Yoshinori Kitase - Game Design

Game Design

Yoshinori Kitase defended choices made with Final Fantasy XIII, saying that it was more important for the player to be engaged with the story and characters before allowing them to get involved with elements of gameplay such as the battle system, character customization and world exploration. In the case of Final Fantasy XIII the team chose to implement a classic encounter system as opposed to a seamless battle system. The reason for this is because a seamless battle system would have had to compromise the visual quality of the world and the effects due to the amount of processing power needed. He believes that that it's important for Japanese role-playing games to evolve and that Final Fantasy XIII has taken steps to evolve the battle system gameplay from traditional turn-based to something more action-based while appealing to traditional tastes. He also tries to reach out to as many fans as possible when releasing a main series Final Fantasy game. Knowing that the Xbox 360 has a large worldwide audience, his goal was to reach out to it when making Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy XIII-2 multiplatform.

Kitase believes in expanding the definition of "fantasy" in the main series Final Fantasy games he works on. Many players responded to the sci-fi setting of Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII by requesting a more medieval European world. He counteracted this by deciding to try to expand the scope of what the word "fantasy" meant to these people and this led to Southeast Asia being the backdrop for Final Fantasy X. When adding summons that have appeared in previous installments of Final Fantasy, Kitase thinks about how to design them so it’s a fresh experience for the player. For the enemy characters, he's always careful not to create villains that are all evil, and instead ones that have their own motivations and beliefs above what their actions are. There’s no complete sense of evil, according to him, but the villain simply having their own way of thinking.

With regards to the creation of the actual gameplay in a new main series Final Fantasy game, Kitase looks at past titles to see what he can do differently, rather than look at past titles to evolve their ideas. The concept of the "Paradigm Shift" system in Final Fantasy XIII was to let the player change party roles during battle, rather than doing it before the battle, as was the case in Final Fantasy XII. Kitase says this change was added as being able to change everything during the battle was more exciting, in his opinion.

Kitase has also stated that the difference in game design philosophy of each production team results in them competing with each other to make the best games. Kitase added that this rivalry acts as a way of boosting motivation of each production team during game development. The difference in game design philosophy between Yoshinori Kitase and Hiroyuki Ito, who works for Product Development Division 4, can be seen in the major game design differences between Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy XII.