The full Square Enix Presents Day Two discussion.
for the sequel.
Get the full interview transcription below.
What inspired you to make a new Star Ocean game?
Kobayashi: “
Star Ocean is a very unique brand in that, unlike other games where you see successive releases, all of our releases exist within the same universe. They’re set in different time periods, different planets, and on top of that, it takes place in space, so there’s a great amount of possibilites, so we thought it’d be great to further expand on the story, and we can’t just let it end with the previous installment. So we thought there was a lot of capability there.
“But to be completely honest, I really love this series, and I really wanted to work on it and come out with
Star Ocean 5, so I took the opportunity to further expand this universe.”
The series has been around for a while and you’ve been involved in it for quite some tim. Which would you consider your favorite?
“As far as the series goes, the first one I was really involved in was
Star Ocean: Blue Sphere, which was for Gameboy Color, which was unfortunately only released in Japan. But the first one I
really was involved in was
Star Ocean 3: Till the End of Time, so that is technically really my personal favorite. I have a lot memories on that project. As a gamer myself, I actually played
Star Ocean 2 a lot, so I have a lot of fond memories with that, too.”
Unlike Final Fantasy, the Star Ocean series is all linked together by a single timeline. Can you tell me a bit about how they’re linked together?
“For our viewers here, we have the timeline on screen. It started with
Star Ocean: The Last Hope, which takes place in spacedate 10, which is a new era we created for this franchise. The games take place in order from
Star Ocean 4,
First Departure,
Second Evolution, and then
Star Ocean 5: Integrity and Faithlessness, which takes place in spacedate 537—and for each of our titles, we actually include when the game takes place on the spacedate, so our long-term fans can look and see where each game takes place in the series’ history.”
Can you tell us what the subtitle Integrity and Faithlessness hints at?
“It is a bit of a spoiler if we go into complete details, but in terms of the subtitle, the concept design we’ve had throughout the entire series, the CEO of tri-Ace, Mr. Gotanda, was very specific about using these terms. He looked through a dictionary—not a Japanese dictionary, an English dictionary—and obviously there are a lot of syllables and synonyms for these words, but he was adamant on using these terms, specifically. So our goal is, hopefully, once everybody goes out and plays the game, that they’ll get a better understanding of why we used these terms. If we can do that, then we’ve met our goal.”
Let’s say I’m playing Star Ocean 5 as my first game in the series. What are some things new players can enjoy?
“I touched on this at our press conference yesterday, and in several interviews I”ve had with media, but the battle system is definitely one of the main tenants of this franchise. It’s always been speedy, action-based battles, and we’ve tried to maintain that with this title. For those who aren’t great at action games, you can just sort of button mash and press those buttons to easily fight. But once you get accustomed to that experience, you can also get into combos and it gets very technical and strategic. So that was something we focused on. In the video that we’ve shown, you see a party of six players, and that is another thing that’s new to the game—you have your allies backing you up.”
What do you have in store for long-time fans?
“We really focused on the fan-favorite feature of replayability. That has always been a big thing for our fans. And it’s sort of standard fare for the
Star Ocean franchise, but it’s something that we really wanted to focus on. So there’s going to be features that will make you want to replay the game over and over again. As far as the party members, you have, as we’ve said, six characters. But when they join your party, they’re all going to be there, so you don’t really have to do that party management sort of thing—they’re just going to join you in the battlefield. So once they join, you’re going to see them with you adventuring.
“In that trailer we just showed, you saw the party walking in a straight line. But that’s mostly because we’re still working on it—it’s still in development. But when you’re actually adventuring, you’ll see them going off on their own and walking around, so there’s going to be more interesting and fun exploration.”
There’s been many years between Star Ocean titles. What kind of new characters will we be seeing?
“Since each game takes place during a different era within the same universe, you won’t see previous characters appearing, as this takes place in spacedate 537, but for the characters, we’ve decided to work with Akiman. You might know him from
Street Fighter II fame. He’s pretty popular and a lot of people like his awesome designs—very unique character designs. And for the party, we’re obviously going to have a larger party taking place in battle, so we’re trying to make it easier to see the uniqueness of each character and make it easier to control, as well.”
