358/2 Days Ultimania - Planning Team Interview

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Published on July 23, 2009 @ 07:12 pm

Written by Lissar

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days Development Staff Interview 1: Planning Section

Interviewees:
Tomohiro Hasegawa, Co-Director
Yukari Ishida, Scenario & Planning Director: Events
Hiroyuki Ito, Lead Planner: Missions
Yasuhiro Sato, Lead Planner: Battles

The atmosphere of KH was recreated in the test version

-- How did you go about starting the development of 358/2 Days?

Hasegawa: In my case, it was around the time development finished for The World Ends with You (DS title released in July 2007). In fact, h.a.n.d. had been proceeding with development since even before then, and had already completed a test edition to see how many characters could be managed. Even at that stage the atmosphere of KH was there, so we decided to move straight on to making an actual game.

-- The flavour of the KH series has definitely been wonderfully reproduced on the DS.

Hasegawa: Even we started out interested in how a KH title on the DS would turn out. But it exceeded our initial expectations. For example, the graphics of the KH series have a design based on gradations, and we didn't think we'd be able to do represent this on the DS, which has less colours than the PS2. But when the map of Beast's Castle was first completed, we saw that it could reproduce the usual KH images, and in response realised that we could go with the same design on the DS.

-- So was h.a.n.d. in charge of the actual work in development?

Hasegawa: Yes. The movies with voices were mostly in the charge of the Kingdom Hearts II staff, keeping the emphasis on motion work. But including the sound and supervision staff only about 10 people were regularly involved in development, with the rest left to h.a.n.d. When Nomura (Tetsuya Nomura, director) first told us, "Let's make three KH titles for the DS, PSP and mobile phone at the same time," concepts for each title were being prepared. At the core of this both companies were coming out with ideas, and consolidating the project while experimenting with them. h.a.n.d. is a company based in Sapporo, but we were constantly having face-to-face planning conferences, and in the final stages of development Ito and Sato went to Sapporo for long periods to work on the project.

Ito: I lived in a hotel in Sapporo for about two months. I was only separated from the h.a.n.d. building by one traffic light, so during my daily communte to and from the company I couldn't pass by anything but convenience stores, and was basically living on canned food.

Sato: I have one funny story about Hokkaido. Roxas lifts up both his legs when he's jumping, and there was a planner who had noticed this pose. On a snow-covered road he jumped into the air, yelling "Roxas jump!" and imitating Roxas, and tore right through the seat of his pants. Everyone roared with laughter. When there were tough times, I'd remember that and feel much better (laughs).

The Panel System was adopted because of the multiplayer mode

-- As well as producing the KH series on the DS, what elements were you thinking of basing the game on?

Hasegawa: The multiplayer mode. With the DS you can get together and play cheerfully, so when we were dividing roles between the three KH titles we were producing concurrently, we thought we'd base 358/2 Days on multiplayer. From there, we decided to adopt the mission format and Panel System for the multiplayer mode. We thought up the Panel System as a system that could be transferred from the character you raise in story mode to multiplayer mode.

-- So it's a system for sharing Roxas' status and abilities with other characters.

Hasegawa: Not just that - even the strength characters derive from levels is made into Panels, so you have the advantage of being able to adjust the strengths and abilities of every player at once, for multiplayer mode. This was an element we'd been thinking about from the very first plan that Nomura wrote up. At first we kept adding bits like, "If you put three of these together you can use 'Firaga'," "If you put this together with this you can make an Ability," and things like that. Through trial and error this eventually took the form of the current Link Panels. This kind of system could get really complicated with all the rules, and we found it difficult to make sure it would be easily understandable by anyone, but also have depth.

Sato: At first, every panel had a link effect. For example, every panel you linked to a character's level would add to it, but magic would be multiplied.

Hasegawa: That was too complicated, so we changed the rules along the way.

Sato: For linking, we made repeated adjustments, and finally made it so that when you try to set up a panel you'll face dilemmas with the number of slots and the shape of the link area. We thought about the enemies' status and movements in order to make players pay attention to panels even in Story Mode battles. For that reason there are cases where enemies are difficult to defeat normally, but can be defeated more easily with a particular panel - this happens more than in previous KH titles. We didn't intend to make the difficulty level too high, but if you don't set up your panels well, you might find things tricky. And if you get stuck somewhere, you can play some Trial Missions, receive some Level Up panels and gifts, become aware of better ways to play... I think it'll be fun to move forward like that.

