Sakaguchi talks Nintendo influence, collaboration on The ...

[robometal cowboy]

Sakaguchi talks Nintendo influence, collaboration on The Last Story
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A portion of a CVG interview with Sakaguchi...

CVG: We love the small details and reactions in the world - bumping your head on signs, for example. They feel like quite a Nintendo touch to us - very Zelda-like. Were Nintendo's games an influence at all?

HS: A lot of these ideas just came from our staff joking around. We had a very good atmosphere in the development team and so were able to turn such joking around into something constructive, resulting in many amusing things like this being in the game.

CVG: What was it like to collaborate with AQ Interactive and Nintendo? How did that collaboration work out logistically?

HS: We've been working with Takuya Matsumoto's team at AQ interactive since Blue Dragon so we understand each other very well. And when working together for The Last Story I was able to just relax and work on the development stress-free. We also had an extremely good relationship with Nintendo who supported us with the development of the game.

CVG: Did you learn anything new from working with Nintendo?

HS: In terms of promotion, there were quite a few differences from what I had done in the past with Square, so I was able to learn lots from Nintendo. I really liked the approach of promoting the product without using fancy words or expressions and just telling it like it is, and so I came away with a very good impression.

Full interview here

[jasonmaivia]

It's a shame that this level of work went into a game for a dying system. I hope that poor sales doesn't discourage them to work on more deep, high-quality games for Wii U in the future.

[NeverUnplaying]

I'm sick of the made up words too. L'Cie, Fal'Cie, blah blah blah. I shouldnt need to learn fake vocabulary to understand the game.

[Taxidous]

@jasonmaivia:

What do you mean by "dying system" exactly? As far as user bases go, it is actually on the top of the console heap.

TLS didn't do great sales in Japan, I don't think. One reason for this might be the fact that the Wii has had only a trickle of RPG releases throughout its life. Maybe that's why it didn't reach as big an audience as it could have?

[jasonmaivia]

@jasonmaivia:

What do you mean by "dying system" exactly? As far as user bases go, it is actually on the top of the console heap.

TLS didn't do great sales in Japan, I don't think. One reason for this might be the fact that the Wii has had only a trickle of RPG releases throughout its life. Maybe that's why it didn't reach as big an audience as it could have?

Userbase = number of systems sold to gamers who owns them.

This number is false because part of the userbase buys multiple systems when one breaks, or the systems aren't being played anymore. Just because 5 million more bought the system in a month doesn't mean that they all will remain active users, or that they're all new Wii owners.

When you have games sales going downhill and the number of games being produced going down to just a trickle (coming from first- and third-party companies), this is a sign that the system is dying. A million DS and PS2 systems can be bought on amazon during this month, but it doesn't mean that they've been resurrected or are still healthy systems.

[kdognumba1]

Well, I for 1, will be getting The Last Story day 1 and I can't wait for it

[Zug Zug]

It's a shame that this level of work went into a game for a dying system. I hope that poor sales doesn't discourage them to work on more deep, high-quality games for Wii U in the future.

Good luck with that wish
Sakaguchi is now making cheap to produce iphone games
we won't see an HD game from him anytime soon

[marco]

@jasonmaivia
Well, at least it wasn't dying when the game was first released. And besides, even if the Wii is dying, people can still play this on the WiiU.

And since he apparently had a good experience working with Ninty, hopefully they will be able to work together again on a WiiU title.