I think the biggest problem with the "Ito will save FF!!!" theory is that FF isn't in serious trouble because the leads are terrible people who cannot do anything good. The larger and more significant problem is that FF is in trouble because the expectations of what a FF game is in terms of spectacle and scope scaled very poorly with the rising technical requirements of modern technology. It became increasingly expensive and increasingly hard to create the sort of experience expected of a FF game, and this leads to more and more pressure on the leads who previously had less to worry about.
This is a problem which cannot be solved just by putting one person whose previous worked people liked in charge. Without enough experience handling and managing large development teams, it is extremely unrealistic to think that someone can step in and just fix things. If there are other people who are capable in team management and productivity-efficiency who can help in such a project, good design leads would be great. But without such people available, it would just be a waste.
Matsuno was and is still considered incredibly talented as a game designer and a writer. He led some of the most well liked Squaresoft games in the PS1 era. Yet when given the responsibility of FFXII, he fell apart too.
Toriyama worked on both FFX and FFX-2 which were well liked too. He managed to assemble mostly the same team for FFXIII. Yet it fell apart as well.
Nomura is still considered one of the most talented guys in S-E today, he managed to ship a ton of KH games. Yet Versus is in a total clusterfuck which fans make excuses for every day.
Tanaka was an extremely capable veteran in S-E, he was producer on the Seiken Densetsu games, Xenogears, Chrono Cross, and FFXI. FFXI was considered really well run and a huge surprise from S-E at the time. Yet with FFXIV he totally dropped the ball on it.
This is not about bad staff. This is about a systemic problem in their production and management. No matter how talented an individual is, games are not made by one person, especially not huge AAA games like flagship FF titles. They're made by hundreds of people, and therein lies the problem - S-E Japan seems unable to properly manage games which require hundreds of people to develop a title. They seemed to handle things pretty well up until a certain point, and then beyond that their management capability couldn't catch up with the manpower required to make the things they wanted.
Putting Ito in charge of a FF game isn't going to change any of this. Unless they fix those problems first, it will likely end up being another project which is announced as something extremely promising, and then gets delayed over and over only to under-deliver at the end.
At some point, the people leading these efforts have to be held responsible for whatever production /management issues arise while working on all of these enormous projects. You can’t keep assigning the same people to do the same thing time and again and expect dramatically different results, but all of that is really beside the point. I think you are misdiagnosing the problem with modern FF games when you speak exclusively about the various machinations in the business end of SE.
I don't blame SE for the technological hurdles they faced with the FFXIII and its sequels / spin-offs/etc. They’ve always tried to push the series to the limit as far as technology is concerned, and the HD wall proved to be a challenging one for them to cross. That’s fine. But to be honest, the ability to achieve a specific level of technical prowess, or the way in which the process was managed/mismanaged was the least offensive part of FFXIII’s development, so that wasn’t really the main focus here, nor was it the reason why I wanted to talk about Ito and FFXV.
It was vision. Creative vision. Something that is seriously lacking in the series today.
It’s something entirely separate from the ability to manage huge development teams, multi-million dollar budgets, or the ability to meet technical expectations of what a HD FF needs to be in the modern era. That’s why producers, executive producers, budget directors, etc exist. To deal with the nuts and bolts. All the director should be concerned with is thinking about how to make his vision come to life, finding the right people (artists/programmers, writers, etc) to make that happen, communicating it in a way that brings everyone on the same page, and executing on the idea. Modern FF games reflect
Toriyama’s vision.
His team of writers.
His artists.
His character designers.
His battle directors. That’s the problem most people have with the series, and SE, today. He's also gone on record saying that he strongly believes in Kitase's "Interactive Movie RPG" approach where the game is streamlined to a point where gameplay takes a back seat and the characters become the focus. He's actually said that he thinks gameplay should not be the primary focus . This is a problem exclusive to
this director/producer. When I compare that approach to game design to the philosophy outlined in the quote from Ito in my OP, the choice becomes clear. Directors matter.
I don’t believe, nor do I think I indicated in my OP, that Ito can come in a wave a magic wand and fix everything that’s wrong with the series. I do believe, though, that his vision for the games that he’s lead (as a director, co-director, or game designer) better reflect the kinds of things I want to see in a FF game. His influence in a leading role like "game director" is crucial in making those ideas the focus of the next big FF. He wouldn’t be doing this alone, and no one ever said he would be. If there’s someone more adept at handling budgets than he, they will be assigned, or he will assign them. We’ve seen what Toriyama and Kitase can do. Ito could absolutely do something very different, and probably better, if given the opportunity.
