FINAL FANTASY Pixel Remaster Producer explains tweaks and additions for the console release

In 2023, FINAL FANTASY pixel remaster launched for Nintendo Switch and PS4. These new releases featured a host of features and improvements, including an updated font, the inclusion of the original games’ soundtracks, and various boosts to tailor the game to your liking.

The Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu recently interviewed the FF Pixel Remaster Producer Naofumi Takuma about these additions. With their kind permission, we present an edited and translated version below. We hope you enjoy it.

• Original article written by Zenji Nishikawa

The FINAL FANTASY I–VI Pixel Remaster series takes the early titles of SQUARE ENIX’s popular FINAL FANTASY series of RPGs and breathes new life into them, offering revised pixel graphics and sound, for the “ultimate 2D remaster” experience.

The PS4 and Switch release of FF Pixel Remaster for Switch and PS4 is notable for its addition of a new, optional, pixel-style font, and boost features to enhance gameplay.

But you might be surprised to learn that this home console release features even more lovingly-crafted adjustments and improvements. For this article, we sat down with Naofumi Takuma, Producer of the home console versions of FF Pixel Remaster, for an in-depth conversation about some of the details of these newly added features, as well as the thinking behind them.

About Naofumi Takuma

After working on Million Arthur: Arcana Blood, Naofumi Takuma worked as co-producer on Trials of Mana, mostly overseeing the battle system. He also worked as support staff on Harvestella. For the Switch and PS4 release of FF Pixel Remaster, he worked as Producer.

Why were so many tweaks made for the home console release?

Please could you start by telling us how you came to be the Producer for the home console release of FF Pixel Remaster?

Naofumi: FF Pixel Remaster was first released on mobile and PC, and I got to be involved with the development of those from about halfway through the process. So that was what led to me becoming the Producer for the Switch and PS4 release.

Have you played much of the FINAL FANTASY series in a personal capacity?

Naofumi: I was at just the right age for the FINAL FANTASY series when it was in its early days, so it was pretty big when I was in primary school. I think that FINAL FANTASY had a big influence on my life, to the point where even as a child at primary school I remember thinking that games held such tremendous power within them.

The first title in the series that I played was FINAL FANTASY II. I was about 5 or 6 years old, and I just ended up playing because my older brother had played it. I love every title in the series, but FINAL FANTASY II holds a special place in my heart as the first game in the series that I played.

So the first game in the series that you played was FINAL FANTASY II. At 5 or 6 years old, it must have been difficult to beat the game.

Naofumi: Yeah, it was impossible. But then, FINAL FANTASY II is kind of a special case in the FINAL FANTASY series (laughs).

There were a few times later on where I thought that I could give it another try and I might finally complete it by myself, but of course, it was impossible. I went through this process a few times before I finally beat the game.

I’d like to ask you again about FF Pixel Remaster itself. Did you ever see any of the feedback from players about the mobile and PC versions that came out before the home console versions?

Naofumi: Yes, I did. I got the impression that people had both good and bad things to say about each individual aspect of the game, especially since they’re games from such a legendary series - and I really took that feedback on board.

It also seemed to be that opinion was divided across different demographics of people who played the game. There are people who played the original games when they were first released who were revisiting them for the first time with the remaster versions, those who waited a while after the original games were released before playing them, and those passionate fans who have continued to play the originals over and over again to this day.

The players who played the originals in their heyday were generally very positive about the remasters. But the feedback was a little more harsh from people who are still playing those games even now. Some people didn’t like that the remasters changed certain aspects of the original games. As somebody who holds those six games very dear to my heart, I understand exactly where those people are coming from.

It must have been difficult to find the balance between making changes and keeping things the same as the originals.

Naofumi: Well, there are some people who didn’t want anything to change, but there are others who were glad that changes were made in certain areas. I don’t think that either of those points of view are wrong. It’s just really brought home to me again that you can’t please everybody.

And now the games are released for Switch and PS4. Is this something that was always planned from the very beginning?

Naofumi: I wasn’t involved with the initial planning stage, but I get the impression that whoever was responsible was always open to the idea as a possibility.

That being said, it’s difficult to develop for mobile, PC and home consoles all at the same time. It took the mobile and PC release being well received, and lots of people saying that they wanted a home console release, to really set things in motion.

