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| Hironobu Sakaguchi |
Final Fantasy is a Role-playing-game from Japan,
by a company named Squaresoft.
It all started in 1987.
Squaresoft had released a couple of games for the famicom,
like Rad racer , and the 3d battles of world runner, but nothing huge.
Therefore they wanted to make something that would really be good or big.
Because if they didn't the company had to shut down.
With an uncertain future Square made a game called Final Fantasy,
It was named like that because this was their last game.
They where gonna put everything in this game and make this a fantastic rpg.
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| Dragon Quest Series |
He was frustrated that whatever he did, it wasn't good enough,
and he was about to leave the gaming-industry.
So this last project was going to be his baby.
Inspired on the Dragon Quest series.
Sakaguchi decides his project will also be a role-playing-game.
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| Yoshitaka Amano |
Yoshitaka Amano is a fairly respected artist in Japan.
A traditional painter, his works are very dynamic and flowing.
As an artist he really liked to challenge himself,
He saw this as an opportunity to try the new thing, he saw the Famicom as a console to try it on.
For the players the actual excitement in playing the game comes from developing a character.
Seeing that character win battles or from seeing a great storyline,takes the character to different places the game.
It has a much greater impact when it's coupled with the graphics & the music that go with it.
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| Famicon |
For the music they went to composer Nobuo Uematsu.
At the time Square was looking for a composer, the only available jobs for composer at that time,
where in the games industry. And Square didn't had a lead composer,so he decided to join.
The music was brilliant considered the tools he had at that time.
You could really feel the music and the story itself.
So Final Fantasy was in the beginning meant to be designed to be spectacular and good,
far beyond what any players had graphically or musically seen before.
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| Nobuo Uematsu |
And audiences where stunned, FF1 was a huge success,
it didn't reach the height of Dragon Quest but,it was clearly the second-best rpg Japan had ever seen.
And compared to DQ, second place wasn't that bad.
But it was enough to save the company.
Then from here on after Square decided to make FF2,despite the popularity of the first FF,
Square decides that their sequel can be even better.
Final Fantasy 2was released in Japan on December 17 1988, and fans take notice.
Final Fantasy 2 was an even more successful , than the first one.
Users where ready for another rpg of this kind, Square had the success and the name recognition.
All they had to do now was making the game.
Sakaguchi and his team where ready to make the 3rd installment of the Final Fantasy series.
Final Fantasy 3 had much more complicated graphics then first or the second Final Fantasy.
Final Fantasy 3 was a late generation Nintendo game, it came out in 1990.
At this point, the Nintendo/famicom had given up all it's secrets,
So what the developers where able to do,was far beyond what they where able to do 3 or 4 years ago.
When Square released the game in Japan on April 27 in 1990,fans rush out to buy it.
Now Square had a good brand name, and was making FF games.
Final Fantasy was now not only seen as a popular game, but also as a cultural phenomenon.
It was different than all the other games on the market, you had to think more to play this game.
It really was a mind breaker, and the storyline and the music played a big part in it.
After the success of the first 3 Final Fantasy ,Squaresoft planned to take the series over to the U.S.
But Square gets some help, It was brought over by the help of Nintendo.
Part of the reason of the delay was, Square didn't really have a large U.S. presence.
So the resources necessary,to translate a heavy text rpg,was probably beyond that company.
So with Nintendo's help with the translation and the promotional push,
Nintendo's Power magazine helped the game find a new audience.
FF wasn't like any other game, the game had a huge review in the Nintendo Power Magazine every month for 6 month's.
So the promotion of the game was very big in the U.S. and that benefited Square and Nintendo a lot.
Final Fantasy 1 was released in the U.S. after Final fantasy 3 was released in Japan.
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| NES |
And was really gearing up for the Super Nintendo launch,
Squarsoft started working on the sequel of the series.
It's was a Final Fantasy facelift, on July 19th 1991 Square released Final Fantasy 4 in Japan.
Which arrived several months later released as Final Fantasy 2 in the U.S.
The popularity of the game plays a big part of the launch of Nintendo's new system.
