Ultimate Fantasy artwork is a few of my favourite in all of video games. The collection' visuals fall someplace between realism and fantasy, and it’s all the time enjoyable to see how Sq. Enix studios leverage extra highly effective {hardware} to convey worlds to life. These settings, characters, and monsters are memorable, and a big motive for that's the artwork. It’s putting and distinctive – you understand it’s Ultimate Fantasy while you see it.
With every new Ultimate Fantasy, Sq. Enix has an opportunity to solidify characters and worlds into the zeitgeist of gaming, like the corporate has completed previously with Ultimate Fantasy VII’s Cloud Strife, Ultimate Fantasy X’s Zanarkand, and extra. Throughout my cowl story journey to Sq. Enix’s Tokyo, Japan, places of work, I spoke to Ultimate Fantasy XVI artwork director Hiroshi Minagawa about how developer Artistic Enterprise Unit III went about creating the sport’s visible model.
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Ultimate Fantasy XVI Artwork Director Hiroshi Minagawa
“Like different members on the Ultimate Fantasy XVI workforce, I used to be additionally engaged on [Final Fantasy XIV] after I was requested to return over to Ultimate Fantasy XVI,” Minagawa tells me. “I obtained that decision very, very early within the improvement course of. Very early in that course of, I used to be capable of communicate so much with [FFXVI director Hiroshi Takai] about what kind of world it was going to be, what kind of taste the world goes to be, and be part of that inventive course of there.”
He says he approached artwork route fairly in a different way from his work on FFXIV as a result of, with FFXIV being an MMO, the workforce focuses graphical high quality on displaying numerous various things on display. With FFXVI being an offline single-player expertise, “the graphics need to be at the next stage, and so they need to be deeper and richer in that sense.”
Minagawa labored with the CBUIII workforce to emphasise the distinction in give attention to visuals between the 2 video games. From there, it was about bringing FFXVI’s artwork to life based mostly on what Takai envisioned.
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“We had that broad stroke the place Takai mentioned, ‘We need to have one thing that’s going to have that really feel of Sport of Thrones,’ that form of pure customary excessive fantasy that you simply’d see in that kind of program and visible medium.”
Past Sport of Thrones, Minagawa says the workforce regarded on the character designs from FFXVI artist and illustrator Kazuya Takahashi. Not solely had he drawn the characters, however a number of the artwork for environments.
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“His artwork has this vivid and clear kind of really feel, so taking that with the concept of, ‘Okay, we need to make it darkish and gritty like Sport of Thrones‘ and making an attempt to determine a method to mix that and make it work, after which determine a method to implement that within the sport was my greatest job after I joined,” Minigawa says.
Takahashi’s vivid and clear artwork remains to be current in some components of the sport, however CBUIII pared it again in some locations to suit the sport’s tone. The environments additionally wanted to be designed in such a means that one minute they could be stunning, however one other minute, on hearth and destroyed.
“Whenever you look again on the Ultimate Fantasy collection, you see that the artwork model is completely different for every sport,” Minagawa provides. “And whereas the collection is form of transferring in the direction of that photo-real side, we wished one thing that wasn’t essentially photo-real. We wished to place extra emphasis on that unique artwork that we had from [Takahashi].”
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This was the philosophy behind the visible idea of Valisthea, which is impressed by real-world areas however nonetheless very a lot Ultimate Fantasy. When it comes to inspiration, Minigawa cites northern England and its distinctive rock formations that, to him, outline darkish fantasy. He additionally cites Iceland’s barren rocky landscapes, Slovenia, the Center East and Africa, particularly in relation to Valisthea’s Dhalmekian Republic, and even different components of Ultimate Fantasy, like Ultimate Fantasy XII’s Dalmasca.
To create protagonist Clive Rosfield, Minagawa says it was the mixture of labor from the artwork workforce’s employees in addition to “the IMS group,” which is the group that works on a variety of the animated CGI motion pictures for Sq. Enix. CBUIII introduced in CG artists to provide suggestions as a result of it wished an actual character that represented these unique character artwork illustrations nicely. He jokes that earlier than touchdown on the ultimate model of Clive, the workforce arrived at some seems to be for Clive that regarded nice, solely to find that when he did one thing like smile, “it simply regarded disgusting” and “didn’t look proper.” It was solely after bringing in CG artists and having discussions with them about this concern that CBUIII created the face Clive has immediately.
As for the visible design of FFXVI’s Eikons, I used to be interested by how CBUIII approached the model of monsters that almost all Ultimate Fantasy followers are already acquainted with. Minigawa says the physicality of those summons and the way they battle knowledgeable their design.
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“After I joined the undertaking, I bear in mind Takai-san mentioned its idea was ‘summon professional wrestling,’ that’s how he described what they have been making an attempt to do,” he says. “As an alternative of getting these Eikons shoot magic at one another and battle, it’s extra like they’re going to get in and grapple. It’s going to be shut quarters; they’re going to be utilizing their our bodies versus ranged assaults. And so I actually assume that kind of idea affected the design; you’re going to have a design that’s extra suited to those close-up encounters.”
The workforce additionally returned to what many may describe because the picture of Ultimate Fantasy XVI: the Ifrit Eikon clashing with the Phoenix Eikon, current within the sport’s official emblem created by famed Ultimate Fantasy illustrator and artist Yoshitaka Amano.
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I wrapped up my time with Minigawa interested by his ideas on the legacy of Ultimate Fantasy artwork. Is it one thing the workforce thinks about when designing these characters and worlds? He says it varies from individual to individual.
“My job is to take artwork that has been created by my employees and determine a method to get that within the sport as finest as doable with out taking away from that artwork,” Minigawa says. “So, in that sense, it’s about making an attempt as exhausting as you possibly can. For me, it’s similar to mainly making an attempt to do the perfect I can and hopefully, it’ll resonate with the gamers. However once more, that’s going to be completely different for every of the artists.”
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