Final Fantasy creator: HD graphics are over the top

The move toward high-quality HD graphics is detrimental, the creator of Square Enix’s Final Fantasy series has argued.

"Now that high-quality graphics rule supreme, you can reproduce what you want to communicate visually,” Hironobu Sakaguchi stated in a recent Iwata Asks feature.

But at the same time, I don’t know how to put this, but there’s an element that’s slightly excessive about it all. You end up communicating too much to the player.

To be honest, I think that the HD images which have become mainstream in the TV industry are, for me personally, still rather over the top for the world of video games. There’s a tendency for developers to allow all their energy to be diverted into maintaining the high quality of the graphics.”

In some ways the comments come as a surprise – Sakaguchi-san is one of the most accomplished visual artists in the games industry, with the Final Fantasy series having offered an incredible assortment of beautiful characters and locations over the years.

On the other hand, the recent release of Final Fantasy XIII-2 is only the second ‘proper’ game in the series to appear on HD consoles the Xbox 360 and PS3.