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MinnMax Interview - Final Fantasy XVI & Hi-Fi Rush: Developer One-On-One:
🕑 Added 2024-04-22 16:15:01 +0000 UTC
In this MinnMax Interview, Ben Hanson brings together the director and writer for Hi-Fi Rush John Johanas and the localization director for Final Fantasy XVI Michael-Christopher Koji Fox to talk about creating a game for a western audience inside a Japanese studio, the unseen challenges of localization, and whether Clive is dumber than Chai as a protagonist. This discussion contains spoilers for Final Fantasy XVI's main game (not the DLC) but we've marked them in the timecodes so you can skip them at your convenience. These discussions exist directly because of your support on Patreon, so thank you!
You can watch and share the video version here - https://youtu.be/kAgVyfd9qdQ
To jump to a particular discussion, check out the timestamps below...
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:59 - Michael-Christopher Koji Fox Meets John Johanas
00:02:39 - What fascinated John about Final Fantasy XVI
00:05:25 - Creating Western-focused games in Japan
00:23:47 - Spoilers for Final Fantasy XVI
00:26:12 - Boiling down the lore of Final Fantasy XVI
00:32:26 - The ripple effects of localization and small changes
00:35:10 - How to lip sync with multiple languages
00:40:29 - Hi-Fi Rush's lore bible
00:49:00 - How playtest impacts game dialogue
00:55:22 - Is Clive smarter than Chai?
00:58:38 - Spoiling one of the last lines in Final Fantasy XVI
01:00:43 - Breaking the fourth wall/comedic relief
01:03:05 - Animating Hi-Fi Rush
01:06:38 - Square-Enix's work from home policy
01:09:30 - Tango's work from home policy
01:11:42 - The relief of working on a game with a different tone
01:15:48 - Why Yoshi P and the team might want to work on a lighter game next
01:16:39 - Spoilers for Final Fantasy XVI
01:17:12 - In conclusion
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Comments
The Nute
Wow this is absolutely phenomenal! I can’t imagine the logistics of trying to orchestrate this but thank you so much for doing so.
Kert419
Great surprise seeing this pop up in my feed today :) glad to see minnmax continue to platform these kinds of conversations between devs