And this wasn’t just a simple port. You added lots of new features, right?

Naofumi: Actually, once I joined the development for the mobile and PC versions partway through the process, I started making notes about what I would want to change if I were to make FF Pixel Remaster myself.

I also replayed all of the original versions of the FINAL FANTASY games and made a note of any parts that I thought seemed unwieldy by modern standards.

For the mobile and PC release, we were working to a schedule, so we couldn’t fix everything, but after that, the decision was eventually made to produce a home console version. When I was approached about being Producer, I made it clear that I didn’t want to just port the games directly, but that I wanted to make improvements.

I also submitted my list of ideas for improvements, along with a schedule of how much time would be required, and a budget. That got approved by SQUARE ENIX, and that was how we decided that this version would include some tweaks. That being said, we didn’t have unlimited time and budget, so we took the approach of implementing as many tweaks as possible within the most reasonable timeframe that we could get approved.

In addition to the things on your list, did you take on board any of the player feedback from the mobile and PC release?

Naofumi: I did. To decide on the exact changes we were going to make, we used selected feedback from players after the initial release alongside my own notes.

You were the Producer for this project, but I get the impression that the work that you did was a lot more hands-on, more like a Director.

Naofumi: As Producer, you do whatever is necessary to sell the game, so for FF Pixel Remaster, making a list of improvements was one of those jobs.

This has always been the case, but I just really love games (laughs). I was aware of how many staff-hours and how much budget would be required to make so many changes and received approval from SQUARE ENIX to go ahead with it - it’s thanks to that that I was able to make all the changes that I did. Of course, if I had made every single change that I wanted to, I would have had to make an entirely new remaster, so I did as much as I was able to within reason.

And it wasn’t just me. Other staff on the team would come to me saying things like, “Well, if we’re changing this part, then hadn’t we better change this part as well?” Everybody on the staff team was really motivated.

The biggest changes to the home console release

Two of the biggest changes to the home console versions are the ability to change the background music and the font. On the music side of things, players can choose between the original soundtrack and updated arrangements. What was the thinking behind this?

Naofumi: The mobile and PC release of FF Pixel Remaster was released with only the updated arrangements. The aim of this was to allow players to enjoy those arrangements as they are, primarily because those arrangements were made specifically for FF Pixel Remaster, and I agree with that line of thinking.

However, this game is for a wide range of demographics, from newcomers to people who played the originals the first time around. My thinking was that taking a single approach to such a diverse target audience would mean disregarding the feelings of a chunk of our audience.

Don’t get me wrong; the modern arrangements are fantastic. I just think that the original sound scheme is part of what made the FINAL FANTASY series what it was. I’m not saying that one is better or worse than the other.

Think about the difference between eating out at a restaurant and eating a home-cooked meal. Both are going to be delicious. I don’t think that it’s right to compare them to one another. They’re both special in their own way.

When I discussed this with everybody else involved, I spoke about it in these terms, and that’s how we arrived at the decision to allow players to choose between the two versions of the soundtrack. And we actually had lots of feedback from players saying that they wanted to listen to the original soundtracks while they played, so that backed up my decision as well.

The next big change I would like to talk about is the font. The home console release features an optional pixel-style font, doesn’t it?

Naofumi: The font that we use as the default font actually came from a vendor. As you would expect, it’s very clear and easy to read. Having said that, using a pixel-style font just gives you an overall look and feel that’s closer to the original games.

This is something that I actually wanted to include from the very beginning, but opinions on the subject were divided, among the staff team as well as players. This is something that played on my mind, but a lot of people preferred having a font that was easier to read, and there was a surprising amount of people who didn’t really give any thought to the font.

Again, this wasn’t an issue of one approach being any better than another. We just thought that it was important to have some features that make the games feel more like the originals, so that was why we decided to add this as an optional feature.

And was the new pixel font something that you made yourselves from scratch, specifically for this title?

Naofumi: That’s right. We did look for a commercially available pixel font that we could license for this set of remasters, but we didn’t find anything. So we had no choice but to make it ourselves. I’ve worked in the games business for a long time, but this was the first time I’ve ever had to create font data (laughs).

How exactly did you go about making the font?

Naofumi: First we looked for a company who could create the font for us, then we had some conversations with that company about what type of font we wanted.