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| SNES |
Squarsoft and Nintendo's relationship went both ways.
Nintendo's popular hardware helped Square sell copies of FF.
But the popularity of FF series drove players to buy Nintendo hardware.So they helped each other to stay on top of their game.
On December 6 1992, Squaresoft released Final Fantasy 5 in Japan.
The game is considerd too hard for American gamers,and isn't released in the U.S.
But gamers didn't have to wait long, because on April 2nd in 1994, Squaresoft released Final Fantasy 6 in Japan.
The game arrives in America as Final Fantasy 3,
and it once again takes the videogame-world by storm.
Final Fantasy 6 was a graphical powerhouse, it was the most beautiful game you would ever see.
It was the first game Yoshitaka Amano's work was preserved in the characters and in the world.
His art was so artistic, and looked like thousand dollar paintings,
and it really connected you to the character of the game.You could really feel yourself in the storyline of it.
The game was as always the pioneer of the game every era, top notch.
And with the power of new technology at that time,
Snes gave it's most best what it had in house. It had a fantastical musical score,
it was widely considered Nobuo Uematsu's best score.The game was like no other.
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| N64 |
When Squaresoft did announce Final Fantasy 7 it was not for the N64 but for the PSX / PSOne ( Sony Playstation )
Sakaguchi told their teamworkers it would be better to go with the psx,
because it would be better with the graphics they went with.
So the company switched their game console from Nintendo to Sony psx.
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| PSX |
It was just top notch compared to the previous Final Fantasy's, they now had the power to work with better CGI techs and such.
It was their first 3D game on the Playstation,
Final Fantasy was released both in Japan and the U.S. in 1997 as a Playstation exclusive.
And Sony launches a mass worldwide ad campaign and it pays off.
Traditionally role-playing-games appeal to about 10/15% a very dedicated part of the market.
And Final Fantasy did, was explode that,suddenly everyone wanted to play the game.
Rpg's where no longer just a niche thing.
Squaresoft had in mind that they would make a profit of 3 million. And in U.S. a million,
and i went to a million, more that a million. It went beyond a million.
Squaresoft was happy to see it went better than they had expected.
When i first played Final Fantasy 7, i was mind blown. It was the first rpg that was in 3D and had so many visuals.
Everywhere you looked it looked perfect, the music too. Off course nothing other than Nobuo Uematsu.
It had beaten every game in the game industry at that time.
The music and graphics where just stuck in your head.
This was the first Final Fantasy that had a 3D battle playment. Now the characters really moved forward to slash enemies.
Everything was in 3D now, the battle, the magic, the summons. And of course they added the Limit Breaks,
Limit Breaks where attacks that where build up as soon as you're hit.
When the bar is full, you can use that ability to damage your enemy.
Overall, for me it's hard to say what Final Fantasy is better.
Final Fantasy 6,7 and 8 where my favorite.
They all where unique and great,i really can't say which one it better.
Work began on Final Fantasy 8, Squarsoft released the game to eager fans in 1999.
When a Final Fantasy game comes out in Japan, it's an event, there's nothing like it.
Final Fantasy 8 sold a 3.5 million units in Japan in a month.
Final Fantasy 8 was a very romantic Final Fantasy compared to the previous series.
It's mostly about a school with student's that make their way trough exams and such.
But there's also a part about dancing, music , and love.
Combined with the music of Uematsu, the game couldn't be better.
I think for Nobuo Uematsu its a real challenge, because the previous games except FF7 it was always a medieval setting. FF7 and FF8 where more in the future.
So the music automatically changes, but if you're a fan of Uematsu you could still him in his work.
It's just his way of making music.
Final Fantasy 8 was also the first game that had a song in it.
The lyrics are by Kako Someya
The song was sung by Faye Wong, and of course composed by Nobuo Uematsu.
And the song was called ''Eyes on me''."Eyes on Me" was recorded in Hong Kong with an orchestra.
What also was addicting was the so called card game you could play in the game.
If you walked in the game and pressed square in front of someone, you could challenge them to play a game of cards.
It wasn't a regular game of cards.
