If you’re a moogle lover, you got lucky, because the loveable creatures almost didn’t make it into Final Fantasy 16.
Moogles have fairly consistently appeared in the Final Fantasy series over the years, though were noticeably absent from the most recent numbered entry, Final Fantasy 15. They’re also easily the best creatures in the entire series, because just look at them and tell me you don’t love them. But according to Final Fantasy 16 producer, moogles actually proved to be quite difficult on a technical level, almost leading to them being taken out of the game.
Over on the Square Enix blog, a recent interview with some of the developers behind the RPG went into what it actually took to make the game (thanks, Eurogamer). And according to Yoshida, moogles were a real pain in the neck to get right. “Probably the greatest challenge, on a fundamental level, was the moogle,” Yoshida said. “The development team was worried that moogles would both be too difficult to create, and wouldn’t fit the feel of the world, but our Assistant Producer was like, ‘I don’t care, just put them in the game!'”
According to art director Hiroshi Minagawa, the biggest problem was actually to do with implementing the performance mode. “Performance mode alters the appearance of the polygons slightly, and we particularly struggled with the moogle…it just ended up with less fur,” Minagawa said, apparently causing Yoshida to let out a big laugh. “It kind of ended up looking like a hedgehog! We were like:’Is…is this a moogle? Hmmm…’ Eventually, we ended up putting in some processing specifically for the moogle.”
Thankfully, moogles obviously have now ended up in the game, meaning that all is right in the world.
We got one more look at Final Fantasy 16 last week during the PlayStation Showcase, ahead of its release this month. And once it has launched, Square Enix is apparently planning to work on a PC port of the game, though no word on when that will be just yet.