IGN Presents the History of Final Fantasy - IGN (original) (raw)

Final Fantasy is the longest swan song of all time. It was never meant to last, but now, more than two decades later, it remains the most recognizable name in role-playing games. More of an idea than a true series, it has evolved into something that a young Hironobu Sakaguchi would never recognize and almost single-handedly turned a small, struggling company into an international powerhouse. In the twenty years since it first arrived on Japanese Famicom systems, it's never once relied on nostalgia or conceded to rest on its laurels. Every new game has continued to press forward, and that's precisely what makes it one of the most interesting stories in game history.

LAST UPDATED: June 18, 2013

Going Out on a High Note

Hironubu Sakaguchi joined Square right out of college. At only 21 years old, he started his journey to bring the software company into the world of computer games. You could scarcely pick a more exciting time to be a gamer, as the Nintendo Famicom was giving birth to a new console market, and a generation of 8-bit computers explored new kinds of games never possible in the arcades. Western genres like adventure games and RPGs were creeping onto the Japanese systems, and pretty soon, they'd eclipse the arcade shooters of old.

The watershed moment for RPGs came with the 1986 release of Dragon Quest on the Famicom. Games like Wizardry and Black Onyx introduced Japan to the genre, but Enix's flagship title distilled it into a simple, playable form that the console crowd could embrace. Along with Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda, the title went on to become one of the defining games of the Famicom's early life, and propelled the console to a new level of success.

This was the climate when Square released their earliest games in 1986. Sakaguchi released a pair of graphic adventures, and others at the company put out Cruise Chaser Blassty, Square's first original RPG. By the following year, they had some novel pseudo-3D games on the NES. Tobidase Daisakusen and Highway Star might sound unfamiliar, but we'd bet you've heard of their American names, 3D WoldRunner and Rad Racer. Square was picking up a lot of creative steam, but there was one problem: the games weren't really selling.

Sakaguchi grew increasingly pessimistic, as the company faced possible bankruptcy, and he realized his next game would likely be his last. Every man wants a legacy, so he committed to take one good crack at a masterpiece before bowing out. He decided to make his final game a fantasy epic, and he named it accordingly. The finality of the title would haunt him in the years to come, but at the time it seemed perfect.

Final Fantasy followed the mold of other RPGs of the day. The genre wasn't crowded yet, but competition was heating up. Final Fantasy released on the same week as SEGA's Phantasy Star and just two months ahead of Dragon Quest III -- classic games and timeless rivals. Fans will still squabble about which of these was truly the best, but all of them played a role in legitimizing the RPG as a mainstream genre.

To stay competitive with Enix, who drafted Dragonball creator Akira Toriyama to do designs for their games, Square recruited Yoshitaka Amano, known for his distinctive, sophisticated art style popularized in Vampire Hunter D. Coupled with a memorable soundtrack by Nobuo Uematsu, Final Fantasy was a polished package that just about anyone could hop into.

This one game alone was not enough to build the Final Fantasy empire, but it was success enough to pull Square out of their financial crisis, at least for a little while. It cemented a long and valuable working relationship with Nintendo that would eventually pull them away from the computer game market, and propel them to international success.

It was nearly three long years before Nintendo's localization reached American kids. By the time it arrived, it was behind Phantasy Star, Dragon Quest (known as Dragon Warrior here), and even the 16-bit Phantasy Star II. Despite the competition, Final Fantasy outsold them all in the US, and did much to erode the myth that American console gamers didn't want RPGs. For many, it was the first time they ever played such an expansive, deep, and involved game. You never forget your first RPG, and that loyalty would take Square a long way.

#### Do it Again

Well before Square even dreamed of releasing its game abroad, they were already hard at work on a sequel. With Dragon Quest cranking out new games about once a year, they knew they had to move fast or get left behind. Rather than just expanding the game with a bigger quest or more classes, they set the tone for future games in the series by releasing a game that had little connection to its predecessor and did its best to advance the gameplay and create something new. While Dragon Quest would later become notorious for its adherence to convention, Final Fantasy would constantly strive to be the Next Big Thing.

For the first time, Square placed their narrative front and center. While the first game had a thin story with interchangeable protagonists, competitors like Phantasy Star had comparatively rich stories and even cut scenes. Final Fantasy II upped their game with an original cast of characters with names and designs by Yoshitaka Amano, and much more complex storyline set in a new world, unconnected to the first.

Akitoshi Kawazu would later gain renown and infamy for his experimental approach to RPG mechanics, and it was during the development of Final Fantasy II that he first began to rebel. The sequel's gameplay was reworked considerably, with a new leveling system that powered up players' skills based on specific criteria. For example, using swords would increase the player's sword proficiency and attack skill, but magic could only be boosted by casting spells and archery by using a bow. Even hit points were leveled up by taking damage.

On paper, this sounds like an intriguing way to add depth, but in practice it forced players to masochistically allow characters to take damage in order to level up, and turned already cumbersome level grinding into an involved chore. While later remakes toned these elements down, Kawazu was banished from the main series until Final Fantasy XII, and instead headed up the more experimental SaGa series.

With the first game a hit in North America, Square decided to bring its sequel to our shores. While the original was localized by Nintendo, Final Fantasy II was the first major translation effort by Square's newly formed American office. Unfortunately, they still had a few things to learn. The effort was badly supported and the translator was forced to make cuts and rewrites to try to cram the script in place of the Japanese text with no compression. As the project dragged on, Square decided to abort the effort and focus on the first next-gen effort, Final Fantasy IV.

Final Fantasy II was never success that its predecessor was. It didn't chase away fans, but it failed to propel the series to new heights. Despite some acknowledgment that the leveling system was a misstep, the sequel left its mark on the series. Chocobos and Cid, both introduced in FF2, would become common threads that tied together most of the future sequels.

The clock was ticking on the 8-bit generation, but Sakaguchi and Square regrouped to complete their trilogy, just as Dragon Quest was beginning a new one. Once again, they stepped back to take a critical look at where they failed the last time, and where other games in the genre had eclipsed them. They wanted to make sure that their third game would not only recapture what made the first so good, but outdo it in every way.

