Let us cling together as we discuss Yasumi Matsuno in Episode 16
Retronauts backer Hugh Franck requested we record an episode focused on director Yasumi Matsuno. Coincidentally, this episode (which we scheduled ages ago) turned out to be quite timely, as Matsuno's Kickstarter project -- Unsung Story -- just ended successfully a few days ago. And I couldn't help but think of Final Fantasy XII (codirected by Matsuno) as I recently reviewed Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, which presents a much smaller and frankly less compelling take on FFXII's open-world concept. And so, here we go, fresh from our brains to your ears:
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Apparently it's good if you leave us positive reviews on iTunes?
This episode turned out to be a less-than-daunting task, as all three of us are pretty keen on at least some of Matsuno's games -- as is guest host Kat Bailey. In fact, the real challenge here was keeping the discussion short enough that our guest didn't have to bail on us midway through to make a prior engagement.
We cover Matsuno's career from his days at Quest (and in fact discuss the origins of Quest) through Unsung Story. But since he's had a pretty small output, it's easy to enumerate the games at hand: Conquest of the Crystal Palace, Ogre Battle, Tactics Ogre, Final Fantasy Tactics, Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Final Fantasy XII, MadWorld, and Crimson Shroud. See? That wasn't so hard. Musical selections come from Final Fantasy Tactics by Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata, though I believe I only spliced in Sakimoto compositions (sorry, Mr. Iwata. Please understand).
As a small caveat about this episode's recording process: Not only was this episode unfortunately hosted by me, this is also the first episode I've hosted remotely. The rest of the crew was back in San Francisco in the studio while I recorded from home on the East Coast. Despite this, I think it all turned out more or less seamless thanks to my snipping out all the awkward pauses and stumbling cross-talk. Thankfully, remote hosting won't happen too often. When we ran our Kickstarter campaign, we couldn't have predicted the need to fly me cross-country every few weeks, so it wasn't budgeted... but we're contemplating workarounds. In the meantime, please nerd out on this discussion, because good lord is it nerdy.
