Magic: The Gathering’s design team was faced with an unenviable task when it came to creating itsFinal Fantasyset: how to adapt all 16 mainline games while still including the major moments from each one. As if the sheer volume of games wasn’t enough, many games in the series also have long runtimes, with the main stories usually taking over 20 hours to complete. However, there was another unexpected obstacle to including certainFinal Fantasymoments that I wouldn’t have guessed until I talked to the set’s designers.
As part ofScreen Rant’s coverage of MagicCon Las Vegas, I participated in a round table discussion with some of the developers who worked onMagic: The Gathering’sFinal Fantasyset. The topic of how to balance out the 16 differentFinal Fantasygames came up a few times during the discussion, with the developers making it clear that they tried their best to balance each game, though this was a difficult task. However, one of the most interesting bits of information wasa specific reason why certainFinal Fantasyscenes weren’t included.
Final Fantasy’s Localization Limited What Scenes Could Appear In Magic: The Gathering
The round table interview discussing the making ofMagic’sFinal Fantasyset included Executive Producer Zakeel Gordon, Lead Game Designer for theFinal FantasyCommander DecksDaniel Holt, and Narrative Lead Dillon Deveney. During the discussion, I asked the panel if any aspects of adaptingFinal FantasyforMagic: The Gatheringwere heavily debated, citingFF6protagonist Terra Blanford’s sometimes green, sometimes blonde hair as a possible example. In response,Dillon Deveney explained the role that localization played in the design process, and how it created some interesting conversations regarding what scenes to include, stating:
One of the things that was a very refreshing reminder when working on this project was that, maybe this sounds obvious, butFinal Fantasy is first and foremost a Japanese IPmade by a Japanese studio… And it’s made in the Japanese language first with that characterization in mind, and then localized in various languages across the world.
Deveney went on to say that there were"plenty of characters with completely different characterization[s]" between the Japenese version and the U.S. versionthat some ofMagic: The Gathering’s designers were more familiar with. This means that certain scenes that theMagic: The Gathering x Final Fantasyteam wanted to include, and likely some that fans of the U.S. localization would also have expected to see, weren’t included because of the simple fact that they never happened in the Japanese version of the game. Deveney explained more of the design process, saying:
[There are] scenes that just don’t happen, and so when we would have conversations like, “Oh yeah, it’d be so awesome to put this scene in there, and then we send it over to Square Enix to get their feedback, and they’re like, “Why do you want the scene where they’re talking about how much the inn costs?”
According to Deveney, the sceneMagic’s designers actually wanted was one fromFinal Fantasy 4where Rosa tells her friends to stop fighting. However, this powerful character moment was an original inclusion in localized versions ofFF4. Ultimately,theMagic: The Gatheringteam and Square Enix decided to stick with scenes that were consistent across versions of the games.
Magic: The Gathering And Square Enix Were Right To Stick To Universal Appeal
The Scenes Left In The Set Are Ones That All Final Fantasy Fans Can Recognize
At the end of the day,Wizards of the Coast and Square Enix made the right call by avoiding any scenes that are unique to certain versionsof theFinal Fantasygames. Although it means that some players' favorite moments might have been left out, it ensures that the moments that were included are universally recognizable. Like theFinal Fantasyseries,Magic: The Gatheringis a game that is widely distributed, so making sure the set doesn’t alienate fans by favoring a specific version of the games only makes sense.
While it isn’t exactly a secret that games change in some ways during the localization process, it is interesting to know how significant these changes can be. The fact that emotional moments in one version of a game could be a simple logistical conversation in others. I’ll be interested to see if futureUniverses BeyondMagic: The Gatheringsets leave out major moments that I would expect to see, and in learning if there were also scenes that weren’t present in all forms of the set’s source material.