Packed onto a then-massive four-megabit cartridge, the third Final Fantasy was a true epic. Returning to the nameless characters of the first game, it packed a brand new system that would allow players to customize their characters as they go. Rather than just ascribing one of five classes to each character at the beginning of the game, players could hop between different "jobs" throughout the game, powering up their character's unique abilities in any of more than 20 classes. It mirrored some of what Dragon Quest III was doing, but it also set the stage for the class system in later Final Fantasy titles, especially the Tactics series.

Final Fantasy III was warmly received, but quickly faded from view. While other games in the series were remade or repackaged endlessly (starting as early as a Final Fantasy I + II combo cart on the Famicom), Final Fantasy III was largely ignored until its DS remake in 2006. It still holds an important place in the series, setting the foundations for so many character classes, abilities, and skills, as well as introducing us to those lovable Moogles for the first time, but with the 16-bit generation encroaching, it would find itself quickly eclipsed.

The Second Generation

The transition to a whole new generation of hardware is a tough move. It can either propel your series to new heights, or leave you hanging without your loyal fan base. Final Fantasy III arrived right on the cusp, after the launch of the MegaDrive (Genesis), and just ahead of the Super Famicom (Super Nintendo). Square realized that they would have to confront this reality soon, but they decided to hedge their bet and develop two games in parallel. The first, named Final Fantasy IV, would appear once again on the Famicom, while the other, Final Fantasy V, would follow not far behind on the newly launched Super Famicom.

The move foreshadowed the way later games in the series would be developed, but back in 1990, it was just too much for Square to chew on. After the initial planning and pre-development, Square realized they wouldn't have the money to develop two games at once, so they quietly scrapped the NES game before any heavy duty development work had begun. They diverted their resources to the 16-bit sequel and re-titled it Final Fantasy IV.

Check out Final Fantasy IV: The After Years on WiiWare.

While previous games in the series made major changes to the underlying gameplay of the series, Final Fantasy IV looked to refine them in a way that was accessible and complimented the epic story. Rather than having nameless heroes that could hop between classes like the previous game, it was the first in the series to introduce a large ensemble cast. This gave players a variety of classes to play with, but also helped Square to develop a more complex, involved plot that encompassed personal relationships and global politics, taking the heroes beneath the planet's surface and even into space. While still rooted in the classic fantasy themes of the earlier games, it started to show a much more diverse world than anything fans had seen before.

That isn't to say the fourth game didn't innovate. For the first time since the series began, Square made a major change to the combat with the introduction of the Active Time Battle system. This gave characters recovery times for attacks based on their individual stats so that players would have an edge if they could make decisions quickly and capitalize on their faster speeds. Although it was a subtler refinement, save points also proved a worthy addition that helped to benefit the game's pacing.

Even more than just the sprawling world and refined gameplay, the new technology paid dividends. While the sprites were still as tiny as ever, and Square hadn't quite mastered the finer points of a large palette, the graphics still put every 8-bit RPG to shame. Perhaps more importantly, the SNES's advanced sound hardware completely changed the tone of Uematsu's score. Where once a handful of beeps and bloops made up the entire soundtrack, the SNES could use recorded samples to mimic an orchestral score, lending a grandiose feel to the music that no RPG had achieved before.

The decision to focus on 16-bit hardware paid off. For once, Square managed to completely beat Enix to the punch, landing more than a year ahead of the first 16-bit Dragon Quest. They also cemented their hold on the RPG niche abroad. While Enix's American division closed up shop, Square was intent on making Final Fantasy a household name for kids in the States. They released the SNES debut as Final Fantasy II, to cover up the fact that we had missed quite a bit. Because the stories in the series were unrelated, Square's inconsistent releases never hurt them abroad.

Final Fantasy II's American version might not have had the best translation -- it was censored, broken, and full of unintentionally hilarious dialog (you spoony bard!), but it managed to eclipse Phantasy Star II on Genesis, and helped to establish the SNES as the go-to system for RPG fans on both sides of the Pacific. Before long, Square would be giving the American market a game of its very own.

So Easy, an American Can Play It

Final Fantasy and its sequel scored big in America. While role-playing games were still considered niche, the real mainstream success of Final Fantasy made square's series practically synonymous with the genre. To strengthen this, Square actually started releasing other series as Final Fantasy spin-offs; SaGa became Final Fantasy Legend, and Seiken Densetsu became Final Fantasy Adventure. The connection between games in the series was always loose anyway, so the move only served to strengthen the brand.

The series was on the cusp in the US, and Square wanted to give it that final push into mainstream success. They decided to build a game from the ground up for the American market; a Trojan horse that would get us hooked on RPGs for years to come. They called it Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest.

There hadn't been much research done to discern why exactly the US was less responsive to RPGs the Final Fantasy series marked the genre's biggest successes so far but Square had a theory: Americans are just stupid. They had already made major alterations to our version of Final Fantasy IV to make it easier, but they wanted to go farther, and make one of the simplest RPGs ever. They had a Japanese development team work closely with the American office to develop a game that even kids could play.

The result wasn't just a game of minimal grinding and low shop prices, it was an almost wholly linear experience, where movement was restricted to dotted lines connecting areas, and the computer controlled all but one member of your party. The freedom that is generally the most appealing part of role-playing had been gutted, but the slow pace and turn-based gameplay had been preserved.

It just wasn't the right move. While the game sold modestly, it failed to elevate the series to new levels in America. The following year, Japan got its own version under the title Final Fantasy USA, but it again failed to spark much excitement. Younger gamers found the title approachable and some still remember it fondly, but it was a valuable lesson for Square: Easy isn't the answer. Future releases on our shores would not be compromised.

While we were occupied with Mystic Quest, Square was preparing the launch of the next true sequel to launch in December of 1992. Unlike our game, Final Fantasy V hoped to offer the deepest gameplay yet in the series. In fact, that was a big part of the reason we got Mystic Quest instead; Square simply felt Final Fantasy V would overwhelm the American audience.

