Feature: “The Bigger A Fan You Are…The More Averse You Are To Making Changes”

Boy, Square-Enix really wants us to party on our Switches like it’s… 1997.

Because over the last few years, they’ve made three separate titles in a newly minted, old-school RPG franchise Octopath Traveler, and then there’s the upcoming Switch 2 release of Final Fantasy VII Remake, the defacto RPG game that caused a brand distinction between Nintendo and Sony nearly three decades ago.

And now, we are getting a remastered release of 1997’s Final Fantasy Tactics titled Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles, a game certainly among the most cherished releases within Square’s original canon. This is starting to feel like a thing.

In promotion of Ivalice Chronicles’ upcoming release, the game’s director, Kazutoyo Maehiro, and art director, Hiroshi Minagawa, sat down with Nintendo Life and discussed returning to Final Fantasy Tactics and all its heavy themes, why this version differs from the War of the Lions re-release on the PSP a decade and a half ago, and where they see old-school RPGs as a genre fitting in within Square Enix as a whole.

Alan Lopez for Nintendo Life: The original Tactics came out in 1997, around the same window of time as FFVII, and I find that footnote really interesting. It was kind of a historical fork in the road between the…classic RPG turn-based style, versus [games] aspiring for more cinematic, action-based graphics.

Similarly interesting to me, the remake of Tactics is coming out in 2025, a time within the broader RPG [genre] when there’s been a sort of resurgence towards more “classic-style”, turn-based games: Clair Obscur, the renaissance of the Fire Emblem franchise, etc. So my first question is, why did you decide to bring back Final Fantasy Tactics now, and what does this style of gameplay mean to both of you?

Kazutoyo Maehiro and Hiroshi Minagawa[image]

Kazutoyo Maehiro (Game Director): So it just so happens that a few years ago, both of us had the chance to [re]play the original Final Fantasy Tactics. And I think through playing the original once again, we were able to reaffirm just how great the overall game design and story were. You know, it’s been almost 30 years since the original has come out, and there’s a ton of fans who have loved this game over the years, but we really haven’t had the chance up until now to put out any kind of remaster.

Through playing the game, we realised how great the story and the game was, and we just kind of had the feeling that we really wanted to bring that to players in the modern age. It’s been almost 30 years…there are a ton of fans of the game, but there are also a lot of people who have heard about the game but had never had the chance to play it. I think part of the overall vision of this project was to bring this game to those people as well.

I just played the demo before this interview and was reminded that the game features a lot of themes that are almost closer to historical fiction…I mean, I don’t claim to be encyclopedic about every Final Fantasy ever released, but [Tactics] feels more grounded in reality in its story to me. The theme of the demo [Note: we played an early battle in which you discover a party member has switched allegiances for higher pay] was a classic conflict between class, not identity. I’m curious if there was any conscious decision to re-release Tactics today in light of those ideas.

Maehiro: Whether you played the original Final Fantasy Tactics as it came out 28 years ago, or you’re playing The Ivalice Chronicles, which has a lot of script updates and edits from [series writer Yasumi Matsuno], I feel like a lot of the social aspects in the game’s story are still relevant today.

And I don’t think it really was a matter of [any] situation now that we’re putting it out, but [rather], I think it’s more the fact that the story still resonates, even so much later, and that’s the amazing part of it.

Hiroshi Minagawa (Art Director): You know, this is something that Yasumi Matsuno himself has been sharing during some of the interviews that I’ve had an opportunity to also be a part of. We really feel like the social aspects of what’s being discussed and grappled with in this game as they pertain to the world still definitely haven’t changed fundamentally over the past 28 years. I feel especially when playing the game, some of those themes will definitely resonate with players. That’s something that I strongly feel.

I want to talk a little bit about the Classic and Remastered modes.

If you go online, people are so opinionated about that change anything, or maybe not changing enough. And it’s an interesting thing with the medium of games, because in other mediums, you’ve got your Spielbergs and your Lucases who will never hear the end of [it for] changing something. But in games, there’s this cultural willingness to do quality of life updates, or updating things for new hardware…so I’m curious how you personally balanced the reverence for this game…with making big changes like, for example, the addition of voice acting.

