In celebration of Final Fantasy X’s 20th anniversary in Japan this year, Famitsu took the chance to have a great chat with some of the key developers behind the second best selling PlayStation 2 game in Japan.
The interview features producer Yoshinori Kitase, director Motomu Toriyama, scenario writer Kazushige Nojima and character designer Tetsuya Nomura.
Some people online were quick to report on comments about Final Fantasy X-3 and some other small details but I quickly saw after reading it through Google Translate that there’s a lot more interesting information including some that has never been shared before, at least outside of Japanese sources.
So I asked an old friend of mine in 黒凧 BlackKite who whilst being busy working on big websites RPG Site and Siliconera was kind enough to translate the entire interview for me. He’s not quite finished yet due to how long it is but he has completed the first two parts of the interview which explore the origins of Final Fantasy X and the birth of the characters. Once he’s finished the rest I’ll add them below but for now I hope you enjoy these two parts.
One highlight for me is Toriyama’s reveal that he was incharge of all the motion capture and voice recordings and that he attended every session.
–Following the stream source of X–
Famitsu: It looks like X started from Nojima-san deciding “Journey” as a theme.
Nojima: I previously worked on VIII; its world was relatively convenient in going from and to places, so at first I thought to make it an inconvenient world where you’d need a proper journey. Back then I saw the internet a lot, and I reflected a lot after seeing opinions on VII and VIII, so I felt like I had to make X totally different. But if you worry about people’s opinions too much the title’s core would deviate, so since X I’ve been reflecting without worrying about reviews.
Famitsu: So the reflections from past titles were the origins. You also decided that “Water” became the motif in a rather early phase. But why “Water”?
Kitase: Depicting water is tough on development because it takes more work, so people tend to avoid it, but I had a feeling we should deliberately do that.
Nojima: In order to make the characters get inside water, there was a time in the early planning phases where we had Tidus as an underwater plumber.
Famitsu: The world’s overall taste feels like Oriental; did that come from the images of Water and Journey?
Nojima: The images of Okinawa, which I frequently visited around that time, remained vividly. I learned the words Tidus and Yuna there before I returned.
[Tida is Okinawan for Sun, while Yuna can be either part of Okinawan phrase “Asana Yuuna” (morning and evening) or the Okinawan term for the Hibiscus tiliaceus flower]
Kitase: VII and VIII were fantasies that draw closer to Steampunk or Science Fiction. So if X had an Oriental taste, I did feel like it would broaden the series.
–Details on the characters’ births–
Famitsu: Nomura-san, what kind of characters did you design at that time?
Nomura: Until around VIII, I drew the pictures first, and then we decided where to use them in the games. But in X we had the settings first, and I made the designs based on those. However, it’s also a common thing that the setting would usually inflate later on. That was the case with the “Tidus as a plumber” setting told previously; while I was in the middle of drawing him, his setting changed into a Blitzball player.
Famitsu: (Laughs) Are there any traces about the plumber thing?
Nomura: The overalls shirt is. I began drawing it like a workwear, but he ultimately landed as a sports athlete, so the design became all kinds of sporty.
Famitsu: Even so, it was a very massive change. Were there any kind of circumstances?
Kitase: I believe it was myself who said to make him into a sports athlete. I like how a certain Science Fiction movie series included sports features like racing. Sports features had not really existed much in prior FF series, so I felt like it could become a new challenge. If Tidus were to be a sports athlete, he’d become a remarkably unique protagonist even within the series. From there I consulted with Nojima-san, and he turned from an underwater plumber into an underwater sports athlete.
Famitsu: On another side, we think Yuna has a lovely design that combines neatness and tidiness with sex appeal. How did you get to make this kind of idea?
Nomura: Before I started working here, [FFX art director Yusuke] Naora drew a provisional illustration, and Yuna was there in a southern country style. Since we had an Oriental taste, many of the staff seemed to imagine southern Asia, but I personally wanted to include a Japanese Asian test.
