Back in April 2023, Square Enix released a two-part conversation with Final Fantasy series creators Hironobu Sakaguchi, Kazuko Shibuya, and Yoshinori Kitase. Today, an English language version is available to watch, and we’ve transcribed the interview below.

In this second part (read/watch the first part here) part, we get a behind the scenes look at development on the 16-bit era of Final Fantasy games as well as a peek at the different locations the Square office inhabited in the early days of the series.

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Everything started in 1987, when the first FINAL FANTASY was released. Over 35 years, FINAL FANTASY has grown into a world-renowned RPG series. The Creators talk about the history of FINAL FANTASY from the beginning up to FFVI, the pinnacle of the 2D era.

They are:

A conversation about the road that FINAL FANTASY has taken over the last 35 years starts here…

Development on FINAL FANTASY IV

Matsuzawa:
Moving on, next up is FINAL FANTASY IV. This one was released on the 19th of July 1991, and we are still in Akasaka. [Editor’s Note: Square’s office was located in Akasaka at the time.] The platform has now shifted from the Famicom to the Super Famicom. Was it difficult to develop on? Did you have more work to do?

Sakaguchi:
The number of colors suddenly shot up. What was it, 16?

Shibuya:
16. For characters on the Famicom, we were only able to use 4 colors, including black, but then that went up to 16 including black on the Super Famicom.

Sakaguchi:
You’re almost at Fuji color then!

Shibuya:
As an artist it became possible to draw much more of what you wanted to draw. Of course, we still had to use a lot of ingenuity, but it was massive being able to reproduce so much more of what you wanted to draw.

Matsuzawa:
Ms. Shibuya, do you have a specific order you follow when drawing pixel sprites?

Sakaguchi:
An order? I don’t think I’ve ever heard that!

Matsuzawa:
With all that extra freedom…

Shibuya:
As a rule, I would say I start with surfaces rather than lines. Most artists want to start from the outlines and work in, but I don’t. I start by filling out lots of big areas roughly then sort of refine them down, like sculpting.

Sakaguchi:
Oil painting is done like that isn’t it, using stippling?

Shibuya:
And then I do the outlining right at the end.

Sakaguchi:
I guess that starting with the outline would make the picture too compact.

Shibuya:
Right.

Sakaguchi:
So you start with the broad shapes…

Shibuya:
Because you try to leave the outline in place.

Sakaguchi:
I see.

Shibuya:
With FFIV, each pixel was a matter of life or death so I didn’t have any leeway to think about using them in the outlines.

Sakaguchi:
Pixels were so limited that outlining was not essential…

Kitase:
Didn’t want to waste even one for outlines…

Matsuzawa:
What were you doing around the time of FFIV [1991], Mr. Kitase? You had joined the company already?

Kitase:
I had joined, but I was working on Final Fantasy Adventure (Seiken Densetsu) then. The FFIV team working next to us had 40 people but we only had 7. So we felt a bit of difference in our relative importance!

Sakaguchi:
We were all sat next to each other after all! Kitase was sat here, and the FFIV team surrounded on all sides!

Kitase:
Of course we were provided with computers to do our jobs and my guys got a model called the Mac SE. Looking back from now, it was quite a stylish and compact tower style machine. How many inches was it?

Sakaguchi:
9 inches.

Kitase:
It had a 9-inch black and white monitor and a floppy disc drive, but the FFIV team working next to us were using full color Mac 2s.

Sakaguchi:
The Mac 2 had this huge screen! So I thought, “He’s making a black and white game, so a black and white Mac should be fine!”

Kitase:
You could only play Sim City and the like on Mac back then. So we all played Sim City while looking over at the disparity in what the other team had.

Sakaguchi:
It wasn’t that a big, full color screen would be better for work, he felt it was unfair that the FFIV team got to play Sim City in color and he had to make do with black and white! The important difference was with Sim City!

Kitase:
And at the time the FFIV team swapped data on an internal server network.

Sakaguchi:
It was not connected outside yet. I liked Macs then. The system was called “Mac something or other”. It was connected by a phone cable and we sent messages over it.

