Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Producer Interview: This time the focus is on side exploration IGN China
On September 20, 5 days after the official release of the release day trailer for Final Fantasy 7 Reborn, Tetsuya Nomura, Yoshifan Kitase and director Naoki Hamaguchi were interviewed by IGN China and other media at SquareEnix headquarters.
As one of the most talked about works in recent times, although the identity of the sequel makes it less shocking than when the previous work was first exposed, everyone is also very concerned about all aspects of this work, including the information revealed by the new PV a few days ago, etc., will the Zax story line change? How has the focus of the game changed from its predecessor? Everything will be revealed in this interview.
—— Since a remastered has been released before, did you collect some feedback from players on the previous game during the development of Final Fantasy 7 Reborn, and make some improvements to this feedback.
Naoki Hamaguchi: We decided at the beginning that the second game would not be made in the same form as the first game, and if so, it would be easy for players to guess what kind of development the third game would have, so we decided at the beginning that the second game would definitely introduce some changes and improvements.
As for the biggest difference in this game, it is that this game will leave Midgar and come to the outside world map, I believe this is what players want, that is, to go out and explore the vast world. The previous work as a whole is still more plot-oriented, basically running with the plot, but from the beginning of this work, players can freely choose, whether to run the main line, or to complete the exploration event or play the side line, players can freely choose, which is also a very big difference between this work and the previous work.
—— Although it was emphasized that the story will still follow the context of the original work, it seems that Zacks's story direction has changed in the recently released promotional video, and he can be seen surviving in the new film, and then helping Claude back to Seventh Street, is this suggesting that there are more possibilities for development in addition to the original story?
Tetsuya Nomura: The main content will basically develop along the story line of the original work, as for the Zacks' part... So what is it? It is not yet possible to disclose the details, which is a mystery of this game, at least not yet.
So as far as the main part of the story is concerned, it will still follow the original work, but there will be some new elements, and these elements will become very critical content. You can understand this structure as the form of "original + α", which is almost the same concept.
- According to the information that has been disclosed so far, the content of the side section is about twice that of the main line part. I want to ask you that the side stories of many games are actually duplicate content, specifically in this "Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth", what way did the production team use to make everyone feel that the amount of content twice the side line will not make everyone feel fatigued?
Naoki Hamaguchi: Yes, the side events are really rich in this time, and in other games there is often a practice that the characters can grow after completing the side quests, or there will be some changes in the relationships between the characters, and this game has a similar system.
In addition, we also attach great importance to the connection between the side plot and the game world view, will integrate the mission into the game world view, you may find that there is a small game there, there is a new character and other situations, there may be a lot of new discoveries, try not to let the player complete these side quests will have a feeling of homework, but can better understand the world view of this world.
—— Players can explore worlds outside of Midgar in this game, but compared to the current remake, the original world map will have less detail. Judging from the promotional video that has been announced, it can be found that the map exploration part has changed a lot. Could you please talk about how you reshaped the world map when you recreated this work?
Naoki Hamaguchi: In fact, the exploration of the world map in the original work is also a very important part, but the previous map-making habit may have designed a maze of towns and towns, placed on the map for players to enter directly. However, after the game was remastered with new technology, it was hoped that the original very important exploration experience could be retained, and it was finally decided that everyone could still walk around the map, but all of them could enter various towns or some strongholds in a seamless way.
—— It was previously announced that this game will contain four different vehicles, so I would like to ask if the airship will appear in this game.
Naoki Hamaguchi: It should be said that it is not an airship in the traditional sense, but when the player arrives at Juno, he can see a very magnificent helicopter, but the specific situation is temporarily inconvenient to disclose.
—— I want to ask a question about the world, the team seems to have revealed in previous interviews that some plots may move backwards, like the plot of Wutai, so I want to ask how many maps have been opened this time compared to the entire world in the original version, and what is the proportion of the whole.
Tetsuya Nomura: At present, it has been disclosed that the plot of this work will end in the part of the original Forgotten City, as for the proportion of open towns in the original map, I really haven't calculated it, but what can be answered now is why the content of Gotai is postponed to the third part, for example, there is a very positive reason, because we want to describe the plot of this part of Wutai in more depth, and also to balance the weight of the second work and the third work. That's why I chose to move the plot of the five stations and several scenes that passed before arriving in the City of Oblivion to the third part to produce.
