Last Fantasy artwork is a few of my favourite in all of video games. The collection' visuals fall someplace between realism and fantasy, and it’s at all times enjoyable to see how Sq. Enix studios leverage extra highly effective {hardware} to carry worlds to life. These settings, characters, and monsters are memorable, and a big purpose for that's the artwork. It’s hanging and distinctive – you recognize it’s Last Fantasy while you see it.
With every new Last Fantasy, Sq. Enix has an opportunity to solidify characters and worlds into the zeitgeist of gaming, like the corporate has carried out prior to now with Last Fantasy VII’s Cloud Strife, Last Fantasy X’s Zanarkand, and extra. Throughout my cowl story journey to Sq. Enix’s Tokyo, Japan, places of work, I spoke to Last Fantasy XVI artwork director Hiroshi Minagawa about how developer Inventive Enterprise Unit III went about creating the sport’s visible fashion.
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Last Fantasy XVI Artwork Director Hiroshi Minagawa
“Like different members on the Last Fantasy XVI staff, I used to be additionally engaged on [Final Fantasy XIV] after I was requested to return over to Last Fantasy XVI,” Minagawa tells me. “I acquired that decision very, very early within the improvement course of. Very early in that course of, I used to be in a position to communicate quite a bit with [FFXVI director Hiroshi Takai] about what kind of world it was going to be, what kind of taste the world goes to be, and be part of that artistic course of there.”
He says he approached artwork course fairly otherwise from his work on FFXIV as a result of, with FFXIV being an MMO, the staff focuses graphical high quality on displaying numerous various things on display. With FFXVI being an offline single-player expertise, “the graphics must be at a better stage, and so they must be deeper and richer in that sense.”
Minagawa labored with the CBUIII staff to emphasise the distinction in deal with visuals between the 2 video games. From there, it was about bringing FFXVI’s artwork to life based mostly on what Takai envisioned.
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“We had that broad stroke the place Takai stated, ‘We wish to have one thing that’s going to have that really feel of Sport of Thrones,’ that form of pure commonplace excessive fantasy that you just’d see in that kind of program and visible medium.”
Past Sport of Thrones, Minagawa says the staff regarded on the character designs from FFXVI artist and illustrator Kazuya Takahashi. Not solely had he drawn the characters, however a few of the artwork for environments.
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“His artwork has this vivid and clear kind of really feel, so taking that with the concept of, ‘Okay, we wish to make it darkish and gritty like Sport of Thrones‘ and attempting to determine a approach to mix that and make it work, after which work out a approach to implement that within the sport was my greatest activity after I joined,” Minigawa says.
Takahashi’s vivid and clear artwork remains to be current in some elements of the sport, however CBUIII pared it again in some locations to suit the sport’s tone. The environments additionally wanted to be designed in such a approach that one minute they is likely to be lovely, however one other minute, on fireplace and destroyed.
“If you look again on the Last Fantasy collection, you see that the artwork fashion is completely different for every sport,” Minagawa provides. “And whereas the collection is form of shifting in the direction of that photo-real facet, we needed one thing that wasn’t essentially photo-real. We needed to place extra emphasis on that unique artwork that we had from [Takahashi].”
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This was the philosophy behind the visible idea of Valisthea, which is impressed by real-world areas however nonetheless very a lot Last Fantasy. By way of inspiration, Minigawa cites northern England and its distinctive rock formations that, to him, outline darkish fantasy. He additionally cites Iceland’s barren rocky landscapes, Slovenia, the Center East and Africa, particularly in relation to Valisthea’s Dhalmekian Republic, and even different elements of Last Fantasy, like Last Fantasy XII’s Dalmasca.
To create protagonist Clive Rosfield, Minagawa says it was the mix of labor from the artwork staff’s employees in addition to “the IMS group,” which is the group that works on numerous the animated CGI films for Sq. Enix. CBUIII introduced in CG artists to provide suggestions as a result of it needed an actual character that represented these unique character artwork illustrations nicely. He jokes that earlier than touchdown on the ultimate model of Clive, the staff arrived at some appears for Clive that regarded nice, solely to find that when he did one thing like smile, “it simply regarded disgusting” and “didn’t look proper.” It was solely after bringing in CG artists and having discussions with them about this problem that CBUIII created the face Clive has at the moment.
As for the visible design of FFXVI’s Eikons, I used to be interested by how CBUIII approached the fashion of monsters that almost all Last Fantasy followers are already aware of. Minigawa says the physicality of those summons and the way they battle knowledgeable their design.
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“Once I joined the venture, I bear in mind Takai-san stated its idea was ‘summon professional wrestling,’ that’s how he described what they have been attempting to do,” he says. “As a substitute of getting these Eikons shoot magic at one another and battle, it’s extra like they’re going to get in and grapple. It’s going to be shut quarters; they’re going to be utilizing their our bodies versus ranged assaults. And so I actually suppose that kind of idea affected the design; you’re going to have a design that’s extra suited to those close-up encounters.”
The staff additionally returned to what many may describe because the picture of Last Fantasy XVI: the Ifrit Eikon clashing with the Phoenix Eikon, current within the sport’s official emblem created by famed Last Fantasy illustrator and artist Yoshitaka Amano.
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I wrapped up my time with Minigawa interested by his ideas on the legacy of Last Fantasy artwork. Is it one thing the staff thinks about when designing these characters and worlds? He says it varies from individual to individual.
“My job is to take artwork that has been created by my employees and work out a approach to get that within the sport as finest as attainable with out taking away from that artwork,” Minigawa says. “So, in that sense, it’s about attempting as arduous as you possibly can. For me, it’s identical to mainly attempting to do one of the best I can and hopefully, it’ll resonate with the gamers. However once more, that’s going to be completely different for every of the artists.”
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