Hajime Tabata

The, the, the battle mechanics are, you know, some of the best, and w- and I w- and, you know, I talked about Final Fantasy X-2 a little bit.

Final Fantasy X-2, like, uh, the battle director from Final Fantasy V went on to become the battle director for X-2, and it really shows in that game, too, 'cause so it's a great evolution of, uh, of that.

And in X-2, you can kind of change jobs mid-battle, which is a really cool mechanic, so, you know, again, kind of kicking off from where Final Fantasy V left off.

So yeah, I, and it, and it's funny, too, 'cause, like, I don't hear a lot of people talk about the reverence that I feel like V should get.

Um, it, it seemed like it, it just was undercooked, and there were a lot of mechanics in the game that were, that seemed like they were good ideas but just weren't, like, you know, fully realized.

And yeah, the Royal Edition has kind of addressed all that.

So, so, uh, big shout-out to the, to the director of the game, Hajime Tabata, who's no longer with the company, and, uh, you know, in all of, like, his course correction that he did to kind of turn this into a functional, fully realized game by the end.

Um, but yeah, Final Fantasy XV is, is great.

They poached me.

Um, and then I decided I wanted to become a game developer after I had, this is a true story, fateful conversation with Hajime Tabata, director of Final Fantasy XV.

Uh, really?

Yes.

There was a, a, a moment, I was, like, looking...

I was previewing something or whatever, and I got to meet the team, and I got to, like, chat with them and spend time with them and whatnot.

We were in Tokyo, in the Square Enix building in Tokyo, and Tabata-san just turns to me and he's like, "Why are you, why are you, like, writing about games? Like, you should make games.

Like, you have the eye for it.

Regarding this game, there's some details.

The game staff includes Hajime Tabata, director of Final Fantasy XV, as well as Masahiro Yuki, who co-produced and wrote the scenario for the original Lollipop Chainsaw.

So that's good.

And then Niko Shogun, who handled the main character concept art for the original.