In an interview with Eurogamer at this year’s Tokyo Game Show, Final Fantasy XV director Hajime Tabata said that he wants to make the game “more casual” than what we’ve seen before in the series.
He began with his wishes for the overall feel of the game itself:
“With Final Fantasy XV, I do want to make it more casual. Of course the depth of the game is going to be there, but I want to make it so players can easily experience the satisfaction of the depth of the game.”
An example was given with the car that you can drive in the game. While you can drive from one area to another entirely on your own, you can also hit a button and let the car drive itself.
He moved on with the interview to discuss the combat in the game, flatly saying that he wishes to simplify the combat a bit more:
“With the hardware specifications of the newer consoles, it’s possible to set it up so you have different enemies and different choices of attacks you can enter in, but I want to simplify that.”
He said that while he wants the combat to be intuitive, he wishes for it to be essentially one-button action:
“It’ll basically be a one-button action, and the AI intuitively outputs an action that kind of satisfies, gives you that instant gratification, and it connects with the simple touch of a button. I myself am not getting any younger. I don’t want to be frantically pushing buttons. I also want to utilize the intelligence of the hardware spec, and not have to go through too much hassle or trouble in order to execute moves.”
The last time Final Fantasy XV was seen publicly, it had a menu-based combat system where you selected actions based on menu commands, while you could also switch your weapons out in real time. Now, the game allows you to switch between an offensive and a defensive stance at will. You can hold down the attack button to let out a combo of connected attacks, while your weapons will be swapped out automatically pending the situation.
Tabata also said that he wishes to have the game feel more grounded in terms of realism:
“When we were making the transition, we sat down and I discussed with [former director] Nomura the game. I felt that I wanted to shift it more to be more realistic. For example, when you’re battling a really strong boss like a behemoth, if you go at it from just the front you’re going to get hit with his counter-attacks. You have to think about baiting it to attack forward, but then break its stance and attack it from the side. I wanted to make it so you’re fighting a real animal, but with easy-to-manipulate controls as well as dramatic effects. My basis was to keep it grounded in reality.”
Lastly, Tabata finished off by saying he wishes to make Final Fantasy XV the best in the series:
“Personally, I’m working on XV to make it the most emotional Final Fantasy title that I’ve worked on. My goal is to have people play Final Fantasy XV, and for them to think this is the best Final Fantasy they’ve ever played.”
Final Fantasy XV is currently in development for both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. A demo will be made available for those who purchase Final Fantasy Type-0, although it will come at an unspecified date.
Update: Japanese fans are very pissed, apparently. They’ve created a petition (thank you @bunnymage) to change the combat back to the menu-based mechanics we saw before. If you want to sign the petition, head on over.
