WE DISCUSS VANA'DIEL
Season 2, Episode 9
Rhapsodies of Vana'diel — Yaeko Sato & Yoshitsugu Saito

Firstly, can you please tell us how development on Rhapsodies of Vana'diel got started?

Actually, the original proposal was for the content to be set in the "Far East." We ended up scrapping that idea and eventually arrived at what it ended up being.

Given that it was the final chapter, we first had to decide where we wanted to set the story. Like Ms. Sato said, we initially thought about setting it in the Far East. However, once we considered that this content was meant to serve as the conclusion of the entire FFXI storyline, we realized that such a completely new and unknown setting might not be the right choice. So we removed it as the main setting and started thinking about the best way to tie everything together.

Naturally, there was still a sentiment of, "We'd like to include the Far East somehow if we can." Although, during Rhapsodies of Vana'diel's planning phase, we weren't thinking to create a lot of new areas.

Originally, we decided on just one or two areas, meaning it wouldn't have been possible to include the Far East as well. There were other issues involved, but eventually we were able to preserve some of our ideas for the Far East with Reisenjima. In Reisenjima, it was quite difficult to create the bamboo thickets. During development, the environments team was constantly running into trouble with the bamboo disappearing whenever the camera rotated. I think they did a great job pulling it all together in the end.

Did the plot from the initial Far East concept serve as the impetus for the creation of the heroine Iroha?

Yes, I think so, actually.

Mr. Ito* pushed quite hard for the character of Iroha. Incidentally, we used the kanji "五郎八"* for Iroha's name.

Yeah, that was all Mr. Ito's doing.

For me personally, Rhapsodies of Vana'diel's concept of "the further you get in the story, the easier the adventure becomes" left a strong impression. I think that was also largely due to Mr. Ito as well.

Indeed, the Rhapsody key items* were a pretty big deal.

We made it so that you could get an Imperial Army I.D. Tag every ten minutes*, and I remember thinking, "Should we really be doing this?" (laughs)

The destruction of Vana'diel had been threatened numerous times over the course of FFXI's story, but Rhapsodies of Vana'diel really felt like it was something that could actually happen. Why did you decide to take things to that level?

We created this to be FFXI's "final mission." Therefore, we wanted it to serve as the conclusion of FFXI's story and also give players the feeling that this could be the end of the game itself. Although, as we know now, that wasn't the case... (laughs)

It wasn't just Rhapsodies of Vana'diel, but the development team approached pretty much every expansion disc and additional scenario as if it would be the last one. The reason the game has been able to stay around as long as it has is because the players continue to play it.

Yes, most definitely!

Online games like FFXI can only exist as long as they have people to play them. If players had left Vana'diel, then we may have been faced with a rather sad future where Rhapsodies of Vana'diel served as the absolute end of FFXI.

Therefore, I'm so grateful that the game is still actively played to this day.

Rhapsodies of Vana'diel brings back many of the major NPCs so I imagine it must've been difficult to remain consistent with all of the various storylines. Can you talk about that a bit?

It was as difficult as you can imagine... (laughs) In terms of development, we created various resources to help us manage things like the timeline and programming flags so as to avoid any contradictions or inconsistencies within the story. They were pretty much meant for internal use only though. Although, once everything was put into the game, we heard from numerous players that they couldn't progress through the story for some reason... Therefore, we used those internal resources to create a list of things that players could do when they were unable to advance the story and we posted it to the official forums* for their reference.

Yes, there are some instances where your progress in Rhapsodies of Vana'diel will be halted if you are currently in the middle of some other stories.

At the time, there were many people who returned to the game after an extended absence in order to play Rhapsodies of Vana'diel, so a fair number of players still had missions that they hadn't finished yet. Therefore, if they hadn't met the conditions for advancing, you'd ideally be able to guide them forward through the use of in-game system messages, but we hadn't covered all of the specific situations. FFXI had already been in operation for a long time by that point, and much of the game content was built upon what had come before it. That meant that making the wrong tweaks to the programming flags could lead to the creation of major bugs. So considering that interconnected nature, it was quite stressful trying to properly keep track of everything.

I believe Ms. Sato was responsible for coming up with the story during Rhapsodies of Vana'diel's development, so did you make the various cutscenes based on that story, Mr. Saito?

Yes, I worked together with two or three staff members to create the cutscenes.

You touched upon this somewhat in an interview with a video game magazine (Japanese only), but you mentioned how you had seen the cutscenes so many times due to working on them and that when you played the expansion yourself and heard Iroha's line, "We are all humbled by your service these past fourteen years," it brought you to tears.