During these conversations, we decided that something similar to the FINAL FANTASY V font would be suitable for making FF Pixel Remaster feel more like the original titles, while also being easy to read. The company then did some research into different fonts, with a particular focus on the FINAL FANTASY V font, and then they started building the font, one character at a time.

So this font was produced specifically for FF Pixel Remaster, then?

Naofumi: That is technically true, but the fonts used in FINAL FANTASY V and similar don’t have that many distinctive quirks, so it could equally be used for any future ports or remaster of older SQUARE ENIX titles that use pixel-style graphics.

It belongs to SQUARE ENIX now, so I would think that people can use it in whatever context they want in the future and make any changes they want. I would be very happy if this font was used again, but at the moment, I don’t think there are any specific plans for it (laughs).

You also added some boost features that make the games easier to play. What was the thinking behind this?

Naofumi: The ports of the 3D-era FINAL FANTASY titles, such as FINAL FANTASY VII, added some quality-of-life improvements, such as the option to increase the game’s speed. Features like this were added in order to increase the pace with which players are able to move.

But in the case of the first six FINAL FANTASY titles, the pacing is already quite fast, so rather than just adding a speed-up feature and things like that, I wanted to enable players to be able to accomplish lots of different things, and that’s why I focused on adding features like EXP multipliers and gil multipliers. Players can also choose to turn the random encounters on and off.

There are also some boost features that are specific to certain titles. For instance, FINAL FANTASY II doesn’t use a conventional levelling system, so we gave players the option to make it easier to increase proficiency. Similarly, in FINAL FANTASY V, you can set an ability points multiplier.

With each title in the FINAL FANTASY series featuring different game mechanics, I guess you had to make a lot of small changes to the specs, even for the boost features.

Naofumi: That’s right. One example of that is the Compensatory HP mechanic in FINAL FANTASY II. In previous ports of FINAL FANTASY II, HP would automatically increase after a certain number of battles. But for people who’ve really played FFII in a lot of depth, I imagine there are some who find this feature is actually more of a hindrance.

The thinking behind this mechanic was that it would lower the overall difficulty of the game by making it easier to increase HP. But because some enemies in FINAL FANTASY II have attacks that do damage based on your overall HP, having HP go up automatically actually served to make the game more difficult in places. That’s why we’ve given players the option to turn this mechanic off.

A boost feature that you can turn off! That's an interesting approach. I’m not sure you could really call that a boost feature (laughs).

Naofumi: Yeah, I guess (laughs). There’s also the option to half or even completely nullify the amount of EXP and money gained, rather than simply multiplying it. That’s something that I asked to be put into the game, for people who want to take on specific challenge runs or set themselves restrictions.

A lot of these boost features are included with the aim of helping players to breeze through the game or lowering the difficulty so that newer players have an easier time, but my thinking was: if we’re going to go to the trouble of adding these features anyway, then rather than just lowering the difficulty, we could actually expand the possibilities for playing these games as well.

The idea of a low-level challenge run has been around for ages. I gave it a try myself, and it certainly gives you a sense of accomplishment, but the bar is also set really high. You have to draw up your own personal strategy if you want to succeed. That being said, I hope that people will give it a try.

Maybe there’ll be people who finish a game and say to themselves “I wonder how far I could get with no EXP!”. It’s not at all difficult to set up multipliers on the programming side, so that’s why we added them this time around.

So by adding more settings, you’re offering more ways to play the game.

Naofumi: That’s right. We haven’t added super-straightforward boosts like invincibility or anything like that; just options that make it easier to get things like EXP.

For players who have played everything but FINAL FANTASY III, for instance, and would like to give it a go, turning on the EXP boost will be enough to help them breeze through the game while also getting a sense for the story and the setting.

My hope is that people can use these boost features as a way to explore these titles and get a taste of what makes each game so enjoyable, without the stakes being too high.

Naofumi’s favourite changes

I’ve also heard that each game features changes to some very intricate details.

Naofumi: Yes, we’ve made a huge number of small tweaks, but we have no plans to release a list of them. I don’t really want people to see a full list of the changes that we made. My goal is for people to be able to enjoy the games without feeling like anything is off, so I want that to come across to people when they play the games.

However, since I have an opportunity to talk about it in this interview, would it be alright if I touched on a few areas we really did want to get exactly right when making these minute changes?

