Back in June, the Final Fantasy creator revealed a plan to turn his popular mobile role-playing game
Terra Battle into a franchise. It starts with a direct sequel,
Terra Battle 2, coming this summer. It follows with the claymation-styled
Terra Wars, due later this year. Then comes a grab bag of six other games in the Terra World series — roughly one a year for six years, each with a unique setting and concept.
The idea, Sakaguchi says, is to mirror what he did with the Final Fantasy franchise, which he
oversaw for nine games. And, on a personal level, he wants to tie a nice bow on this phase of his career.
"I'm sort of looking at my own calendar here," he tells Polygon. "I'm 54 right now and 60 is the age when many people retire in Japan. There's a ceremony you have called your Kanreki. It's a major milestone and you have a big celebration …
"And now that I've announced the third Terra game, if you do the math and subtract 54 from 60, you'll see that — if I do it right — I have just barely enough time to finish the last one before I turn 60. It'd be great to have that as a milestone where I could look back and celebrate releasing them all."
Do the math and you'll see he actually needs to finish the last six in just over five years — a plan with little room for error in an industry built on delays. Despite that, Sakaguchi seems confident he can make it happen, with plans to develop multiple projects in parallel and work with a variety of external studios to minimize the risk.
But, he adds, that doesn't mean he's going to retire in 2022.
[...]
And while Mistwalker has referred to this as a console "version" of
Terra Battle in the past, Sakaguchi says it's best to think of it as a new game in the Terra World franchise.
He also uses to opportunity to plug
Terra Battle 2. It's a mobile and PC game, but one of Mistwalker's talking points for it is that it brings a bit more of a console feel to its structure and presentation. It has a more expansive story, the ability to jump in and out of quests, the ability to change items while inside a dungeon, flashier graphical effects, etc.
[...]
So if Sakaguchi is putting such a focus on finishing his current plan by the time he hits 60, what happens at that point?
In a post on
Mistwalker's Terra Battle website accompanying the announcement of
Terra Battle 2 and
Terra Wars, Sakaguchi is quoted as saying, "I have become old enough that some call me a 'legend,' of the industry, but I wish to try and remain an active creator. Until the day I retire, I (secretly) wish to expand the 'Terra World' and create 9 experiences."
Sakaguchi tells Polygon the use of the word "retire" on the site is a mistranslation, though. Despite many in Japan looking at a Kanreki party as something that happens around the time people retire, and despite Sakaguchi aiming to finish the Terra franchise by that date, he says he has no plans to stop working.
He points to an 80-year-old singer and artist named Yuzo Kayama, who Sakaguchi saw perform in his 70s on Japanese television station NHK and was impressed by how young he looked and how well he could sing at that age.
"I want to be like him when I'm 70," Sakaguchi says.
As it turns out, Sakaguchi's wife is friends with Kayama's daughter, and Sakaguchi used that connection to ask Kayama to contribute a painting to the first
Terra Battle. He's one of many people Sakaguchi has brought into the franchise to contribute a bit of art, writing or music — a kind of greatest hits lineup combining people Sakaguchi has worked with, well-known developers from around the game industry and mainstream artists like Kayama.
To some, it may seem like Sakaguchi is ticking names off of a bucket list, cramming in as many collaborations as he can before he hangs up his hat. But Sakaguchi insists he has plenty of new ideas of his own left.
In fact, even now, with two Terra World games on the way this year and six more in front of him over the next five years or so, Sakaguchi says he's not ready to slow down, noting that he is also already in talks about another project that has nothing to do with Terra World.
It's too early to say what form that project might take, but with any luck it won't distract from his current nine-game plan.
He's made a new promise, after all, and he doesn't want to break this one either.
Source.
