Final Fantasy XIII producer and The 3rd Birthday executive produer Yoshinori Kitase has said that motion controllers such as Move and Kinect are “awkward” for role-playing games like Final Fantasy.
“But it is quite awkward, particularly for example in Final Fantasy XIII, which came out last March in Europe,” Kitase told Eurogamer. “That kind of interface is quite difficult to be included in the RPG.”
Although the controller may be awkward in role-playing games, he did say that if the Parasite Eve franchise were to go high-definition, the controllers would come in hand for the series.
“But this [3rd Birthday] is a gun shooter, and we would love to expand the franchise. In the future I think those technologies could be quite handy for us.”
Kitase said that the main difference between shooting games and role-playing games is length. Shooting games can last from ten to fifteen hours while RPGs will last up to forty to fifty hours. He feels that motion control “might not fit so well” with titles that require a long amount of time to complete. There is hope for some motion control in role-playing games, though.
“We could have a chance to introduce those techniques in a mini-game in those [RPG] games, if you like, to give them additional spice.”
How about a mini-game where we could be Cloud and fight Sephiroth sword-to-sword in the Advent Children backdrop. I wouldn’t mind that.