Don't be too concerned.
From a certain Iwata Asks interview (http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/xenoblade-chronicles-3d/0/2):
"
At the start of our chat, you mentioned you wanted to make a JRPG masterpiece. What were your ideas for making that happen?
To give a brief outline of the structure of JRPG, first you have the story as the y-axis, and the game system and game play as the x-axis, and it's really important to keep those two things balanced.
It can't lean too much to the story side or the game system side.
That's true. Now, before we built Monolith Soft, we were working at Square19... 19. Square: Current: Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. Square, founded in 1986, merged with Enix on April 1st, 2003 to become Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd.
So this was Square, before it became Square Enix.
Right. I joined right after the development of Final Fantasy III20 had ended, and I was involved in IV, V and VI21. Final Fantasy was always one of those titles that had the x-axis of gameplay, but where a lot of care went into the y-axis of the story. It was a lot of fun to debug. Someone was always playing through the whole game on the development deadline day... 20. Final Fantasy III: The third game in the Final Fantasy series, released for NES in April 1990 by Square (Current: Square Enix).21. IV, V and VI: Final Fantasy IV (July 1991), Final Fantasy V (December 1992), Final Fantasy VI (April 1994). The fourth, fifth and sixth games in the Final Fantasy series. All three games were released for Super NES by Square (Current: Square Enix).
That was a tradition for the Final Fantasy team.
That's right. (Hironobu) Sakaguchi-san22 and the rest of us would watch the play through, and when it finally finished successfully, we would all cheer. It was a lot of fun. 22. Hironobu Sakaguchi: The creator of the Final Fantasy series. In 2001, he opened his own game development company, Mistwalker Corporation.
Right.
But after that - and this is my own failing as well - I felt like...more and more, the y-axis of the story started to overtake the x-axis of the gameplay...
Ah, you felt that as a JRPG, the balance was off.
Right. So the first thing I did when I was making Xenoblade Chronicles was to use my experiences to decide what a good balance was for the x-axis and y-axis, and structure it that way.
It must be the fact that you made sure that the x-axis of the gameplay was just as rich as the story of the y-axis that gave the game such depth. "
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:3