While in hindsight they were likely wrong about that, it's understandable why they might be worried Final Fantasy V was the deepest game in the series. It introduced a new version of the "Job System" that interlocked with a new "Ability System." Any character in your party could freely hop between 22 different classes, each with unique characteristics, equipment, and stats. Leveling up enough with one class would grant certain "abilities" that could be equipped even after jumping to a new class. This made it possible to mix and match the potential of different classes and create some very interesting combinations. Where the complexities of Final Fantasy II's leveling made grinding a chore, the new system of earning perks made it exciting.

Square also made sure not to slip back into generic characters just because of the new class system. Sure, this meant having to make class costumes for all five characters, but it was worth it to be able to tell a more personal story. The narrative lulled players into a false sense of security, with a back-to-roots quest for four crystals, only to turn it on its ear later, and send the warriors on a quest that would span whole new worlds.

Final Fantasy V's absence was felt abroad. While the series was new to our shores when Japanese gamers were playing II and III, Americans knew they were missing something special with FF5. Magazines ran gushing import blurbs to twist the knife, and it was a wound that wouldn't quickly heal. In October of 1997, about a month after Final Fantasy VII changed the RPG landscape, a group of hackers calling themselves RPGe released the first version of their fan translation for Final Fantasy V. It was the first really high profile fan translation effort to reach completion and, along with a patch of Final Fantasy II, it helped to propel the scene to new levels, as well as generate interest in the title from internet-savvy Americans.

Square did eventually bring the game to our shores on the PlayStation with the release of Final Fantasy Anthology. It was met warmly by critics, and praised for the very complexities that Square thought would alienate fans in the US. It was a bit of vindication for us dumb Americans, but it arrived far too late.

16-bit Send-off

For the series' final installment on the SNES (and last on any Nintendo system for quite a while), Square regrouped with a newly restructured team, and settled in for a more expensive and somewhat longer development cycle than anything they had done before. Hironobu Sakaguchi relinquished the directorial title, assuming the role of producer, while FF5 vets Yoshinori Kitase and Hiroyuki Itou took over directing duties. The two would continue to shape the next several installments of the series, and their mark was felt.

Finally, a Final Fantasy game stepped away from the familiar medieval fantasy world, and into a steampunk aesthetic set in an industrial society that blends swords and sorcery with robots and railroads. The series was never cohesive, but FF6 didn't even look like a Final Fantasy game. It didn't matter; the name and some very nice screenshots were enough to get all the loyal fans on board.

For the first time, there was real hype for a new Final Fantasy in the US. Square ran ads in magazines for months before its release, and shelled out for an animated TV commercial for the holiday season. Glowing previews hyped the game up and gushed about the import version, while American kids waited for the October release.

The stage was set for a proper international blockbuster. Square seemed to learn their lesson about dumbing games down for the Americans, and instead they found ways to balance accessibility and depth, much like they had done with FF4. Once again, the Jobs were scrapped in favor of a larger cast (this time a record 14 characters), with Espers and Relics to enhance their abilities and allow for some customization.

The story structure was radically different than in previous games. While most Japanese RPGs had been growing increasingly narrow, Final Fantasy VI took some strides to marry story with a non-linear design. This was done through a mix of sub-plots and flashback events that could work out of order, some of which were entirely optional. For many console gamers not used to the wide-open freedom of classic RPGs or open-world computer games, this was a completely new experience.

Despite a less centralized narrative, Final Fantasy VI still packed an emotional punch. Perhaps because of the sheer number of characters, everyone had their favorite, and the personal back stories made each one resonate. While still using the standard in-game engine, the cut scenes grew increasingly cinematic, with memorable events like the famed "opera scene" standing out as some of the most poignant in gaming up to that point.

Final Fantasy VI ruled its moment in time. Upon its release it earned rave reviews on both sides of the Pacific, including a perfect score from GamePro. EGM raved, "Few RPGs can hope to have the emotional draw this one has This is the new standard." It was as much of a success as Square could have hoped for and, as the climax of Final Fantasy's 2D incarnation, it's still remembered as the series' zenith for many early adopters.

Lucky Number Seven

Final Fantasy is dead. Long live Final Fantasy.

The first 32-bit game in the series wasn't just a turning of the page, it was a whole new beginning. Much of what was the series was buried, and new trail was blazed. It was a turning point, not just for the series, but the entire industry. Final Fantasy VII was a force that could not be ignored.

Square had a long and cozy relationship with Nintendo, that few ever thought to question. When they showed off a 3D demo featuring Final Fantasy VI characters, many assumed we were getting a glimpse at the series' next incarnation. When they announced their plans to jump ship for Sony's new platform, loyal fans felt betrayed. Square was a turncoat, but they were about to win over a whole new generation of fans.

It wasn't an RPG that showed them the power of Sony's console. Capcom's Resident Evil (in turn taking a page from Alone in the Dark) combined 3D and bitmap graphics in a way that allowed for detailed, realistic environments that could never be done in real-time. The effect of using detailed CGI backgrounds was immediately apparent. When Nintendo announced that they'd be limiting themselves to cartridges, Square had no choice. The divorce was bitter, but Square made the right decision.

The transition wasn't easy, though. Final Fantasy VI was already a massive undertaking by the standards of its day, with a team of around 50 people. Sakaguchi had hoped to return to the director's chair for the seventh game in the series, but as the team swelled, he soon realized that producing would be a full time job. By the time the production had reached full swing, its staff had grown to more than quadruple the size of FF6's. Sakaguchi managed the team as they expanded, while Yoshinori Kitase (who had honed his skills on Chrono Trigger in the interim) returned to direct.

Progress was difficult at first, as Square had only about six months of experience working with CGI graphics, but as soon as it started to come together, the team knew they were making history. Kitase realized early on that the eye-popping world they were creating would be the real way to capture the American audience (and not simplified gameplay, as had been previously thought). In fact, it was the occasionally stubborn Japanese audience he was afraid of losing.

