With Square Enix's Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life As a King one of the flagship titles for the highly-anticipated WiiWare launch, it's interesting to hear co-creators Fumiaki Shiraishi and Toshihiro Tsuchida discuss the design-lite approach to WiiWare at an in-depth feature in Gamasutra.
You'd think it'd be hard for Square Enix, whose titles are known for their size and spectacle, to make such a comparatively teeny game. Was it? Says Shiraishi:
"It actually wasn't that difficult. I think we designed the game to fit in the memory space. It wasn't so much that we had a game and had to squeeze it down. If anything, I think the size restriction helped us. I don't think we would've had this game design idea if we didn't have the memory restriction to begin with."
Once we had the restriction, we had... all our artists are veterans, so if you tell them the size, they'll hit it right on. And once we started making it, in the beginning, a lot of people didn't think we could fit this game in the given size, but we were actually quite a bit under. It uses a little bit of compression, and a little bit of techniques. You can fit a lot of game in a small size."
Also, ActRaiser fans? Shiraishi won't say no to a sequel:
"I'd like to make an ActRaiser sequel. That would be kind of fun."
Content Kings: Square Enix's Shiraishi And Tsuchida On WiiWare And Risk [Gamasutra]