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History of SquareSoft
thryllkill writes: "GameSpot currently has an excellent article posted about the history of SquareSoft. As most /.ers know Square is responsible for bringing console RPGs to the mainstream, and some claim brought the PlayStation the success it needed to dominate the late 90s video game market. The article is light on corporate info, but a great rundown of Square's contributions. The only error I noted was the omission of Final Fantasy SGI." And FFX is supposed to ship next week.
Personally, I do not like RPGs at all, from Zelda through the latest Final Fantasy, just not my thing.
But! Rad Racer is still one of my favorite games.
Considering the very limited processors in game consoles back then compared to the computer power in todays gaming consoles, the programmers back in those days were true Code Poets. I mean, they did some amazing things with their limited resources.
visit my free wallpaper collection, wp.erasei.com
They were an RPG company that made a lot of great games. Then they got the bright idea to make stuff other than RPGs, except all of it sucked. So they started making only RPGs again.
Square hasn't actually disappointed much lately, except for their bizarre character designs and incomprehensible names (I guess this is due to the lack of the great Yoshitaka Amano...)
Weep for Amano, and Uematsu, for without them there is no Final Fantasy.
-Evan.
FF SGI was just a demo of some 3-D renders of characters from Final Fantasy VI - Terra, Locke, and Shadow, if memory serves. It was basically assumed to be a technology demo to show what style Square had planned for the N64, but when Nintendo refused to give up on the RDRAM platform for media, and Square was discovering the luxuries of FMV, Square decided to bail. The N64 was workable, but contrary to how Hiroshi Yamauchi sees it, Square was just making a much more viable business decision - Ninteno felt stabbed in the back...Not that they didn't deserve it, seeing as how they tried to give Sony the shaft in the first place by displacing them with Phillips as the manufacturer of the SNES-CDROM add-on...
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
I must admit that I wasn't a fan of the FF series when it was NES but after seeing FFVII I went to FuncoLand and bought the NES games (all for under $10!).
I was younger and wanted action then. Plus NES graphics didn't give the game what Square was all about. The games are great but when you are 10 you'd rather play Contra.
Seeing FFVII blew me away. It actually made me buy a playstation [and Quake II] even though I was/am a Sony-hater.
The FF games are great, like Pokemon for Gboy it helped teach my little brother to read. He loved the gameplay and the graphics, but he learned real quick that you needed to read the dialouge to win.
FFVII, being my first actual FF game, took me at least two work weeks of time to complete. I would sit up and play all night. My friend [who is a FF nut - which I never knew] that turned me onto the game can hear the music and pick it up right away.
I was playing some mp3s and the Sephiroth music came on and he jumped out of the chair. "I know what that is!"
See what these games do to people.
And: Not only graphics, but the sound was awsome in the PSX games. FFVII wasn't the best, but it was great to play.
Get your Unix fortune now!
Where else can I have multiple girls after me, walk into people's houses and look through their stuff with no consequences, be able to weild a sword that's twice my body mass, oh ya, and the cross-dressing is kinda nice also...
Anyone else really like the film ?
I thought it was great, ok the story wasn't perfect but I thought it was enjoyable. And this summer wasn't exactly great for movies was it ?, (the only other summer movie I enjoyed was the planet of the apes remake) I really think this should have done better at the box office.
BTW in the article it says the film only took $80 million and cost $140 million, but that $140 million doesn't include the money spent on publicity which I read was at least another $20 to $30 million worldwide. So the film did very badly (even waterworld made money thru video and tv rights but it is doubtful that FFTSW ever will).
The really sad thing is it will probably put the studios off making cgi films aimed at adults as the only successful ones have been for kids (shrek, toy story, etc.). But I think the potential for a truly great cgi film with an adult film is huge.
I never "got" Square games. Sure, they were among the prettiest out there, but as games they were clunky and repetitive, and as stories they were just silly anime plots with almost no interactivity.
In every Square-style console RPG I tried, I'd hit a "wall"--there would be some point at which I just decided it wasn't fun anymore, either because the incessant combat was no longer interesting, because the story had crossed the line into nonsensical, or because the game was unbalanced and I didn't feel like "levelling up" to correct the designer's mistakes. I never got that in Planescape: Torment (though Curst came close) or in Fallout.
Kind of on-topic: The article states that Square probably won't be releasing a game on a Nintendo system any time soon, but Brownie Brown will. They're made up of former Square employees who were behind Secret of Mana and they have confirmed that a GameCube RPG is in the works.
My other
Cheers to squaresoft for taking the art of storytelling in the medium of (console) videogames to another level. They made significant quantum leaps at every platform level:
Now for the important stuff. Anyone know if they plan to do another FF Tactics-style game? That was the bomb.
