Dissidia 012 Interview
Dengeki Games recently got some one-on-two time with creative producer Tetsuya Nomura and director Mitsunori Takahashi regarding Dissidia Duodecim Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy Reunion passed along a transcript of the interview...
Nomura classified Duodecim as a sequel to the original Dissidia. In terms of positioning in the series, the first Dissidia depicted the thirteenth battle between Chaos and Cosmos. The sequel depicts the twelfth battle.
Asked about the game's concept, Takahashi said that they wanted to do more than just a simple version up that adds a few additional characters. There will be other new characters besides Kain and Lightning (the TGS trailer, of course, showed Tifa), but outside of new characters the game will have new battle elements and new play features.
The new "Assist" feature is one such new battle system. This system lets you call upon a support character that you've selected in advance. By depleting an Assist Gauge, which you build up by performing Brave attacks, you can make your assist character perform a brave attack or HP attack for you.
The Assist system, explained Takahashi, will be an important element in the game's battle system. It was actually the result of the team attempting to come up with ideas when Nomura said that wanted the Duodecim combat system to be more enjoyable than the original. Two of the goals for the battle system were: increase player choice to deepen the experience, and make the battles look livelier. The Assist system achieves both of these.
Regarding new characters, selection appears to be a tough task. Explained Takahashi, the staff is looking at characters who are popular amongst Final Fantasy fans and characters who will show some uniqueness during battle. Takahashi faces a dilemma in deciding on which characters to include, as between the staff and the fans there are a large number of requests, and they can't include everyone...
All the current characters are returning, complete with new costumes. Each character will have their "normal" and "another" costumes from the original, along with a new "3P" color costume. Nomura said the 3P costumes will have "impact" in their looks. In some cases, you may not immediately recognize the characters...
Full interview: http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2010/09/27/dissidia_ff_interview/
3rd Birthday Interview
Tetsuya Nomura and Hajime Tabata shared a few bits and pieces on The 3rd Birthday in a recent Dengeki Games interview that was summarized today at FF Reunion.
Development on the game is currently 85-90%, said Tabata. The staff is currently making adjustments, adding in smaller elements to gameplay systems, and doing debugging.
Although The 3rd Birthday was demoed at TGS, players were only given a general look at how the game plays. There are a number of systems that weren't in the TGS version of the game, and some of these areas are related to Aya's true strength. Tabata said to expect specifics in future announcements.
One of Nomura's most famous recent character designs is making it into The 3rd Birthday as a costume. As previously announced through Jump, The 3rd Birthday will have a costume that makes Aya look like Final Fantasy XIII's Lightning. Dengeki asked Nomura about this area.
It looks like we could get a closer look at the Lightning character in The 3rd Birthday compared to FFXIII itself. Nomura confirmed to Dengeki that Aya's Lightning version will see her clothes tear off as she incurs damage, similar to standard Aya. You'll end up seeing Lightning's l'Cie marking. Areas such as this, which couldn't be clearly seen even in FFXIII, will be shown here...
When you change into Aya's Lightning costume, Aya's looks won't just change. The tone of her voice will also change. The game actually has a number of costumes, and they will all feature voice changes. Nomura said that you'll feel just how amazing the character's voice actress is, which seems to suggest that this won't be a cameo appearance by Lightning's voice actress but just the current voice actress changing her voice around to match the costume.
Full interview: http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2010/09/27/3rd_birthday_dev_interview/
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These two Square-Enix games are shaping up quite nicely. I would like to see Yuna, Shadow, Celes, Freya, Ashe and Beatrix in Dissidia 012.
