The legacy of this gigantic war that raged 3,000 years ago is important to the story of the game. With Team Flare, I wanted to separate them from some kind of philosophy and make them a bit more goofy and funny.
In Pokémon Black Version and Pokémon White Version, Team Plasma's philosophy had a bit more of a serious tone to it. I wanted to express how terrifying obsession can be with this character. However, he's more obsessed with what he could do with the weapon than what the reason for its creation was originally. He's a person who thought AZ's ultimate weapon was brilliant and became obsessed with it.
The idea for Lysandre came up when I was working on AZ's character settings. What was the inspiration for Team Flare's evil objective and the character of Lysandre? Doing that would take too much of the focus off of catching Pokémon! (laughs) However, I don't think I want to take it in a direction that shows people fighting or a relationship falling apart. In the future, I think I may add more romantic elements if I can do it in a fun way. The fireworks scene also expressed Shauna and the player becoming closer to each other – going from just having met, to becoming friends, to becoming very close friends. We did this to express that Shauna is interested in the player. For example, when running through the forest early in the game, Shauna will stay behind the player. Yes, with France being the basis for the region, I wanted to implement some elements of romance with Shauna when playing as a boy and express a deep friendship when playing as a girl. There are hints of a romance between the player character and Shauna, especially during the fireworks scene, did this romance angle come from the fact that Paris is the city of love? Or would you like future Pokémon games to include more of a love story? When this feature appeared in the February issue of the magazine, we cut a number of questions in order to save space.
We spoke with series producer Junichi Masuda about the difficulties of taking Pokémon in this new direction, as well as questions about the plot, general Pokémon lore, and what's going on with Klefki and Espurr.
It's a huge game with a newly realized 3D world and 3D Pokémon, and it's full of mystery in both its plot and its development. The latest core entry in the Pokémon franchise is the biggest step forward the series has taken in many years.