
...greetings, new employee! As a result of nepotism/absurd bribery of some inexplicable proportion, you're fast tracked to the position of a director in Square-Enix. You have at hand your team of indentured servants - I mean, hardworking, dedicated programmers working together mostly amiably - and Grand Master Matsuda has requested that you produce a new spinoff Final Fantasy title.
For some reason, your boss(es) are allowing you extensive freedom in creating the game you're tasked with. Your creative juices can be put to good use, providing they're within pragmatic limits, so long as it's shipped with the Final Fantasy name proudly stamped on the cover and in all the legal stuff. No new IP, sadly, orders the Grand Master. He wants this game to sell moderately well in the west, and he is unconvinced that a mysterious, unseen, alien name on the box will not be worth the effort in the end.
Fair enough, you respond.

So you get to work, and come together with other relevant people to extract those creative juices, get them flowing, and agree on the general framework and concepts for this spinoff game. Work all day and night if you must. No one ever said that working in Square-Enix Japan would be a walk in any park, unless you're Hiroyuki Itou, who has for some reason been relegated to janitorial work (and between you and me, that's the most merciful fate that can befall a man in this company).

Your bosses call you one day at 4pm on the 25th floor or whatever to talk with them through the basic game concepts you and your friends have come up with. They're not expecting the next Shadow of the bloody Colossus, but they're at least expecting something viable within the limits of what they can afford you: a relatively small team, and enough money in the pot to rope in only one other third party studio to do some of the developmental grunt work if you so desire. Just make sure it's something that can garner moderate good success around the world, so don't even think about making a date rape game. In fact, don't make date rape anything in general.

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(While overdoing this opening post, I have neglected to answer my own thread topic. I shall therefore do it later.)