The cards where illustrations monsters and sometimes illustrations of GF (Guardian Forces).
The thing is, if you won one of those special cards, later on you could exchange them for valuable items to upgrade weapons and such.
A ninth installment quickly follows which was Final Fantasy 9
The game was released on July 7 2000 in Japan.
And was released on November 14th in the U.S.And in the U.S. it was released by Square electronic arts.
The game was very different compared to the previous series.
And in Europe trough infogames.
It had like child form characters,
they even made a commercial with Coca Cola,
that was released in year 2000.
The game still had music by Uematsu, so you could feel the magic of it very well.
And it also came with a Song: Melodies of life
Performed by: Emiko Shiratori
Composed by: Nobuo Uematsu
Lyrics by: Alexander O. Smith (English), Hiroyuki Ito / Shiomi (Japanese)
Arranged by: Shirō Hamaguchi
Released by: King Records (2000)
And also in this game of Final Fantasy you had a card game that's called Tetra Master.
Where you could win cards and such
Final Fantasy 10 was released on 19 July 2001 in Japan, 20 December in the U.S in 2001.
And in Europe 2002 on 24th of May.
It's all about a blitzball player, so it's very different than the previous series.
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| BlitzBall FFX |
You still have an overworld to walk on, but you can also teleport back to the ship and select where,
you want to be teleport, in which area that is. So that's kind of different to the previous series.
Also this part has a vocal song that was released. Just like Final Fantasy 8 and 9.
This time it's called Suteki da ne, It was written by Nobuo Uematsu and Kazushige Nojima, and was sung by RIKKI.
It was one of the most powerful and romantic songs next to eyes on me.
This was also the first Final Fantasy that you could really play with the Summons called Aeons.
They have a lifespan and if that reaches zero, the aeon will retreat.
Or you can do the super attack and they will also retreat.
This was also one of the last full ost score that Nobuo Uematsu did.
Then Final Fantasy 11 came out, Release date PlayStation 2
JP May 16, 2002 and NA March 23, 2004.
But it was a whole other game than the previous games.
First of all it was a MMORPG, that means that Unlike the predefined main characters of previous Final Fantasy titles,
players are able to customize their characters in limited ways, including race
,gender, face, hair color, body size, job, and allegiance.
Also diverging from previous games in the series,
all battles are real time, and enemies are no longer randomly encountered,
a trend continued in FFXII and FFXIII
This was also the last full score that Nobuo Uematsu did for Final Fantasy.
The world was an open world. There were 32 public game worlds,
a cluster of servers, available for play with approximately 15,000 to 20,000 players in each.
There where no random encounters just like the previous FF series. More MMorpg.
And the most important thing of all it's Online, and normally with the ps2 you couldn't go online.
You had to buy a network adaptor, it's an Ethernet modem.
So you can go online with games that supported it.
Final Fantasy never came out in Europe on the ps2 but it did came out in Europe on the PC.
But the thing was that you had to have a creditcard to pay your monthly fee,
so it was hard for gamers to really play the game.
Then Square released Final Fantasy 10-2 JP March 13, 2003 NA November 18, 2003 AUS / INT February 19, 2004 EU February 20, 2004.
The game was similar to FF 10,
but you had to move the world trough a menu by selecting where you wanna go.
Transportation was via the airship Celsius.
It was considered a game for girls because you could only play with girl characters.
There also wasn't a level up system for your players to level-up.
In the game you could get Dress Sphere's to change your character's job.
This was also the first Final Fantasy that the music was not composed by Nobuo Uematsu.
The music was more upbeat tempo, a more futuristic type of music.
The position of composer was replaced by Noriko Matsueda and Takahito Eguchi.
Then Square-enix Released Final Fantasy 12,JP March 16, 2006 NA October 31, 2006 PAL February 23, 2007 INT August 7, 2007.
This Final Fantasy was very different of the previous series, but looked a little like FF11,
but only in this game you still had a battle menu.You could still choose attack, magic, items and such.
But they also introduced something new. Its called the Gambit system.
It's a system that you could set a move or a skill and they would automatically execute,
so you don't have to constantly press it.Pretty handy if you have to fight big bosses and such.
