 Guys, today, we get to have an interview with Naoki Hamaguchi. He is the game director of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, so it's going to be very exciting. We're going to get a chance to talk to him here in just a minute. He's coming in. Oh, there we go. Hey. Hello. Hi, hello. Good to meet you. Good to see you guys. Hello. Hi, everybody. Thank you again for taking the time to set up this interview between Square Enix and S-Fan. S-Fan, this is Hamaguchi-san, and Hinano, who has so kindly offered to translate for us today. We're super excited to have this interview happen, and Hamaguchi-san, you're actually live on S-Fan's stream right now, so you get to speak with him and directly to all of his community. Yeah, let's go ahead and get it started just to kind of introduce myself a little bit. I'm a huge fan of Final Fantasy VII, huge fan of the franchise in general, been a big fan of Square for a long time, so I was one of the many people begging for remake for like 20 years. So, since the first time, since the first time I played it. So, and a bunch of people in chat are like that as well. Obviously, there's been like a lot of excitement that's been generated amongst the fans for Final Fantasy VII re-birth, especially after the way that remake ended. Can you share any insight about like what is going to set re-birth apart from the original game and even what the remake was? Yeah, of course, the way the story ended was a way that a lot of users expected it to end. So, in that sense, in terms of the story, the answer to the user in the story and the world in the story, or what we want to convey to the user in this work, is gradually being revealed. So, in that sense, it was a great inspiration for me to look forward to this work. And at the same time, I was very interested in the story and the world in Final Fantasy VII, so I had a lot of interest in it, but in terms of the work itself, the user's freedom of exploration is expressed in the game itself, so it's not just about the main story, but it's about a lot of side-contents and mini-games that are not just about the game itself, but also about the story, and it's also about adding experience to the world. Also, a lot of reviews have been announced from the media recently, but it's not just about the story, but it's about the game experience, and it's a very positive evaluation and I'm really looking forward to this work to make sure that it reaches the user. So, I hope you'll enjoy it. That's unbelievably exciting to hear. I guess having the first part of the game basically end with leaving Midgard was super cool, and I think the way that it ended and left it open for, is it going to be the same? Is it going to be different? It's going to be very cool. Awesome. So my next question is with the release of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, what improvements or enhancements can players expect compared to the previous game, whether it's gameplay or maybe visual, just anything like that? Final Fantasy VII Remake is a game design that focused on the story experience that was very special to the story, and I think the user who enjoyed the world view had a very positive evaluation, but I think that the voice that wanted to explore Midgard was also part of my ears. So, this work is very important for the story experience and of course, it's something that you have to work on. The user itself can freely explore the world of Final Fantasy VII, so it's also good to move on to the main story, and it's also good to stop at 1 o'clock and work on the side story, but what the user experiences as a game at this time is something that you have to choose based on the user's will. Yeah, that's great. That hit every answer, every aspect of that question. I could have wanted to answer it. Especially with minigames, is there any sort of expansion upon the gold saucer that we saw in the original game, kind of more minigames, more stuff like that? Of course, for the gold saucer, there are many minigames for the original game, but what I wanted to aim for this time was to have more minigames for the gold saucer like the original game of FFX VII. Of course, there are many minigames for the gold saucer, but there are many minigames in the world including the world map. I wanted to show you that there are many minigames in the world of FFX VII, so the users who played this game, of course, there are minigames for the gold saucer, and there are various scenes for the date, and there are a lot of different styles, and I'm sure you'll be very satisfied with that. But when you get the minigames, it's not just about the gold saucer, it's about how many minigames there are in the world. To pay particular attention to. Okay. Okay, so my next question. The landscape of gaming in general has changed a lot since the original Final Fantasy VII, 25 years ago now almost, just about. How does Rebirth kind of aim to appeal to both fans of the original game and people that might be fans of the original game, fans of remake, or versus people that just might be new to the series altogether? Yes, that's right. There are two main points to make the game. There are a lot of fans of the original game, and a lot of fans of the original game, are fans that know the story until the end of the game, so the main story, if the original game is made, it's a filler, and if the original game is made, it's a character from the original game, so it's aiming to make a game that you can enjoy once more knowing the original game. Another point is that, basically, the great past of the original game, the original game of the original game, which I received when I was a child, when I played the original game of the FF VII, the fans that I received, the fans that I received, probably from the present generation, even though I played the original game of the original game, I don't think the original game of the original game of the original game, so in the original remake, there are a lot of fans, and the sense of the world that is made is what I'm going to show you in the present era, and the fans of the