Kitase:
But my team had to carry 5 inch floppy discs around!

Sakaguchi:
I didn’t connect your team? That is a difference in treatment alright!

Kitase:
We used these floppy discs with everyone’s shared FMR. And we all thought “Wow, the FF team get all the good stuff”.

Sakaguchi:
Kitase at the time…

Matsuzawa:
I actually have a question for Mr. Sakaguchi about FFIV. The Archfiends had some really unique designs that are still popular today, but how did those designs come about?

Sakaguchi:
Was it Mr. Amano?

Shibuya:
Mr. Amano, I think.

Sakaguchi:
When we order illustrations from Mr. Amano, we do it with text descriptions. So we are surprised by the designs that come back too. It does motivate us though.

Shibuya:
The ordering sheet really is just some text.

Sakaguchi:
The Archfiend of Fire is wearing red pants with white tights! En?

Shibuya:
It’s a bit shocking! You can see his leg sticking out from under the cloak.

Matsuzawa:
He has good legs!

Sakaguchi:
And the water one… Cagnazzo? Is it some kind of tortoise? What is going on with him here?!

Matsuzawa:
All the designs for the Archfiends are like this.

Sakaguchi:
Mr. Amano really has a unique sense of aesthetics.

Shibuya:
He is great.

The secrets behind the creation of ‘Active Time Battle’

Matsuzawa:
Next up we have ‘Active Time Battle‘. Where did the idea come from?

Sakaguchi:
I think it was Hiroyuki Ito. We always try to do something new with the battle system, not just with the story and the setting. With the move to the Super Famicom for FFIV, we felt we really had to do something special, so he came up with ATB (Active Time Battle). The prototype was no good. I mean, most aren’t. When we programmed a test, it just wasn’t fun. The programmer was a guy called Yoshii [Kiyoshi Yoshii] and he was another genius level programmer like Nasir [Nasir Gebelli].

Hiroyuki Ito — Joined the series as a battle planner fom FFIV and invented the “Active Time Battle” system that is now a byword for FINAL FANTASY battles. Acted as director on FINAL FANTASY XII.

Kiyoshi Yoshii — Worked on the FINAL FANTASY series from the beginning, mainly involved in programming the battle systems.

Matsuzawa:
He [Yoshii] worked on the series battles from FFI up until FFVI.

Sakaguchi:
He never said anything. Just grunted right?

Shibuya:
Well… he was the silent type.

Sakaguchi:
“Hey Yoshii?”, “Hurmf”… “This is a big right?”, “Hurmf”…
That’s what he was like!

Shibuya:
It’s true!

Sakaguchi:
Ms. Shibuya can’t lie you see!

Shibuya:
Whatever you said, he would just go “Hmmm”…

Matsuzawa:
So he communicated with facial expressions?

Sakaguchi:
No, there were different intonations in his “Hurmph” noises! But he concentrated really hard and refined the system. And it was in good shape by the end. He was a genius.

Things from FFIV that left an impression

Matsuzawa:
Did anything leave an impression on you with FFIV, after switching to Super Famicom?

Sakaguchi:
It starts with a story of a dark knight, and we wanted to make the story a big weightier. Mr. Tokita did the staging for the story, which involves writing the script. But he kept making the characters spin round again and again!

Takashi Tokita — Involved in the FINAL FANTASY series from the early days, working on the graphics. He worked as director on FFIV and is known for many other titles such as Hanjuku Hero and Live A Live. Tokita also has many talents outside of the games industry, such as stage acting, screenwriting and presenting.

Shibuya:
They did spin a lot.

Sakaguchi:
I wanted a serious story, so part way through I band him from making people spin. I told him “Don’t just make everyone go round and round!”

Matsuzawa:
Why did Mr. Tokita want so much spinning?

Sakaguchi:
It was probably the first programming command he learned! That just happens right! “I’ll just make them all spin”.

Shibuya:
But we were still using 16×16 sprites then, so I guess the spinning couldn’t be helped.

Sakaguchi:
I see. Within those 16×16 limits, they cannot lift their arms up very far, so the only way to make them express happiness is to spin around!