In this game Nobuo Uematsu just did one song,
and that was the opening song,which was an intro of the 1st Final Fantasy.
Hitoshi Sakimoto composed most of the game's soundtrack.
He did the ost of Final Fantasy Tactics, and also for Vagrant Story.
The summons could help you in this game if you summoned them.The cool part is if you buy a weapon,
you could really see the character holding it in his hand.But it would have been cooler if you saw the armor they bought on them too.o well.
Now this where is starts to get weird,
Square releases Final Fantasy 13, Hironobu Sakaguchi is no more, and Nobuo Uematsu is no more.. i mean the best people left Square-enix.
JP December 17, 2009 NA / PAL March 9, 2010 INT December 16, 2010.
There's is not much i can say about this Final Fantasy, i mean the graphics are stunning. The gameplay is different.
You have like a Paradigm Shift, it means that you can do combinations like 3 characters use medic, medic, med, or medic, sentinel , and medic.
So a lot of combinations.
Think of it like the gambit-system on Final Fantasy 12.
And the storyline is so linear, you only walk straight ahead. There is no real world map like the early Final Fantasy Series.
Only straight on and straight on and straight on.. I mean don't get me wrong.. It's very beautiful , but where is the great storyline??
The thing I don't like about the battle system is, if the party leader dies, it's game over . That was never the case in the previous series.
So now you have a big game, nice graphics.. With mediocre music and zero storyline.. Is that Final Fantasy? I don't think so.
I mean the balance is just off, too High graphics and too low storyline, and middle battle system.
And to make it worse they make, Final Fantasy 13-2.
OMG,why? O well. Square-Enix released Final Fantasy 13-2 in JP December 15, 2011 NA January 31, 2012 AU February 2, 2012 EU February 3, 2012.
It was again a game with stunning graphics, and teleport to unknown worlds.
Only now you can capture monsters to fight with you in the game,
you can level them up so they can help you.
I pre-ordered the game because I was really anxious about it, since I've beaten 13, I really wanted to see what they could do better.
So I got some bonuses, like some cool outfits. But the battle is kind of strange.
You can go in to battle, or you can run from it. If you're quick enough you can pre-empty it.
There's also puzzles you can do,not my strongest point of the game but o well.
And still I miss Sakaguchi, and Uematsu.. That's the thing.. Where's the hope.. But we'll come there later.
Now they are planning to continue the Final Fantasy 13 , Lightning Saga. O well , we'll just have to wait for it.
Now they released, Final Fantasy 14. JP December 15, 2011 NA January 31, 2012 AU February 2, 2012 EU February 3, 2012.
Final Fantasy 14 is a game that is similar to Final Fantasy 11, a MMORPG. But a sequel to it.
It's more bigger beautiful and better to its predecessor.I don't really play that kind of RPG, because it's online.
But it's still seems like fun, good graphics.And Nobuo Uematsu is a composer of this game.. So that's good :P
For people that like to play online MMORPG and love Final Fantasy this is a must have game.
It's for the PC. ps3 and xbox, so easy you go online. And you don't have to have a creditcard, you can just buy game-cards, easy peasy.
This final game, I've been waiting for a looong looong time.
It's called Final Fantasy Versus 13
The game is so different to its predecessors.
It's not out yet, but when it is , it will be Booming.
Here's a video: FFXIII Versus - Trailer 2 the woman that sings in this clip is Andrea Hopkins.
And is composed by Yoko Shimomura, one of my favorite game-composers, she also composed for the Kingdom Hearts series.
The game has some of the KH elements of battle. Like slashing trough the air and such.
The storyline so unique just like Final Fantasy 7 and 8.
The makers of KH are helping to make this game.
The release date is TBA.
This game just give's me the wonderful feeling like the FF7, and 8 did only better.
I mean it's not only about the graphics, about how the story and illustrations, and the music graphics grabs you.
I love Yoko Shimomura, she can fill the hole that Nobuo Uematsu left when he left Square..
PS: I Love Final Fantasy....
Best Regards : Samuel Stadler
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