FF Tactics: The Lion War developers talk about upcoming title (among other things)

We’ve got another Square Enix Party ’07 interview, and the guys working on Final Fantasy Tactics: The Lion War speak this time. GamesRadar sat beside Executive Producer Akitoshi Kawazu, Co-producer Shingo Kosuge, and Translator Tom Slattery to get juicy info about this upcoming title.

Since the release of Final Fantasy Tactics back in 1998, several spin-offs were released and Ivalice Alliance was formed. GamesRadar asks, “Have you had to make any adjustments to the game in the remake because of this?” and Kawasu replied “No, there’s nothing that particularly changed because of the Ivalice Alliance.”

Series fans were filled with joy when Aeris sold them flowers in FFT, while Cloud was a hidden playable character. Are there any new secret characters in the remake? “We’ve added two new characters, both of whom are from other Ivalice Alliance games: Balthier from Final Fantasy XII and Russo, who is the main character in Final Fantasy Tactics A2,” says Kawazu.

More on the interview after the jump!

We’ve got another Square Enix Party ’07 interview, and the guys working on Final Fantasy Tactics: The Lion War speak this time. GamesRadar sat beside Executive Producer Akitoshi Kawazu, Co-producer Shingo Kosuge, and Translator Tom Slattery to get juicy info about this upcoming title.

Since the release of Final Fantasy Tactics back in 1998, several spin-offs were released and Ivalice Alliance was formed. GamesRadar asks, “Have you had to make any adjustments to the game in the remake because of this?” and Kawasu replied “No, there’s nothing that particularly changed because of the Ivalice Alliance.”

Series fans were filled with joy when Aeris sold them flowers in FFT, while Cloud was a hidden playable character. Are there any new secret characters in the remake? “We’ve added two new characters, both of whom are from other Ivalice Alliance games: Balthier from Final Fantasy XII and Russo, who is the main character in Final Fantasy Tactics A2,” says Kawazu.

The original version had some translation problems, but we can cut some slack since it was pretty common at the time. How will the team make sure that the remake won’t spawn more humorous ‘Engrish’ lines? Slattery says “We are completely retranslating it from the ground up. The original translation is gone. So this time, it will be a completely new translation and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.”

FFXII International: Zodiac Job System was announced last week, and it’s a known fact that FFT and FFXII have a lot of similarities coming from the same world. Games Radar asks “Is there any overlap between the new version of FFT and the new version of FFXII? Or was FFT an influence in how it was developed?” Kawasu took this one and said:

One thing is, the director working on the International version of FFXII is the battle director from Final Fantasy Tactics, so he was very fond of that battle system and wanted to implement that. But overall, the whole idea of the Zodiac thing is just something that’s tied in very heavily in the world of Ivalice, so those games both take place in Ivalice and it’s just something that takes place in multiple games.

There were rumors not too long ago that Squeenix is shifting to a company that exclusively creates game remakes. While it was dispelled, it’s true that the company has a long list of remakes. GamesRadar asks “The original release was the first time that there was a Final Fantasy spin-off game; now, of course, it’s kind of a growth industry for Square Enix. How have things changed since the original release and has that affected your plans for the re-release of this game?”

According to Kawasu:

One of the basic ideas behind it is, especially lately, the worlds — every Final Fantasy is set in a different world, and the worlds are getting deeper and more complex. It’s kind of a waste to create this whole complex world that fans love and then just throw it all away, let it be just that one game. We’re trying to reuse the worlds that fans like.

That’s another Square Enix Party interview down the books! For the full version, check out the Via link below.