Development on FINAL FANTASY V

Matsuzawa:
All of our guests have finally come together. It was released on the 6th of December 1992. And Square had moved to Ebisu.

Sakaguchi:
Yes, Ebisu. That was a good place! There was an Italian restaurant called Il Boccalone behind us. We told the staff we were so happy we had such great Italian as our neighbor and they joked they always had to put up with having Square behind them.

Matsuzawa:
Those sound like good times! With everyone so energetic.

Sakaguchi:
We were.

Matsuzawa:
This was the first FINAL FANTASY that Mr. Kitase worked on. How was his work?

Sakaguchi:
In the latter part of the day, he would write the scripts for the events and then upload them to the server before going home. We did them together, so I looked at his work when we came in the next day. I can remember those days. He made some brilliant stuff you know. So I felt I couldn’t let him beat me. But one day I saw this event he did, which I thought would be impossible with just scripting. It was a shock to me. He had approached Nariken [Ken Narita] on the quiet and convinced him to create a special program for it. I thought it was a dishonorable move in our little competition! It was a good thing for the game though. I have strong memories of those times.

Ken Narita — Involved in FINAL FANTASY series from the early days. Worked as the series programmer for a long time after FFIV. Nickname: Nariken

Kitase:
Mr. Sakaguchi had made the opening for FFV. A lot of effort went into the staging there, with King Tycoon flying away. He made that first and showed it to me as a statement of intent. That was how I started on the project, so I felt I had to put the effort in.

Matsuzawa:
Incidentally, Japan’s economic bubble burst around this time.

Kitase:
Looking at Mr. Sakaguchi, I didn’t get much of an impression of decline at all.

Sakaguchi:
I think that the viewers might be severely mislead with you saying, “looking at me”!

Matsuzawa:
He’s such a bubbly person!

Kitase:
“Bubbly?!”

Sakaguchi:
It’s only because of Yoshi-P [Naoki Yoshida] that I have these rings! He always clacks around with his.

Naoki Yoshida — Well known for being the producer and director of FFXIV A Realm Reborn. Producer for the latest game in the series; FFXVI. Lover of silver accessories. Nickname: Yoshi-P.

Matsuzawa:
He does!

Shibuya:
The rest of the world was in decline, but the games industry probably perked up a bit.

Kitase:
There was a wave there.

Sakaguchi:
With the effects of the bubble bursting, shops and restaurants were quite empty. For example, we used that place I mentioned, Il Boccalone, to meet with Mr. Amano. We would go there in a big group of about 8 and be quite raucous, but the restaurant was pretty empty so they let us be there. Did you just laugh?

Matsuzawa:
It’s just fun hearing about those times! I’m getting jealous.

Sakaguchi:
The people who saw us would have thought we were late to the party and still in our own bubble with all the food and the wine.

Shibuya:
It was right when I was in my late 20s.

Sakaguchi:
We had fun though.

Shibuya:
We were still young and fit, so Ebisu was great fun.

Sakaguchi:
It was not the sort of restaurant you could just go to casually, was it? It felt great to get used to that kind of place.

Shibuya:
We always got the VIP room at karaoke.

Sakaguchi:
It was only slightly more expensive than the normal one though! Can we have the VIP room please!

Shibuya:
With the spinning mirror ball!

Matsuzawa:
I really loved FFV, so I am delighted to hear that it was made under that kind of mood. FFV felt so light and open-hearted.

Sakaguchi:
Yes, it was quite crisp and bright. The characters were too.

Matsuzawa:
I have another question from the fans about FFV for Mr. Sakaguchi and Mr. Kitase. Was there a reason the job system came back?

Sakaguchi:
The abilities were a big part of it. We thought up some abilities and felt they were good, so we decided to push that. But we did talk about having a job system from the start.

Kitase:
That was already decided when I joined the project.

Sakaguchi:
It felt like we had done the jobs well in the game.

Matsuzawa:
It was fun, and there were sprites for all the different jobs.

