![]() ![]() (laughs) Just as a little easter egg of course. Takai, I know you like pro wrestling… I bet you thinking an action RPG would allow you to put in some wrestling moves. Also, Takai had been involved in the SaGa series since way back, and I believe he wanted to challenge himself by making an action RPG (not just another turn-based game). That split was necessary because they’re completely different games: SaGa Frontier is a turn-based RPG, and Legend of Mana is an action RPG. ![]() After SaGa Frontier, I understand the staff for that game was split into two teams: one group went to work on SaGa Frontier 2 with producer Akitoshi Kawazu, and the other group worked on Legend of Mana. If even one person had been unenthused or lax, I think we probably couldn’t have completed it. This time, because all of our staff were very interested in that theme-a game built around the theme of player freedom, that is-each person undertook their role with a sense of responsibility. And I suppose that makes it more meaningful and satisfying for the staff. ![]() In truth, every Seiken Densetsu game has had a dramatically different system. Ishii: We knew that even if we kept the same overall world of Mana, we wanted to develop a completely new gameplay system. How did that affect the way you approached the development? (laughs) -This is also the first Seiken Densetsu game for the Playstation. We were originally thinking, oh, this is a CD-ROM, we won’t have to worry about space like we did with cartridges…! But in the end we did worry about it-a lot. If you look at the time, we used up all but the last 2 minutes worth of space on the cd. The unique Land Make system, as described below, was originally more complicated Ishii had hoped to iterate on it in future games. (laughs) The kind of game we were thinking of was more like an open sandbox game, 1 where we’d just throw some tools in there, and then players could use them freely and do whatever they wanted. Ishii: “I want to just craft weapons all day.” Stuff like that. Takai: Yeah, and we’re both kind of contrarians at heart, so instead of a normal RPG, we were talking about making a game where you wouldn’t do anything. “Let’s do something with TOTAL freedom!”, we said. Speaking of SaGa Frontier, actually, I remember having lunches with Takai then and talking about the next game we wanted to make. Akihiko Matsui, who I was working with at the time, suggested the Artifact system for event items, and that made it’s way into Legend of Mana. Ishii: The basis of those ideas came from things I had initially proposed in the beginning of the SaGa Frontier development, such as the “World Make System”, the “Monster Ecosystem System”, and the “World Link System”. This latest Seiken Densetsu game is brimming with new ideas, like the artifact and “Land Make” systems. Created the Golem system, world maps, and most systems aside from the battles. ![]()
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