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PAX Prime 2015 Final Recap

FFXIV

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Masayoshi Soken had a translator, since neither of us speak fluent Japanese. It was an absolute joy to meet such an influential person of the Square Enix team; his work on Final Fantasy XIV was fantastic and easily helped me immerse myself in the world. Below is the transcription of that interview; with this I conclude my coverage of Pax Prime, and it was a pleasure to bring that all the news that’s worth printing to you, the reader!

I feel like it’s important to note that DizzyPW absolutely threw me under the bus, not telling me I was conducting the interview! I was ill-prepared for this! But it was a lot of fun anyway, and Masayoshi was incredibly understanding.

Ragachak: I’m thrilled with Heavensward, but, one of the big questions I had, I love the music, I really do, but some of the dungeons/instances felt too peaceful. I guess, was that intentional?

Masayoshi: So that he can build it up/ramp it up for the last part of the dungeon. It may feel like some of the beginning parts are peaceful/not raging forward (rawr! Rawr!), so if you take a single dungeon it might be a bit peaceful, but looking at it from a general narrative and looking at more areas, it will make more sense. So to give you an example, the Fractal Continuum, it doesn’t have a direct connection to the narrative, so it’s all charging forward music, rawr!

Ragachak: Okay.

Masayoshi: Have you gotten to the Fractal?

Ragachak: Yes, I’ve gotten as far as Alexander 4.

Masayoshi: [Claps]

Ragachak: I main a WHM, so I always have a group. [Laughs]

Masayoshi: [Laughs] Same!

DizzyPW: I had him update our game review when the expansion launched and so he put about 48 hours in four days.

Ragachak: Because I had stopped playing around the first or second content patch, and I took this huge break, so over four days I had to do all the primals, all the hard modes, every single story quest. Oh, it was a lot of catching up!

Masayoshi: Oh, no sleep?

Ragachak: Almost none! I’d get two or three hours of sleep, and get back to work!

DizzyPW: I cracked the whip!

Ragachak: I missed it though! I enjoyed FFXIV and I played XI for several years, and I played XIV before it was a Realm Reborn, I want to say I was in the 1.0 beta, so I have a lot of experience with the game! So, I’m wondering where we’re going to go! Can.. Can I ask gameplay/story questions?

Masayoshi: Sure, but there are certain new elements that [I] cannot answer, but you’re more than welcome to ask!

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Ragachak: Okay, that’s fair. I’ll give it a shot! Are we going to see more of Alexander? Or is that just the end of the Alexander Primal, after stage four?

Masayoshi: Would that be for just the music?

Ragachak: The gameplay.

Masayoshi: Ah, that’s one of those questions [he] cannot answer! You should ask Naoki Yoshida!

Dizzypw: I have a question; one of the major differences between Final Fantasy XIV and other MMOs you have managed to keep a subscription model for all this time; staff and sound composer and all. Does that mean you get invited, given the heads up for upcoming content so you can plan ahead? Or how does the process work?

Masayoshi: So first and foremost, definitely the development as well as the sound team work in the same location, so the sound team is definitely an in-house sort of team. So this is, the sound team, we handle not only the music in the background, but all the sound effects, voice-overs, the environment sounds as well. So there are different sections within the dev team, so may handle the motion, animation, some may handle graphic effects, some may handle the scenario and overall narrative creation, some may handle the cutscenes, and the sound team is utilized within those different directions. Oh, [I] forgot about one other section! The smoking section! [Laughs] In any case, the sound team is involved in so many different aspects of the team in that respect, we definitely do get to see what kind of game content is being planned for, what kind of patch is being applied, to have the visibility to be able to support those different sections. So it’s not ever a situation just hands over a request form and “we want this kind of music”, just some one sheet request or something. And another thing [he] considers very important: This is a game; it’s entertainment content, it has to be a great gameplay experience and he wants working on the sound, he wants to enhance that gameplay experience. He tries his best to actually play the game, but if [he’s] in the middle of creating something, it’s hard to find time to try the content [Laughs], because some of the rough mock-ups he gets to look at are at a very early stage; sometimes it’s all white, sometimes the characters are in a tea-pose [Poses], sometimes it’s very very rough. So sometimes it can be like an area where the development team says, “This is where it’s going to be this great flashing finishing move!” and we’re still stuck in the tea-pose [Poses, laughs]. But of course, that’s when they actually sit down and talk about it, where they want to take the direction.

Ragachak: One of the coolest things about the music, especially going back to the Primal encounters, at least in the Hard/EX Modes, when the phase changes and the boss fight changes, the music changes, shifts, and I was sort of wondering where the inspiration for those came from. Like the Shiva encounter, the Leviathan encounter, because I loved it, but it caught me off guard! I was playing, I was playing, and suddenly everything about the fight, including the music changed! And it just took me for a loop, it was fantastic.

Masayoshi: So, at the basis of any sort of shift, a style of music, is when the Primal/Boss executes a special move, and the intensity of the battle changes, that later part of the battle; that’s a basic concept that [he] goes by. So, for the first part, we’re facing a primal, and we’ve got this really strong boss, this really formidable giant sort of presence, so [he] wants to express that sort of weightiness of the first part of the battle. And in the latter half, it’s about “But I’m still pushing forward! Just keep going!” I’m sure you all really like that kind of, well, American players may prefer the ramping up in the later half of the fight.

Ragachak: I loved it! I thought it was a great addition to the encounter.

Masayoshi: Thank you very much!

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Ragachak: Back to sort of gameplay, I there were primal or other encounters that I missed in the first time playing through the game, like Typhon and Ultros, and I was wondering if there were other sort of callbacks to earlier Final Fantasy games, like Typhon from VI, maybe we’ll see Odin.

