The Last Story designer, Hironobu Sakaguchi, recently spent four days at Nintendo’s old headquarters in Kyoto for a series of meetings and hands-on sessions with the game. The visit brought memories from the early days of his career back for Sakaguchi-san, who takes a moment to reminisce.
“This place was sort of my starting point as a game creator,” Sakaguchi writes. He continues:
“I experienced many failures which are to the extent; I learned from it and took that as an opportunity. This is the place where I was creating a game on the prolongation of my hobby as a part-time worker which taught me in many different aspects. When thinking about it now, they welcomed me in, an impudent reckless young kid. Well, some things never change even now (^_^;”
While not confirmed, it’s possible Sakaguchi is recalling the time he was a part-time worker at Square Co., back when the company was part of a power line construction firm named Den-Yu-Sha. Either way, it was during the earlier days of his career. He writes further, now talking about Nintendo’s involvement with The Last Story.
“The benefit for me was very big. The basis is to observe from behind the monitor player; however, that produces a lot of suggestions. Their opinions were fierce at the discussion which changed The Last Story into a more polished one. Some requests were so excessive and I thought “C’mon, no way that’s impossible”, however, it was discussed with the development team, my night deliberation and we decided to incorporated it in…peeled the outer layer, putting the thickness to the essential and is changing it to something really good with each and every step.”
And finally, Sakaguchi talks about what it’s like, hanging out with Nintendo employees at lunch.
“It was also a big benefit to talk to many Nintendo people, mainly during the time of eating boxed lunch. It was just small talk and old stories, but I was able to touch the person’s true quality by spending the time together. Of cause their characteristics are all different; however the common denominator which should be even called “Nintendo-ism” was definitely there. It’s primitive and straight; they all have the spirit of “creating something fascinating”. It was filled with the energy which produces something from nothing.
“The time spent in Kyoto was very valuable.”
Sakaguchi’s post makes you wonder how involved Nintendo are with The Last Story’s development. For instance, we know they were fairly heavily-involved with Xenoblade, which is also published by them, and of course, Metroid: Other M, which they say is a collaboration with equal partners, Team Ninja.