Watch the Final Fantasy VII trailer, coming soon to PSN.

These changes may seem largely superficial -- and indeed the gameplay had not been radically changed -- but they were powerful. The transition was like going from a screenplay to a fully realized movie. The much talked about death scene from the game's first act was nothing new for RPGs -- it had been done similarly in two Phantasy Stars, and even within the Final Fantasy series -- but the cinematic presentation and rich detail gave it a power that small dialog boxes and tiny sprites could never have. It was simply an unforgettable moment.

The world got their first playable taste of the game when Square released a demo disc with their 3D fighting game Tobal No. 1. The hype train left the station immediately, here and in Japan. Even with the enthusiastic coverage, no one knew quite how well the game would do. Delays pushed the release into 1997, but it was worth the wait. It sold more than 2 million copies in the first three days of its release, and when all was said and done, it managed nearly 10 million in sales across the globe (including strong sales in Europe, which had never gotten a numbered Final Fantasy before).

A new generation of role-playing had begun. Final Fantasy VII's impact on Japanese RPGs was immediate and permanent. Detailed cut scenes and environments became so universal that the Nintendo 64 suffered a near-total lack of RPGs. Its impact was no less significant in the West. While Bernie Stolar once said as Sony's VP that he didn't want RPGs on the PlayStation because they wouldn't flatter the system, it was a Japanese RPG that would cement its stranglehold on the market.

It wasn't that Final Fantasy VII was an innovative game; pre-rendered backgrounds and CGI cut scenes had all been done before, and the gameplay stayed close to the proven formula. But Square had their finger on the pulse. They used these tools to create a game of such undeniably broad appeal that publishers across the world had to take notice. They shattered the myth that Americans wouldn't play RPGs, and that action would always win over story. Many were vindicated by its success, and many more forced to hang their heads in shame for ever doubting.

For many, especially those in America and Europe, Final Fantasy VII would be their first RPG. The sentimental bond gamers feel for Square's 32-bit classic is rivaled by few others. Its star has faded a bit, as we look back with a critical eye, but there's little denying its lasting impact. Even in recent years, Square is still dredging up its characters for the movie Advent Children or the PS2 spin-off Dirge of Cerberus.

It was a breakthrough, it was a commercial zenith, and it was Square's greatest triumph. In the years that would come, they would find themselves forever chasing that success, never to reach it again.

Divide and Conquer

Final Fantasy VII was a production of an epic scope. While the delays didn't hurt them in the end, Square realized that they needed to plan ahead if they were going to pace their releases right. They made the decision to form two separate teams (albeit with considerable overlap) to work on future games in a staggered, parallel cycle, in order to get two sequels out while the PlayStation was in its prime. They flirted with the concept before, during the early development of Final Fantasy IV, as well as during the development of Mystic Quest and FF5, but this was an undertaking of a much larger scope.

This time, however, they had more of a strategy. They would take two completely opposite approaches, in order to bring new people into the fold and win back those who had left. Final Fantasy VIII would be a progressive, unmistakably modern game, and Final Fantasy IX would go back to roots with a fantasy story full of gooey nostalgia. Together, they'd broaden the fan base and strengthen the Final Fantasy name.

For the more immediate project, the key staff from the last game reunited to continue their work. Kitase was selected to direct, Kazushige Nojima once again penned the story, and Tetsuya Nomura reprised his role as character designer. Despite this, they all agreed a change was needed. During the development of FF7, there was a lot of concern that they CGI cut-scenes wouldn't mesh well with the in-game graphics, so the team decided that they should keep all of the characters in realistic proportion this time, both on the field and in the cinemas. Nomura felt this style suited him more anyway, and it certainly flattered the CGI, which was growing eerily realistic as Square got more comfortable with the third dimension.

They moved the world to a modern, urban setting with a European feel, far from the classic swords and sorcery of old, or even the steampunk locales of the last two games. Its main characters were members of an academy, training as mercenaries, which lent a "school days" feel to the story. As much of a departure as the look and feel was, the rebuilt gameplay was even more dramatic.

The team decided to do away with traditional leveling, which had become a bit trite. While characters could still advance, there was no curve to their progress, and the boosts gained from leveling were minimal. Instead, Final Fantasy VIII introduced the Junction System, allowing summons to join with stats through various powers to advance those particular abilities. This was a much more involved system, vaguely reminiscent of Final Fantasy II, but without the same reliance on random factors that made that system so frustrating. For the first time, the series also eliminated Magic Points in favor of a "Draw System" that gave players a finite number of uses for spells rather than a common pool.

As alien as the game was to series fans, it raised the bar on production values, and helped to establish Square's new Hawaiian animation studio as the best CG house in the game industry. While the unique gameplay has earned the game a bit of backlash, it received scores of 9 or more from nearly every major publication at the time of its release. It couldn't match the success of Final Fantasy VII, but with more than 8 million copies sold, it was nothing to sneeze at.

Square knew they'd be setting themselves up for an undercurrent of dissent from the loyal fans that had been with them since the 8-bit days. Even Hironobu Sakaguchi was beginning to miss the series he created more than a decade earlier. Of course, Square had both the disease and the cure. Long before FF8 was out, they were working on a nostalgic throwback to old times.

They had their reservations. For much of Final Fantasy IX's development, they weren't sure if they wanted it to be a numbered sequel or a spinoff, for fear of confusing or alienating newer fans, but it soon became apparent they had something worthy. In blending the new-school production values, graphics, and presentation with the old-fashioned setting and gameplay, they'd successfully brought together the best of both worlds.

While the last two games were increasingly more realistic, Square decided to bring back the distorted, cartoonish versions of Yoshitaka Amano's designs. Moogles, Chocobos, and some of the more iconic classes like the Black Mage returned, as did a plot centering on a powerful crystal. Even Uematsu's score worked old themes into new compositions, while the various environments were littered with subtle winks to past games. Square may have betrayed a few fans when they left Nintendo behind, but Final Fantasy IX was their letter of apology.

