I asked Takahashi what exactly is behind it. Square Enix isn't new to odd names, but Octopath Traveler might be one of the oddest yet. We tried to make a game that brings us back to that time, when we needed to imagine situations, emotions, but with a new-looking graphical aspect." And we enjoyed the games, because beyond those limits we tried to imagine what they couldn't express directly on the screen. In the Super Famicom era, people tried to get to the limits of their hardware, and what they did was the limits of what they could do. "You can do whatever you think, whatever you want, and it's a big difference. "With actual hardware, there's no limitation regarding expressing yourself with graphics," he says. 'But this time it's a brand new licence, and we created what we wanted to create without their opinion.' 'Maybe if we'd had the idea of making Final Fantasy 6 part 2 we'd check with them, says Takahashi. Some of the staff that worked on the games that inspired Octopath Traveler are still at Square Enix, though the team felt no need to consult them. For Square Enix's Takahashi, it's about recapturing a little of what's been lost.
Octopath Traveler is a delicious reimagining of 16-bit era RPGs, told by Square Enix alongside core developers Acquire with detailed 2D pixel-art that combines with 3D dioramas that ape that same aesthetic, providing a new spin on an old favourite. Over in Kanagawa, young Yasunori Nishiki, only a month younger than Takahashi, would also watch his older brother play through Square's series, beginning with Final Fantasy 4 - "When I discovered that Kain had betrayed another character, it was a big shock!" he says - and the two have found themselves, all these years later, trying to rekindle some of that same magic, Takahashi in a producer role for the forthcoming RPG Octopath Traveler, Nishiki as its composer. It was an experience shared by an entire generation. These kinds of words I couldn't understand by myself, so they helped, and it was fun to watch them playing."
"They were there to explain a lot of things - they described difficult words to me like 'chaos', like 'holy power'. Sitting watching his two big brothers before he was able to properly read, Takahashi patiently watched them play through Final Fantasy 3, lending a hand whenever he could. Growing up in Naha, Okinawa, Masashi Takahashi fell in love with games, even if he was too young to properly play them.
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