What kind of direction was provided to Akiman when these designs were requested?
“For tri-Ace, typically what we did was the development team would come up with the concept for characters, and we also did story-boarding and would flesh out the story. Then, once we had the 2D art created, we would create 3D CG models. The problem with that was that the CG and 2D models would have some kind of a difference in the design, because we typically outsource the actual CG work. But for this one we said, ‘we shouldn’t do that, let’s try to increase the quality more,’ so we wanted to have an external character designer, and then try and realize that as close to the original design as possible. We actually approached Akiman and said, ‘we would like you to design the characters,’ and he actually turned us down once. But he eventually agreed and we’re working internally to make it as close to the original 2D designs as possible.
“Early on, we generally just gave Akiman general ideas and concepts for characters. Things like gender, what kind of attack patterns they would use, what kind of weapons they would use, and then he would go off and do his design. And from there we’d give him feedback, saying, ‘could you make changes here? this way?’ and what not. And based on that, he’d do a lot of changes. And at first we were a little worried that the characters would be a little too different from typical
Star Ocean characters, but fortunately, Akiman did a lot research for us and spent a lot of time making sure it stayed within the
Star Ocean universe design. So we were very fortunate for that. So going from the 2D concept into the CG design was actually a pretty good process.”
The protagonist Fidel looks a bit cooler than previous protagonists in the series. Was this intentional?
“At first I was planning to just go about using the new trailer that we showed and not really reveal anything. But then [marketing lead] Nishio-san here was insistent on showing some characters, so we actually have some character panels to share. And we’ve received Nishio-san’s approval to show this. So it’d be great if everyone can comment on the great job Nisho-san did here to make this great reveal possible.
“This is still concept art, so if you’re here at the booth, you can probably tell that the lines are still very rough, they haven’t been fleshed out and cleaned up. We’re using this to create the CG models. And going forward you’re going to see better and better quality.
“So you were asking about Fidel’s personality, saying that he appeared cool to you. He’s not actually cool [in the traditional sense]–the reason being he’s actually 23 years old. That’s the idea for the design, whereas the previous protagonist in the
Star Ocean franchises were typically younger, sort of teenage boys, who you sort of saw growing up and having their own problems. But he’s 23, so he’s a little more mature, so that might be the reason why you think he looks cool. But I can’t really go into the reasons why he’s not cool and more on his personality.
“In
Star Ocean 4, the main character was Edge, and you really saw him go through his problems and thinking about the problems he was facing. But with Fidel, he’s completely different. He thinks about the situation he’s in, thinks about his problems, and comes to a resolution to keep moving forward. But he will have some challenges to overcome, and so for players, when they try out the game, it might be easier to connect with him because he is older and you are going to see him mature as an adult and coming into his own.”
Fidel’s friend Miki was also revealed. What can you tell me about her?
“For Miki here, we’ve typically always had a female character—typically a childhood friend of the main hero—and she is Fidel’s childhood friend. For this one, she’s more like a younger sister. So you’ll see that dynamic and they’re very close—in the Japanese version, she pretty much calls Fidel ‘onii-chan,’ or ‘big brother.’ In the western release, we’ll probably change that nuance a little bit, obviously for cultural reasons. But that’s sort of their dynamic, their relationship. We are using dynamic cut-scenes, and with that we’re using AI to have the characters move around the field. You’ll see her on the field, while in the party with Fidel, she’s always the closest by him, so whenever you’re moving around, you’ll see her right next to him. I think it’s cute, don’t you?”
Let’s move on to Relia…
“We were just talking about how we wanted to show off her back design because it’s very unique—it’s distinct—but we showed off the front and side design for the panel. So I have to apologize. But if you’re interested, please look at the trailer, because you can see the back of her dress and her head, and it’s very unique. She has a backpack on, and if you look carefully at the design and the design of Miki’s weapon, fans of the series
may realize something. So that’s in terms of her design. As far as the story around her, I can’t say anything more.”
Some interview excerpts:
SubtitleHere’s the game’s prologue, via Kotaku:
