In the latest issue of NGamer (A UK Nintendo Magazine) they have a feature titled: "Nintendo makes it's OWN Fantasy?".
The article reads:
"Yasumi Matsuno is a legendary developer in Japan. His games Vagrant Story and Final Fantasy XII have both got 40/40 scores from Famitsu. He has left Square Enix but after leaving nobody knew where he was.
He was later seen on a Wii promotion video at a Pre-Release Press event in Japan.
Well we have just heard from a trusted source where he is right now and what he's been up to since leaving Square Enix. First of all know that he is DEFINITELY working on Wii but he is much closer to Nintendo then you think.
You see since Satoru Iwata became President he has wanted Nintendo to excel more in the RPG field. He has pushed a lot of money into Fire Emblem since becoming President but he also always wanted to create a new First Party RPG owned by Nintendo that is as popular as Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy are in Japan.
Both Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto know Matsuno is the Director of two 40/40 scoring RPGs. Once word he left Square Enix reached Nintendo, Satoru Iwata contacted him and asked him to join Nintendo. He accepted and was allocated to Nintendo EAD Tokyo as it was closest to his current location.
At EAD Tokyo Matsuno got to play Super Mario Galaxy a lot and also got in-depth knowledge of the Wii hardware and controls from the developers there. Iwata wanted him to start planning on a new First Party RPG for Wii and allocated him a group of 4 developers to work with and get his vision presentable in some form. This process took around 8 months.
So Matsuno was at EAD Tokyo for 8 months. He joined around April 2006 and it was near the end of his stay there that his face was shown on the Wii promotion video at a Pre-Release Press event in Japan.
Here is what he said on the video:
"The Wii controller makes total sense when you think about FPS-like games, but my question was, will the controls fit other existing games? However, when I first tried Mario Galaxy, I realized that the controller fit the game almost scarily well. It allows you to intuitively feel the game and its atmosphere."
'Graphics (these days) have evolved, and there are many games claiming that this generates a more realistic atmosphere. However, there are very few games that have a control interface that lives up to this atmosphere. With the Wii controller you can actually feel like you're touching or living in this atmosphere."
Notice how he has played Super Mario Galaxy and has magically got the Nintendo mentality of Gameplay over Graphics even though Vagrant Story and FFXII pushed their respective consoles to the limits? Someone has been employed.
Matsuno showed his RPG for Wii and naturally it was impressive. Iwata wanted it to be fully realised in a game but they had no team to make it. Therefore Iwata started to look outside Nintendo for help.
They needed a development team that had experience with RPGs, and could produce graphics on par with the best in the genre such as Square Enix. Iwata then recalled Monolith working on Wii and that most of the Xenogears and Chrono Cross team were at that studio.
This is where Matsuno would make their First Party RPG. Matsuno returned to EAD Tokyo continuing the planning of the RPG while preparing for a development team to come available.
Iwata then eventually bought Monolith from Namco Bandai and Matsuno has already settled in the studio and has his own development team currently in the early stages of making our First Party Final Fantasy killer.
He has united with people that have made ****cs like Chrono Cross and Xenogears. Monolith is focusing on Disaster: Day of Crisis, a Survival game on Wii, but once complete Matsuno's RPG will take over completely and hopefully become a big RPG series in Japan.
Monolith to Nintendo now are what Square were to Nintendo back in the SNES era.Magazine
It's taken from a magazine but I shall look for a link that also supports this.
Log in to comment