Upon its release, Final Fantasy IX was met with nearly universal acclaim. Sakaguchi himself declared it his favorite game in the series so far and the realization of the original vision he had so long ago. Despite a few complaints that "old fashioned" can sometimes border on cliché, it was the best reviewed game in the series, at least in the West. Despite this, it "only" managed to sell 5 million copies, a fact that could partly be attributed to the declining 32-bit generation and the release of Dragon Quest VII in Japan a few months earlier. The next generation of consoles was drawing ever larger on the horizon, and Square was already hard at work on their next revolution.

Exploitation Era

In the PlayStation's prime, Final Fantasy was simply unavoidable. It was the top selling series on the system, and Square was eager to feed the hungry fans until they were fat. Square had toyed with the idea of spinoffs earlier with Mystic Quest and some renamed Japanese games, but they never reached Mario levels of exploitation. All that changed in the PlayStation era, and the flood of cash-ins and crossovers hasn't stopped since.

The Chocobo had become something of a mascot for the series, so Square decided to send him off on his own with a series of releases that hopped across all genres. Chocobo Racing strapped a pair of rocket skates to the bird in a game that aped Mario Kart, and the later Chocobo Collection threw in a board game. He even got to star in his very own RPG, Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon. A crossover with Chunsoft's Fushigi no Dungeon series, it sported random dungeons, simple, turn-based combat, and a whole lot of treasure hunting, straight out of the computer classic Rogue. The nostalgic romp was even successful enough to earn a sequel in 1998.

For all of Chocobo's moderately enjoyable adventures, the only PlayStation-era spinoff that really matters is Final Fantasy Tactics. Released right on Final Fantasy VII's coattails, it was a less than subtle attempt at a mash-up of Final Fantasy and Tactics Ogre. To do the development honors, they even recruited the director of Quest's series, Yasumi Matsuno, as well as lead artists Hiroshi Minagawa and Akihiko Yoshida, and composers Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata.

Development ran parallel to the higher profile FF7, but made little attempt to borrow from Yoshinori Kitase's work. Instead, they kept their game rooted in the traditions of the old 2D titles, nesting nicely with Final Fantasy V and its rich Job System. While Matsuno didn't want to compromise the depth of the gameplay or the complexity of his story, Final Fantasy Tactics was aimed at a broader audience, with the hopes that less punishing difficulty and more linear storytelling would be enough for gamers to embrace a heavy-duty strategy game.

The strategy-RPG genre hadn't enjoyed a great deal of mainstream success here or in Japan since Camelot's Shining Force games and Nintendo's Fire Emblem, so the decision was a controversial one. To be successful, Square would not only have to attract the existing hardcore fans that embraced Tactics Ogre, but build a new set of fans as well.

It didn't work. Not at first, anyway. While sales in Japan were healthy, they still weren't able to scrape the million mark in the first year. In North America, the situation wasn't as sunny. Despite the hype surrounding Final Fantasy VII, few of those fans embraced its strategy-minded cousin. The series continued to boom, however, and Final Fantasy Tactics slowly grew in reputation, eventually becoming a much sought-after collector's item. In 2001, Square decided to re-release the title on Sony's Greatest Hits line, and sales suddenly exploded. When all was said and done, Tactics managed to sell 2.25 million on the PlayStation, including 900,000 in American sales. Since then, it's spawned two sequels, and a port on Sony's PSP.

Those sales may sound like small change compared to other games in the series, but Final Fantasy Tactics left a lasting impact on the gaming landscape. It helped to popularize many of the conventions pioneered in Tactics Ogre, especially the use of 3D terrain and an isometric perspective. It became so synonymous with this new generation of strategy-RPGs that other developers began tagging the word "Tactics" onto their titles. While still far from mainstream, these games have continued to grow in popularity ever since, and nearly all of them owe a debt to the games of Yasumi Matsuno.

Sakaguchi's Swan Songs

With Final Fantasy VII, Hironobu Sakaguchi realized the power of cinematic storytelling. The 40 minutes of CGI in that game gave him a taste of what it must be like to direct a movie, and he wanted more. When Square built their Hawaiian animation studio, he saw his opportunity to go Hollywood. Even before the release of Final Fantasy VIII, Sakaguchi was juggling his production duties with writing and directing a Final Fantasy movie that might help legitimize him as an artist to all those who thumb their noses at games.

The RPG branding was really just an excuse. His sci-fi epic had little to nothing to do with any game in the series. Sakaguchi's film was an experiment in computer animation and photorealism that would show that Square could compete with Dreamworks and Pixar in the world of computer animation. It was a labor of love, and the project trudged onward for three years before hitting theaters in the competitive month of July.

"Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within" was one of the better reviewed videogame movies when it arrived, and was hailed by Roger Ebert as a landmark in animation. It didn't matter. It was too alien to the games to attract the hardcore fans, and too wordy, philosophical and esoteric to work as a mainstream action movie. Some argued that the dialog was lost in translation, while others said more bluntly that it just didn't make sense. Either way, it was a bomb.

It wasn't just a commercial disappointment; it was one of the biggest financial losses in motion picture history, behind only "Town & Country," "Stealth," and "The Adventures of Pluto Nash." Sony, who had bankrolled much of the production, was not happy. It was a stain on Sakaguchi's record that he would never be able to erase, and the beginning of the end of his career at Square.

Luckily, redemption for Sakaguchi was not far behind. Less than a week behind "The Spirits Within's" lackluster opening week, Final Fantasy X launched in Japan, and Sony could breathe easy knowing they had inherited the throne for one more generation. Sakaguchi, deeply involved in "The Spirits Within," supervised only as executive producer (with Kitase taking over the producer role), but his mark on the title's planning was still felt.

The development had been more than two years, beginning as Final Fantasy VIII wrapped up, and in many ways it was a successor to the forward-thinking philosophy of that game. Sakaguchi and his team left preoccupations about "tradition" to the developers of Dragon Quest, and looked for ways to advance the ball. The move to fully real-time environments was obvious and inevitable, but even still Sakaguchi had his doubts that it could be done without seriously compromising the kind of rich detail fans had grown accustomed to. Luckily, he underestimated the power of the new generation of consoles.

