Shinji Hashimoto, Final Fantasy’s brand director, has played down concerns that Square is aiming to distance itself from command-based combat in wake of Final Fantasy XV’s gameplay reveal.
The trailer, showcased at E3 earlier this week, depicted a far more action-oriented approach to combat, with realtime sword battles and fancy acrobatics – a far cry from the traditional Final Fantasy combat experience.
However, speaking to OXM, Hashimoto-san said Square has no plans to move away from the traditional command-based shenanigans that we’ve become accustomed to.
“As you are aware, Final Fantasy series has different mechanics in each title,” he said.
“Each time the development team for that title review the appropriate game system, and for Final Fantasy XV we have the action-packed system, but that does not mean the next game will be similar. We’re very looking forward to feedback from the fans on how they like the action packed gameplay.
“I believe that there’s future for both action based RPG and command based RPG. It’s not that we aren’t thinking about the future of command based Final Fantasy, but we think that the action based combat fits Versus XV.”
He added: “Action-based RPG fits Final Fantasy XV and that is why we chose to do it like this. I want a game that is easy to play and therefore I asked the development team to be flexible with the difficulty, and I want to make sure that fans are not disappointed.
“I want you to understand that the Final Fantasy is always evolving, and always challenging, and this is a positive change we made for Final Fantasy XV.”
Final Fantasy XV was originally announced back in 2006 as the PlayStation 3-exclusive Final Fantasy Versus XIII. However, after a long period of silence on the game – and despite continued assurance that the title was still on track for PS3 – Square re-revealed the project during Sony’s E3 press conference on Tuesday evening.
The game, now known as FFXV, will be released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, though a release date continues to remain elusive.
