---Which part of the battle system did you work on the most?
Kanemori:The feeling of exhilaration. Lately, action games have been decreasing, and there are many games where you just stare for a long period of time. Of course it's nice that the images are pretty, but I want to bring back the joy of using the controller one more time. The feeling of gripping your controller and really playing is exhilarating.

---It feels really nice that he automatically jumps when fighting an enemy in the air.
Kanemori: That is certainly the case. That was because when I tried it out it turned out pretty nice, so I kept that in.
Yasui: We tried out implementing several ideas. For example, in the beginning, "attack" would not continue into a combo in midair. We thought, "Wouldn't it hit if you move forward a little bit after you attack in the air?" and once we tested it out, it turned into a nice combo. While we are implementing these, we keep improving.
Kanemori:And another thing, I wanted the game to be playable without reading the manual. That's why I put in some helpful tutorials in the game. As the player gains more skills, the tutorials will teach how to use them. Once the player gets accustomed to that, more new elements are added, and another tutorial comes up... and so on. The reason why there was no magic or summons in the beginning was that I wanted the player to slowly get used to everything.

---Since this time you're making an action RPG, did you have to change from thinking a bit in terms of Final Fantasy type RPGs?
Kanemori: I didn't really think that deeply into it. I didn't think, "Let's change from something established", or "This isn't Final Fantasy so let's do this," or any other restricting thoughts. For myself, I never worked on a Final Fantasy. (laugh) On the other hand, all the staff around me have experience in Final Fantasy, so I was worried if it was okay that I was mixed in with one of them. Before, I made a number of action games with a different company, so with a light heart I thought, "I guess it's time to make a new one." (laugh)
Yasui: I also didn't think about change it according to Final Fantasy. I would dare say that before I thought "How would Final Fantasy approach this?" (???), but this time I just thought I wanted something that is immediately fun.
Satou:As opposed to RPGs, action games have many unpredictable elements. For example with magic, it can hit the target, miss, or be bounced back. Since you don't know what will happen, you can't predict how many effects will show up within the screen in that moment. If you were to do that, there would be too many extravagant effects like Final Fantasy and you would not be able to move. Saying that, I do not want to make effects that overshadow everything. With experience and a wealth of technological skills, I feel that we achieved a balance. The priority was put on showing movement instead of having a variety of actions

--- I felt that the effects in this game feel rich.
Kanemori: Actually, for one move there are many effects involved. That might have something to do with how you feel.
Satou:I believe by nature, effects are something that you are aware of and there are not many things you notice. However, we are making it so there is a lot of expression that comes through. For example, for each keyblade, each one has its different effects. Our job is to add flavor into the game, but if that fails, the whole work's image will fall flat. To avoid that, we took great care into creating the effects.

---It seems Mr. Satou is also in charge of the summons. All the characters seem to move the same way as the original works.
Satou:It would be bad if there was a discrepancy with the movie or video image. But since the animation was originally 2D, it was unexpectedly difficult to express the same thing through 3D polygons.

--- And I suppose that you really watched and studied the actual animation?
Satou:Yes. "Watch the videos" was written on the storyboards sent from the planners. Even though we re-winded and watched Lion King and Aladdin countless times, at first we had no idea how to express the movement, and we lost our way. When that happened, we just tried to enjoy the movie until the end (laugh), and thought about it once we refreshed. As opposed to the Final Fantasy summon beasts, we created summons that were characteristic of the animation style from the original works, and personally I was satisfied.

--- Other than the summons, the partners' movements were also enjoyable.
Satou:The partners' movements were various to the point where I could not completely understand them. At first glance, they will seem really smart, but then a little stupid. (laugh) It was a strange balance. When they are walking normally and not just in battles, there is an AI so they will avoid walls and continue to follow you.

---Every partner in each world have their own characteristics.
Kanemori:There was a certain aspect that I spent the most time on with the partners that are limited inside their world. For example, all of Ariel's characteristics had to be expressed during the little time spent adventuring in Atlantica. Even if she had more abilities and actions, since the time in Atlantica ends in a few hours, I have no idea if the players can enjoy all of them. That is why there was a tendency to put more effort into reproducing her movements from the movie.

---Was it difficult for the program to handle so many enemies appearing in a battle?
Yasui:With the PS2's specs, it is not that difficult. Instead of being worried about the number of enemies, we put emphasis on how high a quality the enemies' movements can be. The reason why you feel that there are a lot of enemies is not because of the program's capabilities, but the fact that more enemies appear once you defeat them. The enemies are well-distributed. (???)

--- It's the same feeling when there was the "?" as the number of enemies in the "Battle Tournament" in Hades Cup.
Yasui: Yes. When I began doing that, I wondered how long it would continue. (laugh) Actually, since the Coliseum is a map used only for battles, the background was kept simple, and there was a capacity to have more characters. That is why there are more enemies in this world as compared to other worlds.
Kanemori:The Olympus Coliseum was added to be a world where you can always have battles. Since it would not be fun to fight the same opposing team every time, I haphazardly increased the teams. Incidentally, the reason why Hades was in the 10th standing was because there was a titan that is stronger than him. I wanted it to be consistent with the movie's settings.

--- The White Mushroom Heartless in the battles are very fun.
Kanemori:Actually, from the start Nomura (Director: Tetsuya Nomura) gave me a design saying, "Would this be a fun hidden enemy?" It was as if he drew it within five minutes. (laugh) The White Mushroom now is generally the same design. Then, more effort was put in once it was added into the game, and for some reason, the mushroom Heartless increased into three different colors. (laugh) We tried to add in different sorts of games.

---I think the White Mushroom's movements are fun.
Kanemori:For that, there is enough animation data as a boss enemy. Its stomach droops down, it jiggles, and other such things where it generally moves very smoothly, but the entire Motion Team worked on the animation. In actuality, it took a lot more trouble than it appears. Because of that, it has so much data that it cannot appear with other enemies. (laugh)

---Speaking of which, what is the thing that shines above it when it takes the pose that reacts Thunder magic?
Kanemori: We were told, "Please make it look like it got depressed and dark."
Satou: When we were told to do that, we were troubled and thought, "How are we going to make that?" I spoke with the person in charge and we thought, "It would look pretty lonely if it were to hang his head under a street light along a dark road." (laugh) We took the image from that and added on to it, and then it became that. But it is a little hard to realize that you need to hit it with Thunder.
Kanemori:No, it was better that it is pretending to be so depressed. (laugh)

Battle Planning Director - Yuuichi Kanemori
Major Work - Parasite Eve 2

A Secret About the Game Only I Know
When you are fighting with "attack", you can actually use all the commands. That is why you can go from "attack" to "summon" and link them up as a combo. Try using "attack"->"attack"->"item". ...Even though there is little point to it. (laugh)

Main Producer - Kentarou Yasui
Major Work - Final Fantasy VII, VIII

A Secret About the Game Only I Know
In Monstro's map, the entrance into the deepest room turns green. During the last stages of development, I was asked to change the color. Because it is a map that is easy to get lost in, I thought of adding in a hint.

VFX Director - Shuuichi Satou
Major Work - Chrono Cross, Final Fantasy X

A Secret About the Game Only I Know
The last boss in the World of Chaos has a technique called "The Great Darkness" [Translator's note: I believe he means the move Ansem does when a giant ball of darkness that sucks in everything. I actually replayed that boss fight to see what it looks like just recently!], but since the effect is so large, it does not fit completely into the screen. Even though I tried so hard on it, I figured there would not be many people who saw the full view. (laugh) If you put distance from the enemy and go into first person view, I think you can see it better. So any kind people who are curious to what is happening, please try it out.