The gameplay was re-imagined as well. Map director Takayoshi Nakazato had grand ambitions for the flow of movement. Rather than relying on a "world map," an abstraction that shatters the illusion of realism, he wanted to have a more seamless world where everything was detailed. He also hoped to be able to integrate battles into the field so that there would be no need for a separate "battle" screen. With the release of Phantasy Star Online, they wanted to find a way for friends to play together, but alas, the PlayStation 2 had no online capability at the time. The ambitions for online play and seamless battles proved impossible within the projects constraints, but they were the seeds that would eventually grow into Final Fantasy XI and XII.

Following the release of Final Fantasy VIII and IX, the fans were divided between the more modern, sci-fi tinged motif and classic castles and dungeons. Rather than compromise, Kitase wanted to move in a new direction. He decided to return to a fantasy setting without the technological elements, but he wanted to create a new world that wouldn't come off like a retread of fantasies past. He asked his designers to draw on Asian elements as well as original designs to create a more "primitive" world that was still something all its own.

The Active Time Battle system that had become a series hallmark was laid to rest, a controversial move to dedicated fans. In its place, they debuted the strategy-minded Conditional Turn-Based Battle (CTB) system. This pauses the action when a character's turn arrives, and gives and overview of upcoming turns, allowing for a more thoughtful approach. In addition, the ability to substitute other characters mid-battle greatly changed the way players fought. Leveling was revised, as well, with the Sphere Grid system, allowing for a unique sort of "ability tree" more reminiscent of modern Western RPGs.

Final Fantasy had been in slow decline for years, but the release of Final Fantasy X put them back on the upward climb. With just short of 8 million copies sold, it nearly matched the success of Final Fantasy VIII, and far eclipsed IX. Square was proud of what they had created, and for once, they didn't want to leave it behind.

Fan reaction to their latest installment was so great that, in 2002, Square started work on the first ever "true" sequel in the series lineage. Final Fantasy XI was already nearing release, so they called their game, confusingly enough, Final Fantasy X-2 (leading some to pronounce the Roman numeral ten as the letter "X"). Since they already had their world and characters designed, and an engine ready to go, they were able to spin the team off into a small, relatively inexpensive production of about a third the size of its predecessor. Even better, they were able to complete their game in a little under a year.

Despite tying in closely with FF10, Square was careful not to take the exact same approach. This was a game of fan service, and the lighthearted, fun approach seemed a perfect break from the sometimes dreary melodrama the series was known for. The playable cast was whittled down to the three female starlets, Yuna, Rikku, and Paine. The return of a Job System added playable variety, as well as a "dress up" element that suited the girly undertones. The television campaign made the shift in tone abundantly clear, with a pop montage that looked more like American Idol than Final Fantasy.

Despite the cheery atmosphere, Square still showed some of their trademark ingenuity in the game's design. In addition to the wide character development afforded by the Job System, they also introduced a mission-based structure more akin to Western RPGs, and they allowed for wide-open exploration from very early on. Most of the game was comprised of side-quests a major departure from the linear structure of earlier games.

Final Fantasy X-2 wasn't the same kind of critical or commercial success as the original, but it was never meant to be. It was a companion title, made on a reduced budget, aimed at fans, and with over four million copies sold, it seemed like most came back for seconds.

Shortly after its release, Square merged with long-time rival Enix. The move made sense, but it was the final blow for Sakaguchi. Even within Square, Sakaguchi had been increasingly marginalized by some accounts, and his role in Final Fantasy X-2 was diminished. His new bosses at the merged company were less sentimental. "The Spirits Within" was a $94 million red mark on Sakaguchi's record, and it was not a debt he could easily repay. In 2004, 21 years after he helped to found Square, Sakaguchi left to start his own company, Mistwalker, where he would once again be free to do things his way.

New Horizons

When Square announced that the eleventh game in their flagship series would be a massive-multiplayer, online RPG, many fans felt shocked and even betrayed. For the series creators, however, it was just the logical next step. They never saw the move as leaping to a new genre, but rather the realization of a long unfulfilled dream. While in Hawaii, Sakaguchi saw the success that Sony had with EverQuest in America, and he knew Final Fantasy should follow suit. At one point they toyed with integrating these elements into Final Fantasy X, but eventually it became its own game.

Producer Hiromichi Tanaka, a long time veteran of the series, echoed Sakaguchi's sentiments. He felt that in many ways, the rich, expansive world and real character interaction was the ultimate version of Final Fantasy's original vision. The public didn't see it that way. When it was announced in 2000, fans wondered how an online-only game could possibly be a substitute for the kind of story-driven solo experience they were used to. Anxieties were even more pronounced in Japan, where online gaming had failed to take off as quickly as it had in the West and other parts of Asia.

The key to Square's strategy was a cross-platform design that would let the core MMO base play on PCs, while the PlayStation 2 version welcomed console gamers to the genre, many for the first time. It was the first time such a strategy had been attempted, and it ultimately helped the game to survive the PS2 hardware, living on through an Xbox 360 port and a frequently updated PC version.

In addition to being the first Japanese MMO of such a high budget and broad scope, it brought with it a few innovations that impressed even seasoned vets of the genre. The Job System not only made a perfect tie in with Final Fantasy canon, it was a game-changer in the rigid world of online gaming. No longer would players need multiple characters to juggle classes. Instead they could level up different jobs and switch roles on the fly, better allowing them to fit into different parties.

The title also became notorious as one of the hardest MMOs of all time. While World of Warcraft welcomed the masses with its brisk pace, Final Fantasy XI catered to old-school RPG fans with a slow level grind and some truly oppressive quests. One enemy, the Pandemonium Warden, made headlines when top-level players battled it for 20 hours, only to give up in defeat. Despite this, the difficult pace not only makes teamwork important, but also community, since characters are far less disposable, and reputation can last a long time.

