A Glimpse Into The Long Development of Final Fantasy XII

In a talk Thursday at the Game Developer's Conference, attendees were exposed to a rare treat: technical information behind development at Square/Enix. Programming supervisor Taku Murata, co-director Hiroshi Minagawa, and lead realtime rendering programmer Yoshinori Tsuchida were onhand to shed some light on a game many years in the making. Though the session didn't provide any dirt on those interested in the departure of game designer Yasumi Matsuno, there was plenty to take away from the highly focused discussion. "Final Fantasy games require a lengthy development process, and this presents the very real threat of being obsolete by the time it ships. To combat this the team allocated its resources with a heavy emphasis on art."

Comments

Article Summary

[Stevecrox]

Final Fantasy takes years to produce, to lessen the chance that the games outdated when it comes out they spend 70% on art, 20% on game design and 10% on engineering. There was mention that they built tools to output their 'art' through a PS2 onto a TV to get a true representation of how it will look. Lots of comments about how much FFXII sucked, suggesting this business plan is a bad idea.

There i saved you the hassle of reading the article

Re:Article Summary

[Aladrin]

Their 70% art business plan shows. And by art, I mean graphics, not plot, storyline, etc. This has got to be the most boring FF yet. After about 20 hours of the game, I finally gave up. It had only once even slightly interested me in the plot, and not at all in the characters. (Except Fran, but not because of who she was as a character, but because she's a bunny-girl that doesn't wear much and has an amazing accent.)

The combat was okay at the beginning. Then you get a few gambits, and it's more fun. Then you get a lot of gambits and you realize the game really does just play itself. (If you're not a complete moron, I mean.) Except for boss fights, there's very little interaction necessary... Or even helpful. And boss fights only need interaction so you can pull off the mega-moves. -yawn-

Combine the lack of interest in combat with the lack of interest in the plot (of which there is NONE in the battlefield) and most of the game is totally boring.

Looked nice, though, for a PS2 game.

Re:Article Summary

[Aladrin]

And see, you'd be wrong about that. Final Fantasy Adventure (I believe) for the GB was my first FF. I played the SNES one when it came out. I loved all of them that I played up to that point. FF7 was disappointing for me as the intro was very boring, but it got better later. Enough better than I now count the game as a good one. FF8, 9, 10 were all great games. FF11 is amazingly lame. FF12 is boring.

The plot in FF12 would have to change pace dramatically, and actually have some content, to save it past the 20 hr mark. After 20 HOURS I care not a whit about any character. Any movie that lasted more than a hour and had me feeling like that would have had me walking out.

And before anyone says 'if you made it 20 hours, it must not have been that bad' ... It's Final Fantasy. I kept telling myself it HAD to get better. I had friends telling me they like it. I had GameFAQs fanboys exclaiming how wonderful it is. And I had Fran's amazingly sexy voice. I basically lived for Fran cutscenes, just to hear that awesome accent. "The Mysthst comesths." Seriously. Awesome accent. Apparently it's the actress' native accent, too. Somehow that makes it even better.

Where most of the time was spent

[Anonymous Coward]

70% was spent on art. Of the resources dedicate to art, 95% of it was dedicating to finding angles/excuses to show Fran's bare ass or make the princess give out a gasp (which sounded more like a sexual moan) every cutscene.

Re:Where most of the time was spent

[robson]

Of the resources dedicate to art, 95% of it was dedicating to finding angles/excuses to show Fran's bare ass or make the princess give out a gasp (which sounded more like a sexual moan) every cutscene.

So... money well-spent, you're saying.

Telling us what we already know?

[Lenneth-chan]

I know I don't play Final Fantasy games because they're innovative. I play Final Fantasy games because they're damn gorgeous. Besides, when was the last time any of you played an RPG that doesn't suffer from the same worries/problems that FFXII does?

Bias

[king-manic]

I detect a pretty heavy PC style RPG bias in all the replies so far. The FF crowd enjoy "Role playing" as is reading a book and imagining themselves in that role. Most of the replies come from the pc RPG tradition where your just a walking bunch of stats and take losts of fetch and return quests. The JRPD tradition has you being a slim empheminate walking bunch of stats that has to go on a quest on rails. Both of the styles have their weaknesses. FFXII I found to be a fairly open game for a JRPG. You could start munchkining very early and be insanely powerful. The "automated" combat basically stopped me from having to "press O" a million times a session just to get our of a dungueon.

Apparently you guys are int he minority since it sold insanely well. Perhaps only because of the name but it was fun. Well done. And pretty. You can't even criticize an emo love story. It was all byzantine politics. This one knocked FFVI off the #1 spot for me for FF games.

Re:Bias

[XMyth]

I gotta say, I somewhat agree with your statement about the characters....it all seems kinda, blah.

The game itself, I love except for the fact that I have to do 50 hunts to be able to do freaking sidequests and get decent weapons.

But, the story line itself....it seemed REALLY good the first half of the game, a lot of build up...and then it seems like the writers just lost their way and it got real blurry with a bunch of stuff thrown in at the last minute..."He has gotten the sky fortress Bahamut!" WTF???

Transcript

[Zimans]

Has anyone found a transcript for this talk yet? I'd like to hear the technical details of how they produced FFXII, and not just some fanboy drivel about 'ooh they spent 70% time on art, and that's all I can comment on because I have no idea what they are talking about'. --Zims

Where'd 12 go wrong?

[Bardez]

I have to ponder why they spent so much time developing FF 12, and yet it was a bomb -- not in sales, mind you (it's a Final Fantasy for Christ's sake, it WILL SELL), but in plot. Final Fantasy is notorious for having a good plot and/or a good game system. 1 was bland, but by today's standards what can you expect? 2 was awful, but had a really fun battle/leveling system. 3 introduced jobs, even though the plot seemed nonexistent. Then four through, oh, let's say ten had story. And gameplay. They were FUN. Now I bought up 12 at the midnight release, ready to eat it up like, uh, a fat kid and food, and then I found... an MMO. A single-player MMO. And it isn't just me; everyone I know complains about the same thing: FF12 is a dungeon crawl, and not a very good one at that. There's no captivating plot, the characters are all secondary to the game; FF12 is hardly a FF at all.

So why'd 12 go so wrong? "Study long, study wrong?" I wish I knew, but after this, I am not going for the next one nearly as fast as I have for the past FF titles.

Disclaimer: this is opinion, not fact. I didn't feel the game, you might have loved it. Just 'cause my friends (imaginary and not) didn't like it doesn't mean I think nobody liked it. Etc. Etc. Etc., not trying to troll; just curious as to what people think