Maehiro: I think it’s kind of like what you said… maybe I’m kind of the same, but when you go back and play older games, the bigger a fan you are of the game, the more averse you are to making changes. But at the same time, you think about the 28 years since the original has come out, and the different platforms that have come out, and we see a lot of advances in the overall way that interface and controls have been set up. One of our goals with The Ivalace Chronicles was to bring in new players who haven’t been able to play Tactics yet. I think with that in mind, it was a must for us to update the UI and controls to make it more of a modern experience. That’s why we have all of that packed into the enhanced version of the game.

But as I was mentioning, there are people who are fans that might just want to play the original version of the game as they remember it. That’s why we ended up putting the classic version of the game in there. It might not be standard practice to put in two different versions of a game, but we ended up going with that with that thought process in mind.

But you still ultimately end up being the arbiter of preservation. So, for example, there are people who are upset that the updates from the PSP version of the game are not included, while others love your changes and think it’s more approachable. I’m curious [if you view] your role as a sort of preservationist…did you feel the weight of how this game will be remembered?

Minagawa: [For me], I was actually involved with the graphics side of things, that was my main jurisdiction. And when it came to the classic version of the game, because the approach was to recreate the original version of the experience as faithfully as possible, in a way it was really quite straightforward what we wanted to achieve.

the question of ‘How much do we really want to push things and change things up?’ was something that we really needed to figure out

But when it came to the enhanced version of the game, the question of ‘How much do we really want to push things and change things up?’ was something that we really needed to figure out. Making those early decisions was certainly a very critical point of discussion for us.

One way to think about this, since I was one of the people involved in the development of the original game, I mean, if I had made the decision that we should drastically change the graphics for this iteration, you know, I’m sure my team would have followed suit with that. But ultimately where we landed was that we wanted to take the style from back then and really try to modernise it for today’s audience with modern platforms.

And there’s kind of two reasons for this. The first was, because I was involved with the development of the original game, the memories I had for what it was like working with the development team members at that time [and knowing] what thoughts went behind why we created the original game was something that had a very special place in my heart, emotionally. This was my first project I was involved with when I joined the company. Because of those things, I really wanted to be able to bring back that style from back then and try to bring new life to it for modern consoles.

Maehiro: I think if we switched gears and talk about this from a game perspective, specifically the PSP version The War of the Lions… when that came out [in 2007], there were other [Square titles] that came out around that time, so we added in characters for that — we added Balthier from FFXII, Luso from Final Fantasy Tactics A2 — for myself, thinking about the time during which that game came out, and the content that was in there, (those choices) made a lot of sense, and made a complete package for that version of the game.

But I think if we look at the strategy RPG genre as a whole (which I myself am a big fan of), once you get into it, sure, you realise how much fun it is, but the truth of the matter is that it’s really a little bit of a niche genre overall. So when we thought about it, for this version of the game in particular, we were trying to take the original version and give it a sort of “rebirth”…[and] one of the goals that we had for [The Ivalice Chronicles] was to expand the genre! So we felt by taking the content from the original and putting it back to the way it was, we could hopefully achieve that goal.

How involved were you with the casting of the voices? [In playing the demo] I had the feeling of when you watch a movie based on a book you’ve read and you’re like, “Oh my god, that’s what Ramza has sounded like this whole time?” [laughter] I thought the voice acting was very good! I’m a notorious dialogue skipper, yet I didn’t want to skip any of the dialogue because the voices were so interesting to me. So I’m curious how close you were to the vetting of their voices?

Maehiro: First of all, I’m so happy that you liked the voices so much. [laughter]

Me too! [laughter]

Maehiro: As you were saying, it’s been a really long time since the original came out, and I think over time the fans have developed in their heads for themselves what maybe the characters sound like. I think with that in mind, it’s difficult to match what everybody thinks these characters sound like. But in order to not stray too far from what [we believe] people think they should sound like, we kept [the fans] in mind when we went through the whole selection process.

We also worked very closely with Yasumi Matsuno (original writer/director of Final Fantasy Tactics), and with him we tried to figure out what voices would match what players might think these characters would sound like. I think overall, we were really able to get some good selections for both the English and Japanese voices that really added to the feeling and drama of the overall story.

Was there any debate internally over the voices?

Maehiro: Mmmmm, to be honest, not really! When it came to the casting part, we had the support of Matsuno-san, and with his support, the whole process went really smoothly. And I think the same can be said for the recordings. We actually had the help from the same team that did the voice recordings for Final Fantasy XVI, so I think with that experience, it was an overall smooth process. But it’s not even just the dialogue scenes, we had all the battle scenes that we had to record as well. And even when it came to those, we had a really good process overall.

Is it true that the original source code for Final Fantasy Tactics was lost?

