 Takumi felt that the best way to write a mystery with a good climax is to reveal various clues , and then pull them together into one conclusion , and not have multiple possible endings . He said that the biggest challenge with that was to make the gameplay and story work together ; the goal was to make the player feel like they have driven the story forward themselves , with their own choices , even though the game is linear . He only spent little time on writing a backstory for Phoenix before writing the first game 's story , and instead made up dialogue and developed Phoenix 's personality as he went along . He came up with the partner character Maya because he thought it would be more fun for players to have another character with them , giving them advice , than investigating on their own . 
