Will this genius ever work on another Final Fantasy?

[Sora96]

Oh, I see. That makes sense. I think that Sakaguchi saw both Kitase and his Ito as his successors to FF. Kitase more for the storytelling and Ito more for the gameplay. He probably feels that FF will only become great again if both Kitase and Ito either work on a single mainline FF.

Kitase hasn't worked on the story of a game since Crisis Core.

 

[BrokenHeart]

Kitase hasn't worked on the story of a game since Crisis Core.

IIRC, he was involved in the story of the Lightning Saga. He didn't write the scenario, but he did supervise and contribute story ideas to make the games more cohesive. For example, it was Kitase's idea to add Noel to FFXIII-2. Toriyama originally wanted the story to be just about Serah and Mog traveling through time to find Lightning.

 

[Sora96]

IIRC, he was involved in the story of the Lightning Saga. He didn't write the scenario, but he did supervise and contribute story ideas to make the games more cohesive. For example, it was Kitase's idea to add Noel to FFXIII-2. Toriyama originally wanted the story to be just about Serah and Mog traveling through time to find Lightning.

Well of course but it was like Nojima made the concept, Toriyama designed the scenario and then Watanabe fleshed it out.

 

[APZonerunner]

Kitase and Ito are two sides of the same coin ultimately; Kitase wanted to be a film director after seeing Star Wars, and he's far more interested in storytelling and the like. Ito is the opposite; he loves systems and mechanics, and is a huge fan of sports - ATB for instance was inspired by watching Formula 1 racing and thinking about how the cars overtake each other, Gambits were inspired by him going through a stage of being interested in the NFL and thinking about how coaches have 'playbooks' and so on.

A great example of this is how after FF6 Sakaguchi parachuted them both into Chrono Trigger, which was struggling. Kitase immediately focused on tightening up the story, while Ito saw a bunch of gameplay problems and obsessively set to adding more 'consequence' to the time travel mechanics. This wasn't what they were ordered to do; they just naturally focused themselves.

 

[BrokenHeart]

Well of course but it was like Nojima made the concept, Toriyama designed the scenario and then Watanabe fleshed it out.

Nojima only worked on the original FFXIII, though. He wasn't involved in the two sequels. Kitase, on the other hand, was involved in the stories of all three games. Also, due to being the producer, he likely had final say in the scenarios. This is evident in him telling Toriyama to add Noel to FFXIII-2 despite Toriyama wanting otherwise. Watanabe just writes the scripts based on the base story he's given; he isn't really a creative mind for what the story should be, as that comes more comes from Kitase and Toriyama. For example, the base story of FFX-2 was by Kitase and Toriyama, while Watanabe just wrote the script with Nojima.

Kitase and Ito are two sides of the same coin ultimately; Kitase wanted to be a film director after seeing Star Wars, and he's far more interested in storytelling and the like. Ito is the opposite; he loves systems and mechanics, and is a huge fan of sports - ATB for instance was inspired by watching Formula 1 racing and thinking about how the cars overtake each other, Gambits were inspired by him going through a stage of being interested in the NFL and thinking about how coaches have 'playbooks' and so on..

This is definitely apparent in their recent games. FFXII, produced by Ito, was Open World with barely any cutscenes, while FFXIII, produced by Kitase, was very linear with too many cutscenes. They really balance each other out.

 

[Sora96]

Nojima only worked on the original FFXIII, though. He wasn't involved in the two sequels. Kitase, on the other hand, was involved in the stories of all three games. Also, due to being the producer, he likely had final say in the scenarios. This is evident in him telling Toriyama to add Noel to FFXIII-2 despite Toriyama wanting otherwise. Watanabe just writes the scripts based on the base story he's given; he isn't really a creative mind for what the story should be, as that comes more comes from Kitase and Toriyama. For example, the base story of FFX-2 was by Kitase and Toriyama, while Watanabe just wrote the script with Nojima.


This is definitely apparent in their recent games. FFXII, produced by Ito, was Open World with barely any cutscenes, while FFXIII, produced by Kitase, was very linear with too many cutscenes. They really balance each other out.

Well XII was supposed to have Matsuno deal with the story side of things. Sadly that didn't work out.

 

[Lulcielid]

This is definitely apparent in their recent games. FFXII, produced by Ito, was Open World with barely any cutscenes, while FFXIII, produced by Kitase, was very linear with too many cutscenes. They really balance each other out.

There´s something off about that statement, if we are talking about CGI pre-rendered then yes there wasn´t too much but cutscenes in general.... here is an interesting comparison:

(6.35 HS of cutscenes for FFXII)

(8:38 HS of cutscenes for FFXIII)

(11:15 HS of cutscenes FFX,though this is from the HD remaster, surprinsinly beating LR:FFXIII)

(9:05 HS of cutscenes)