Maehiro: Technically speaking, yes. And I think it has a lot to do with how games were made back in the day. Back in the day when we were making the original game, we didn’t really have the resource management tools that we have now. [Takes his hands and slowly alternates stacking them onto each other.] We’d make the Japanese version of the game, then we’d go on to make the English version of the game, which after we’d make that, we’d essentially just overwrite the original version to make the new one… and we’d just keep overwriting and overwriting. So that “original” version doesn’t exist.

we’d just keep overwriting and overwriting. So that “original” version doesn’t exist.

So basically what we had to do today was use any resources available to us, whether that be the retail version of the original game, or the master disc that we had in our archives, the smartphone version… we basically took these different versions, analysed them, and tried to build up what we felt was the “original” version.

Minagawa: And speaking to the graphics side of things, typically during game development, you receive bug tickets to address. And during the development [of The Ivalice Chronicles], there were some issues that would come up that have actually existed since the original game. [laughter]

What is it like to art direct that, when you’re trying to emulate something by remaking it by eye, almost? What does that do to the creative process?

Minagawa: Well, to first speak about how the process was like for the original game’s development, when it came to the character artwork and designs, Akihiko Yoshida [former Square art director] would be the one to make the artwork itself, and from there, I would be the one who would think about how to capture that artwork and display it on the screen.

When it came to the PS1 version, of course some of the technical specs of that platform were much lower, so the question I had to ask myself was, ‘How can I take this world that Akihiko Yoshida is trying to make and really try to capture that and bring it out into the actual in-game environment?’ If I were to have [directed] things in a straightforward manner, it might not [have been the same].

‘Which parts should I hold myself back?’ That was the biggest challenge

Conversely, with the enhanced version of Ivalice Chronicles, now the technical specs of the hardware have increased exponentially. So if there were things that we wanted to do, we [could] do it, but if we were to do them, it kind of undermines some of the balance we wanted to be able to strike with trying to maintain the atmosphere of the original game. The biggest challenge in this new context was…walking that fine line between what I want to pursue versus ‘Which parts should I hold myself back?’ That was the biggest challenge I had.

To give just one example, we were of course designing things practically, keeping in mind people playing the game on the Switch, on a handheld device, while there will also be people playing this on a TV screen, like this giant one behind us. Ultimately, the graphical expression needs to be the same across both of those environments, but if we were to keep one in mind more than the other, then it would [negatively impact] the other one. We had to think around that by adding things like filters, and display things in an easier-to-see manner. How to really optimise every visual display, I really had to think through.

Okay, we’re being called on for the final question now… kind of returning to the question from the top, Square has in recent years been releasing more classic-style RPG titles, like this Tactics remake, Triangle Strategy, Octopath Traveler, and others. So in light of this [development] experience, I’m curious how you personally would like to see these types of games evolve — a genre you called “niche”, and what many might even call “pure”? Do you both view games like Tactics as an “other” thing?

Maehiro: So for The Ivalice Chronicles, we’re releasing it as that “classic” game experience, but of course within Square Enix we have other games, such as the Final Fantasy VII remake series, which has the latest end specs. From my perspective, it’s not really one or the other that’s the right choice, [but] in tandem, they progress together.

I feel as though [Square Enix fosters] an environment where we, on the ground level, if we want to pursue this type of an idea for a game, we’re in an environment that allows us to pursue that.

With the [advancement] of gaming platforms, there’s a lot more expression you can put out in games, whether that’s a classic style game or a AAA style game, it can be either. What we want to be able to deliver to players is either of those experiences. I think what we’re able to do at this point for players…is really about providing both of those experiences, so players can choose what they want.

Minagawa: This is one of those things where people might have different feelings about what they think about Square Enix as a company, overall. But at least for me, I feel as though [they’ve fostered] an environment where we, on the ground level, if we want to pursue this type of an idea for a game, we’re in an environment that allows us to pursue that. And both Maehiro and I were involved in Final Fantasy XVI prior to our involvement [with] this project, and [that] was definitely more of a “higher end” experience.

But then right afterwards, we wanted to pursue a project like this one, and we were allowed to pursue this as well. So rather than the company dictating what it is that we should do, I feel like, especially since we ourselves are players, if there’s something that we are interested in, they’ve allowed us to pursue that.

Thank you to both Kazutoyo Maehiro and Hiroshi Minagawa for their time. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ovalice Chronicles launches for Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 on 30th September.