Sakguchi:
In the internal planning meetings I went “We have this and this and this… and if you add in the animation, the artists need to draw 32 different patterns each day. That’s ok right ha ha ha?” And there was a deadly silence… They were angry.

Shibuya:
We were like “Huh…?”

Matsuzawa:
So what did you do Ms. Shibuya? Did you sleep?

Sakaguchi:
Just worked away at it right?

Shibuya:
Yeah, I think [I] did a bit at a time. I had some fun on the dancer ones as kind of a break.

Sakaguchi:
Ah, the dancers.

Shibuya:
The ones I had to be serious about drawing were the Dragoon and the armored ones, but I felt it would have been easier on me if I could play around where I was able. It was the same with the Beastmasters too.

Sakaguchi:
Yes, Beastmaster was one too!

Shibuya:
The costumes are a bit silly right?

Matsuzawa:
I really like them!

Sakaguchi:
I would like those in FFXIV too. Do Beastmasters, Yoshi-P!

Matsuzawa:
I love Faris’s dancer costume.

Shibuya:
Thank you. She is done like Linda Yamamoto.

Sakaguchi:
Really. So you like Linda Yamamoto?!

Matsuzawa:
I do.

Shibuya:
That was the image I had for her.

Sakaguchi:
With the pantaloons?

Shibuya:
Yes, and her shirt tied with her belly showing.

Sakaguchi:
There were different inspirations for each character. That must have been difficult, but it worked out well for the players.

Matsuzawa:
FFV also had some memorable weapons, such as the ‘Brave Blade’ and the ‘Chicken Knife’.

Sakaguchi:
I think Mr. Ito came up with those ideas. That they change the more you escape. Honestly, I had not really heard about them until I had to monitor them. So I initially thought “This is too weak. Why is it in this dungeon?” Mr. Ito had to hide his smile at that, with a little “he he”. I said, “You’re definitely hiding something!” So I listened to the way it worked, and it was great. It was groundbreaking.

Matsuzawa:
It was a really great game mechanic.

Sakaguchi:
Yes. In all the games, someone would always put in those glowing features, both with the mechanics and the visual presentation. We call them “miracles”. And several always happen during development. If they don’t happen then it affects the team’s overall motivation. And I think that is when it goes poorly in terms of creating something, but these “miracles” only happen when you’re in the zone. You hear the idea and just say “That’s amazing. You’re a genius!”.

Matsuzawa:
There are lots of memorable elements in FFV, like Gilgamesh, etc.

Kitase:
Gilgamesh was done by Mr. Ito.

Sakaguchi:
I was not aware of Gilgamesh. I did not sanction it! They just kept putting things like that in the game! I got angry and told them to stop because it would break the story. But when I finally played it, it was fun. They were pretty persistent though, always trying to get things in.

Kitase:
Those kinds of dramas in the battle scenes were sort of permitted outside of the rules for the battle team. But we were working on the field areas side, so we snuck a few into battles.

Sakaguchi:
It was from your desire to tell stories, I think.

Matsuzawa:
And that was why they were incorporated into the battles then?

Kitase:
Yes, that was how they came to be used officially in the game.

Development on FINAL FANTASY VI

Matsuzawa:
Final Fantasy VI.

Sakaguchi:
Nearly at the end everyone.

Matsuzawa:
It was released on the 2nd of April 1994 and Square was still in Ebisu and games like Mother 2 (EarthBound), Live A Live, and Donkey Kong Country were released in the same year. First of all, could you tell me why the story of FFVI moved away from crystals? This one is for Mr. Sakaguchi.

Kitase:
It was Mr. Sakaguchi who initiated that.

Sakaguchi:
Hmm, what was it?… My daughter had just been born. And I think that was a big part of it, with the ending and the like, the miraculous feeling of a new life coming into this world from nothing. That was probably the most shocking experience in my whole life. I think that was it. I was like “Do we really need crystals anymore? Isn’t just having life better?”

Matsuzawa:
The crystals are similar though; a fantastic and miraculous source of life.

Sakaguchi:
True. Perhaps we could have included them.

Matsuzawa:
Mr. Sakaguchi has mentioned before how the cinematic presentation changed a lot with Mr. Kitase on the team.