—— It's the same question about the world map, whether players have to go through the main line to unlock before they can go to a specific map, or can they explore freely on the big map at the beginning, such as going directly to the Golden Disc Playground and so on, can this kind of thing be achieved?
Naoki Hamaguchi: Regarding the design of this world's map, it is not very free to go anywhere at the beginning, or it will be slowly unlocked with the progress of the main quest, such as unlocking some vehicles or some special functions, as the player continues to explore, there will be more and more places to go, and the places that have been visited will definitely be able to go back.
—— In the original work, Kingdee Playground can only have one dating event with the heroine, and then can you develop such an intimate event with more characters in this work.
Naoki Hamaguchi: In fact, in the original work, you can also date characters other than the heroine, but in this work, this part of the content has been strengthened to a considerable extent, and you can trigger some events with more characters, but the details cannot be announced at present, but it can be said that the Ferris wheel event in it is a very important and exciting scene that our developers think is very important, and it took a lot of effort to seriously produce, and it is also very important for the story, so you can look forward to this scene.
—— Please introduce whether the AI functions of non-player-controlled NPCs in the game are more intelligent than before, such as using various skills and magic.
Naoki Hamaguchi: First of all, in this game, the player can switch the three characters in the operation team at any time, but after entering the battle, in addition to the three characters that the player can operate, other characters who travel together will actually enter the combat state, but only to create a combat atmosphere, and there will be no real combat action.
In addition, since the beginning of this work, we have developed some magic crystals with AI functions, for example, as long as you set the magic crystals for the characters in the team, it may automatically help other characters heal, will cast healing or automatically cast some other abilities, this is the so-called combat AI function, which is actually a magic crystal.
—— Can you elaborate on the exploration part, is it more like a very free exploration in the open world, or like there are some RPGs before that I need to teleport to a city, for example, and then I can only explore around the city, but the range is not so wide, the degree of freedom is not so high, what kind of state is the exploration part.
Naoki Hamaguchi: An open-world map that is not completely free in terms of form, for example, from the beginning of the game you need to go to an area called Grassland, and then you can explore the place of Grassland, and then next to Grassland is a place called Juno, and these two places are connected by the Dense Silver Mine, then just like the original, you just need to pass through the Mithril Mine, you can come to the Juno area, and the whole map is almost like this.
—— It was officially said before that this work cannot inherit the save of the previous work, and it is a game that can be played independently, but in terms of plot, it should continue from the end of the previous work, so how do the protagonist team plan to deal with it at that time, such as the level? Is it possible that you have already learned some skills and need to start completely from scratch?
Naoki Hamaguchi: It is true that this game does not inherit the function of saving before it, so it will not inherit the level or skills of the previous game, but at the beginning of this game, the player's character may have mastered these abilities learned in the previous game and appeared before, and the player may be able to use it directly.
As for the level of the characters, they will mainly be set by referring to the recommended level of the original work after leaving Midgar, which is a careful consideration of the development team.
—— In the videos that have been made public, we see chocobos that can crawl in the mountains and chocobo that fly in the sky. According to the setting of the original game, the way chocobos move needs to be realized by cultivating themselves, and some need to be cultivated to a very high level before they can go to places that they could not go before. I want to ask whether there is a special chocobo cultivation system this time, or whether the types and functions of chocobos have been fixed, and there are several abilities, and then the player can directly choose to start.
Naoki Hamaguchi: This game does not inherit the chocobo breeding system of the original work, and there is a clear reason for this, that is, because each chocobo in this game is very unique, they have their own names, some will even appear in the main story or side stories, and they have some special abilities, so if you follow the cultivation system, there is basically no way to achieve a setting like this.
As for how to customize these chocobos or breed their own chocobos, there are actually some related systems, for example, chocobos can wear equipment, up to three pieces of equipment can be used, these equipment can change the chocobo's ability, if you want the chocobo to participate in what chocobo race, you can use the equipment to adjust his ability, and then go to the competition, so there are still some customization features like this.
- The HARD mode (hard mode) of the previous game was very challenging, because you can't use items and you need to manage your money. Is there still a HARD mode in this game?
Naoki Hamaguchi: This game still has a hard mode, which will only appear after clearing the level like the previous game, and after clearing the level, you can freely choose which chapter you want to play again, and you can't use props, in addition to the content of the HARD mode, we have also made special adjustments to the content of HARD mode.