current era, and the fans of the new era, are very careful about the two points that will convey the world of the FF VII, and that's what I'm going to show you in the present era. I mean, I think that's... I mean, obviously it's working, so it's a great way to look at it. So having this game be across two discs, obviously the first game was on three discs, like the original was on three discs, and we saw games do that a lot in the past. That's not something we see too often these days, just in general. You don't see games going across multiple discs that often. What I'm curious about is what is the decision to launch Rebirth in a multi-disc format going to do to enhance the player experience, as opposed to just having to cram the whole game into one disc? The reason I chose the two discs was because the original was a multi-disc, so I was wondering if I could merge the two discs. It's not that I didn't feel good about it, but the reason for that is that the FF VII Remake Intergrade was released on PS5, and the disc size was about 80 GB. From the beginning of development, I was thinking that one disc wouldn't be in 100 GB, so I was already planning on making one in two discs. There were times when we were going over 150 GB, but after a while, we were able to work together with many engineers and adjust the design, so we were able to merge our discs. That's great. That's very exciting. Thank you. Yeah, that's great to hear. This is kind of a, this is an interesting question that I had. Someone who is a huge fan of the original, like a lot of us are. Did you have any particular challenges capturing any sort of specific moment from the original game? I guess translating it to rebirth or remake actually in that case. But is there anything that was particularly challenging to make sure to, we want to make sure to do this justice. This was really good in the original game and we wanted to make sure that it kind of was put on display as best as possible in the remake and rebirth. Yeah, there are a lot of different scenes in this game. There are a lot of places where users are still in memory. One of the main points of Rufous is the timing of the original game. It's a very simple game. Rufous, including Shinra, is a very large organization. The point of view that the president changes is that there is a need to be taken into account globally. That's why we are making this game with a huge cost. So, instead of going into a crowd like the original game, the crowd is involved in Shinra. By creating a formation by itself, the content of the game changes, the difficulty of the game changes, and so on. There are a lot of things that are created in the same way, so I think it's a part of our core. There you go. Cool. That's very exciting. I always remember the whole parade and then going into the cannon and you see the whole thing. I can't wait to see it in rebirth. It's going to be gorgeous, I'm sure. I have a couple more questions here. You have about two decades of experience working on a whole bunch of different Final Fantasy titles. Is there any sort of wisdom that you can impart on any aspiring game developers who want to craft the same sort of unforgettable stories in games that they're working on? There are a lot of people's thoughts, so I don't think it's an absolute answer, but I think it's one of the ideas that comes out. I think it's the most important thing to keep in mind while you're working on your own ideas. I think that sounds great advice. We appreciate you being here. I have one last question. This is just a fun question that I had. I was wondering, what do you think? I think I have to screen share with you. So whenever Final Fantasy VII Remake launched, I did a cosplay. So I wanted to ask you what you thought of my cosplay, actually. Oh, can you see it? Can you see it? All right, you can see it. There you go. Yeah, this is my cosplay. What do you think? Pretty good. It's a very strong Tifa. Thank you. That's what I was going for. I'm very strong. Obviously, I'm a huge fan of the game, so I wanted to know what you thought of my cosplay there. After all, I participated in a variety of countries, like Thailand's Game Show, but I think I want more and more people to spread this culture around the world. I was very happy to see it. That's awesome. It's cool seeing how much support that Square has for all the different types of content that different people make. Again, I want to thank you guys for allowing us to do this. This has been absolutely great, so make sure to watch next week because we are going to play Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Finally, it's coming out, so we're going to have to play it. Also, I am going to do some giveaways for some codes. Not today, but next week. We're going to do some giveaways for some codes. We are going to give away that Sephiroth statue that's right there. We're going to be giving away one of those. Square Enix is hooking us up with that. Huge hearts in the chat for Square Enix, Hamaguchi-san, and Hinano coming on and joining us today. Absolutely. Can't wait to see you all in person. Thank you so much. Thank you. Right. What a good interview, man. Holy. That was crazy. What did you guys think? His answers are so like, just boom, boom, boom. It just hits like every aspect of it. What a freaking cool opportunity. I hope you guys enjoyed that as much as I did. I still need to play the demo. We are going to play the demo at some point, probably in this next week or so, before the actual game comes out on the 29th, but that was like an unbelievable experience. I hope you guys enjoyed the interview. Thank you guys for watching. If you guys like the YouTube channel, all kinds of different stuff from my YouTube channels, particularly right now, I've been doing a ton of Grand Theft Auto role play. So we've been focused on that lately. Sometimes I'm doing wow, sometimes I'm doing just variety, RPGs, all kinds of stuff. So if you guys like that stuff, take a look around, subscribe to the channel, like the video, leave a comment. Let me know what you think and we'll see you guys next time.