Yasumi Matsuno Comments On Possible New Final Fantasy Tactics, Ogre Battle Saga Games

Iyane Agossah May 7, 2019 12:37 PM EST

Yasumi Matsuno spoke about how a part of himself wishes to make a new Tactics Ogre, Ogre Battle, or Final Fantasy Tactics.

Dengeki Online published a lengthy interview with Yasumi Matsuno and Naoki Yoshida. Yasumi Matsuno is the Director of Final Fantasy Tactics and the Ogre Battle Saga series. Naoki Yoshida is Final Fantasy XIV’s Director. The interview has the duo looking back on the Return to Ivalice raid content of the Final Fantasy XIV Stormblood, which was created with the help of Matsuno. Note that the interview contains spoilers on Return to Ivalice and Final Fantasy Tactics.

Matsuno and Yoshida went over most of the Return to Ivalice story content in the interview, chatting about how it’s based on the idea of a what-if scenario where Final Fantasy Tactics‘ Ramza and his companions couldn’t defeat Ultima. Matsuno included many meta references and elements to fuel fan speculation in Return to Ivalice. One of these is the possible connection between FF XIV‘s Palace of the Dead and the Necrohol of Mullonde appearing in Final Fantasy Tactics.

Matsuno: I asked the FF XIV team to make the Palace of the Dead look similar to the Necrohol of Mullonde. I thought I’d be nice if players imagined that maybe, you can reach the Necrohol if you go benearth the Palace.

Matsuno also spoke about how he included references to Ogre Battle Saga games while stressing out that the world of Ivalice (FF Tactics, FF XII, etc) and the world of Ogre Battle Saga aren’t related:

Matsuno: A lot of small references like that are in Return to Ivalice. Another one is what happens after players defeat Holy Knight Agrias at Orbonne Monastery. There’s a magic circle warping to Mullonde that appears and Fran mentions a Chaos Gate. Chaos Gates appear in Ogre games. The magic circle’s design in that scene in FF XIV is the same as the one in Tactics Ogre The Wheels of Fate (the PSP enhanced port of Tactics Ogre Let Us Cling Together). Of course, both games aren’t officialy connected, it’s just a meta-reference. I thought that players who played Ogre games would notice and think “maybe it’s connected to Tactics Ogre‘s Palace of the Dead”.

Later on in the interview, Yasumi Matsuno also spoke about whether he’ll ever make a new Final Fantasy Tactics game or a new Ogre Battle Saga game:

Matsuno: Rather than looking back at the past, I’m the kind of person who loves trying out new things. But when you reach my age, you start having thoughts like “How much time do I have left to keep making games?”. And I’m not talking about retirement, I’m talking about death. Recently, I’ve been to more funerals than weddings, and it made me aware of how limited our time is. On places like Twitter, fans sometimes send me messages like “I really wish you’d make a new Ogre or FFT!!”. When I see messages like this, a part of me thinks “I probably need to make one before I die”.

Through the interview, Matsuno reminded everyone that Final Fantasy Tactics‘s story has been completed in the original game, and the events of Return to Ivalice are completely unrelated. Return to Ivalice is based on a what-if scenario where Ramza and his friends met their end in the final battle. However, he explained that he already mentioned in the past that Ramza and his friends survived the ending of FFT. Matsuno also mentioned how Lord of Vermillion 3 ‘s collaboration event with Final Fantasy Tactics included small details about Ramza’s life after the original game’s events.

Matsuno: Lord of Vermillion 3 mentioned how Ramza and his companions survived the events of FFT. They left Ivalice and decided to go explore new lands. When I still worked at Square, even Square employees would often ask me “Did Ramza survive at the end of FFT?”. I always regreted that I was too inexperienced when making the original game to make it clear that yes, Ramza and his friends definitely survived.

The interview includes many small development stories like these, mostly aimed at Final Fantasy XIV players. There are also bits on how Final Fantasy XII influenced Return to Ivalice, but it’s overall FF XIV talk. As I never played FF XIV myself, and seeing the extreme length of the interview, it would require way too much time and research to summarize all of it. You should definitely check it out if you like Matsuno and know Japanese though.

Final Fantasy XIV is available on PC and PS4. It’ll receive its third expansion, Shadowbringers, on July 2, 2019. The expansion will add Vieras, among other things.

Besides Final Fantasy XIV, Naoki Yoshida is also currently at the helm of a new Triple-A project at Square Enix.