Masayoshi: Odin’s already in.

Ragachak: Did I miss Odin too?

DizzyPW: Did you not do it?

Ragachak: I must not have! [laughs] I did the Coils of Bahamut, most of the other content…It might have been since I last played. Schedule’s been kind of busy.

Masayoshi: I’m sure there’s going to be more and more of those.

Ragachak: I realized how many callbacks there were after I got to the end of the current Heavensward story, where you fight the Knights of the Round, that was such a cool encounter! That was when I really started to look back, and talking to my friends who helped me get back into XIV, he was like “Yeah, did you fight Typhon?” and I said “…What? No! Why didn’t you tell me sooner?!” There’s so much stuff that’s off the beaten path and I really like the exploration aspect, it really makes it feel like a Final Fantasy game.

Masayoshi: [Laughs] Have you experienced Crystal Tower?

Ragachak: No, I haven’t!

Masayoshi: That’s another familiar element!

Ragachak: I need to go back and do it!

Masayoshi: And the music that’s played when you are exploring that dungeon is an arrangement of the original Final Fantasy 3 track, so yeah, definitely something to listen for.

Ragachak: Yeah, I definitely have to go back and do that!

Masayoshi: It’s uh, a 24 person raid, so you might have to party up for it!

Ragachak: I’ve got a group, it’s okay! [Everyone laughs] And another thing that made it [XIV] nostalgic was when you equip the Magitek armor, and it’s Terra/Tina’s theme, oh, that was so good!

Masayoshi: It’s because fans love the previous Final Fantasy titles and voice their opinions and let us know, that’s why we felt it was important to incorporate those songs into the game.

Ragachak: I agree, I love it. It was a surprise, to be sure when I finally got to the end of the story, because that was one of the driving things, “I wanted to get a Magitek Suit!” and I had to have it.

DizzyPW: I had an anecdote to add on the side; and I had a question: First of all, my fiance’ only played this game twice, and every so often she’ll just bust into the chocobo song. It just sticks with you forever!

Masayoshi: [Laughs] In Japan, they’ve utilized the chocobo theme for a car commercial, for a Toyota commercial! [Everyone laughs]

Ragachak: Oh, that’s terrific.

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DizzyPW: Wow.. so my actual question is, have there ever been a time since they incorporated the composing dept. so close to the other departments where someone on the gameplay side listened to the soundtrack and it gave them an idea to change something about the gameplay before pushing it live?

Masayoshi: For the basic part, for the most part, no. Development team doesn’t change the gameplay content against the music. The reason why is because the period of development is so much shorter to a typical/other typical video games. And so they don’t have the time/luxury and say “Oh, I want to change that,” they just have to keep plugging forward. So um, basically once a song has been created for a core gameplay element, there usually is not a case where that gameplay is changed because of the music. But of course, they may make some slight tweaks to the gameplay experience. Have you experienced the Shiva encounter?

DizzyPW: I’ve watched the trailer for it.

Ragachak: I have, I’ve been through EX.

Masayoshi: Of course, I’m sure you’re already aware, between the first and second half, the song changes dramatically.

Ragachak: Yeah, that was one of the first things that leapt out at me.

Masayoshi: So at first, it was determined that we were going to have a special move, then a phase shift, a very simple sort of glow at first. And so when she does her “Diamond Dust”, she sort of pounds her heel onto the ground, and that “Bam!”, they wanted to emphasize that “Bam!” so they decided to end the background music a little bit early so they could emphasize the Diamond Dust and go into the more intense second half, so [Soken] had to talk with the battle team, to tweak it so we could make that most effective. And so sometimes we need to make sure there’s exact timing in certain instances, and it’s a matter of adjusting the background music to make the timing, or the battle team will have to make some tweaks in order to maximize that sort of impact. That’s a discussion they have sometimes.

DizzyPW: A question for someone who is in such a senior position in the MMO field for composing music, how is it you have managed to keep up with technology over the last fifteen years and keep relevant, to keep your vision of the ultimate gaming music. . . basically what I’m saying is, you must have been doing this for so many years; you’ve seen the technology change over time. How did you manage to keep up, keep relevant, and manage to land the position of Final Fantasy XIV’s Lead Composer?

Masayoshi: Is it okay that we keep this to like knowing the evolving of the technology to make gaming music for Final Fantasy?

DizzyPW: Final Fantasy’s a perfect example, seeing the whole spectrum from the little 8bit [ting ting!] sounds all the way to full orchestra in the later versions.

Masayoshi: And can we also focus on how technology had progressed through the years?

DizzyPW: I’m just curious how you can stay so good and how it relates to it, did [he] always compose for video games in [his] career?

Masayoshi: So he’s always loved to play video games, he loves video games, so it’s very important that in his own work, he made sure that the gameplay experience and then the music sort of meshed together and becomes one, it enhances and heightens that excitement that you get from playing video games, and it’s a core philosophy [he] holds very dear when creating music. Of course, as you mentioned earlier, he just had the [ting ting ting!] like literally, three sounds you can create, you can create on one sheet, but nowadays music and technology had evolved so much in the field of video games, it’s so much more advanced. And nowadays when you are creating music for video games, it’s as if you are creating music for like, movies and it’s even harder, because it has to have an interactive element, and it’s not just a fixed timeline. It’s part of a moving part that you’re supposed to be following along with. So it’s a lot more complicated. And so all the more, it’s very important that the player has a very good gameplay experience, and the music is a part that enhances the experience and [he] wants to continue doing so and making sure that he keeps that very close to [his] heart and consider as a very important of when he’s creating game music.

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