— Can you tell us about any ideas that ultimately didn’t work out, or any secrets that only you know?
Yuichi Murasawa There was one job that lasted well through development. Right up to the end, actually. It was painful, but we had to cut it from the game. The job was called the Transmuter. It was unique in that it didn’t have any basic abilities of its own, but instead mixed consumable items together to unleash original abilities. But since there are 19 different consumable items in the game, there would be over 300 abilities from all of the possible combinations. The number of abilities in the game would have increased drastically.
— There wasn’t enough room?
Yuichi Murasawa No, that wasn’t the problem. Considering not only the work needed to create the greater number of abilities, but also the time needed to check them all, we decided it would have pushed us past our deadline. We had to apologize to the designer who’d put so much effort into designing the background for the job and all the ability names.
Hiroaki Kato We were all half in tears over it. [Laughs]
— If it was cut that late in development, illustrations and concept art must have existed.
Yuichi Murasawa That’s right, they do. In fact, the graphics even appear here and there in the game. Since the character art was prepared earlier, the graphics even show up in some of the in-game events.
— What about you, Mr. Kato?
Hiroaki Kato When we were first discussing what the story should be, Mr. Murasawa, Ms. Kitahara and I were talking, and Ms. Kitahara said she wanted the entire story to take place in Ivalice. She said she didn’t really want to write a story where the hero comes from the real world and then goes back home like the last game. So the original story was a little different from what we ended up with. Luso was living happily in a village, and then in the opening of the game, all the villagers were killed.
Yuichi Murasawa That’s rather dark. [Laughs]
Hiroaki Kato It was dark, with everyone but Luso dying, so we decided not to go that way this time. [Laughs] And that’s why we have the story we have now.
Yuichi Murasawa At the beginning we had a number of proposals for the story, and the idea for the dark story came up before the concept for the game was settled. If we’d gone in that direction, I wonder what kind of game we would have ended up with. [Laughs]
Hiroaki Kato I’d be curious to see. [Laughs]
— What about you, Mr. Kawazu?
Akitoshi Kawazu There are some interesting things behind the decision to make the title “A2.” I had some trepidation from the time we started thinking of making the game for the Nintendo DS. Since it’s not an [Nintendo's Game Boy] Advance game I had doubts about “A2.” But fine, I thought, we’d leave the “A” part, and think about what to do about it later. And of course that’s how it stayed even as the game finally became a DS title. [Laughs] So the meaning of the “A” isn’t very clear. If we ever make another title the decision about whether to call it “T-A3” will be even worse. [Laughs]
— You mentioned the possibility of another title just now. What are your thoughts on that?
Yuichi Murasawa We’ve only just finished FFT-A2, so things are moving slowly at this point, and we haven’t given it much thought yet. But the world of Ivalice has grown so much, and has so many rich, unique characters in it, I’d like to see a continuation of some sort or another.
— Is there any final message you’d like to give the people reading this interview?
Hitoshi Sakimoto Since this is a game made by a group of people of our age, I think it’s a title that even older people like ourselves can unwind with. It reminds us about the past and about what it felt like to be a child. So I hope that adults will play the game too, and let those feelings wash over them.
Yuichi Murasawa Even as developers, a lot of us got completely absorbed playing the game. That there’s so much content, such atmosphere and charm to accomplish this gives me confidence that we made a good game. Because the game is so big, rather than focus on playing, I think the best way to enjoy it is to relax, take the portable nature of the game to heart, and play it whenever you have a bit of time on your hands.
Hiroaki Kato For players looking at the strategy guide, I think they’ll be surprised at just how much content there is. Even for people who’ve played it once, there are new ways to play and new things waiting to be discovered. Since the game also includes Vaan and Penelo from FINAL FANTASY XII, and is connected to Ivalice, I hope it will give people a reason to go back and play FINAL FANTASY TACTICS ADVANCE and FFXII. This broadens the experience of the game world even further. So there’s really a lot of things for people to do and enjoy.
Akitoshi Kawazu Reading a strategy guide and playing a game each offer their own sort of entertainment. Reading itself is enjoyable, and you learn new things about the game in the process. I hope people who read the strategy guide will find new reasons to dive back in and enjoy the game.
