In late 2013, director Motomu Toriyama and producer Yoshinori Kitase released Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII for PlayStation 3 & Xbox 360 and a month later they released Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster for PlayStation 3 & PlayStation Vita. The Lightning Saga was finally finished and a new generation of consoles had begun.
Released alongside Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster in Japan was a HD Remaster Ultimania included in this was an interview with Kazushige Nojima, the main scenario writer of Final Fantasy X & Final Fantasy X-2 along with Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII and Final Fantasy XV. Nojima touched on the possibility of a potential third entry in the sub-series by trotting out the typical fan demand mantra – saying that if there were enough demand, then there could possibly be new developments. He himself would, however, like to see a sequel such as “Final Fantasy X-3.”
Clearly, Nojima already has a story in mind because he wrote a novella titled Final Fantasy X-2.5 ~The Eternal Calm~ that released alongside the HD collection in Japan. Now a 2.5 seems a bit weird if there isn't going to be 3. This isn't all though, included in the HD collection is an audio drama also written by Nojima that follows up the events of the novella, however it brings zero closure and instead opens up a million possible outcomes. Sin is back, Auron has a daughter, Yuna is dating another summoner, Tidus has his own issues after his head was blown off and it sounds like Auron is coming back along with Braska and Jecht.
Nojima said the usual "if there were enough demand", well Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster sold like crazy and sold over 500,000 copies in Japan alone.
In an interview with Famitsu.com, Motomu Toriyama confirmed he was in Business Division 1, which is headed by Yoshinori Kitase. This Business Division structure started in December 2013. Of course this is no surprise since these two have worked together since 1999 as director & producer respectively and even before that on Final Fantasy VII in different roles. So of course, whatever Toriyama is directing, Kitase is of course producing.
Of course, some people are going to think, didn't they say it wasn't in development? Well yes, Shinji Hashimoto & Kitase both said so over a year ago but this when they would have still been getting sales from North America, Australia & Europe for X/X-2 HD. Chances are they were waiting to see how the HD collection performed before beginning development. Not to mention, you aren't just going to say to a journalist, "Yeah we're developing this game for PS4 & Xbox One. Please be excited".
On December 27, 2014 in a developer survey with 4Gamer.net, Toriyama said “My next title is in well underway in development. We'll be able to announce it in 2015, so please look forward to it!”
Recently, Square Enix president & CEO, Yosuke Matsuda confirmed a new JRPG for home consoles will be revealed at or around E3 2015.
E3 of course occurs next month and Square Enix is holding a conference which is a very expensive thing to do and with Final Fantasy XV confirmed to only have a small showing and Kingdom Hearts III likely to be the same, they must have a big announcement planned.
Shinji Hashimoto also recently promised more PlayStation 4 announcements from Square Enix in 2015. Shinji Hashimoto is almost certain to be the executive producer of Toriyama's new title.
In addition, Business Division 1 is the only major division to have no big projects announced. Division 2 is working on Final Fantasy XV, Division 3 is working on Kingdom Hearts III, Division 4 is working on Dissidia, Division 5 is working on Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward, Division 6 is working on Dragon Quest XI while Division 7 is working on Star Ocean 5.
Also, most of the core team behind the Lighting Saga is not working on any announced Square Enix projects. This includes:
Yuji Abe (Game Design Director)
Nobuyuki Matsuoka (Battle System Director)
Daisuke Watanabe (Scenario Writer) - Same role role for FFX & FFX-2
Masashi Hamauzu (Composer) - Same role for FFX & FFX-2
And don't forget, Square Enix is releasing a PlayStation 4 port of Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster on May 12-15 which boasts even further enhanced graphics. This is rather quick and they're the only developers porting PlayStation 2 games to PlayStation 4 at this stage. Not to mention, the audio drama is still included.
Did I also mention Final Fantasy X has won awards recently? Final Fantasy X won a Users' Choice Award and PlayStation Gold Prize at the PlayStation 20th Anniversary event. And even more recently it won a Famitsu Award.
Square Enix is also doing something related to Final Fantasy X-2 on May 25 & 26. Bit odd to do something with a game that is 12 years old and the PS4 port comes out a couple weeks before then.
And before someone brings up Mobius Final Fantasy, development is likely to be finished before E3 begins so the staff from that title will likely be working on Toriyama's title afterwards. They've also most likely outsourced part of the game.
Also, Yoshinori Kitase is still an executive at Square Enix, so Square Enix still has complete faith in the man who directed Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII along with Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI with others.
Motomu Toriyama has also now directed more Final Fantasy games than Hironobu Sakaguchi and unless he's working on a new IP, his new record is set to be made bigger.
Yes, I know a lot of you might have negative feelings towards these two after Final Fantasy XIII but you must remember the game suffered from development issues and in case you forgot they addressed all the criticisms (Linear, no towns, no mini-games, quests) from Final Fantasy XIII to the extreme in Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII.
And to anyone who's still saying that X or X-2 had a perfect ending, I agree completely, I love those endings, but Nojima wrote the novella and audio drama and they're canon so they really should bring closure some how. Even if it resulted in a movie like Kazuyuki Ikumori the director of Visual Works said he'd like to make one of, I'd be very excited for that too.
In conclusion, I personally can not wait to see Motomu Toriyama and Yoshinori Kitase's new title. I have been waiting for this since April 2014. I personally like every single game Toriyama has ever directed or written and the same can be said for every single game Kitase has worked on that I've played. Even if their title turns out to not be Final Fantasy X-3 and is instead a new IP or even Parasite Eve 4 I will have no issue with it at all. I am excited for their new title whatever it is. Toriyama is my favourite director while Kitase is my favourite producer. Please be excited, I know I am.
