It’s fitting that in a year that marks the 30th anniversary of the original PlayStation, two of the console’s biggest franchises – Tekken and Final Fantasy – are collaborating again. These two names are almost synonymous with the PlayStation brand, and what’s more, they have a common development history that few people know about.
So, decades later, the Tekken and Final Fantasy franchises compete with each other on friendlier terms. Final Fantasy 16 hero Clive Rosfield will be the latest guest character to join the Tekken lineup. He is the second Final Fantasy character to ever join Tekken, after Noctis from Final Fantasy 15, who appeared in Tekken 7.
You might be surprised to hear that the collaboration between Final Fantasy 16 and Tekken 8 has started much earlier than expected. So early, in fact, that Final Fantasy 16 was still in development when Tekken series producer Katsuhiro Harada contacted FF16 producer Naoki Yoshida about a potential collaboration. Yoshida invited Harada and Tekken 8 director Kohei Ikeda to Square Enix to play a version of the game that was in development, and the groundwork was laid for the crossover.
Developed by the team behind the hugely popular MMORPG Final Fantasy 14, Final Fantasy 16 is a radical departure from the series in terms of gameplay, forgoing any turn-based combat in favor of real-time action where Clive can wield his sword and chain combos. The more action-oriented Final Fantasy 16 meant Clive could fit seamlessly into Tekken. His powerful attack combos and ability to channel the powers of various “Eikons” – powerful familiars such as Ifrit, Phoenix, and Titan – provide quite a diverse set of his appearances in Tekken 8.
While Final Fantasy 16 fans will find that Clive has access to many of the same abilities in Tekken as he does in his own game, there are some changes to the character. Namely, his character model.
“The director of the Final Fantasy team told us that he wanted us to adjust Clive’s physique a bit because our characters are quite strong,” Ikeda recalls. “So we adjusted his legs and lower body to make him more compatible with our players when they are both on the same screen at the same time.”
So Clive hit the gym for Tekken, but to pay for those recent muscles he had to make some sacrifices elsewhere. “It’s funny that even though he has become more muscular, his sword has shrunk, because in a fighting game it would have given him way too much of an advantage if the sword had been as big as it was in the original game,” Harada adds.
So I guess that means Cloud and his colossal Buster Sword won’t be joining Tekken? Well, don’t think so speedy. According to Harada, the Tekken team is not constrained to one Final Fantasy character. He says “it would be nice if we had two,” but it’s not out of the question for now.
It’s been quite a journey, seeing games like Tekken and Final Fantasy evolve side by side, and now seeing them intersect like this. While neither franchise is exclusive to PlayStation anymore, their brand association means that both Tekken and Final Fantasy feature prominently on our list of the 100 best PlayStation games of all time.
Of course, we had to ask the creators of Tekken, “What’s your favorite Final Fantasy video game?”
Tekken 8 director Ikeda says his favorite game is Final Fantasy 4 because he was cheerful to see the series change to be “more narrative-driven.” The plot was about the main character Cecil and his transformation from the Dark Knight into a paladin.
For Harada, Final Fantasy 4 is also a favorite, but from a personal point of view there is no comparison to the cult entry: Final Fantasy 7.
“There are so many scenes in the game that I still remember,” says Harada. Perhaps his colleagues working on the title helped make that bond even stronger, and being able to return the favor to Clive in Final Fantasy XVI is thanks for those memories.
Matt Kim is senior features editor at IGN. You can reach it @lawoftd.
