Final Fantasy Type-0 HD
During the production of "Final Fantasy Type-0", the development team explored the possibility of a high-definition port of the game. The idea never went beyond experimentation as the team was focused on keeping the game as a portable experience. The team also experimented with a sequel on eighth generation consoles, but production was halted when the development team were transferred to "Final Fantasy XV". After some time working on "XV", original director Hajime Tabata decided to develop "Type-0 HD" for eighth-generation consoles. The game began development in mid-2012, around the same time "XV" was shifted onto PlayStation 4 (PS4) and Xbox One. Tabata came on board in July of that year as director and producer, though his involvement was fairly minor due to his directing duties for "XV". The main development was handled by HexaDrive, who had previously collaborated successfully with Square Enix on "The 3rd Birthday", and had developed the high-definition remasters of "Ōkami" and "". The remaster was intended as an incentive for "Final Fantasy" players in both Japan and the west to purchase eighth generation consoles before "XV"s release. The original plan was for a port to both the seventh generation PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles, and eighth generation consoles. After the PS4 proved popular at the 2013 Tokyo Game Show, and as Tabata had no development experience with seventh generation console hardware, the team focused on the eighth generation versions. According to art director Yusuke Naora, moving from the PlayStation Portable to eighth-generation hardware proved hard for the team. Despite early claims, no version of "Type-0 HD" was developed for the PlayStation Vita. According to Tabata, this was due to difficulties in porting between console and Vita development environments, and his wish for a playing experience he could only envision on home consoles.
Final Fantasy Type-0
The gameplay was inspired by the multi-character system of "Before Crisis", while the naming of magic styles after weapons of war made reference to first-person shooters. The combat was designed to be filled with tension and portray each playable character's personality on the battlefield. The Eidolons were originally not controlled in realtime, but during the development of Ifrit, Tabata did some testing with real-time commands. The results impressed him enough that he decided to overcome the technical difficulties involved and make the Eidolons controllable. Due to technical restrictions and the presence of the Academy Assist function, the game's artificial intelligence for playable characters needed to be limited to healing, survival and other minor actions. The game's multiplayer was deliberately designed around restricted segments. Its development was still ongoing during the summer of 2011, with a temporary stoppage of PlayStation Network that year negatively affecting its development. Because of the size of the project, debugging the game took far longer than anticipated. Between the release of the demo and the full game, adjustments were made to gameplay mechanics and the in-game camera. In a post-release interview, Tabata commented that he would have liked to expand the multiplayer functions to include an ad-hoc function and expanded cooperative gameplay, and create a more forgiving learning curve for players.