That would be great!

Optional run by default, all titles

Naofumi: In FF Pixel Remaster, you run by holding down a button, but we made it so that players can choose whether their default movement is a run or a walk. I imagine that players end up running in the majority of situations, so we thought that it would be better to allow players to be able to run by default.

Return to the Title Screen during battles, all titles

Naofumi: We made it possible to exit to the Title Screen from the pause menu during battles.

For instance, in FINAL FANTASY V and FINAL FANTASY VI, the items that can be stolen from enemies are split into common items and rare items. If you try to steal a rare item but only end up stealing a common item, then you lose the chance to steal a rare item, and so there are times where you’ll want to quit and reload your last save. But it was a bit of a hassle to have to shut down the whole game, or intentionally be defeated to finish the battle to do so.

In situations like these, we thought that it would be helpful to be able to reload straight away from within the game, and so that’s why we added the option to return to the title screen.

Game save sound effect, all titles

Naofumi: This one wasn’t strictly necessary, but we changed the sound effect that plays when you save the game.

Some players said that it sounded like we used the notification sound from FINAL FANTASY XIV’s Tell feature as the save jingle for the original release. And it’s true that if you listen carefully, they do sound really similar.

Of course, both games are by SQUARE ENIX, and both games are FINAL FANTASY titles, so it’s not really a problem that they sound the same. According to the sound team, though, this was just a coincidence. The sound team wanted to change it as well, so we changed the sound effect for this release.

Bestiary battles, all titles

Naofumi: The mobile release included an AR feature that let you have AR battles with monsters via the bestiary. We can’t use AR for the home console release, but we thought that it would still be nice to be able to do battles, so we added a feature to the bestiary that allows you to fight any monster that you like using your latest save file, sort of like a battle simulator.

So if you wanted to, you could have battles between party members and monsters that wouldn’t be possible in the full game. As a bestiary, it’s mostly there for the sake of viewing monsters, but you can now use it for training and strategizing as well.

Visible magic interference stat, FINAL FANTASY II

Naofumi: FINAL FANTASY II had a hidden stat called “magic interference”, which basically meant that if a character was equipped with a lot of heavy defensive gear, their magic would be less effective. It actually has devastating consequences, but it isn’t explained at all in the game, and some people won’t even notice it, so we decided to add a visible magic interference stat to the status screen.

If it only skewed things very slightly, then I think it would have been okay to keep it hidden, but given that it has such a big impact, and it’s impossible to find any information about it unless you look online, I thought it would be okay to make it visible.

I’m sure that some people are thinking, “It was hidden intentionally, so it’s best not to show it!” Well, it’s been more than 30 years since the original came out. It improves the game’s user-friendliness, and I also wanted players to intuitively understand that wearing heavy armour interferes with your magic, which is something that contributes to the game’s world-building.

The Battle with Cloud of Darkness, FINAL FANTASY III

Naofumi: I played FINAL FANTASY III when it first came out, and I can still remember beating Cloud of Darkness for the first time.

The whole time I was so unsure whether I would win or lose. When you land the final blow, the background music stops, and everything falls silent. And just as you start to think to yourself, “did I do it!?”, Cloud of Darkness’s defeat animation starts to play. The mobile and PC versions of FF Pixel Remaster got rid of this, so we reinserted that moment where everything goes silent.

I think no one would really mind if this was the only change we made, but I thought that people would take more notice if there were a few more moments like this, so we made quite a few little tweaks to how things play out in the games.

Adjusted timings for events, FINAL FANTASY IV

Naofumi: We made some tweaks to the event scenes, and this is something that we did for a few of the titles in this collection. For instance, in FINAL FANTASY IV, we made some adjustments around Edge’s dialogue right before the battle with Rubicante.

Edge says, “I'll show you the power of rage!”, and as you press the button to advance the dialogue, the background music changes to Battle With the Four Fiends, as if to say “bring it on!”.

This is bumped up a notch in the mobile and PC versions, as they added an animation to Edge that’s sort of like an aura effect. But this means that Battle With the Four Fiends starts playing once Edge has already powered up. Considering the intention of the original, I think that the music should really change at the same time that Edge powers up. So we adjusted the timings a little to make that happen.