Sakaguchi:
The use of pauses and pacing was definitely different. For example, the scene in the opera house when the flowers fall down, they start in slow motion and then float down. He may not look it, but he is actually a bit of a romantic.

Matsuzawa:
I really think so.

Kitase:
We had more variety in the poses the sprites could take. For the kinds of things we could only show with spinning in Tokita’s time, everything probably had to be done with spinning back then. But in my era we had more poses available, so when planning events, we might not have the exact pose I wanted, but there would be something close. Ms. Shibuya had not imagined it being used like that.

Sakaguchi:
She got annoyed didn’t she! “Mr. Kitase, that’s not what it’s for! Don’t use it like that!”

Kitase:
Right. “It’s supposed to be used here!”. She had not imagined it that way, but it looked like it could be used in other places.

Shibuya:
That did happen.

Kitase:
I did take liberties there.

Sakaguchi:
It looked like they were falling in confusion, but it was actually supposed to be a different pose.

Shibuya:
I think it worked out well though.

Matsuzawa:
It fit with the scene?

Kitase:
She allowed me to do it.

Sakaguchi:
She still said, “That’s not what it’s really for though”.

Shibuya:
From FFVI we could draw them the same size in the battles and the field areas too. Up to FFV it was small 16×16 characters, but from FFVI they could be the same size as in battle. I think that was a big factor.

Matsuzawa:
There were a lot of characters in FFVI, but were they all there in the original plan?

Sakaguchi:
I don’t think Umaro was there?

Kitase:
We collected all the planners’ ideas together and decided which ones to use.

Sakaguchi:
The destruction of the world wasn’t in there at the start either.

Kitase:
Right.

Sakaguchi:
It wasn’t. We just said, “Shall we make that?” one day!

Kitase:
It was more like “Wouldn’t it be interesting to destroy the world?”

Matsuzawa:
How did the idea to destroy it come about?

Sakaguchi:
I think it went “Wouldn’t it be terrible to end it here?” But everyone agreed on the idea.

Kitase:
Games had never really shown what happened after a world was destroyed before.

Sakaguchi:
We were a little hesitant though.

Kitase:
At the start, Mr. Sakaguchi set out the concept for VI that every character was the hero, so we felt that it would be fitting to have all of them be separated by the destruction and then come back together over a series of episodes.

Sakaguchi:
Looking back, I think it probably had quite a psychological impact. Oddly. There was competition in the team there too. I was in charge of Sabin’s episode. Mr. Kitase was doing Celes. Having her feed Cid Fish. Going “Cid No!”

Matsuzawa:
Yes, there was the scene with Cid and the fish and the one where you leave Shadow on the Floating Continent.

Sakaguchi:
Shadow was Mr. Kitase too right?

Kitase:
I was in charge of Shadow, yes, but our monster designer Tetsuya Nomura also participated. He liked that kind of character and asked to have a dark guy called ‘Shadow’ with a dog.

Tetsuya Nomura — Involved with the FINAL FANTASY series from FFV, working as a graphics artist. He has worked in a wide variety of roles, from character design to directing and producing. Knowing for the KINGDOM HEARTS series.

Sakaguchi:
Ah, so Tetsu asked for that one. “Mr. Kitase, go on, put in some darkness!” (Parody of Nomura)

Matsuzawa:
I actually gave Shadow my name when I played, so I was very concerned on the Floating Continent when he had not showed up yet. I enjoyed that scene a lot.

Kitase:
Was that in the original scenario plan?

Sakaguchi:
No, the last one for Shadow was not in it.

Kitase:
Then I think it must have been one of my improvisations. From around FFV we had wanted to include some kind of time limit.

Sakaguchi:
Kitase and I had this rule between us banning time limits you see.

Matsuzawa:
It really makes you fret in that event!

Sakaguchi:
We are prone to using them when there is trouble. So he did it despite the ban. We had agreed to use one when things got serious.

Kitase:
Because we had this time limit on the Floating Content, I wanted to differentiate it if you completed it within the time and if you don’t. So I decided to use Shadow there. I felt it would fit with a character like Shadow to have that scene sacrificing his life.

