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Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings hits stores tomorrow, and to celebrate, we're giving you a series of interviews with the game's development staff. The interviews were conducted by Shibaizumi Hiro and Suguwara Mari for the Japanese Ultimania strategy guide. The translation of the interview is by yours truly.

The Ultimania guide contains six interviews in all, and we'll be posting one each day starting today. All of these interviews may contain spoilers, so only check them out if you've reached the endgame, or if you don't mind knowing a little bit about the game ahead of time.

Today's interview is with the art staff: Character Designer Ryoma Ito, Lead Art Director Toshitaka Matsuda, 2D Pixel Art Director Kiyofumi Kato, and Art Designer Nao Amano.

Q: How did you begin work on Revenant Wings' character designs?

ITO: At first the game wasn't based on FFXII; it started development as a completely different game. We later learned that it was going to be a FFXII sequel, but since it was going to be on the Nintendo DS hardware, we knew that it would be difficult to render FFXII's realistic images, so we went from my simplified drawings and adapted the characters into my style, basically.

Q: Once you learned the game would be a sequel to FFXII, how did you go about designing characters?

ITO: We did so many redesigns for Vaan and Penelo, it got really frustrating. The game is set one year after FFXII, so we even talked about changing their outfits. When we changed the outfits, though, most people thought you couldn't recognize the characters, so we ended up just using their designs from the FFXII epilogue. Even with the other characters, the question of "how much can we change them from FFXII" was a difficult one to answer.

Q: Why is Penelo the only character drawn from behind in her illustration?

ITO: I guess it was my own idea because I just like drawing her from behind (laughs). That's not the only reason, though; a lot of game magazines and sites like to introduce Vaan and Penelo right next to each other, so I thought that having Vaan face forward and Penelo backward would make it easier for them to use in layouts. That was my other intention.

Q: Mr. Matsuda, you were in charge of the visual design. What feel did you want to communicate in your images?

MATSUDA: We had to preserve the world setting of FFXII while expanding into a new world, so we went through a lot of trial and error. Kamikokuryo [Isamu Kamikokuryo: FFXII's Art Director, Revenant Wings' Art Supervisor] said that he wanted to emulate the feel of the Skycity of Bhujerba, so we studied that design thoroughly. We tried our hardest to create an image that both the Revenant Wings staff and the FFXII staff could agree on. Personally, I'm a big fan of the Muruc Cahuac Skysea.

Q: I believe you designed the interior of the Galbana [the airship in Revenant Wings], didn't you?

MATSUDA: Yes, I did. I thought that "Wings" and "Blue Sky" were the key words in Revenant Wings, and kept that in mind for my designs. Specifically, I placed wings in the bridge interior, and placed a glass bottom in the Sky Saloon so that you could see the sky below.

AMANO: I also helped out a little bit with the Galbana's graphical design work. For this game I was mostly in charge of the character art, but I used to work with textures, so I drew the textures of the Galbana interior based on Matsuda's image screens.

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Insider Production Secrets

Ryoma Ito: During the final credit roll, the pictures that appear in the background take place in the game's epilogue, and they show that Filo has started playing sports. That such a sickly little girl could become so strong and healthy is my idea of a happy ending.

Toshitaka Matsuda: It doesn't appear much in game, but we put a statue of Feolthanos's wife inside the Galbana. I did the design for that statue.

Kiyofumi Kato: In the illustration during the final credit roll, the initial image of Kytes looks cuter than the image of Filo. I thought maybe I made him too cute, and redrew the image, but I think Kytes still ended up cuter. (laughs)

Nao Amano: The reason Namingway is a Sahagin is because the director, Toriyama, liked their design so much. The test-version of the Sahagin is what we kept all the way to the late stages of development, and so we thought that since we'd kept him that long, we'd just use him as he was.

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Q: There are a lot of a lot of Espers appearing in this game, aren't there?

ITO: We didn't have a clear number in mind from the start, but we were pretty sure we'd end up with more than we planned for. In the end there are over 80 Espers appearing in the game, but it really wasn't that much of a pain to do. In the original plan, before the game was changed to an FFXII sequel, we talked about having around 200. (laughs)

Q: Which Esper was the hardest to design?

MATSUDA: Odin was the hardest to design. He's very large which automatically means a heavier workload, and he's deeply tied into the story, so I had to be extra-careful with him. The next-hardest was Bahamut. Since he appears in an FMV, he had to be designed earlier on in production. Having to design the finer details based on an established design is rather difficult.

ITO: There were some Espers that we had to redesign during the sprite creation stages, too.

MATSUDA: Oh yes. Leviathan looks a lot like a snake, doesn't he? But as a snake, his sprite's actions were all too small-scale. We had to keep his essential Leviathan-ness intact while pulling his mass into more of a square shape. Having to make redesigns like that, keeping the sprites in mind, was an interesting experience.