While it has since been eclipsed by World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XI has more than met Square's plans for a five year business plan, and with four expansions, its community has remained fiercely loyal, despite Square's general disinterest in fan feedback. While subsequent sequels have remained offline, Square revealed their plans to return to the MMO at this year's E3.

Not long after the series' online debut, Square announced another plan to widen their audience: they would reunite with Nintendo. The move shocked some, in light of Sony's partial ownership of Square, but smart business won out. It had been eight years since a Final Fantasy game had appeared on a Nintendo console, and the audiences had grown apart. Square wanted to reclaim this crowd, but they knew it would take a different approach.

Akitoshi Kawazu returned to the series for the first time since Final Fantasy II, and brought with him his love of new gameplay and lavish visual design. He envisioned this title as a sort of New Age Gauntlet with an emphasis on co-operative action. He created a new world that paid homage to the crystals and mages of the series' early games, but included with them original races, and an eye-popping art style courtesy of Toshiyuki Itahana.

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles was never really meant to compete with Square's PlayStation offerings, but it did welcome Nintendo fans back into the fold. It sold a modest 1.3 million copies, but with less than 20 people on staff, that was considered more than a success. Since then, Square has continued to dish out sequels and spinoffs set in the Crystal Chronicles universe on DS and Wii, and more are still on the way. It also helped to prime the market for various ports and remakes on Nintendo's handhelds by getting the name Final Fantasy onto the lips of lost fans.

Life After Sakaguchi

The life of Final Fantasy XII was troubled from early on. The long development cycle began in 2001 and lasted until 2006 -- a record for the series. Initially, Sakaguchi was to serve as executive producer, while Final Fantasy Tactics creator Yasumi Matsuno was given the reigns as Producer and Director. Matsuno had earned a bit of a following with his PS1 hit Vagrant Story, and he had ideas on how to make Final Fantasy XII all his own.

Before long, Sakaguchi had left, and Matsuno took on executive duties as well. The project was truly his baby. He brought with him illustrator Akihiko Yoshida, a long-time friend and collaborator on nearly all of his projects. Yoshida's sense of color and design permeated throughout the game, lending a distinct visual style, even after being filtered through Square's CG studio. He also tapped freelance composer Hitoshi Sakimoto, who has done such memorable work on Final Fantasy Tactics.

Matsuno's vision echoed much of what Yoshinori Kitase had once planned for Final Fantasy X, but Matsuno's team would actually pull it off. Combat was seamlessly integrated into the field with a real-time action/strategy hybrid that echoed MMOs and Western RPGs like Knights of the Old Republic. It was the biggest change to the gameplay that the series (at least in its offline incarnation) had ever undergone.

In the final year of development, Matsuno, overworked and very ill, stepped down from active development, serving only as a supervisor. Other members of the were promoted up to fill his shoes. Akitoshi Kawazu was named producer, and the sub-directors Hiroyuki Itou and Hiroshi Minagawa took over as joint directors. While they did their best to follow Matsuno's original vision, their leader's health problems and eventual absence took its toll on the game, both in terms of the long development cycle and the quality of the final product. Hironobu Sakaguchi, who had always believed in Matsuno, was saddened by his friend's departure, and declined to even play the game past the intro.

Luckily, not everyone was as pessimistic. Despite a rocky development cycle and overdue release, Final Fantasy XII was a strong effort, and earned the respect of critics, including some who had grown cynical of the series. Famitsu awarded it perfect scores, which helped to fuel sales early on. Even Edge Magazine, who had given Final Fantasy X a 6 out of 10, awarded the latest effort with a 9.

Final Fantasy XII had an uphill battle to climb. The Xbox 360 had already launched, and sales of PlayStation 2 games were falling. In America, Western games like Knights of the Old Republic and Oblivion were eroding the stranglehold Japanese games once held on the console RPG market. When all was said and done, Final Fantasy XII sold 5 million copies. An interesting DS spinoff arrived the following year, but hardly had the traction of X-2.

#### A Girl Named Lightning

In 2004, with the looming successors of the Xbox and PlayStation 2 on the horizon, Square began work on the next proper installment in the Final Fantasy series. Rightfully dubbed Final Fantasy XIII, Square posited the game as the flagship title of a new collective mythos called Fabula Nova Crystallis (much more on that later).

Game director Motomu Toriyama and producer Yoshinori Kitase began work on XIII as a PlayStation 2 title, but the success of Square’s Final Fantasy VII tech demo convinced the team to move development of XIII onto the 7th generation of consoles. At E3 2006, the company unveiled Final Fantasy XIII alongside Final Fantasy Versus XIII and Final Fantasy Agito XIII, the trio of games set to act as the pillars of Fabula Nova Crystallis.

The hero of XIII was unveiled as Lightning, a strong female protagonist posited as a mix between VI’s Terra and VII’s Cloud. A bulk of the game was delivered via flashbacks that revolved around Lightning’s mission to save her sister Serah from a crystal-based prison created as an act of fate. Aided by characters like Serah’s lover Snow, a desperate father named Sazh, and an orphaned child named Hope, Lightning and company progressed through the world alongside a new battle system that brought a cinematic flair to the action reminiscent of the fight scenes in Tetsuya Nomura's animated film, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.

Though XIII turned out to be an undeniably gorgeous RPG for the 360 and PS3 when it was released in late 2009, many fans of the series were a bit disappointed by the lack of exploration during the first half of the game. Though XIII opened up after about 30 hours and allowed much more player freedom, the prospect of spending an entire day to get to the “good part” of the game left a sour taste in the mouths of many fans. Luckily Square seemed to take the feedback to heart, and worked on fixing some of the linearity in the game’s sequel, Final Fantasy XIII-2.

2012’s XIII-2 focused on Serah after being freed at the end of XIII. It alleviated much of the original’s linearity by allowing players to jump through time and space at their leisure, and tackle many of the game’s obstacles in whichever order they desired. Though XIII-2 built upon the Command Synergy Battle system of its predecessor, one major change came from its whittling down of playable heroes. Your party almost exclusively consisted of Serah and the enigmatic Noel, with the third slot being reserved for one of the many monsters that the player would encounter and tame along the way. From Chocobos to Cacatuars, this collection system brought to mind shades of Pokemon, and despite the lack of story influence contained within these creatures, it added a new layer of strategy to the battle system.

