Shigesato Itoi, a true Renaissance Man of Japan's entertainment world, is mostly known to us gamers as the mastermind behind the Mother RPG series. And it's his iconoclastic, "outsider" view of the video game medium that makes his projects so unique and cult-friendly; someone deeply entrenched in the world of RPG development is far more likely to make a derivative Tales of game than anything approaching the level of Itoi's imagination. With how creatively successful the Mother games have been, it's surprising that developers haven't tried bringing in more outside artists to derail the tunnel-vision quite a few franchises and genres currently suffer from.
Thanks to Itoi, I was deeply engrossed in Mother 3 over the fall and winter months of 2008, mainly because it took such a different approach than the other Mother games; rather than having a huge, worldwide scope (the usual method of most RPGs), the final entry in the Mother trilogy scaled things down to a much smaller and more detailed world that eventually changed (for the worse) over time. It was a fascinating approach that led me to care more about the game's world and inhabitants, all the way up until the heartbreaking ending.
The reason I've been thinking about Itoi lately--aside from the fact that he's so dreamy--relates to a few translated interviews with the jack of all trades posted by the equally-dreamy Tomato over at Earthbound Central. The interviews may be framed by a larger discussion of Animal Crossing, but Itoi still has a few interesting things to say about RPG game design.
Take his comments about Mother 3's small scope, for example:
That’s when I thought of an RPG in which you stay in a certain town for a long time...
The game would have character relations, and the people would all have their own lives. This way, we could do all sorts of things in the game. For example, someone who recently hung laundry out to dry would be wearing those clothes the next day. I wanted to make an RPG in which you could grow closer to the people as time went on.
Interesting stuff, though I wish there was much more of it. You can read the first part of the Mother-related interview comments HERE, and the second part HERE.
Related Links:
The Mother 3 Handbook: Better than Advertised
Mother 3's Soundtrack Disassembled
OST: Mother