Howard Dean for president
Umm.. I would give Chrono Cross about 2/10, not 10/10. There were so many characters that if you replaced one in your party with another, nothing changed, not even what the characters say (well, except for crazy accents). I think that about half of the tracks on the OST are either remixes of the Chrono Trigger theme or Scars Left by Time. The plot was absolutely horrible: I spent over thirty-five hours bumbling about in Captain Planet rip-off miniquests and listening to characters spout Green Party policy (who I would then fight and then they would join my party). When I finally did beat what I thought was the final boss, the Time Devourer (omni-dragon), I was teleported back to Opassa Beach where the Crono, Marle, and Lucca yelled at Serge for being born for about fifteen minutes, revealing the real plot of the game, when I was whisked away to fight the real Time Devourer, which explained what happened to Schala half-way through Chrono Trigger when she disappears after activating the Mammon Machine. The fight with the real time-devourer was a unique concept, I'll give Squaresoft that, but if they pull something like the Chrono Cross (the artifact) again, they should at least leave more clues as to the sequence of elements to use. All in all, in spite of explaining a few mysteries about Chrono Trigger, the game was a huge disappointment for me.
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I've been playing the Japanese version of FFX for the past few months (though I haven't beaten it yet). I must admit it is a *very* visually appealing game. The character's are also more likable than, say Squall of FF8. It also has an interesting new level advancement system where you get points which allow you to move your characters around a large map - different locations means getting different abilities. Its kind of hard to describe but it works really well, and it is easier to use than say, junctioning, and makes more sense than materia.
The voice acting in the Japanese version is *amazing* and I hope they got American actors that are up to par. I would have prefered that the American version of this game have just been subtitled in English, but I understand most wouldn't like that.
The only downside, and this is sort of major for me, is that the game is *extremely* linear in nature. The story is great but it doesn't give you much chance to explore outside the rigid framework they give you. I've noticed there's been less and less freedom in FF games recently.
Lastly, I must say the underwater polo game is awesome!
The article gives a brief one-paragraph synopsis of Final Fantasy (NES) just like everything else, but what it fails to mention is this:
Square's games, other than Rad Racer, were *not* selling well at all in the US, and they weren't doing too great in the Japanese market either. Final Fantasy was named as such because it was a last ditch effort by Square to stay in the market. The CEO at the time (I think it was Sakaguchi then...) had stated that if Final Fantasy didn't succeed, they were going to close up shop. So it had the prospect of being literally "final".
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
Exactly how do you back this up? Graphcially, it has changed drastically over time. The stories told are alwaysmostly distinct, with a few common themes. And the battle system, though similar to FF4 has changeed ever time. You can especially see this with non FF games, where they have tried all sorts of experiments with battle systems and story telling. Read the article and you'll get a good overview of this. The problem for Square is that every time they try something new, their tried and true customers hate it because it's not like the previous release. Final Fantasy 8 is arguably the most different game of the series, going away from the importance of money and equipment, and this got a lot of criticism. When you get to really different games (SaGa Frontier) they get seriously criticized from a lack of narrative cohesion among a number of different plots. The moral of the story is don't fix what isn't broken. The Final Fantasy model works well, and the gameplay is smooth. It's not gameplay that is the focus of updates to the series, but rather story and graphic content. Try playing the FFX demo sometime if you can. Roughly the same battle system, but with improvements. The graphics are freaking amazing, and the first demo hints at a rather intriguing plot (even if blitzball seems like a dumb idea). I particularly thought Auron's voice was well-cast.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Try the FFX demo. I don't know about frequency of random battles, but the flow is much quicker and starts really quickly..
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
The reason they can release early like this is that they're only doing a limited release. Obviously it takes a long time to make all those CDs, so they're releasing what they have on the 18th now and then more later. It was actually supposed to be a "stealth" release of 500,000 units, but apparently it got waaaaaaaaay too much publicity, so it's the official release date now.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
I heard the fanboy blathering that went on with XG and finally found a video store renting it. After a slow start, I played right through the due date. 3 times, for a total of 22 dollars in rental fees. I beat the game but didn't finish all the side quests.
The gameplay was pretty cool with the new-for-its-time combo system and giant mecha always rock. What really got me was the story, and more importantly, the presentation of said story. I had DREAMS about these people! I was that into their pasts, the deceptions, and where things were going.
Also, and this may be a negative for some, when I got to Disc 2, I thought it was almost over. Nope, like 20 more hours of play! Yay!
So I recently scored a used copy and a strat guide for like 20 bucks, before the FF movie - rerelease of all Square RPGs at $50. I also got Vagrant Story (awesome) and Front Mission 3 (good start).
GTRacer
- FFVI was the only good FF
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
Squaresoft was founded in 1973. click here for next page. ---> And then in 1998 came Final Fantasy X.
I would like to see a sequel or game in a similar format by square. I never did play Chrono Cross.
Gods! Get it and play it now! Chrono Trigger is great, yes, but Chrono Cross is leaps and bounds beyond it - It has a much much more complex and mature plot that deals a LOT with the events in Chrono Trigger, a unique battle system that's fun and challenging, but not excessively hard (You can run away from bosses!). It has excellent character development, but too many characters to develop (44 playable characters) means that the development gets spread thinly between quite a few. You can New Game+ and Continue+ in it, and unlike Xenogears, Chrono Cross has a Fast Forward option you can use when you're playing New Game+/Continue+ so that you can skip a lot of the useless stuff.
The best part by FAR is the plot though. PLAY THIS GAME!