In late 2013, director Motomu Toriyama and producer Yoshinori Kitase released Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII for PlayStation 3 & Xbox 360 and a month later they released Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster for PlayStation 3 & PlayStation Vita. The Lightning Saga was finally finished and a new generation of consoles had begun.
Released alongside Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster in Japan was a HD Remaster Ultimania included in this was an interview with Kazushige Nojima, the main scenario writer of Final Fantasy X & Final Fantasy X-2 along with Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII and Final Fantasy XV. Nojima touched on the possibility of a potential third entry in the sub-series by trotting out the typical fan demand mantra – saying that if there were enough demand, then there could possibly be new developments. He himself would, however, like to see a sequel such as “Final Fantasy X-3.”
Clearly, Nojima already has a story in mind because he wrote a novella titled Final Fantasy X-2.5 ~The Eternal Calm~ that released alongside the HD collection in Japan. Now a 2.5 seems a bit weird if there isn't going to be 3. This isn't all though, included in the HD collection is an audio drama also written by Nojima that follows up the events of the novella, however it brings zero closure and instead opens up a million possible outcomes. Sin is back, Auron has a daughter, Yuna is dating another summoner, Tidus has his own issues after his head was blown off and it sounds like Auron is coming back along with Braska and Jecht.
Nojima said the usual "if there were enough demand", well Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster sold like crazy and sold over 500,000 copies in Japan alone.
In an interview with Famitsu.com, Motomu Toriyama confirmed he was in Business Division 1, which is headed by Yoshinori Kitase. This Business Division structure started in December 2013. Of course this is no surprise since these two have worked together since 1999 as director & producer respectively and even before that on Final Fantasy VII in different roles. So of course, whatever Toriyama is directing, Kitase is of course producing.
Of course, some people are going to think, didn't they say it wasn't in development? Well yes, Shinji Hashimoto & Kitase both said so over a year ago but this when they would have still been getting sales from North America, Australia & Europe for X/X-2 HD. Chances are they were waiting to see how the HD collection performed before beginning development. Not to mention, you aren't just going to say to a journalist, "Yeah we're developing this game for PS4 & Xbox One. Please be excited".
On December 27, 2014 in a developer survey with 4Gamer.net, Toriyama said “My next title is in well underway in development. We'll be able to announce it in 2015, so please look forward to it!”
Recently, Square Enix president & CEO, Yosuke Matsuda confirmed a new JRPG for home consoles will be revealed at or around E3 2015.
E3 of course occurs next month and Square Enix is holding a conference which is a very expensive thing to do and with Final Fantasy XV confirmed to only have a small showing and Kingdom Hearts III likely to be the same, they must have a big announcement planned.
Shinji Hashimoto also recently promised more PlayStation 4 announcements from Square Enix in 2015. Shinji Hashimoto is almost certain to be the executive producer of Toriyama's new title.
In addition, Business Division 1 is the only major division to have no big projects announced. Division 2 is working on Final Fantasy XV, Division 3 is working on Kingdom Hearts III, Division 4 is working on Dissidia, Division 5 is working on Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward, Division 6 is working on Dragon Quest XI while Division 7 is working on Star Ocean 5.
Also, most of the core team behind the Lighting Saga is not working on any announced Square Enix projects. This includes:
Masashi Hamauzu (Composer) - Same role for FFX & FFX-2
And don't forget, Square Enix is releasing a PlayStation 4 port of Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster on May 12-15 which boasts even further enhanced graphics. This is rather quick and they're the only developers porting PlayStation 2 games to PlayStation 4 at this stage. Not to mention, the audio drama is still included.
Did I also mention Final Fantasy X has won awards recently? Final Fantasy X won a Users' Choice Award and PlayStation Gold Prize at the PlayStation 20th Anniversary event. And even more recently it won a Famitsu Award.
Square Enix is also doing something related to Final Fantasy X-2 on May 25 & 26. Bit odd to do something with a game that is 12 years old and the PS4 port comes out a couple weeks before then.
And before someone brings up Mobius Final Fantasy, development is likely to be finished before E3 begins so the staff from that title will likely be working on Toriyama's title afterwards. They've also most likely outsourced part of the game.
Also, Yoshinori Kitase is still an executive at Square Enix, so Square Enix still has complete faith in the man who directed Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII along with Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI with others.
Motomu Toriyama has also now directed more Final Fantasy games than Hironobu Sakaguchi and unless he's working on a new IP, his new record is set to be made bigger.
Yes, I know a lot of you might have negative feelings towards these two after Final Fantasy XIII but you must remember the game suffered from development issues and in case you forgot they addressed all the criticisms (Linear, no towns, no mini-games, quests) from Final Fantasy XIII to the extreme in Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII.
And to anyone who's still saying that X or X-2 had a perfect ending, I agree completely, I love those endings, but Nojima wrote the novella and audio drama and they're canon so they really should bring closure some how. Even if it resulted in a movie like Kazuyuki Ikumori the director of Visual Works said he'd like to make one of, I'd be very excited for that too.
In conclusion, I personally can not wait to see Motomu Toriyama and Yoshinori Kitase's new title. I have been waiting for this since April 2014. I personally like every single game Toriyama has ever directed or written and the same can be said for every single game Kitase has worked on that I've played. Even if their title turns out to not be Final Fantasy X-3 and is instead a new IP or even Parasite Eve 4 I will have no issue with it at all. I am excited for their new title whatever it is. Toriyama is my favourite director while Kitase is my favourite producer. Please be excited, I know I am.