Matsuno On How Unsung Story Will Differ From Final Fantasy Tactics

Unsung Story designer Yasumi Matsuno has shared a further details on the game in another brief Q&A session on the Unsung Story Kickstarter page. We’ve picked a few of the more interesting questions and answers out below, but you can view the full list of of them here.

Q: “Will the overall game play be an open-world feel with tactical battles or more like the ‘going between towns on a road’ feel like [Final Fantasy Tactics]?”

A: Though the world map will look like [Final Fantasy Tactics] and [Tactics Ogre’s], with various towns, strongholds, and the like, as the focus of this game will be participating in slices of history, the player will not move from town to town, but from time to time. At any given time, you will have a range of “scenarios” (i.e. battles) to choose from.

Q: “Will there be side quests available?”

A: Not at launch, but side quests will certainly be part of the expansion material we make available in the months following release.

Q: “[Final Fantasy Tactics] and [Final Fantasy Tactics A2] moved away from Charge/cast times, which I felt heavily took away from the depth of those games. Will Charge/Cast times be a core component of this game? One of my favorite mechanics in FFT was casting time.”

A: Sorry, there won’t be casting times in this game.In fact, the reason why FFT included a casting time system at all was to allow the game time to load graphic effects. This was a necessary consideration due to PlayStation loading times and memory concerns. Speaking as a developer back in those days, I can tell you that we weren’t happy with it.

Q: “The “World” system from PSP remake of Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together is a fantastic mechanic that I hope can be incorporated in this project.”

A: While it won’t be exactly the same as the World system from TO:LUCT, there’s some similarity in how you will be able to travel freely through different points in the game story’s history.

Unsung Story has acquired close to $480,000 in Kickstarter contributions thus far, and is aiming to accumulate $600,000 over the next four days. If the funding goal is met, Unsung Story will be released for PC, Mac, Windows Tablets and Linux. If it isn’t met, the game will be released solely for iOS and Android devices.