Hasegawa: We paid a lot of attention to adjusting the difficulty, didn't we. It would be no good if it was too difficult. On the other hand, if you just needed to change certain panels to proceed, no-one would play around with the system. When thinking about the order of the missions players would come up against, we made some difficult missions that would stand in their way, creating an incentive to customise their panels.

Sato: The Ant Lion in Agrabah was a bit like that. That battle was to make players learn to use Dodge Roll.

We decided we wanted to give the Organization Members who went to Castle Oblivion more of a role

-- There are quite a lot of missions, 93 in all - was this planned from the start?

Ito: No, from the start we planned to have more, at least 120 (laughs). But along the way we realised that there would be so many, there'd be a lot of stress if the storyline didn't proceed, and so we changed the plan. There were some missions that had been completed but were later cut to get down to the current number.

-- How did you go about making the missions?

Ito: First we decided on the play concepts for each world - for Agrabah, a map with a lot of movement between low and high places; for Olympus Coliseum, unique battles in the coliseum itself. Then we listed ideas for gameplay we could implement in each world. Putting those two things together, we also made sure not not to put similar missions on consecutive days, to keep some variety.

Sato: The Trial Missions were put in because Nomura wanted people to be able to play the same mission as many times as they wanted. So we adopted an idea we'd thought about earlier, to include different challenges during battles. Usually in games, it's impossible in story mode to go back and perfect a mission you've already completed. But with Hologram Mission mode, we gave players a chance to do this. We actually wanted to put Trial Missions in for everything, but we couldn't think of enough interesting things and gave up.

-- Were there any missions that you had a difficult time making?

Ito: The prologue missions were pretty hard. Due to the scenario you can't go anywhere but Twilight Town until Day 25, so we had to think of many different things, like new paths to take or impressive battles, to make sure people wouldn't get bored and quit. If only Roxas had gone to new worlds sooner for us, we wouldn't have had so much trouble (laugh)

Ishida: Ito and I had to bounce quite a few ideas off of each other to figure out the timing and order of when he could go to each new world. A lot of things like "Until we get to this part in the scenario we can't go to that world", or "He can only complete this mission after such and such day because he won't have that Ability yet." We had to make something like a calender so that everyone could coordinate and make adjustments.

-- In the prologue missions, the tutorial was very carefully explained.

Ito: In KHCoM we regretted making the tutorial too short, so we decided to explain the game system in detail over several missions. Also, you can go over it again in the Hologram Missions or read it in the menu if need be.

Ishida: It's the Organization members that end up going to Castle Oblivion that show you the ropes. At first we barely had them in the game at all until day 22 when they leave altogether. But I really wanted to use them more in the story, so I talked with Mr. Ito and we decided to have them do the tutorial.

Ito: I was involved with making KHCoM, and so I had a bit of a soft spot for the members who go to Castle Oblivion and I really wanted to have them be more active if possible.

Ishida: The people at h.a.n.d told us it was a good idea, and since everyone was in agreement, we used the Castle Oblivion team in the tutorial.

The reason Xigbar calls Xion "Puu-chan" is...

-- How did you choose which worlds to use in this game?

Hasegawa: Since it is a story occuring between KHI and KHII, we didn't want to use any new worlds, and only chose from worlds we already had. We also chose worlds that would balance well between those two games.

Sato: At first we planned to use Pinocchio's world. We had even finished maps and bosses for it. It would have been a fun world, but...

Hasegawa: If the game got too big we were afraid we wouldn't have been able to give enough attention to each section, so unfortunately we had to cut it. It was such a waste to have finished it only to throw it away.

-- Was it difficult to mix the story in each world with Roxas and the Organizaiton's story?

Ishida: It was. Usually in the KH series Sora goes straight up to the people with problems and asks "What's wrong?" and the story unfolds from there. But the Organization works in secret, and they can't be seen by others. So we quite concientiously made Roxas's interactions with Disney characters different from Sora's.