Yes, it did. I remember being so touched by it as well as people's response to it that I ended up crying myself. In regards to that scene, Mr. Ito asked from the beginning that it convey our heartfelt gratitude to the players for staying with us for so long.

It was Mr. Ito's idea for Iroha to cut her hair. I believe he was also the one that wanted Iroha's relationship with the player to be one of master and apprentice. There was talk of that from our very first planning meetings, and it was decided before we started work on the project. I'm not sure, but it might've also been decided at that point to have all of the game's heroines make an appearance as well?

Once it was decided to make it something of a compilation, I imagine so, yes.

I remember the intent at the time was to touch upon each of the expansion discs and create an opportunity for players to relive their stories. That's why you didn't need to complete all of the other missions beforehand; you could proceed to Rhapsodies of Vana'diel once you had reached at least a certain point.

Although, there were certain points during the story where the story's heroine would be gone for certain periods of time, so I think that made it pretty hard on Ms. Sato here. Another fond memory I have is seeing the more elegant version of Prishe. That's something I'll never forget.

I enjoyed coming up with various patterns for the characters while calling back what had come before. (laughs)

I imagine that as people who helped create FFXI, this was a good opportunity to look back on everything that you'd done.

Yes, I think that's definitely true.

Ms. Sato, is there anything you would've liked to include in the story for Rhapsodies of Vana'diel?

I approached the story's development with Mr. Ito's comment about how this expansion would definitely be the end very much in mind. Therefore, I included a number of messages meant to thank the players. Iroha's line in the story thanking the player for the past 14 years basically coincided with how long the game had been around.

Yes, I felt the scene was quite powerful, as it combined Iroha thanking her master (the player) in the game, as well as the development team thanking the players in the real world.

There were various other instances besides the ending. I don't want to include any spoilers, but the player's eventual "destiny" was another such example. The feeling was like, "You've spent countless hours adventuring throughout Vana'diel and saved it from disaster so many times now, you're basically...you know, right?" (laughs)

Indeed, that was quite a shocking development.

That reminds me, this expansion marked the first in-game appearance of Altana.

Yeah, the feeling was, "if this really is the end, we might as well finally show her!"

How did you decide to make the Cloud of Darkness the final boss?

We were discussing what to do with the final boss when we decided to look to the history of FINAL FANTASY since this was meant to be a culmination of sorts. That led to talk about how terrifying it'd be to use the Cloud of Darkness. Also, for me personally, FFIII was the first game in the series that I played, so everyone was pretty much on the same page with choosing it to be the last boss.

Yes, I remember the whole process went quite smoothly.

Although, there was a question of, "What should we do with the design; I mean, it's a cloud, right?" In the end, we had a mask from the enemy NPC Volto Oscuro, so we added a bit of a "mist" to that, gave the character an irregular shape, and that was that.

Mr. Tanaka* worked on FFIII, so it felt like selecting the Cloud of Darkness as the last boss was also a sign of respect to him as well.

Yes, I suppose that was part of it too. Although, I did have some trouble writing the story's final battle. Whenever I come up with a story, I always try to prevent it from overlapping with any existing stories too much. FFXI already featured a variety of stories and battles within it, so I didn't want this to become like a simple adaptation of something that had already come before... The Cloud of Darkness already had a predetermined backstory and power levels, so I—and this is rather unusual for me—had trouble coming up with a way to be able to defeat such an overwhelming opponent.

You mean it was difficult coming up with a logical reason to explain the player's victory.

However, in the midst of all that, I had a moment of inspiration when I was talking to a fellow team member. I thought to myself, "the enemy is a cloud, so we could summon the wind during the battle and force it to disperse." Once that general direction was decided, I felt a sense of relief and that I could finally get some sleep for a change. (laughs) FFXI has been going on for so long that it's easy for things like bosses and battles to overlap if you're not careful. So it's always hard trying to tie things together while avoiding such pitfalls along the way.

You don't just want to create some hastily thrown together "magic bullet" that delivers a miracle to rescue the players from their predicament.

Yes, what's commonly referred to as a "deus ex machina"* in storytelling. I'm not a fan of the gods coming in and resolving everything with just a simple word or two. That was only going to be used as an absolute last resort. So it was quite a difficult journey, but I ended up satisfied with the end result. Besides, you always know it'll turn out okay when you've got Mr. Saito on the team. (laughs)

(laughs)

If there was ever anything I didn't know, I'd simply ask Mr. Saito and he'd immediately provide an answer. He was such a tremendous help. Therefore, it was hard writing The Voracious Resurgence, as I no longer had Mr. Saito to consult with... (laughs wryly)

Although, I think it turned out quite well in the end. (laughs)

That's due to the strong team we had in place. The duo of Mr. Yamazaki* and Mr. Kugi* did their best to fill your shoes.

