KawazuFINAL FANTASY CRYSTAL CHRONICLES: My Life as a King is a new title made specifically for Wii. However, as opposed to conventional packaged titles you pick up at the store, this will be a WiiWare¹ title to be downloaded and played on the Wii like the Virtual Console² games.

TsuchidaThe impetus for this project was Iwata-san's³ announcement at the 2006 Wii Preview⁴ that Nintendo was planning to release compact, Wii-specific titles that will be available for download. Sensing new possibilities, one of our programmers that was present for Iwata-san’s speech, had immediately brought us a project plan for this title. Since the current title is meant to be downloaded to the Wii console, there were some file size limitations. Even so, I thought this would be a great challenge to create new and interesting game play that was different from conventional package titles, and decided to move ahead with the project.

Kawazu With conventional packaged titles, developers usually begin working on development only after plans have been finalized at the producer level. But for this game, there was a completely different feel to the development process. The staff members had a clear image of exactly what they wanted to make right from the beginning.

TsuchidaSince development for this game began with the idea of kingdom-building, we employed a systematic approach and started developing from what would become the foundation for building your kingdom, the ability to erect buildings. The development framework at the time was comprised of a programmer, a planner, and a designer working on building design. This group would later grow to include a total of four or five staff members, but a small-scale framework like this would be unimaginable in a packaged software. Of course, as all games need a cohesive setting and set of characters, I went to Kawazu-san to see if we could use graphics from the Nintendo GameCube versions of FFCC⁵. It was from this point that development began to pick up speed.

One of the reasons that I hoped to incorporate the world of FFCC into this project was because I was a fan of Toshiyuki Itahana’s⁶ character design. As a game in which players develop their kingdom by communicating with and obtaining information from their subjects, this game places special emphasis on interaction with the townsfolk. The reason I so fervently wanted to use Itahana’s characters was to give the game some real depth through interaction with these characters. Luckily, Kawazu-san agreed to the idea, as well as the overall content of the game, and gave us the official thumbs up to proceed with the project.

Kawazu This title will be positioned as a spin-off of the FFCC series. Originally, the FFCC series was developed under the concept of painting a softer, warmer fantasy world that differed from our main Final Fantasy (FF) stories. This series share a common setting, like how there are crystals that serve an important purpose, four different tribes, and adventurers seeking to save the world. One of the unique characteristics of the FFCC series is how the story serves to piece together the connections between party members and their families. I believe that this game faithfully maintains this tradition and  has successfully recreated the look and feel of the FFCC world.

Tsuchida The current title takes place in the same place as the GameCube version of FFCC, though several years later. In the GameCube version, miasma7 has enveloped the world and adventurers belonging to the Crystal Caravan are sent to seek out myrrh droplets in order to sustain the crystal that protects humankind from the miasma. Ultimately, the caravan succeeds in clearing miasma from the face of the Earth and bringing peace to the land, but this game seeks to paint a "what if” picture on the premise that the caravan never returned.

Kawazu Though peace has returned to the land in the current title, there is a kingdom that lies in ruin because the caravan never returned. The boy king of that country (the player) sets out to find his missing father, the prior king. In his journey, he arrives in a strange land in which buildings can be erected with magic. This is where the game begins. The player takes on the role of the boy king, and with the "Architek” power conferred upon him by the crystal, seeks to rebuild his ruined country by magically constructing buildings.

Kawazu In a conventional RPG, the main character is expected to fight. This title is unique, however, as the main character, the king, develops and supports the adventurers by erecting buildings rather than fighting for himself. It’s a bit unusual for a game to be built on a concept of rebuilding a kingdom by magically erecting buildings, but I think that’s why it’s such a challenging game.

Tsuchida Let me explain the flow of the game in a bit more detail. Although the king can raise buildings by using Architek magic, he needs energy called "elementite” to do so. As elementite can be obtained by defeating dungeon monsters, adventurers can be chosen from among the townsfolk at the king’s behest, to explore these dungeons. Battle outcomes are determined automatically, and when the party returns, the king will be given reports ranging from how monsters were defeated, or in some cases, to how magic spells were ineffective and led to the defeat of the party. Depending on the report, for example, a player may learn that the adventurers encountered a monster impervious to weapons. He may decide to build a school for black magic and use a job change to make one of the adventurers a black mage capable of wielding black magic. He might also build a pub where adventurers gather, and build or reorganize a party strong enough to take on tougher monsters. Continuing to develop adventurers in this way is one of the goals of the game.