In addition, this work also has a feature, that is, because the side content is too rich, people who only play the main story and people who spend a lot of time playing side stories, their character strength may be very different, so in order to achieve balance, in addition to simple mode, normal mode and hard mode, this work has added a new mode, which will adjust the game content with the level of the character.
—— A lot of companions have been announced, can all of these characters be controlled by the player himself? Are there some characters that can only be controlled by AI as just mentioned?
Naoki Hamaguchi: Regarding this, the character of Vincent has also appeared in the promotional video, he is actually the same as the Crimson XIII in the previous game, and the player has no way to operate, he will only act with Claude temporarily, and he will not let the player operate until the next work.
—— In this promotion, I saw that kind of two-person cooperative skill, and I would like to ask the producer to introduce the details of this skill, such as how it is activated, whether it is everyone, and all pairs can activate such skills.
Naoki Hamaguchi: Let me answer the second question first, the new joint ability and joint hand work system in this game, all characters can unlock multiple skills, and the variety is quite rich. In addition, the characters in this game also have a new skill tree system, and the joint ability and joint hand work just mentioned will gradually be mastered by the character as the player continues to unlock the skill tree.
As for the difference between the combat method of joint hand work and joint combat ability, although this game basically follows the basic design of the previous game in terms of combat system, this game has a big goal to integrate the two methods of action combat and command combat. At the time of development, it is necessary to assign which system is closer to the action and which system is closer to the directive.
As for "Combined Hands", as its name suggests, it is a partial action system, which is generally more technically demanding for the player, and although it does not consume the ATP scale when casting, it may require the player to carry out accurate defense, or hit the enemy in the air, and then follow the combo. Although it can be launched freely, it is still a test of the player's operation skills after all.
As for the joint ability, it is obviously a more command-based combat system, it will accumulate the joint hand scale, as long as the joint hand scale is accumulated, this ability can be used at any time, and any player can easily launch such a skill.
—— Still about the question of chain skills, whether the ability to join forces and the unlocking of joint hands are only in the skill tree, or this time you can team up with different partners in the side quests, and unlock the joint skills after completing the side quests in this form.
Naoki Hamaguchi: It is true that the ability to join forces and join forces can only be unlocked through the skill tree, but if you want to expand the content of the skill tree, you still need to complete these side quests, so overall there are still more different missions to play, which can make the content of the skill tree richer.
Tetsuya Nomura's message to players in the Chinese-speaking region: "Final Fantasy 7" is a very large series, but in fact, it is not necessary to play in a fixed order to understand such a design, such as the game that is now ready to be launched is "Rebirth", and it was "Remake" before, but in fact, they all have their own storylines, and they don't have to start playing from the oldest, even if they start directly from "Remake", or you directly from "Remake" At the beginning, it is completely possible to enter this world calmly, I hope everyone can boldly contact this series, as long as you are interested, even if you start from this latest "rebirth", there is no problem at all, I very much hope that everyone can come and play our game."
"'Rebirth' is the second installment in the FF7 remastered series, and the story begins after the protagonist and his party leave Midgar, and players are very much looking forward to how this development will be. In addition to the same plot as the original, of course, there are also "maybe" some unfolds that are not the same as the original, and I hope that players will personally go to the game to uncover the mystery. It is guaranteed that the plot development of the second part is very dramatic, please look forward to it.
Players who play the series for the first time from "Rebirth" can enter the appreciation mode on the title screen of this game to watch the film that shows the story outline of the previous game, so even players who are in contact with the series for the first time from "Rebirth" do not have to worry about not understanding the plot, and through this method, they can learn the story of the previous game."
Naoki Hamaguchi said: "The plot part of this work, which Mr. Kitase just mentioned, is indeed very dramatic, and in terms of weight, the plot of this work has surpassed the previous work, and we really made it with a completely uncompromising and all-round attitude that surpasses the previous work, please rest assured."
In addition, the world map of this work has also spent a lot of effort to make, and the side content is extremely rich, and then there is a very important feature in this work, that is, players no longer need to be limited by the progress of the main line, and can now choose whether they want to push the main line or want to play the side content, which can be freely chosen, hoping to let players dominate what kind of content they want to play, I believe you can definitely experience a completely different gameplay from the previous work in this work. As for new players who haven't played the previous game and want to start their journey with this game, we certainly welcome them, and some players may have a soft spot for games with a high degree of freedom, so I'm sure this game can meet their needs, thank you."