Final Fantasy and Castlevania Creators Discuss the Rise, Decline and Revival of Japanese Video Games

For Igarashi, it was the exact opposite. He has previously said he was inspired by The Legend of Zelda when creating Castlevania: A Symphony of the Night.

“Action is the most important element in my game,” said Igarashi. “I think action games can be compared to boot camp training because you have to jump and dodge at just the right moment. You need a story, and in that respect story is definitely important, but it doesn’t come first.”

If Dragon Quest made RPGs popular in Japan, it was Sakaguchi’s Final Fantasy series that made Japanese RPGs popular around the world. Sakaguchi was happy to see his game popular in Japan on his NES and his SNES, but was frustrated by the lack of coverage in the Western market.

“At the time, Westerners viewed pixel art and three-headed characters as something for children,” Sakaguchi said. “We wanted to find a way to expand our business, so it was frustrating that our game was struggling there. When we were able to incorporate CG into Final Fantasy VII, it finally happened.” .”

Final Fantasy has become one of the most iconic and popular series on the original PlayStation and PlayStation 2. But by the time the PlayStation 3 came out, Japanese games began to fade into the background, with the exception of Nintendo.

“I think one of the main reasons for that is the fact that consoles like the NES and PlayStation were very specific pieces of hardware,” suggests Sakaguchi. “This made it possible to make direct requests to Nintendo and Sony in Japanese, making it easier for Japanese developers to master the hardware. As a result, Japanese games were seen as more fun, but things changed quickly when hardware became easier to develop.”

“While Japanese developers have developed skills specifically for console games, North America and Europe have had a long history of PC culture,” says Igarashi.

“By the time there was no big difference between console and PC development, Japanese developers could no longer rely on their expertise as console developers and had to master PC development,” said Igarashi. , I speculated that this is the main reason. The Japanese game has started to lag.

Sakaguchi added: When Western studios started improving their games, they felt new and fresh compared to the Japanese games that players were used to. I think that freshness is very important in entertainment. ”

After Sakaguchi left Square in 2004 to found his own studio, Mistwalker, Western RPGs began to overshadow their Japanese counterparts. While series such as The Elder Scrolls, Dragon Age, and Mass Effect have won a legion of fans, Japanese RPGs such as Final Fantasy XIII and Sakaguchi’s own Blue Dragon have failed to reach mainstream audiences like they once did. I could not attract. But Sakaguchi says he never felt the need to draw inspiration from Western RPGs.

“In the West, children often get their own room from an early age, whereas in Japan the whole family sleeps together in the same room,” Sakaguchi said. “I think you can feel those little cultural differences through the games we’re making now. Even when Western games became mainstream, I didn’t feel the need to be inspired by them.” I believe that valuing the Japanese cultural background is what draws people to my games in the first place.”

With Igarashi, things are a little different. Today, the Metroidvania genre he helped create is one of his most popular indie genres among his developers, with several recent games directly inspired by Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. There are ten.

“I’d like to start by telling everyone to leave my field!” Igarashi said jokingly.

“Seriously, I think it’s natural that works inspire each other. When it comes to games in that genre, I try to play good ones. We’re researching these games to make sure they’re doing well, and learning from their mistakes at the same time. [other Metroidvania developers] our friends. We are all learning from each other in hopes of making better games. ”

Sakaguchi and Igarashi aren’t just legendary Japanese developers who left a major development company to start their own business. Hideo Kojima, Yu Suzuki and Hidetoshi Nagoshi are just a few examples of the many Japanese talents who have established their own studios.

“In my case,[at Konami]we weren’t able to make the type of game that the fans were waiting for,” said Igarashi.

“Mobile games were becoming more popular in Japan,” he recalls. “As a company, I think it was the right decision to shift focus. To a lesser extent, I think the company’s direction and what developers want to create are starting to diverge.”

With titles like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Metal Gear Solid V, Elden Ring, and Final Fantasy XIV, it’s no exaggeration to say that Japanese developers are still at the forefront of the gaming industry today. That said, the climate is radically different from his 1980s to his 90s. Free engines like Unreal and Unity offer more documentation in English than in Japanese, putting Japanese developers at a disadvantage. Nintendo is still a very Japanese company, but SIE (Sony’s video game division) moved its headquarters from Tokyo, Japan to San Mateo, California in 2016.

“Nintendo is a very creative company,” Sakaguchi said. “They want to make games that they believe will be fun, and Shigeru Miyamoto is still at the center of it, and that is reflected in their marketing. , Sony (PlayStation) is a broader company that operates in a variety of genres.The largest market is Europe and the United States, and it is natural that they will focus on that market with their strength in marketing.”

“I see Sony approaching video games as more of a cinematic entertainment,” said Igarashi. Nintendo, on the other hand, is mentally closer to a toy maker.”

Igarashi says that while he has been impressed with the success of modern Japanese titles such as Breath of the Wild and Elden Ring, he wants to stay focused on the type of games he does best.

Sakaguchi played too much Final Fantasy XIV and didn’t have time to play such a title. Final Fantasy XIV is his one of the most notable successes of modern Japanese video games. While the MMORPG genre has traditionally been a domain dominated by Western developers, FFXIV has taken its own place alongside titles such as World Of Warcraft, EVE Online, and Everquest.

“As director (Naoki) Yoshida says, ‘FFXIV’ is like a ‘FF’ theme park.” It’s a game that celebrates 35 years of Final Fantasy characters and worlds, akin to something like that, so it’s kind of a new genre in that sense.”

IGN interviewed Sakaguchi about his love for Final Fantasy XIV in 2022. At MAGIC 2023, Sakaguchi also looked back on the development of Chrono Trigger.

Igarashi’s Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night was released in 2019 to critical acclaim, surpassing 1 million copies in 2020. Igarashi is currently working on a sequel., although the details are still sparse. Sakaguchi’s studio Mistwalker will release the classic RPG Fantasia on his Apple Arcade in 2021. As he said at his MAGIC 2023, He hopes to make a sequel and bring the original to PC.