The game's dialogue system was inspired by Shin Megami Tensei (1992), particularly the gameplay mechanic whereby players can talk to monsters to avoid conflict. Fox intended to expand upon this mechanic, as failing to negotiate resulted in a requirement to fight. "I want to create a system that satisfied my urge for talking to monsters," he said. When he began developing this mechanic, the concept of completing the game without killing any enemies "just evolved naturally". However, he never considered removing the option to fight throughout development. When questioned on the difficulty of playing the game without killing, Fox responded that it is "the crux of one of the major themes of this game", asking players to think about it themselves. Despite not having played it, Fox was inspired by the concepts of Moon: Remix RPG Adventure (1997), which involved the player repairing the damage of the "Hero" and increasing their "Love Level" by helping people instead of hurting them.