Nojima: Tidus and Yuna’s character figures got gradually completed ever since we decided their voice actors to be Mr Masakazu Morita and Ms Mayuko Aoki.
Toriyama: Both of them had been participating as motion actors since VIII. At that time they were still novices and X was their first attempts as voice actors, and we also fumbled while doing the production. So rather than having them perform by explaining the settings prepared beforehand, it felt more like we created it from scratch together with them.
Kitase: Right now it’s normal for each actor to have their recording sessions separated, but back then we recorded them while gathered so they spoke to each other.
Famitsu: Did Toriyama-san do the acting guidance?
Toriyama: That’s right. I was in charge of recording both motion captures and voices. Back then I was present at all of the recording places, but that was so excessive that I can’t do that anymore (laughs).
Famitsu: (Laughs) By the way, was it Toriyama’s direction that made Tidus have a verbal tic?
Nojima: That was me. The reason is simple; because there had never been a protagonist with such verbal tic before. And perhaps it may also drew closer to Morita-san.
Toriyama: No, Morita-san doesn’t actually speak like that (laughs). Back then Morita-san felt more like having a vigorous image.
Famitsu: In that case, was Yuna’s verbal tone also based on Aoki-san’s image?
Nojima: Basically that’s the case. At first I assumed Yuna to have a different way of speaking from now. But when I had Aoki-san read the lines for the first time, I felt like her polite way of speaking fit well, so I made the change.
Toriyama: Once the scenario is done to some degree, we revised the script book for voice recordings. During that process, they also refined the quotes.
Famitsu: From the quotes, we saw that you tend to make conversations about subjects fall into the past, but in the English translation you included [the 1st-person pronoun] “I”.
Nojima: That’s right. When we released the overseas version in Japan as Final Fantasy X International, we rewrote the subtitles to match with those [English voices]. Now that I think of it, I feel like Kitase-san had allowed such work.
Famitsu: By the way, Final Fantasy X HD Remaster’s subtitles are based on the original [Japanese voices], right?
Kitase: That’s right.
Famitsu: In that case, in order to find the differences, you’d have to play International too.
Nojima: In the overseas version, Machine was translated to Machina. That was cool, so we did things like changing everything to Machina.
Famitsu: Let’s return to the characters. Jecht is a unique father figure, but where did you get the idea from?
Nojima: There was no model. We first made Jecht to have bruises everywhere on his body, including face. I then expanded the idea from there.
Nomura: Jecht had been set as a legendary Blitzball player and a character who had an important position in the story. From there, I designed him with a design of a magnificent father.
Nojima: I did not have children 20 years ago. If I had already become a father, maybe Jecht would’ve become a bit better person.
Famitsu: Isn’t he a good person? He can solve everything with just a high five (laughs). Did you have any hardships in designing characters?
Nomura: I didn’t have any hardships, but Auron’s age not being really decided even after I started drawing him left an impression to me. It’s rather common to have ages being changed in the middle, but I wondered “how old is he?” As a result, he ended up looking older than his actual age.
Nojima: I feel like we’ve got used too much to Nomura being the one deciding characters’ ages. That’s where the gap showed up (laughs).
Famitsu: Even in our readers’ survey, that Auron became one of the top favorite characters.
Nojima: Auron was initially set as a silent character. But since he was in a guide position, he ultimate had a lot of lines next to Tidus (laughs).
Nomura: Yeah, that’s right. Characters keep on changing like living creatures in the middle of productions.
Famitsu: By the way, Auron’s age is 35 – the same as Nojima-san back then. When you think about quotes for such a character, did you imagine something close to yourself?
Nojima: I wonder about that… If I had to say, I had a stronger desire for him to be “someone I’d like to be”. “I want to say cool things like this.” It’s not just Auron; characters in X ended up getting a lot of explanatory quotes due to necessity. That’s what I’m reflection about.
SQUARE ENIX BD1 