Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the Final Fantasy series, recently took part in a candid exchange with a Square Enix employee in which he told the company to stop endlessly rehashing the same game.
Hironobu Sakaguchi, generally credited with creating the Final Fantasy series, left his executive vice president position at Square in 2004 to start his own studio, Mistwalker, responsible for Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey.
In a (light-hearted and friendly)
Twitter based exchange with game designer Takashi Tokita, current head of one of Square Enix’s development divisions, he was surprisingly frank:
Sakaguchi : “What about if you stopped all the rehashing of Final Fantasy?”
Tokita : “We’re planning to!”
Sakaguchi fields scepticism about his own current project, “The Last Story”:
Ahiru0026: “Last Story sounds just like a Final Fantasy rehash from its title alone, what’s up with that then?”
Sakaguchi : “If you tried it, I think you’d see it’s not in any way a rehash.”
Few could help but sympathise with Sakaguchi’s comments – Japan’s gaming industry, and in particular its RPG segment, have become stultifyingly unoriginal in recent years, failing to innovate in any significant fashion save moderate improvements in graphics.
Even Square Enix boss Wada, known to be a fan of western games, has given hints that
the franchise may finally move on – might change finally be in the air?
