GI: Switching over to Blue Dragon, you spoke at the Microsoft press conference about trying to portray emotion to the player. Your stated goal is to get players to cry upon completion of the game. How have you worked with the storyline to create a lot of these moments in the overall dramatic presentation?
Sakaguchi: The storyline is very deep. Each character his or her own story and emotion around that. But my intent is to have players make a choice. So when Kluke is suffering theres a lot of grief around it. Gamers can actually go shopping instead of helping her out. There are actually a lot of choices presented before the gamer. You need to make the right choice or choose the way you want it. So theres a high level of interactivity in the game to allow you to really be immersed in that storyline.
GI: Does this mean that players will be able to go through the game multiple times and make different crucial choices in regards to the characters and the events around them?
Sakaguchi: Lets just take Kluke, for example. There are two characters trying to win the heart of Kluke and each character is embarking on creating a special ring for her. She is free to choose whomever. Now each character, apparently boys, try to create the ring with the intention of protecting her with some sort of magic charm. But theres a situation where Kluke says, Oh, thats useless.
You actually put in a lot of time and resources. There area a lot of items that you can use to create the ring, and you put so much emotion and time into making the ring, and then she shoots you down. Creating a ring is one thing. But actually involving a character in the overall creation of the ring, thats where there are many ways of experiencing the emotion of the character. So its not just a collective effort where you make the ring, but actually gauge the response of Kluke from what you do.