Kain’s Jump ability, FINAL FANTASY IV

Naofumi: When it came to making FF Pixel Remaster, we basically wanted to remaster everything from FINAL FANTASY I to FINAL FANTASY V to bring the quality up to the same standard as FINAL FANTASY V, and leave FINAL FANTASY VI as is.

In bringing the quality in line with FINAL FANTASY V, there were some things that really didn’t need to be changed but were changed to be consistent. One of those things was Kain’s Jump ability.

In the original game, Kain’s Jump ability had a special animation where he came down at an acute angle from behind the enemy. It left quite an impression, but in the mobile and PC versions, the animation was changed so that it matched the jump performed by other dragoon characters.

I thought it would be best to make Kain’s jump stand out from the rest, so we changed his Jump animation.

Job names, FINAL FANTASY III and FINAL FANTASY V

Naofumi: On the job selection screen, we added the names in small text underneath the jobs. Of course, people who have played the games a lot will recognise each job straight away, and I’m sure that lots of people think that the menu looks neater without the text.

When you move the cursor to a particular job, the name does appear, but for anybody who hasn’t played these games before, it’s really difficult to tell what each job is at a glance. For FINAL FANTASY V in particular, the characters all have very different designs, so I figured that it would be difficult for players to find the job that they are looking for. That’s why we decided to add this feature.

Defend and Change, FINAL FANTASY IV, FINAL FANTASY V and FINAL FANTASY VI

Naofumi: We’re getting into the weeds a bit here, but in the original versions of the titles that use the ATB (active time battle) system, you could select Change or Defend from the battle menu using the left or right directional buttons respectively. The mobile and PC versions of FF Pixel Remaster were set up so that pressing right brought up a menu that had both Defend and Change listed vertically.

I’m sure that whoever chose this specification did so because they thought that having the two additional commands listed together would be easier to understand. But the issue with this is that, from a control standpoint, it takes two button presses to get to the right command, rather than the one button press used in the original game.

With the ATB system, time feels like it’s progressing in real time. On top of that, Defend and Change are the type of commands that you use in emergency situations. My interpretation is that the designers of the original games had this in mind when they made both commands selectable with as few button presses as possible, and so that’s why we went with the original design of having Defend on the right and Change on the left.

If you’re a casual player then you won’t use these commands all that much, but I figured that this was a better way to do it, rather than going with the other “easier to understand” approach. I think the people who use these commands the most are speedrunners and challenge-runners, so that also influenced the decision to use as few button presses as possible.

Ultima Weapon and Ultima Buster, FINAL FANTASY VI

Naofumi: The bosses Ultima Weapon and Ultima Buster feature different colour palettes. However, in the field view, the sprites used for Ultima Weapon and Ultima Buster are identical. This is how it was in the original as well.

But this time around, we changed the colour palettes for the field sprites as well, to make it clear that they are two separate entities.

Background music for the battle with Kefka, FINAL FANTASY VI

Naofumi: In the original game, the background music for the battle with Kefka has built-in switch points. For instance, if you beat Kefka’s first form before reaching a certain point in the music, then the music will transition seamlessly to the next part once it reaches that point. But in all other ports of the game, the music would just stop suddenly when you beat each form, and move onto the next part of the piece.

I preferred the approach taken in the original game, so this is the first port of FINAL FANTASY VI that has the music transition in the same way as in the original.

Opening credits, FINAL FANTASY VI

Naofumi: FINAL FANTASY VI opens with a scene in which Terra and the others are walking across a snow plain in Magitek armor. In the original game, this scene featured opening credits, but these weren’t present in the mobile and PC release.

Apparently, the thinking was that if they had included the credits for the staff who worked on the original release of the game, it would have got very tricky, as it would have been necessary to check with each individual that it was okay to include them. If someone had refused and their name had been removed from the credits, then players would have picked up on that and started wondering why certain people had been missed out.

Someone had the idea of using this section to credit the staff who worked on the remasters instead, but this wouldn’t have been fair on the staff who worked on the original, and apparently there was concern that the players would be like, “who the hell is this guy!?”. So that’s apparently why the credits were removed from this section.

However, for the home console release, we decided to use this section to credit the staff who worked on the remasters. We really wracked our brains over this, but in the end we figured that the credits are used in this scene to hammer home the point that the story is about to begin, and that they were basically a device to make FINAL FANTASY VI feel more like a movie.

