Vagrant Story and Final Fantasy XII both have terrible combat (for different reasons) but good stories, so hopefully whatever he's working on doesn't suffer that same fate. He did Final Fantasy Tactics too, which actually had the best of both worlds, excellent gameplay and a fantastic story. It was still a little complicated but it at least let you ignore the more obscure mechanics if you wanted to.Yasumi Matsuno, Vagrant Story and Final Fantasy Tactics director, and Final Fantasy XII writer, held a panel at Games and Media Expo in Kuwait (via), where he announced that he is working on two brand new games games. He didn’t share any details on either title, though he did mention that they will be announced sometime in Spring 2025.
The Final Fantasy XII writer also shared some insight regarding game’s characters and story. Regarding protagonist Vaan’s young age, he explained that the market demand at the time of the game’s release and the popularity of manga Among younger audiences led to this decision. He found it interesting that the market these days has the freedom to feature older characters.
As for Vagrant Story, Matsuno said that he made Ashley older because he had greater creative freedom when working on the game. Furthermore, he clarified that the decision to have Final Fantasy XII’s Vaan be young didn’t have anything to do with Vagrant Story’s sales performance.
On the subject of Final Fantasy XII’s story focusing on many characters, Matsuno said that it was always his plan to focus on multiple characters . According to him, the world is the game’s main character.
For the uninitiated, Vagrant Story is an action role-playing game developed and published by Square for the PlayStation console, originally released in 2000. Square Enix later re-released it via the PlayStation Network for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, and PlayStation Vita. The game was developed primarily by the team behind Final Fantasy Tactics, with Yasumi Matsuno as producer, writer, and director. Set in the kingdom of Valendia and the ruined city of Leá Monde, the story follows Ashley Riot, a Riskbreaker and elite agent tasked with investigating a connection between a cult leader and Duke Bardorba, a senior member of the Valendian Parliament.
I'm assuming one of his upcoming games is the long rumored Final Fantasy Tactics remaster/remake which was leaked years ago. I'm hoping it remains faithful to the original and just streamlines the gameplay, maybe adding new content too. I can't imagine what the other may be, but a new IP is a safe guess, I think.
