Is there still a committee at Square Enix that guides Final Fantasy as a brand?
Is it that famous!? Yeah, it does. It still exists. [Laughs] It's apparently world-famous? With some Yoda character like at the Jedi Council meetings?
Yeah, exactly! Is it like that?
[Laughs] Mr. [Shinji] Hashimoto is the brand manager, so I guess in a sense he is kind of Yoda!
What are those meetings like? Is it producers from Final Fantasy titles who get together to talk about the future – what ideas fit and don't fit for the series?
Obviously, Final Fantasy is a series that has a long and involved past. So, mostly what the committee does is make sure that the assets that make up the series' history and image are preserved. But there's really no element of these people saying, "You can't do this," or "You can't do that."
The committee really exists to make sure – for example, characters like Cloud – if there's going to be some sort of tie-in with a big company, maybe he's in a commercial, it's the committee's position to say, "Oh, he wouldn't say that," or "No, there's no way he'd wear that." Give those sorts of guidelines to protect and manage what we've already laid down.
But as far as new creations, my view of the committee is that it's not there to limit people. We want to make a very open and welcoming base for the producers and directors of any new Final Fantasy games to create whatever they want. There's not going to be anything like, "This is the kind of animal that Chocobos are, and they've always been like that, so you can't do this with them – they would never do that." It's never been like that for the people creating the new games.
Of course, everybody in the committee has different opinions. That's just my opinion. There will be people who say, "No, no, the Chocobo has never done that. Why should it start now?" But my personal attitude is, "Just because a Chocobo has never done that doesn't mean it can't. Why not show people a new side of Chocobos?"
Source: https://www.gameinformer.com/interview/2019/12/18/an-interview-with-final-fantasys-yoshinori-kitase
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