Ever Oasis dev on the game's themes, why 3DS was chosen over Switch, lack of multiplayer

A portion of a USGamer interview with Koichi Ishii...

USgamer: Ever Oasis’s main mechanic -- turning a desert into a fertile oasis -- appears to be based on growth and rebirth. What motivated you to adopt this theme?

Kishii: "Life and death" may seem like the beginning and the end, but I believe that "living" means discovering your life’s purpose as well as "struggling" to never giving up.

You can grow and build experience by challenging yourself to see how much of your life’s purpose you are able to fulfill during this life, which in turn can take you up to the next level. What you couldn’t accomplish in this life will be carried over into the next life in a different form. I feel like that kind of repetition is the path that souls travel. Those kinds of thoughts that I have may be deeply embedded in the gameo’s themes.

USgamer: The Nintendo 3DS still has life left in it, but is there any particular reason why the 3DS was chosen as Ever Oasis’s main platform instead of the Nintendo Switch?

Kishii: The big reason is that more people own the 3DS than the Switch. We also felt that the unique 3D feature would allow the players to immerse themselves in the world of Ever Oasis, so that’s how we decided to develop this for the 3DS.

USgamer: Since Ever Oasis is an action-RPG with multiple characters in your party, some people were hoping multiplayer would be an option. Did Grezzo ever plan to have a multiplayer option in the game?

Kishii: What you feel from an experience differs depending on who you shared the experience with compared with just by yourself. I’ve always felt strongly about making this a multiplayer game, but decided to first focus on building the world and the play cycle. A multiplayer element was incorporated into the Secret of Mana, but this was under the assumption that friends, siblings and family members will be playing together. The time you have to play with family and friends as a child isn’t a large chunk of time. That "time" turns into precious memories. So, that’s why we incorporated this feature. If I were to get an opportunity to create another game, then I want the first thing I incorporate to be the multiplayer element.