Siliconera spoke with Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age producer Hiroaki Kato, who shared more about the director of the original title Hiroyuki Ito’s involvement as the game’s supervisor and bits on the Ivalice Alliance.
Kato-san, you’ve worked on many games in the Ivalice Alliance from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance to Final Fantasy Tactics A2 and now Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age. What would you have done differently with the Ivalice games as a whole?
Hiroaki Kato, Producer: That’s a good question. [Laughs] I would imagine what Ito-san might think. He would probably not focus on Ivalice per-se, but his focus would be on how to make the gameplay more interesting. He would come up with new ways of playing the game and if he decides to use Ivalice as a stage for that it would probably be another topic. His priority would be coming up with new gameplay.
What would you do if you had a chance to revise the gameplay or add in new gambits?
The base of this is the International Zodiac Job System version where there are 12 new jobs. We are still working on improvements to the Zodiac Job system as we speak. Please look forward to announcements in the future. Mr. Hiroyuki Ito is working with us on how to expand the Zodiac Job system and that is in the works now.
Kato-san how do you think Vaan and Luso would feel about Ivalice if they knew what Marche knew – that Ivalice was in a storybook?
I guess it would be the same if we found out we were in a storybook! [Laughs] Each of the characters are living their lives to the fullest and this is beyond this understanding. This is all they can live for and I think it is out of their realm to consider Ivalice is not a real world.
Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age will release worldwide in 2017 for PlayStation 4. You can check out the game’s latest footage from E3 2016 in our earlier report.
