He could have departed from Sq. Enix a time in the past, however that hasn’t stopped Hironobu Sakaguchi from actively collaborating within the collection that he created and continues to flourish in his absence. The daddy of Ultimate Fantasy has been taking part in its 14th instalment for nearly two entire years, and he is not afraid to confess absolutely the demise grip the critically-acclaimed MMO has on him.
Throughout London’s Fan Competition, Sakaguchi sat down with Ultimate Fantasy 14 director and producer Naoki Yoshida to speak about his time with the sport and even introduced a few surprises to the desk. When discussing his first foray into the MMO, Sakaguchi admitted that his early months with the sport took up a big quantity of his time. “I imagine each day I used to be in there for 12 hours,” he mentioned by means of a translator, including that Ultimate Fantasy 14 “took up about 80%” of his time awake, boosting that quantity as much as 100% if he did not embody consuming.
Yoshida responded by saying that the event workforce would hold their eye on Sakaguchi’s Twitter, the place he was sharing a lot of his time within the sport, protecting monitor to see how lengthy he would truly spend within the sport. Whereas Sakaguchi’s preliminary expectations gave the impression to be low, it is clear two years down the road that he is in love with the sport. “It is fairly the alternative, now I can not depart,” Sakaguchi mentioned. “Ultimate Fantasy 14 has turn out to be a part of my life.”
Lest we overlook that though Sakaguchi is not with Sq. Enix anymore, he is nonetheless the founder and head of Blue Dragon and Fantasian developer Mistwalker, which you’d suppose would eat up no less than a great 50% of his time! It seems that he could have been secretly squirreling himself away to play FF14, with Yoshida remarking that he had been informed that the Mistwalker workforce was “very understanding,” solely to find they’d no thought of Sakaguchi’s ongoings when it was introduced up in dialog. “As soon as I am in a raid I can not attend a gathering,” Sakaguchi joked.
All of these hours definitely paid off, as a result of Sakaguchi introduced a shock for Yoshida: Proof of his first final raid clear. That is no imply feat, being the hardest factor to do within the sport and all—clearing one is a severe badge of honor for FF14 gamers. That was evidenced by Yoshida’s sheer shock when greeted with a screenshot of his shiny new final raid-exclusive weapon.
Sakaguchi admitted he managed to nab the clear 10 days earlier than Fan Competition, eager to have it executed by the point he attended.”It was a variety of enjoyable attempting to get by means of this,” he informed Yoshida, jokingly requesting the following batch of raids to be added. When requested if he wished to aim extra savage raids, Sakaguchi replied “for positive, subsequent I would like the orange one,” perhaps referring to both Bahamut or Dragonsong Reprise, in addition to mentioning the Alexander raid. “I am so sorry,” Yoshida mentioned addressing the Mistwalker workforce, earlier than including “I am perplexed.”
It is comforting to see that no person is protected from dropping their life to Ultimate Fantasy 14, and I’ve personally actually beloved seeing Sakaguchi’s journey by means of Eorzea during the last two years. He does not appear to have any intention of stopping anytime quickly, and I count on to see him absolutely geared up with best-in-slot gear from right here on out.