Toriyama-san: We're definitely aware of the North American familiarity with this genre, so the tutorials are still in place but some things have been adjusted for the North American release like the placement of enemy units and the use of Gambits.Source: Knowing that the DS is reaching this whole new audience, how do you take that into consideration on top of introducing a new sort of genre, particularly to the Japanese audience that isn't familiar with it?
Yokoyama-san: That was definitely a difficult thing to consider, because if we aimed only for the casual gamers then it would be too easy for the fans of the Final Fantasy core fans, so for the Japanese release, the development team chose what we felt was the best difficulty levels for both users. But, as we've said, we've adjusted the difficulty for North American gamers and it's definitely something that we've put a lot of thought into.
GameSpy: You mentioned a Gambit system, and I was just curious how these are implemented into the new battle system as it seems very different from Final Fantasy XII. How does this apply?
Toriyama-san: In FFXII, the Gambits are implemented for each character before the battle is started, but for Revenant Wings we wanted a more real-time approach, so you can change the Gambits throughout the battle depending on the kinds of situations you might find yourself in. For the Japanese release, you weren't able to set Gambits for the enemy units, but for the North American release you will actually be able to do that so that there is a more realistic way that the enemy units react to your party.GameSpot: With all of those characters on the screen, how do you ensure that the performance is there to keep things moving at a nice pace?
Toriyama-san: The gameplay is divided into separate missions, which are complete-able in about fifteen minutes, and that kind of sets the pace for the story and how the characters move. Within those missions, we've tried to bring out the best RTS elements, so there's a balance to each mission.Source: Are there a lot of restrictions to what you can and can't do with the world of Ivalice? Also, is there a strong trend in bringing American genres to Japan?
Toriyama-san: To answer the first part of your question, of course there are some limitations to using the world of Ivalice and the pre-existing characters, but being creative within those limits and trying to create a storyline was part of the fun of developing this game.
As to the second part of your question, the intent was not necessarily to introduce Western gaming styles to Japan, but rather to create new ways to enjoy the RTS genre. Revenant Wings is kind of a fusion of RPG and RTS, it's not exactly either of those two systems. For the future, we'll absolutely be looking for new ways to evolve the RPG genre.