-- But of course the whole story revolves around Xion.

Ishida: Yes. Of course from the beginning it's already known that at the end Roxas leaves the Organization. So we created it so that Roxas comes to that decision through Xion's influence. That's why Xion realizes her "self" quicker than Roxas does. Seeing her change makes Roxas start thinking about his own path. So the first part of the story in particular revolves around Xion.

-- Xion's outside form changes depending on who is looking at her. Is what we see in the game the same as what Roxas is seeing?

Ishida: Well, to be more accurate what we see is "Sora's memories of Kairi that are flowing into Roxas." Then it widens to include Axel and Xigbar, and finally after Xion's "self" took on a life of it's own we see her as a different person. Xigbar calls her "Puu-chan", which comes from the French word "Poupee", meaning doll.

Sato: Really? And here I thought he saw her as Winnie the Pooh (laugh)

Ishida: We made it look like different people were seeing her differently by using cut-scenes of her both wearing and not wearing her hood. When she is speaking with Saix, or others who don't see her as a girl, she is wearing her hood. We had to intrude on h.a.n.d to explain to the people working in Events the rules of how she should look.

-- At first I was surprised, I thought it was a bug.

Sato: Everyone thinks that (laugh)

Instead of having a secret movie you can use King Mickey and Sora.

-- I was surprised at how many cut-scenes there were, you wouldn't think this was a DS game.

Hasegawa: The first thing we did was decide how much space we would be able to use for cut-scenes, but during a data compression test we found a good way to compress the data and we were able to increase the amount of cut-scenes we would be able to use. So next we decided what event scenes we would use for the new cut-scenes, and it was like making cut-scenes for any other game in the KH series.

Ishida: We mostly chose scenes that would illustrate Roxas, Xion, and everyone's emotions. Also, Nomura told us that the scene where we hear Axel's true name is important, and that "It should leave an impression on the player." So we made it into a movie scene. Of course there are scenes that had appeared in the previous games, but the total time of all the new scenes is much longer.

-- Speaking of movies, did you not plan to put in a secret movie?

Hasegawa: It would have been too difficult to make a "preview" movie like the previous games for Days. So insead we made it so after finishing the game you will be able to use King Mickey and Sora in Mission Mode. Since this time we want everyone to have fun with multiplayer, we hope everyone will be enjoy being able to use them.

-- In what way would you like people to play the game?

Hasegawa: Though this is a continuation of the KH series, we tried to make it so that it will be easy for new players to get into it as well. So I'd like for people who have yet to play a KH game to try it.

Ishida: There are tons of DS games out there, but I think that a game with this many scenes and movies are very few. I hope you enjoy Roxas and Axel's story of friendship, and I hope in the end it will make you cry.

Ito: In multiplayer you have to cooperate to complete a mission, but since you can gain mission points and get ranked at the end, it's also competative. So I hope everyone will have fun by back stabbing each other during the mission (laugh)

Sato: I think most people will play it on Standard Mode, but after finishing it I hope you will try playing it on Proud Mode. In Proud Mode you won't be able to win without using Limit Breaks and thinking seriously about how to set your Panels. There isn't anything special you can get for finishing it, but you'll get an award inside yourself (laugh) I hope you give it a try.

Secrets of this title that only they know:

Hasegawa: Initially, Roxas's height was fairly short, but as development progressed he gradually got taller. If you compare with the versions first shown to the public, I think you'll see that he's quite different now.

Ishida: Xion's original name, "No.i", was named after a "non-real" figure in mathematics for expressing imaginary numbers. Also, when you write Kairi (海, ocean), Namine (波, wave) and Xion (潮, tide) in kanji, all three of their names are words related to the ocean.

Ito: In the "Performance" in Mission 37, the ball gets heavier as you hit it, but it doesn't exceed a certain weight, so please challenge yourself to set the highest record. I really want a lot of people to take this challenge.

Sato: If you equip all the Lv.Up Panels with all the Lv.Plus Link Panels you will reach Lv.100, and if you arrange them well you can fit them into one page and two lines. Please challenge yourself to solve this puzzle.