Dissidia Final Fantasy – Short Interview with the Developers Hints at Plans for a Sequel with Kingdom Hearts?

Last week some of the Square-Enix staff, namely planning director Takashi Arakawa and Yoshinori Kitase (director, writer and producer) were present at a gaming event in Munich, Germany. Below is a translation (thanks to Tetsujin) regarding their writing of the scenario and possibly ideas for a sequel.

The German gaming site play3 interviewed them about the PSP game Dissidia.

– How do you make sure that no logical errors or plot holes find their way into the story and presentation of so many Final Fantasy games?

We have three measures that prevent that. First of all, a majority of the Square Enix staff already took part in the development of previous FF games. Secondly, we publish guide books in Japan that also serve us as reference archives. And thirdly, we have a couple of employees – like a young female colleague for example – who played through all of the FF games and really know all the details.

– How long does it take to  play through Dissidia?

– Arakawa-san: The Japanese version has a whole 40 hours of playtime. The US/European version allows to play through the game in a mere 10 hours by having branches in the game’s story mode. Apart from that, the balancing for the duels has been slightly readjusted. You can still play through the long version of the story mode if you feel like it, though.

– How do you develop for the PSP and how do you see the future of that portable system?

– Arakawa-san: Our development teams are in constant competition with each other. Every department has their own approach and tweaks the engine that fits their game the most.

Kitase-san: A majority of the Kingdom Hearts 2 staff has worked on Dissidia. The similarity between PS2 and PSP paid off for us. What else can be done with the PSP is something we will show with Final Fantasy Agito XIII. Apart from that, we still have lots of other PSP projects in the making.

Another article didn’t reveal anything new except for one interesting bit at the end:

“According to Kitase-san, a sequel would be ‘very interesting’. Maybe it’ll include Kingdom Hearts characters then?
‘Basically, yeah, that’d be possible. Although we’d have to discuss that with Disney, of course…’ ”

Source: VideoGamesZone, play3