Project Octopath Traveler Producer Masashi Takahashi from Square Enix and Director Keisuke Miyauchi from Acquire have sat down with Famitsu to discuss tons of information about the game.

Have a look at what they discussed below.

– the biggest theme of this game is ‘the journey’
– the world is ripe for exploration with any of the eight characters
– the project was started by Takahashi and producer Tomoya Asano, who headed the Bravely series
– Acquire was chosen as development partner thanks to their work on the What Did I Do to Deserve This, My Lord? serie
– Miyauchi recalls Takahashi and Asano coming together and suggesting, “What would this look like with rich-looking pixel art enhanced by modern technology, instead of just normal pixel art?”
– it took a long while to perfect the HD-2D look
– at first, they didn’t add enough depth to the view, and it was uninteresting
– another time, they went too far on the resolution and saturation, losing the appeal of pixel art
– it was tough to balance things, such as whether water should be pixel or photorealistic
– sprites looked lonely and simple in the context of a larger screen
– the development team increased the density of tile variations and colors to create an altogether richer view
– devs decided on having 8 characters: four male, and four female
– in order to have different experiences with each character, they took care to differentiate each character’s storyline
– all the characters have different classes, and more info will be released later
– character classes verge on the realistic side, being based on different occupations in Medieval Europe
– field commands were devised based on the classes
– Olberic is popular with the Square Enix side staff thanks to being the first created character
– the man on the very left of the key art, reading a book, is popular with female staff
– on the Acquire side, the man with the muffler and the woman with the hat are popular
– Olberic and Primrose were chosen to be the demo protagonists as their stories started in a similar place
– the developers wanted people to be able to recruit the other character after beating the story
– Asano and Takahashi requested that the battle system be something that everyone can enjoy, even if it is old school
– Takahashi further elaborated, stating that the action RPGs that are the current trend are hard for him
– a simple turn-based battle system wouldn’t be turning any heads, so the Command Boost and Break systems were added
– in order to add to the fun of the game, the guard points are displayed, showing how many attacks under a Break occurs
– battle difficulty in the game is based on area, and not by character level