Can you please tell us how you felt creating the song that plays at the end, "Rhapsodies of Vana'diel"?

We recruited players to sing in the chorus; it was really something bringing everyone together. I think it was an excellent idea. Who came up with it again?

It had to have been Mr. Mizuta.* I remember him saying something like, "This is the end, so I want everyone to sing. I'll do whatever I have to do in the editing phase."

I think it was an unprecedented undertaking.

It's my belief that it was only possible because FFXI had been going strong for 14 years at the time. You could really feel the history behind it.

It was pretty tough behind the scenes. I remember hearing that the ending theme song was five minutes long, and my only response was, "Huh?"

I heard that Mr. Mizuta requested the song be played in its entirety without any cuts or edits whenever it was used in the game.

Yes, he did say that. I replied, "In its entirety? It's five minutes long, right?" He basically said he "had faith in me," meaning I could only respond with, "Um, okay." (laughs) So we kept at it until we found that we could make it work if we started playing it from the moment Iroha places her hands on the ground and bows before the player. In the end, I think it all came together quite nicely.

Yes, that was a very moving scene.

Thank you. Although, the scene moves in conjunction with the song, so I imagine it kind of rushed players who wanted to watch the cutscene at their leisure. That is the one regret I have about the whole thing.

In regards to the lyrics, I wrote them with multiple layers of meaning since I knew it was meant to be the end. In doing so, however, I did receive a little pushback from Mr. Mizuta. He felt that the lyrics were a bit heavy for a song that was based on "Vana'diel March." Normally, I made whatever changes he requested, but this time, I felt like I wanted to come up with a cool ending and thought the heavier feeling matched what I was aiming for, so I actually disagreed with him, which was rare for me. Mr. Mizuta has been at the company much longer than me, so I really felt like, "Please forgive me, Mr. Mizuta!" the whole time. (laughs)

What were your feelings the first time you heard the song, Mr. Saito?

I cried.

(laughs)

I listened to it over and over again while I created the final scene.

Even though Rhapsodies of Vana'diel was created to be the end of the FFXI story, what were your thoughts, Mr. Saito, when you learned that a new scenario, The Voracious Resurgence, would be released?

I thought, "Wait, what? Is the game getting another extended story addition? I thought Rhapsodies of Vana'diel was supposed to be the end?" (laughs) Although, when I saw Mr. Fujito, he told me that Ms. Sato was handling the story, and then I knew everything would be all right.

Thank you. Still, like I mentioned before, I did have a bit of panic set in when I learned that Mr. Saito had moved on from the team. (laughs)

Did you see the story for The Voracious Resurgence, Mr. Saito?

Yes, I watched it all the way through.

I’m impressed!

The main characters included NPCs that Ms. Sato had worked on, so I felt she did an excellent job. While I figured she'd simply pick up whatever story elements were left on the cutting room floor during Rhapsodies of Vana'diel, I was amazed at everything else she included that wasn't even really touched upon before.

The Galka storyline was pretty difficult.

Yes, it did reveal the secret behind the Galkan system of reincarnation.

I suppose if we've made it this far, we could probably come up with at least one more idea for a story.

I think we must have used them all up by now.

Well, we do have that Far East setting that we mentioned before. The other day, I opened a folder on my computer that I hadn't seen in ages, and it contained a plot for a scenario set in the Far East.

Really?!

So we could technically set something in the Far East. It'd end up being quite long though. (laughs)

I suppose it all depends on how long and how many people would be needed to make it... (laughs)

We'd also need Mr. Saito to come back to handle the cutscenes. (laughs)

Okay, all dreams aside... (laughs) Lastly, I'd like to ask both of you what FFXI has meant to your careers as game developers.

I worked on FFXI for nearly a dozen years, so it is a big part of who I am as a game developer. Since joining Square (before the company became Square Enix), I've been involved with FFXI for more than half of my career here. Also, since it's an online game, you can get feedback from your player base in real time, which is an experience you just can't get with standalone games. That was pretty amazing.

I'm often writing the story for FFXI in text form, but the act of writing something to create a story really gets you to look inside yourself. And once you know yourself, you can bring out your best and worst qualities and use them to create the story's characters. So in that sense, I feel that all of the feedback I got from my fellow team members and the players themselves really helped me grow as a person through FFXI. At the time, I was always racing to meet deadlines and was simply caught up in the moment, but looking back at it now, I can see that was definitely true. Although it was a long period of time, it all feels like it went by pretty quickly. I guess you could say that about life in general too.