Matsuzawa:
This one is for Mr. Kitase. When will you do a remake of FFVI?

Sakaguchi:
A remake of FFVI?

Kitase:
That would be a tough one to do I think!

Sakaguchi:
Because it’s pixel sprites, the story is massive. Doing all that in CG would be pretty hard… So when is it?

Kitase:
Well, we haven’t finished the remake of FFVII yet, so I can’t think about that now.

Matsuzawa:
Not realistic at the moment, eh?

Sakaguchi:
Can’t you get it out any quicker?

Kitase:
There are a lot of FFVI fans inside the company too. They often ask me when a FFVI remake is coming when they pass me in the office. It is not all that easy though.

Sakaguchi:
Mr. Uematsu [Nobuo Uematsu] likes FFVI a lot, as it was the last Super Famicom game with pixel sprites. It was his last one before the freedom of the CD era, where he had limitations on what he could compose, so it has special memories for him.

Nobuo Uematsu — The father of FINAL FANTASY music. Uematsu created a huge amount of music for SquareSoft (Currently Square Enix) from the Famicom era onwards. A big prog rock fan, the influences of that genre can often be seen in his music tracks from the FF series. Founder of DOG EAR RECORDS Co. Ltd.

Matsuzawa:
There are some great compositions there, like when Setzer stops his comrades.

Sakaguchi:
That ones is good. The Blackjack airship is in XIV too. Why can’t that theme play on it? I’m asking Yoshi-P! I’ll talk to him later.

Matsuzawa:
Please do! We all want the tracks, don’t we?

Questions selected by the legendary creators

Matsuzawa:
We have lots of questions, but are there any here that pique your interest? We have them all lined up here in the studio.

Sakaguchi:
Ok. That one might be good for Ms. Shibuya?

Matsuzawa:
With FINAL FANTASY continuing to evolve in 3D, what do you think the reason for the continued love of the pixel art style is? Ms Shibuya?

Sakaguchi:
It’s a good question.

Shibuya:
I think it is because it stimulates the imagination. It doesn’t just give you all the answers and say, “this is what it is”. For people who want to think about what the different things are, pixel art makes it easier to imagine. There are sort of “blank spaces” that people can fill in with what they want. I think that is what makes it so good.

Matsuzawa:
Were there any changes you felt when you were drawing pixel art every day?

Shibuya:
Yes, Things changed every time. It was different for each game from FFI to FFVI, and it was different again for the pixel remasters later on. If you asked me to do them all over then I would probably draw differently again.

Sakaguchi:
How about that one? “I wanted a route were Galuf survived!”.

Kitase:
I have a feeling that Mr. Sakaguchi had a strong attachment to Galuf when creating him.

Sakaguchi:
I was younger back then, but I was nearly the oldest on the team so Galuf kind of represented me… and he dies right? Dying for a cause is the ultimate heroic virtue after all.

Matsuzawa:
What about you, Mr. Kitase? Any of them interest you?

Sakaguchi:
How about this one? “Which FF games do you want modern gamers to play?” With the pixel remaster versions out now.

Kitase:
Hmm, which one.

Sakguchi:
If you had to pick?

Kitase:
As you would expect, FFV and FFVI are the ones I was involved with. But which one…

Sakaguchi:
Don’t worry, it can be either of them.

Kitase:
In terms of completeness, it would probably be FFVI I think.

Sakaguchi:
I see. As a creator you want people to play the most complete form.

Kitase:
It had the opera house and the scene at Daryl’s grave, etc. I really liked those scenes that I had made.

Sakaguchi:
What was it called again? The ‘Esp..?’

Kitase:
“The Esper World.”

Sakaguchi:
I only roughly outlined it (the scene where Terra is conceived) in the plot. I just said “Right, this is all yours to sort out Kitase”, and everyone was nervous. “Mr. Kitase, how do we show that? How do we show the two coming together?” And he did it with these floating sparkling lights! Twinkle twinkle!

Kitase:
Yeah, I had to think how to show that in an abstract way!

