I’ve never talked to someone who didn’t understand a word I was saying until today, when I was lucky enough to interview the team behind the upcoming videogame Final Fantasy XIII. At Square Enix’s offices in Los Angeles, I talked to Yoshinori Kitase, who has been with the company since the first Final Fantasy on the original Nintendo, Motomu Toriyama, who has been there since the most memorable Final Fantasy, FFVII, and Yuiji Abe, who is the new battle director.

The best part is that I wasn’t told about the interview opportunity; I went to the offices that day only knowing about the playable demo. When I was offered a chance to talk to the team, I said, “Sure,” thinking it’d be the usual American-based dialogue editor or marketing manager. After playing the game for 20 minutes, then jotting down a few questions in my notebook while waiting in the lobby, I was led into a board room. There, Mr. Kitase, Mr. Toriyama, and Mr. Abe were sitting on one side of the long table. Shocked, I slowly sat down on at the opposite side of the table and clutched my notebook. At the head of the boardroom table was a Japanese translator. She would help conduct the interview.

Talking with someone who doesn’t understand English was a mind-blowing experience. There’s significant lag between between body language and understanding what the other person is saying. I found this most striking when I asked my third question. “One of the PRs said that we were having trouble getting past the Behemoth King during our demo. Do you have a trick to help us get beat the Behemoth King,” I asked in a very funny way. It’s not everyday that a journalist asks these giants of the videogame industry for gameplay tips, so the three people fluent in English in the room laughed… none of the three game developers thought it was funny. I was crushed! About 30 seconds later, all three burst out laughing. I must have had the biggest smile on my face. I felt like the conversation really picked up from that point forward.

When the interview wrapped up, I said thank you and stood up to leave. That’s when battle director Mr. Abe motioned to my pen, the LiveScribe Pulse, and questioned me with the simple phrase “Your pen? Your pen?” I explained that it recorded conversations and allowed me to write down notes with normal ink on specialized micro-dotted paper. Later on, I’d be able to go back and touch my notes and play back what was said at the moment I had initially touched my pen down onto the paper. It’s a journalist’s best friend. The Japanese translator told them what I had said about the pen and all three at the same time expressed amazement with, “Ooooohhh!” I had her translate, “That’s the first time anyone from Japan was impressed with American technology.” Ten seconds later, when the translator finished reciting my joke in Japanese, all three men let out another laugh.

You can read my preview by clicking on Final Fantasy XIII: 7 Reasons to Wait in Line for it Next Month and read the text interview here.