews globally. Even though it was too late to apply the majority of the feedback, most team members felt the tests were worthwhile, as it gave them insight into what players wanted globally,” he noted. “With the changes that were being considered, because of the lack of a clear communication line, the development team was not receiving clear instructions. This resulted in conflicts within the team on whether it was worth forcing certain changes into an already tight schedule.”
Source: GameSetWatch