Matsuzawa:
It was really wonderful!

Sakaguchi:
It was kind of like seeing this sweet, innocent side to Kitase!

Kitase:
I really don’t have that kind of side! I just had to find a way to abstract it!

Sakaguchi:
Was it embarrassing making that?

Kitase:
Not really but…

Sakaguchi:
Really? I was embarrassed seeing that the next day!

Kitase:
I thought it was the only way we could show that!

Matsuzawa:
I was surprised that you actually showed that precious, sacred moment!

Kitase:
But may favorite scene is at the end, where Terra is sent out into the Human World and you see the gate closing behind her from inside the Esper World. That is one of my favorites.

Sakaguchi:
It is very cinematic.

Kitase:
I wanted to give it depth, like it was a 3D space.

Sakaguchi:
That was really like a film. I see, I see. That was a great scene.

Kitase:
So I hope people enjoy the whole scene, including the twinkling lights we mentioned just now.

Final Messages

Matsuzawa:
We could keep talking for a long time, but unfortunately our time today is nearly up. How was today, Mr. Kitase?

Kitase:
Yes, right…

Sakaguchi:
Twinkle twinkle!

Kitase:
I was only really involved in FFV and FFVI, so I didn’t speak as much here today…

Matsuzawa:
No problem.

Kitase:
But you might have edited, so I look like I am talking the most!

Sakaguchi:
Like with the “what was Kitase doing?” bits!

Kitase:
But it was a fun chat.

Matsuzawa:
Mr. Sakaguchi keeps saying things that shouldn’t be said!

Sakaguchi:
But no, he really didn’t say much at all.

Kitase:
Working on the games was great fun and I would just like to push FFVI again!

Matsuzawa:
Thank you very much.

Kitase:
Thank you too.

Shibuya:
We don’t really have many chances for the three of us to come together like this. Maybe to just mess around… While I was working on the new pixel remasters, I kept reminiscing about different things. So it would make me really happy if players wanted to play through the remasters again, from FFI to FFVI, to re-discover the roots of FINAL FANTASY. Thank you very much!

Matsuzawa:
Thank you.

Sakaguchi:
A model answer.

Matsuzawa:
And finally, the father of FINAL FANTASY! Mr. Sakaguchi, how was today?

Sakaguchi:
The father is currently hooked on FFXIV right now.

Matsuzawa:
It’s quite amazing though, that the father of the series can still go play at the same amusement park.

Sakaguchi:
I never thought my life would be like this. FINAL FANTASY is like a theme park, so they still bring things like Rubicante to me, like we just said! It really is embarrassing, seeing everyone trying so hard at the gimmicks in the game… I’m tearing up here.

Matsuzawa:
Is this your feelings about FFXIV?

Sakaguchi:
Ah yes, this was the pixel remaster show!

Matsuzawa:
But they are all FINAL FANTASY, including FFXIV.

Sakaguchi:
The person who came up with the idea of the pixel remasters contacted me. They didn’t have to do that. It would be absolutely fine, for Square Enix to go ahead without consulting me at all. But they deliberately came to ask me and said what they wanted to do and asked me what I thought. So… I think it was good they got it made and I am very touched by the thanks that have come back to me for making the originals, including everything in FFXIV. I think they are close to the roots of FINAL FANTASY, in the soft and kind way they have been done. Showing the light side of people. With the pixel remasters available now, it is such a good opportunity. There are people out there who played back in the day, as well as lots of people who probably haven’t played them… so I hope all those people can experience the warmth in FINAL FANTASY and come together as friends again. That would make me really happy.

Matsuzawa:
Thank you very much. I hope everyone can go and enjoy the pixel remasters after the show. Mr. Sakaguchi, Ms. Shibuya, Mr. Kitase, thank you for coming today.

All:
Thank you.

Matsuzawa:
Let’s wave our hands to say goodbye to everyone watching.

Sakaguchi:
Aloha!

Matsuzawa:
Thank you everyone!

Sakaguchi:
There should be a rainbow up there right now! Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle!

Matsuzawa:
Perfect!