Kawazu As a downloadable title, this game is smaller in scale compared to other packaged titles. Even so, I think it possesses considerable depth. The game is not simply about progressing forward, but also about the various discoveries you can make by paying close attention to the lives of the townsfolk or listening to adventurers' reports. For example, houses built next to black magic schools often yield adventurers with strong magical abilities, and constructing buildings in a certain way can bring other changes to the town. Unveiling all these interesting elements is part of the fun.

Tsuchida Of course, the game is also full of replayable elements. Though the game can be cleared in 12-14 hours, the second round of play enables you to retain some information from the first, enabling you to topple opponents you couldn’t defeat the first time around. The number of dungeons to explore nearly doubles, and you can construct a variety of new buildings. In this way, I feel that the true appeal of the game might lie in the second or third rounds of play.

Kawazu I was initially concerned by what this title could do with limited file size. However, the first time I saw a prototype on screen, I was honestly surprised by what I saw…a product in no way inferior to a packaged title. What surprised me most was the animation sequence for erecting a building. Producing a building sequence in such fine detail with this limited file size is "magic" indeed! (laughs)

Tsuchida The truth be told, we didn’t have as many problems with the size as we expected. When designing a game, our normal approach is to begin with the scenario and work from there. This time around, however, game design came first and the scenario after. By designing in this manner, it was easier to cut out what we didn’t want and hone in on what we wanted to emphasize. I think this was a good approach and one that enabled me to put to use the experience I gained while developing games for the SNES.

Kawazu Right. Even though space might seem limited compared to that of packaged titles, there's far more space available than what the SNES could offer! (laughs) Unlike the olden days, graphics are all 3D now. Although this requires a lot of space, whether or not you can bring sufficient depth to the game depends on your ideas.

Tsuchida Personally, I enjoyed the opportunity to build an appealing game while working under the constraints of limited space. This title requires some imagination, however, as the style is based on a system of deploying adventurers to various dungeons and listening to their reports when they return. Fashioning the language for these reports reminded me of how games were made in days gone by. Currently, we’re in an age where graphics and animation do all the talking. Yet, we employed ideas aimed at stimulating players’ imaginations as adventurers describe the lands they visited during their travels, recreate their victories or explain how battles went awry. This was the norm for game development not so long ago, and I think we were able to employ this style very effectively while keeping past and present game-making methods in mind.

Kawazu Wii-specific software will soon be available for download through the new WiiWare service, and making software for WiiWare was a new experience for us in many ways. I can’t mention any specifics as WiiWare hasn’t begun just yet, but as a downloadable title, we’ve added a few new features you won’t find in more conventional games. In that sense, this game was made possible specifically because it’s a WiiWare title.

Tsuchida What makes WiiWare interesting is that you can design games based on the premise that players downloading software are connected to the Internet via their Wii. As a developer, I feel there are still many interesting opportunities available to us. Some of those ideas have been incorporated into this title and I think players will find new forms of entertainment unavailable in packaged titles. Also, as the Wii is connected online, this makes it possible for players to play together, which is something I find very appealing. Whether it's with WiiConnect24⁸, or the ability to coordinate role-playing with the Wii’s networking features, I feel the Wii offers some very attractive possibilities for the future.

Kawazu As opposed to packaged titles, WiiWare offers us the possibility to add and send new content depending on player feedback and requests. Of course there are benefits to producing a small-scale game in a short amount of time, but I would argue that the most appealing part of the WiiWare framework is the ability to develop a closer relationship with

Kawazu The basis of the FF series is whether or not the game is entertaining. There are various downloadable game services, but with WiiWare, we have been able to try new things not possible with packaged titles. For this reason, I feel this new addition to the series has maintained this important tradition of the FF series. I trust that fans of the FF series, as well as those of FFCC, will find this new title very entertaining. I also believe that it will appeal to many newcomers as well. I hope that many people will enjoy it.

Tsuchida As a kingdom-building RPG, this game is unique. Overall, however, I think we have a very worthwhile product on our hands. Because we didn’t have a lot of space with which to work, we had to work hard to compress the depth and level of satisfaction of our games into a tiny space. I hope that our players will try it out and see for themselves how fun this new type of game can be. It’s the kind of game that you can play little by little everyday and still see your way through to the end. With that in mind, I hope that people who are interested will download and check it out.