I think that just showing the Magitek armor crossing the snow plain would have also served this purpose, but ultimately we felt that the credits were necessary to really capture the intention of the original game, so we kept them. We started with the people who worked on both the original game and the remaster, such as Nobuo Uematsu.

I’d like for people to think of the staff credits as more of an embellishment used for dramatic effect.

How about adding some of those improvements to the mobile and PC versions?

That’s an awful lot of changes, but from what I understand, that’s just the tip of the iceberg, right? I feel like Producers are usually the ones to cut back on the amount of changes made, so I was surprised at how in-depth you’ve gone with some of these changes, to the extent that I imagine it may have been the development staff pushing back instead!

Naofumi: There are a lot of fans out there for whom the FINAL FANTASY series holds a special place in their hearts, and I’m sure that some of them will feel as though we could have done more to improve these games.

That being said, these games have a special place in my heart as well, and with these remasters I wanted to present something that elevated these games to something even just a little bit greater than what they were before.

The reason that I was able to make the changes that I have is that the fans have shared so many of their ideas and requests, and I think that this was a factor in convincing SQUARE ENIX to give us the go-ahead as well. So if all you fans out there would be so kind as to share your thoughts on the home console release of FF Pixel Remaster - and you can start with this interview - it will make it even easier for me to do things like this in the future.

Yeah, player feedback is so important. Incidentally, we’ve talked a lot about the home console release, but will any of these new features and changes be added to the mobile and PC versions?

Naofumi: I’m sure that people who played the mobile and PC versions first will be surprised that there’s this kind of definitive version coming out. It’s difficult to say for certain at the moment, but of course I’m considering it. Or perhaps I should say that I’ve already started making arrangements.

That being said, making the home console versions was a completely separate process from making the mobile and PC versions, so I don’t know if it will be possible to include every single new feature and change at this point in time.

Mobile devices in particular have different specs that vary from model to model, so I think we will need to do a lot of very in-depth testing on lots of different devices before we can figure out if we will be able to include everything from this release. And another thing to consider is that the background music feature uses an entirely separate additional soundtrack, which takes up memory. For low-spec smartphones, the games are already pushing the limits of the memory while running, so it might be tricky to add new features. On the other hand, the boost features, for instance, just mess with existing numerical values, so they should be relatively easy to implement.

I’m sorry that I can’t say anything more definitive than that. At the moment, all I can say is that I’m working on it, and I’ll do the best that I can. I should be able to give a more detailed answer in the future, so please bear with me for now.

I’ve heard that it’s a lot easier to port games nowadays, thanks to the capabilities of game development engines, and whilst I wouldn’t have gone so far as to say that it’s as simple as just making a game and then porting it, I did think of game ports as being something that’s quite simple to do.

Naofumi: I think there are parts of the process that are easier now than they used to be, but home consoles, PCs and mobile devices are all very different platforms, and you have to optimise for each one of them, which takes a lot of time. Mobile devices and PCs in particular have very different specs.

On top of that, we didn’t merge six games into one for FF Pixel Remaster, but rather we designed each title to work on its own, so really, we were developing six different titles all at the same time. We did bundle them all together into one package for release, as one game that allows you to choose from all six titles but making all six games work together was really tough (laughs nervously).

So you developed six different titles, for multiple platforms, to support a variety of different hardware? Sounds pretty horrendous.

Naofumi: We had to give each title its own window for mastering up, as we couldn’t do all of them at the same time. We started mastering up some time last summer (2022), and then did each title in sequence, with the aim of releasing all of them at once right now. We made six different titles for two different platforms, Switch and PS4, so it felt more like we were making twelve different games (laughs nervously).

And then there was the limited edition set, which had to be handled separately as well. I mean, I love playing and making games, but I’ll be happy not to work on another project with this much paperwork attached (laughs).

I’m complaining a lot, but in actual fact, the staff team have worked very hard on this, so we’re finally going to be able to release on 20th April 2023, without any delays to the release date. We put a lot of work into tweaking some very minute details for this, so I hope you’ll check it out!

• Get the FINAL FANTASY I-VI BUNDLE on Switch
• Get the FINAL FANTASY I-VI BUNDLE on PS4
• Get the FINAL FANTASY pixel remaster Bundle on Steam