Magic: Party – Final Fantasy is as exciting as the design team and the players

To talk about the team behind the magic: the exciting launch of the party’s upcoming Final Fantasy collaboration will be an understatement.

“When we drove to the conference center, there was a huge hotel-sized screen that read ‘Magic: Party – Final Fantasy,” said lead designer and head of set design Gavin Verhey during the upcoming news preview event. “We all looked at each other and said, 'That's it, that's what we've been waiting for. It finally happened.'”

Moments like this are Verhey, executive producer Zakeel Gordon, chief game designer Dillon Deveney and senior game designer Daniel Holt dreamed throughout the four-year history of the scene's development. As the team recalled their time on expansion, whether it was the Wizard at the Square Enix office in Japan and the Coast Headquarters in Renton, Washington, our Zoom Call ins the Zoom Call sparkled and made appearances and laughs in cards like Bahamut: Bahamut, the name of Yoshitaka Amano, among myriad other references.

For these four, the release of Magic: Party – Final Fantasy is the highest point of hard work, a celebration of Magic and Final Fantasy, and ultimately a declaration of victory. Gamespot sat down on the panel, chatting for a long time about the Magic of Final Fantasy: The Party, which will begin on June 13.

Design process

“I'm designing cards at 2 a.m.” is a common phrase in Verhey's mouth. In this particular case, he is talking about Absolute Virtue, the powerful boss of Final Fantasy XI, and the cards that appear during the panel. Gordon, Divani and Holt nodded intentionally, looking forward to the story's development.

Verhey said: “I tried to design absolute virtue, I couldn't figure out what to do, I fell asleep on the table – like an adult. Suddenly, I woke up and thought, 'Ah!' Ah! Its protection! It popped up from my head in my mind! When I woke from sleeping, I spelled it into archives, and I thought, they don't want it, but they don't want it, but they might want it, I do. Amazing.”

This is not to say that every conversation swims like this. Deveney uses the word “energy” to describe some of the conversations between herself and Holt. “We only have so many design slots on the (prebuilt commander) deck,” Deveney described. “Who got it? Who lays off?”

Deveney particularly recalls the discussion about Final Fantasy XIV prefabricated deck, which is a difficult task in itself. “To be honest, this is a game that has been running for over 10 years with 14 years of content; we might only be able to make a whole game,” Deveney said. “I’ve been playing games since it was launched and Daniel said he’s playing games, so our perspective is different.”

Deveney said the difference in perspective helped them two fine-tune the FF14 Commander deck as real as possible. Sometimes Deveney would want a role that Holt didn't think was that important. Other times, Devini would not refuse the answer. “Especially a character, I have to say 'Daniel, if they don't go in, I'll be frustrated because if they don't go in, I'll be frustrated with me.''

Focus on the commander

There is so much history to parse, and there is only too much room to be done in the expansion set, choosing which products received which cards or designs led to more “vibrant” discussions. “We see the whole product as an experience, but then we have to look at each individual piece – the suit, the commander, etc.” “Sometimes I ask myself, if this is the only thing fans buy, what do they expect to see?”

For Daniel Holt's main focus on the Commander, it allowed him to explore four games that get prefabricated decks – FF6, FF7, FF10 and FF14 – as their own unique story. As Holt said, “In the commander’s deck, we have to go super deep.”

Holt continued: “The Commander's Deck is a universe where almost everyone transcends the product in the way we approach them.” “Final Fantasy VI is its own world, the world of FFVII. They don't cross. Everyone allows us to add something different; for example, elves only appear in some games, not others, so we do some elves reprints on the deck to find them in it.

“With Final Fantasy VI, we have a cemetery recursion theme, but it's not because of death but 'promoting your allies'. We've twisted some of the reprinted themes, which are a lot of creative limitations, but we're also able to create something really cool.”

artwork

An interesting fact mentioned during the news preview is about some artists who contributed to the art of the card: Nine of them are known for drawing Final Fantasy art throughout history, with the option to attract anyone or anyone they wish. This opens up some interesting opportunities. Even though Amano has drawn Kefka before, until now, he has never drawn Kefka's final table throughout his career.