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
Fact is, Square was knee-deep in the black at the time, and was one of the few gaming companies with several million dollars in the bank. The name "Final Fantasy" was probably more of a bad translation than anything else.
All subsequent Square adventures were based exactly on the FF2 engine
I will assume you mean FF4, as the actual FF2's engine was closer to the SaGa line of games than the following FFs.
In either case, though -- you're wrong. Mind you, all subsequent FFs were obviously highly influenced by FF4, but FF is far from Square's only franchise -- let's not forget the SaGa and Seiken Densetsu series, as well as Final Fantasy Tactics, Vagrant Story, and Xenogears, to name a few, all of which are about as far as you can get from Final Fantasy. (and just for those who don't know -- although the SaGa games never caught on in America, they've enjoyed a good bit of success in Japan. There are, AFAIK, 8 games in the series, all of which have wildly varying battle systems based upon similar concepts)
Gaming, particularly RPG's, is about evolution and inspiration and new fight engines
Could you explain what you mean by "new fight engines"? Looking at the realm of console RPGs, most series tend to have very similar combat engines. Also, I'm not an expert on PC RPGs, but I would daresay that series are more likely to keep the same engine than console RPGs -- take a look at Might and Magic, for example, or the Baldur's Gate/Torment/Icewind Dale games.
Pen and paper RPGs are much harder to compare to, since they rarely spawn "sequels" -- about the closest thing I can think of is the three editions of Dungeons and Dragons, and each one obviously is highly influenced by the previous. Let's not forget the White Wolf games (Vampire/Werewolf/Changeling/Hunter/etc), which, as far as I can tell, essentially use the exact same combat systems.
So... Can you present any examples?
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
I hereby mod you to (-1, Wrong).
The name "Final Fantasy" was probably more of a bad translation than anything else.Kinda hard to mistranslate it when the name is written in katakana. What else are you going to read it as when you read "Fainaru Fantashii"? And apparently, if it is an urban legend, it's enough to fool GameSpot and also Mr. Sakaguchi himself in this interview. Listen to the beginning of the second clip - He says right at the beginning that Square was really struggling at the release of the original Final Fantasy.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
That really makes a lot of sense. I haven't read your sources yet, but it certainly helps to remove some of the stodgy image that Yamauchi has in his mind. If Square really did bash Nintendo after jumping ship, then it serves Square right that Nintendo's being sketchy about granting them publishing license rights. They made their bed, and now they'd be lying in it.
:)
Of course, as I said, I haven't read your sources yet (Busy studying for finals), but thanks for the tip.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
For the record, it's being published by Namco, who now has a stock-co-own joint agreement with Square and Enix, so they should be able to use all the original materials and media in development.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
But it's only going to be an arcade game (IE - Panzer Dragoon), and not a remake of Panzer Dragoon Azel/Saga. And Sega is also talking about bringing this one to the 'Cube too.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
"Duh! I am Fighter! I gives away all the shineys!"
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
Kinda off-topic: what's the hardest party that you've played for FF1? I made it through with 4 White Wizards (and beat WarMech too). It's really hard at the beginning, since you can't hit anything, but eventually you get some items and it gets a lot easier.
I've been meaning to try 1 White Wizard, but haven't had the time recently...
-Chris
You are probably thinking of Something Awful's review of Tom Sawyer in the Rompit.
Warning: Lowtax has in the past redirected links from slashdot to goatse.cx to avert slashdotting. You have been warned.
By the way, I'm not sure how "fair" the review of Tom Sawyer is, since the reviewer did not speak Japanese and could only go by the graphics when he reviewed the game.
I read the internet for the articles.
Don't put too much stock into this article. It's full of fluff and omissions. Most of it is mini-reviews of games and the only real history they give is the breakup with Nintendo that everyone knows about. They didn't even mention the tension that lead up to the breakup. The writers obviously didn't do any research or they'd know the abusive license policies Nintendo had in the 80s and early 90s and how Square did not like those policies to say the least. They didn't mention Nintendo's strong arm intimidation tactics nor their exhorbinant licensig fees.
They also barely mentioned the renaming scandal. The real reason Final Fantasy IV was called II was Nintendo originally was supposed to port all three NES Final Fantasies. But they grossly underestimated the translation effort and it took them three years. Nintendo will tell you the renaming was to "prevent confusion," but it was really a coverup.
Nor did they mention the constantly broke stats of the company in the 1980s or the truly terrible Famicom Disc System games that never made it over here.
This is a sad article. If I wanted reviews I'd go elsewhere. A history is supposed to be about the company's workings over the years, not one paragraph blurbs about the U.S.-only releases of a company.
Well, there is the WonderSwan Color in Japan - Square already has ported FF 1-3 to it. They were hoping to put 4-6 on the GBA, but Nintendo put their foot down on that idea.
:)
I'm half expecting Square to pull a Camerica/Tengen on this one, and just reverse-engineer the system so that they can release without Nintendo's approval...
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
The name is actually "Erdrick". And the gravestone actually says "Here lies Erdrick". And that's only in the American version. In the Japanese version, it reads "Here lies Link".
http://www.classicgaming.com/ff1/secrets.htm
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."