Final Fantasy Explorers is a newly announced action RPG game for Nintendo 3DS. To get more details about the game, Famitsu has sat down and made an interview with director Atsushi Hashimoto and project manager Takahiro Abe. During the interview they revealed new information about monster hunting and raising, difficulty, world, story, jobs and customization.

DIFFICULTY

According to Hashimoto and Abe, the game will be enjoyable for both newcomers and people who are seeking for more challenge. It will have more strategic influences when it comes to combining jobs, equipment and abilities. There will be some very challenging quests that might even make players think: “Is this even possible to clear!?”. Players will be able to adjust the difficulty of quests, which is a similar system to Bravely Default.

“I’d like to make [the game] into something that even those who aren’t the best at action games can enjoy,” says Hashimoto. “There will also be things like specific actions that can be used to cancel abilities, and other technical maneuvers for those who are confident in their skills to enjoy.”

“Think of it as something that has the strategic nature of an RPG, together with a focus on combining jobs and abilities that just about anyone can enjoy,” adds Abe. “Of course, we also plan on adding high difficulty quests that will have you going, ‘is this even possible to clear?’ So people who excel at action games will have plenty to look forward to.”

Abe continues, “Additionally, there will be a way to adjust quest difficulty, so those who think ‘this isn’t enough!’ can easily adjust the difficulty to their liking.”

RESONANCE SYSTEM

During the interview, Hashimoto and Abe also revealed the “Resonance System,” which lets players combine abilities in order to create even more powerful cooperative moves. Different this system makes the fact the abilities can be used from the distance as well. Abe explained this is because the island of the game has many areas which can be fully explored and they didn’t want to limit players, so developers decided to let them fully explore it even though the players are far from each other. This can be extremely helpful feature is the player is needing help from others, for example.

TRANSPORTATION

When talked about transportation in the game, Hashimoto says that the development team is currently working on a system it where Abe laughs and teases, “When it comes to Final Fantasy… airships come to mind.” They also revealed that chocobos won’t be rideable this time, but they  have some amazing plans for chocobos and monsters…

… MONSTER HUNTING & RAISING

Yes, that’s right! Similar to Final Fantasy XIII-2, Final Fantasy Explorers will be featuring monster hunting and raising. To capture a monster, you must defeat them and hope they will drop a special item, which can be taken back to town and turned into a monster! Almost all monsters can be collected and raised. The most rare monsters are the most powerful as well, and it won’t be easy to acquire them.

STORY & WORLD

Famitsu asked about the story of the game, where Hashimoto answered the following:

“Yes, there’s a main story. Once you make your character, it’ll be your avatar that you’ll play as, but we’re not pushing for the story to have as much emotional involvement compared to the main numbered series,” explains Hashimoto.

He continues, “However, the game goes beyond the island that is the setting of the game, and there is a setting for the whole world, with quest content and NPCs with different speaking mannerisms to show for it.”

“[As you play] you might think ‘there are these kind of characters, so it must be this kind of country?’ or ‘the weapon description says this and that, so maybe it was used by someone in the past?’ This might sound typical of an old game, but I want it to be something that works your imagination.”

JOBS & CUSTOMIZATION

Final Fantasy  Explorers will be featuring lots of traditional and new RPG jobs, which can be customized in different ways. For example, you can also make a “Battle White Mage”, if you like. Hashimoto explained more about combining jobs with weapons, items and equipments:

Hashimoto also mentions: “In addition to weapons and equipment, you can switch around abilities to customize your characters, so that makes it possible for all kinds of different party set ups. For example; you can make a party that doesn’t need a White Mage, by using healing items or have other jobs that learned the White Mage’s Cure spell.”

Famitsu also asked if it’s possible to take different abilities from a job to another:

“Actually, no, the ability acquisition isn’t really connected to the jobs,” says Hashimoto. “I thought that the idea of ‘I want to keep playing as a White Mage, but I must change to Black Mage in order to learn offensive magic’ was a little troublesome for this game.”

“Therefore, you can keep playing as a White Mage and learn Black Mage abilities. This might be a little different from conventional Final Fantasy games, but I felt that this would be a good idea when considering the trends of recent players.”

“However, the first abilities you’ll unlock will be connected to jobs,” continues Hashimoto. “For example, an ability that might connect with a Dragoon and spears.”

While talking about the job system, Abe also mentions that Final Fantasy Explorers will feature most of the jobs from the Final Fantasy series but they will be revealing new unique jobs as well. Additionally, there will be over 500 different equipment. Items are also made by combining materials acquired through battles and gathered on the fields.

READ MORE ABOUT FINAL FANTASY EXPLORERS FROM HERE!

Thanks for the original translation goes to Siliconera.