Final Fantasy VII Rebirth's Yoshinori Kitase was influenced by Alone in the Dark | Checkpoint

Do I like stories? That's a tough one. Hello, I'm Yoshinori Kitase, producer of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Today I've come to talk about games with everyone at Buster. Nice to meet you all.

I don't really remember the first game I played in my life, but the one that left the biggest impression was playing Space Invaders at an arcade. I was about 10 years old when I first played Space Invaders. The game I'm currently playing is, of course, the in-development FF7 Rebirth, but as a regular consumer game, I was recently playing Pikmin 4. It's a good game. I've more or less cleared it, but there are still parts I haven't fully completed, so I want to finish it completely.

The game I've enjoyed the most is, from the early days when I first got interested in games, The Legend of Zelda on the Disk System. So I love the entire Legend of Zelda series. I haven't played all the spin-offs, but I've been playing the latest one, Tears of the Kingdom, as well. I made it to the very end, but work on FF7 Rebirth got busy, so I've put it on hold for now.

A game that really impressed me was one with 3D characters and diverse camera work that expressed an adventure game — Arrow in the Dark left a very strong impression. Do I like stories? That's a tough one. The game with a story I liked is Hercules Echo 3, a Super Famicom-era game. The scenario was written by Kazushige Nojima, who later wrote the scenario for FF7. In a sense, that was the origin point. The protagonist explores the mythological world of Hercules. It has a mystery-like quality, similar to FF7, with many hidden mysteries that the protagonist gradually uncovers, leading to an overwhelming twist at the end.

My favorite game character is Pikmin. They die easily, but the way they work together as a group to overcome challenges is something I really love. As for game mechanics I particularly enjoy — well, it's not exactly a mechanic, but Hearts of Iron, a strategy game set in World War II, is a game I really like. What I love about it is that in most games, you expand territory by sending in forces and occupying areas. But in Hearts of Iron, even after you occupy territory, it doesn't become yours. Ultimately, you negotiate a peace treaty with the opposing nation, and during that peace negotiation, you decide which territories to claim and which to concede. That level of realism — that it's not simply 'occupy and it's yours' but rather 'what territory do you get through peace negotiations' — is something I find very appealing.

What I'm most proud of in Final Fantasy is that its greatest feature is its story and characters. Each time, the characters and world are completely new, but each title's characters and world have strong emotional connections with fans, which is why it's a title loved by people around the world.

As for the ideal game I'd want to play when I get home — it's basically games like Pikmin or Hearts of Iron, which are strategy games where you command large armies in real time. I'd like to play a real-time strategy game where you command large forces. My wife has been playing Age of Empires 1 for over 20 years, almost daily. I've played it so much that I've gotten tired of it and don't really do versus matches anymore, but I'd like to someday go back and play online against my wife. She's probably playing it right now in Japan. Regarding aiming settings, I use the default setting where pushing up goes up and pushing down goes down. For flight simulators, of course, pulling the joystick raises the nose and pushing it lowers the nose.

The thing I love most about video games as a medium is that, as with the Final Fantasy we create, there are stories and characters, and you can become deeply immersed in them. The fact that you can interactively engage with that world is what I find most appealing about the medium.