ITO: Salamander had also been snake-like originally, but for the same reasons, he ended up becoming a piglet.

Q: Did you put any forethought into the way equipment would look in the pixel art, and keep the designs simpler than you normally would?

ITO: That's right. We had to focus on how it would deform when we transferred it into sprite form, so we made sure to stress that when we were drawing the design images. Still, in the later stages of development, we weren't really thinking much about "let's make this easily-transferable into pixel art", we were just trying to do the work and transfer them over to Kato as quickly as possible... he worked so quickly, it was a huge shock to all of us. He really got the facial graphics done extremely quickly.

KATO: It took some time at first, but it got faster as I went. Just before deadline, I finished three facial graphics in about 15 minutes each. (laughs)

ITO: I had just handed the design art to him and then he came up to me and said "would you check this?" I was thinking "What could this be?" and then I saw that he'd already finished the facial graphic. (laughs) Of course, it's not that he cut any corners, he just got it perfect in one try.

KATO: Once I'd done the first few characters in pixel art, I understood what was expected for the head and body. After that I could pick up the pace by using that at a template.

MATSUDA: It's just that when we ordered the Vaan sprite art, he created this infinitesimally tiny sprite that anyone could see and instantly recognize as Vaan. That kind of skill is an absolute treasure within our company.

KATO: I started drawing pixel art around 1989, and my first job with SquareSoft (at the time) was working for "Live a Live" [an RPG developed in 1994]. I got some 3D Graphic training just in case, but I've never had a chance to use it. (laughs)

Q: So you really didn't have any problems doing the pixel art?

KATO: No, actually, the Scions were difficult to do, since in their FFXII designs, they didn't have to be arranged or deformed at all. The characters weren't designed to be transferred into sprite art, so trying to do it could get exasperating.

Q: Ms. Amano, what was your reaction when you saw the illustrations you'd drawn rendered as sprites?

AMANO: Honestly, I just thought "that's awesome." That drawing I did is moving! Seeing my drawings get to move and fight, and getting to make friends with them, that was just deeply moving for me. Of course, then when I started playing the game itself, I only played with the characters I had designed. (laughs)

Q: So you split up the labor on the Esper designs?

AMANO: That's right. I was in charge of a lot of the cute, little Espers. When I draw them, for some reason they always end up looking a little chubby. The Cactoid ended up looking kind of cuddly. (laughs)

MATSUDA: I designed Odin, as well as the White Hares, Chocobos, and Carbuncles, things like that.

KATO: I designed the Scions. I worked out their poses using the FFXII design materials as a guide.

Q: What's your favorite Esper?

AMANO: I'm most attached to the Sahagin. There was a period during development where we really changed his design significantly, but then when I changed it, everyone said "I'd rather see the old Sahagin." So we went back to the original design.

KATO: My favorite Esper is Shemhazai. I tried to make a design that wasn't just an ordinary standing pose, and I thought we acheived that very well.

ITO: Now that you mention it, Shemhazai's facial graphic was really hard to do, wasn't it?

KATO: Yeah, I couldn't fit it into the frame well. I tried drawing it on a diagonal and cutting off the bottom half, it was just really hard to draw.

Q: With so many people drawing the Espers, did you had to bounce designs off each other?

ITO: I was the one who had to check everything in the end, but all I really did was say "Oh yes, this will work" to designs I was given. At times it was to the point during the development when I was showing something to the producers, and I wasn't sure which designs were mine. That could be a little frustrating, too. (laughs)

MATSUDA: I also had to design the Aegyl characters, so at first when I tried to design them to match Ito's style, I couldn't do it well at all. There were times when I had to learn the basics directly from Ito. He'd say "Here, try drawing it a little bit more like this..." and gradually my drawings become cleaner. It was a whole lot of fun.

AMANO: This was my first real art job, so I just showed every one of my sketches to Ito one at a time for him to check, and eventually it started coming together.

KATO: My drawings never looked like his, no matter how much I tried to imitate him. (laughs)

ITO: Oh no, that's not true.

Q: What do you really want the players to look out for?

AMANO: I want it so that no matter who plays the game, they'll find an Esper who fits their style. If they can find that Esper while they're playing, that will make me very happy.

KATO: Obviously, I want them to look at the sprites. (laughs) There's also a lot more detail put into the scenery than you would expect from a DS title, so I really hope people will play and from the scenery, get a sense that they're really on an adventure.

MATSUDA: The characters in this game look very simple, but we put care into every pen-stroke to get the right expression. So I hope they really feel that as they're playing, feeling for the characters or getting angry with them, and enjoying every minute of it.

ITO: Well, I'll be grateful if people just find one Esper to their liking. But I think shuffling your Espers around as you play creates a different kind of fun experience, so I think I want people to play for a really long time and make use out of all the Espers.

That's it for today's interview. Stay tuned tomorrow to hear what the sound and music production team has to say!

So what about you guys? What's your favorite Esper?

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