Nintendo 3DS

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.

I think so.

You must have had a lot of trials even after you figured out your direction.

It was less trials and closer to burning bridges.

Burning bridges? What do you mean?

We began Monolith Soft in 1999, with funding from Namco²³ before they became Bandai Namco. The first game we made was Xenosaga²⁴, but because we were developing it while we were building the organization, we didn't have enough people. The programmers and the planners were all rookies. At the time, the director of Xenoblade Chronicles and Xenoblade Chronicles X²⁵, (Koh) Kojima²⁶, had just joined the company right after graduating college. 23. Namco: BANDAI NAMCO Games Inc. Namco, which opened in 1955, merged its game department with Bandai in 2006, and got a new start as BANDAI NAMCO Games Inc. 24. Xenosaga: Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht. An RPG released from Namco (Currently: BANDAI NAMCO Games) in February 2002. 25. Xenoblade Chronicles X. Tetsuya Takahashi's latest RPG. Wii U Release planned for Japan on April 29, 2015. 26. Koh Kojima: Development Department, Monolith Soft. Scenarios Quest Planning Director on Baten Kaitos Origins for the Nintendo GameCube, released February 2006. Director on Xenoblade Chronicles. Appears in Iwata Asks: Xenoblade Chronicles, The Development Process.

So even Kojima-san was a rookie.

That's right. And, it's a bit embarrassing to admit, but the graphics engine was only completed six months before the development deadline. That's the schedule we were on.

Now that sounds like a fierce schedule.

So - and this is a bit of an excuse - but at the time, I felt that because no one on the team making Xenosaga had any experience, it might be a little too difficult for us to make our ideal game yet.

Right.

But even on that team we had a few extremely talented graphic designers. The game design came out of the idea that "the only thing we can do is make the main component some sort of event."

So you designed a game that played to the strengths and weaknesses of your team.

That's right. We released three games in the Xenosaga series²⁷, but they weren't very well received. It was really mortifying. All of the young team members felt that way, not just the leaders. So we all decided, "Next time we need to make a game that players will enjoy." So that made the atmosphere during the Xenoblade Chronicles development very different compared to other games. 27. Three games in the Xenosaga: An RPG series containing three games, released from 2002 - 2006.
Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht (Released 2002), Xenosaga Episode II: Jenseits von Gut und Böse (Released 2004), Xenosaga Episode III: Also sprach Zarathustra (Released 2006).

You couldn't make excuses anymore.

That's right. We couldn't run anymore. And that's why I say we burned our bridges for the Xenoblade Chronicles development.

Sometimes experiencing adversity like that can turn into a step up to success. The game is a completely different genre, but a similar thing happened with Animal Crossing²⁸. 28. Animal Crossing: A community simulation game. The first game was released in April 2001 for Nintendo 64. Afterwards, games were created for Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo DS, Wii and Nintendo 3DS. There are 6 games in the series.

With Animal Crossing?

Yes. Animal Crossing for the Nintendo DS²⁹ received rave reviews, but the Wii version³⁰, which was released shortly after, couldn't entirely live up to user expectations. The people who were involved in the Wii version were really worried about that, and they used it to propel themselves to create the 3DS version of Animal Crossing³¹. One of the people who had been at the heart of that project produced Splatoon³², which is planned for release this spring. 29. Nintendo DS Version: Animal Crossing: Wild World. Released for Nintendo DS in November 2005. 30. Wii Version: Animal Crossing: City Folk. Released for Wii in November 2008. 31. Nintendo 3DS version: Animal Crossing: New Leaf. Released in November 2012 for Nintendo 3DS. 32. Splatoon: A game for Wii U set for release in May 2015. The game is produced by Hisashi Nogami, who acted as Series Director from the first Animal Crossing through Animal Crossing: City Folk (Wii). For more on Animal Crossing, see: Iwata Asks: Animal Crossing: City Folk.

Oh, is that so.

So I don't feel like we make a game and then it's finished. I feel like they are all connected. That is to say, if the Wii version of Animal Crossing had garnered an ordinarily positive response, maybe Splatoon wouldn't have been created, or the 3DS version of Animal Crossing might not have been the breakthrough it was. They probably would have been quite different.

That's quite true.

But when we make a game, we want to fulfill user expectations 100% - even 120%. We're very serious about that - we've never wavered in our commitment to that philosophy. But sometimes even when we have a product that we're very confident about, users tell us "This isn't what we wanted."

That's true.

When that happens, we often have the users tell us what didn't work for them, or what part of the buildup wasn't right. So in a way, when it came to making Xenoblade Chronicles, it actually turned out to be a great source of strength that the team building it had faced problems with the previous three Xenosaga games.

Exactly. But when we made Xenoblade Chronicles, 10 years had passed since Monolith Soft was built, and the team members had all gained experience...

And Kojima -san, who was a rookie when the company started, has become a director.

Yes. It really confirmed the fact that with these team members, we could make something with a balanced x-axis and y-axis.

You made Xenoblade Chronicles when you'd all really come into your own as a group.

Yes.