Final Fantasy XV Director Wants to “Make it More Casual”

Final Fantasy XV and Final Fantasy Type-0 Game Director Hajime Tabata has been the subject of multiple interviews since taking over as the lead on FFXV. That streak continued when Eurogamer sat down with him recently at Square Enix’s Shinjuku headquarters, where he admitted that he’d like to thank every person who asked for Type-O to be brought out west:

With Type-0, it was literally the demand from the fans that tipped the scales. The players are very important to us in the development. If I could, I’d love to go and thank each and every person who voiced their opinion, and wanted it to come to the western markets.

When Type-0 does come to North America and Europe in the form of Final Fantasy Type-0 HD, it will include a demo code for Final Fantasy XV. As it turns out, this demo is coming as a result of Square Enix wanting to show fans that there is indeed progress being made on FFXV:

We’re definitely sorry – we want to apologize for keeping the fans waiting for a very long time. The current status [of the full game] is at about 55% at this point, and while we’d love to continue polishing and raising the quality as much as we can, because fans have been waiting for such a long time, we wanted to bring it in a playable form as a demo attached to Type-0 so people could see there is progress being made.

Tabata continued, saying that Final Fantasy XV may feel different when compared to other Final Fantasy titles, because he wants to make it more casual:

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.

One of the ways they’re doing this is by giving you the option to drive the car around yourself, or letting it drive itself.

Another example of making FFXV more casual is through the combat. While the PS4 and Xbox One allows Tabata and his team to give you different enemies and different choices for attacks, he instead wants to simplify that:

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.

At the end of the day, Tabata’s goal is to make Final Fantasy XV “the most emotional Final Fantasy title that I’ve worked on,” as well as “to have people play Final Fantasy XV, and for them to think this is the best Final Fantasy they’ve ever played.”

[Source: Eurogamer]

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