This leads to what Verhey calls one of the coolest moments of his life. “We were in Japan, and when Amano's Kefka works arrived, we happened to be in the Square Enix office. No one has seen it yet, and it appeared in the black art briefcase provided by Amano himself.”

“They put it on the table and we all remain silent, staring at the original Amano work…but in the distance, because none of us want to be too close, risking it messing up in some way,” Verhey continued. “No one sneezing, no one will do anything that can leave a mark on that.”

Deveney said most artists draw on characters they are familiar with, but some took the opportunity to branch out and try something new. “There are some artists who are like, 'Oh, I hope to have a chance to play another game toy because I'm not working, which sounds really fun,” Deveney explained. “They are like, 'Oh, I've always wanted to draw this character!'”

Like Final Fantasy Art, the soundtrack for each of these games is well known. Of course, it's very difficult to implement music into a physical card game, but the team does try to make the music work. As Deveney said, “These discussions have happened completely.”

“I would say there are two or three cards you might be happy to see 'wink, wink, nudge, nudge' quotes to famous song records, or you can hear those moments when songs play – we were able to get into the scene,” Deveney said. “There is a different discussion about music rights and how each industry is, but yes, we were able to get some very intentional reference in it.”

Choose a headline

The recent magic set has been included in a headline – a specific card that acts as a “chasing” card with limited print counts and limited print counts per print. The last set, Tarkir: Dragonstorm, has used Mox Jasper (the dragon-centric Mox Gem) as the headlines, which includes the special art of original Mox artist Dan Frazier.

For Final Fantasy, the team knew it wanted to pick something every FF fan knew. Of course, they could have made headlines a character like Cloud or Sefiros, but FF7 fans would appreciate it very much. Fans of other games may not like it much. That's why for Zakeel Gordon, the choice is simple: Chocobo, especially the traveling Chocobo.

“Chocobo is the flagship character we want to push it to the forefront because it's the representative of the vast majority of games,” Gordon said. “If you're a fan of the franchise, but you can only have connections with certain games, you'll realize Chocobo anyway.” The team did draw inspiration from a particular game – multiple variants depict multiple colored chocobos in Final Fantasy, but even if players aren't familiar with Chocobo Racing, they know what the bird is.

However, this continuous chocolate is oddly the number of prints – the previous headlines saw 500 copies, and the Golden Travel Chocobo would see only 77 prints. This was intentional because the team wanted the card to feel more special. “I think 77 is the ideal medium for our recent serialization, and it's a little less than “a ring” but more rare than “x of 500.” And, in the spirit of Final Fantasy 7, two sevens feel like the right number.”

Over the years

The final large feature of this new expansion is Final Fantasy: Experienced Age, which is a bonus form for 64 cards – each card in the 16 mainline FF games. All 64 cards are reprints of previously issued magic cards, but the artwork depicted on each card comes from the authentic Square Enix archive. It's a history lesson in cardboard form, Dillon Deveney said, to be exact, they have a lot of material to parse – 5,000 pieces of art to be exact.

Deveney said: “We ask all sorts of questions, what do we think someone wants to see the most customization of this game? What is the best version of this art? What is the best version of this character? Should we come with a rough concept or a fully finished illustration? Is this a good land or a good land or a charm or a charm or a world of goods? everything. ”

The PAX East panel shows multiple cards from the bonus table, including Zidane Tribal of FF9 as the launch of Ragavan, Nimble Pillferer and FF2, Swordmaster, Sram, Advanced Idificer. Previously, FF7's Yuffie Kisaragi was unveiled as the Tiger's Shadow Yuriko.

“The bonus table is where we can perfectly balance each game,” Gordon said. “We allocated the 'budget' for each game: there will be four cards, we will have a protagonist and an opponent, and then we will find two moments; one maybe story-driven, and the other maybe mechanically driven.”

– –

When the group signed in the preview, host and former MTG broadcaster Richard Hagon said that while it was still magical: the party, the Final Fantasy scene felt different. “You can definitely play a great magic game with this set, the cards are there, the designs are there. But, the feeling is unique and special, and that's what people have to remember for a long time.” When the group nodded enthusiastically, the feeling must have come from the thought behind the scene. Now, all that's left is to let the players pick up the game.

Magic: Party – Final Fantasy will be available on June 13 at local game stores and major retailers.