FFXIII-2 contained a wealth of different endings for the player to discover, but the main one left the game on a cliffhanger that Square will soon pick up with the release of Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. Though originally promised to launch in 2013, Square pushed the game back in the US and Europe to February 2014. Once again, Toriyama and Kitase have listened to the fans, and have decided to add many elements to this third act that draw from action-adventure games . This time around, Lightning can traverse the environment more freely, and is able to climb, jump, and use stealth to navigate the world. Also more action-orientated is the combat system. Lightning fights battles herself, but this time around the player has full control over her movement and actions in battle. The player can maneuver behind an opponent before releasing a slew of attacks that each correspond to a single press of a button.

Lightning Returns takes place 500 years after XIII-2, and revolves around a doomed world set to end in 13 days. The clock is always ticking on this world, but players can add more time by completing certain objectives and performing well in battle. Square promises that Lightning Returns will feature a definitive end to the Lightning Saga, and will provide the series’ swan song on the current generation of hardware.

A Tale of Two MMOs

But while fans of Final Fantasy’s single-player adventures were playing through the XIII trilogy, Square gave fans of XI’s MMO world a new playground to explore in Final Fantasy XIV. Initially unveiled at Sony’s E3 Conference in 2009, the game featured a rocky development highlighted by Square’s mixed-messaging regarding which platforms XIV would appear on. Originally confirmed for PS3 and PC, Square then backtracked and stated that the game was being developed for 360 and PC, and that a PS3 version would possibly exist in the future. This once again changed in 2009 when Square canceled the 360 version and stated that they were focusing solely on the PS3 and PC versions.

This lack of vision on Square’s part transferred over to the extremely rocky road to launch. After a truncated stint in Beta (only three months, instead of the seven that Square initially promised) FFXIV launched on September 22, 2010 on PC with the PS3 version nowhere to be found. The game was received with some of the lowest scores the series has ever seen, and Square took this criticism to heart. One of the few unanimously praised aspects of the game was its score by Nobuo Uematsu, who lent his talents to the entire soundtrack for the first time since Final Fantasy IX.

In 2011, Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada lamented that, “…the Final Fantasy brand has been greatly damaged,” due to XIV’s poor launch. Shortly after these comments, the company announced its plans to relaunch the MMO under a new title, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. The new game is much more than an update – it’s set to feature an entirely new graphics engine, UI, map, and server system. At E3 2013, Square announced that A Realm Reborn will hit PC and PS3 on August 27, 2013, with a PlayStation 4 version slated for some time in 2014.

It Lives.

While Lightning helmed a trilogy and the drama surrounding Final Fantasy XIV unfolded, Square also posited the Fabula Nova Crystallis as the future of the Final Fantasy series. FFXIII was to act as the tent-pole of a much larger world which consisted also of Final Fantasy Agito XIII for mobile phones and a more action-driven Final Fantasy Versus XIII for PS3.

Agito XIII was a response to the success of Before Crisis, a prequel to FFVII which did quite well for itself on the Japanese mobile platform. But in 2008, a few years into the development of Agito, Square decided to move the game over the PSP and cancel the mobile phone version. Eventually the game was released in Japan on October 27, 2011, with the new title of Final Fantasy Type-0. Though received quite well, it shared little in common with XIII, thus the changing of its name. There has been speculation over the years that Square is working on a localized version for the US, possibly even on PS Vita, but that rumor has never been confirmed.

As for the third announced title in the Fabula Nova Crystallis series, Versus’ development is one as strange as this industry has ever seen. Initially unveiled in early 2006, Square announced that it was to be an action-heavy take on FF helmed by Kingdom Hearts’ creator Tetsuya Nomura. It involved a young prince named Noctis and his journey through a decidedly-modern looking world. Many of the game's locations drew influence from various places around Tokyo. But after the initial announcement in 2006, Square became very coy with showing off new elements of Versus XIII. This eventually came to a head after January 2011, when Square pretty much went silent regarding the project, leading fans and critics to believe that Versus would sadly fall into the realm of vaporware, and never actually see a proper release.

After years of critics and fans proclaiming that Final Fantasy Versus XIII would never see the light of day, June 10, 2013 rolled around. It was a Monday, and the first day of E3 2013. With all talk centered on Sony’s PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One, no one figured that we’d hear any updates on Square’s defunct project. But then Sony took the stage for their press conference, and suddenly the journey of Versus XIII became much clearer.

Tetsuya Nomura appeared on camera and unveiled a brand new trailer for Versus XIII which featured a wealth of new gameplay. Though the characters, story, and tone were still in place, the game looked decidedly different thanks to it now being developed for next-gen consoles. And as a bit of icing on the cake, the trailer ended with the Versus XIII logo shattering, only to be replaced with the words Final Fantasy XV.

Future Fantasies

The future has never looked quite so bright for the Final Fantasy series. We have Lightning Returns, A Realm Reborn, and Final Fantasy XV all on the horizon. Plus, Square is set to release an HD compilation of Final Fantasy X and X-2, and they’ve hinted at giving this same treatment to other games in the series if it sells well.

Fans worried about the series taking a more action-orientated approach and forgetting about its tactical roots need not worry – at E3 2013, the company promised that there’s room for both kinds of RPGs in the current gaming landscape, and has plans to deliver experiences that cater to all gamers. Aside from all of this, we can only speculate where the future of Final Fantasy will take us, but a good place to start is with the Agni’s Prophecy tech demo that Square unveiled at E3 2012. The gorgeous display of the Luminous Engine showed what looked like pre-rendered CG, but was actually running in real time. How these impressive technical elements will pair with the nuanced mechanics of past Final Fantasy still remains to be seen.

While we can only guess where the Final Fantasy series will be 5, 10, or 20 years from now, there are three things we can all-but promise to gaming's longest swan song: crystals, chocobos, and a guy named Cid.