Fantasian Neo Dimension - Hironobu Sakaguchi Interview

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Inverse talked with Hironobu Sakaguchi - the creator of Final Fantasy:

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The Creator of Final Fantasy Isn't Finished Yet

In an exclusive interview, Hironobu Sakaguchi reflects on four decades of making iconic video games and predicts where the industry is headed next.

Hironobu Sakaguchi, the father of Final Fantasy, is quick to notice the Gundam models on my shelf as we sit down to talk over Zoom.

An introspective look crosses his face as he reaches back and reminisces on building similar Gunpla as a child - how he'd obsess over any toy or model he could get his hands on. That obsession led to a singular question for the creator: What would it be like to walk through a world made of models or dioramas? But as Sakaguchi started his career in video games, that question transformed, making him ponder what it would be like to see things from the perspective of those diminutive characters on-screen.

"What would the world look like right now if Final Fantasy VII, VIII, and IX were all done in a pixel art style of visual expression?"
That childhood inspiration has taken on a much more literal turn with Sakaguchi's latest game, Fantasian, a classically inspired story in which an amnesiac boy wakes up in a mysterious machine world brought to life in beautiful dioramas. After decades away from Final Fantasy, Fantasian also gave Sakaguchi a chance to return to his roots and once again embrace the epic turn-based RPGs that defined his career.

At 61 years old, Sakaguchi has been a key visionary in video games for over four decades as one of the creative minds behind some of the most beloved games of all time, including Final Fantasy VII, Chrono Trigger, Parasite Eve, Legend of Mana, and more. Sakaguchi has seen more in this industry than just about anyone and remains hopeful, productive, and constantly inspired. How, in the midst of industry upheavals and infighting, does he remain so? It's all about embracing the fantasy - of childhood, of an escape, and of fun.

Finding Fantasian
Fantasian environments are entirely hand-crafted dioramas, which required an enormous amount of work.

Mistwalker
Unlike any of his works in the past, Fantasian is scrappier, more intimate, and the culmination of one of his lifelong goals.

"It was like a dream come true, for me, where I was able to walk through all these dioramas that I've been following since I was a student," Sakaguchi tells Inverse. "To walk through these worlds, of course, you can't simply have a flat photograph alone, you need some kind of 3D data. We basically ended up using the same technique employed when making 3D models of cities. We take 200 to 300 photos, stitch them together, and then piece together a model based on that."

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