Final Fantasy Gets Creator, FFVII, Clock Spinoffs

Thanks to 1UP for noting that Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi has founded his own independent development company, according to Japanese magazine Famitsu Weekly. The company will be using "a small group of elite creators", planned to include "artists Yoshitaka Amano and Takehiko Inoue" - the article author also mentions: "Sakaguchi was ousted from any position of significant responsibility at Square after the multi-million-dollar boondoggle that was Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within." Elsewhere, RPGFan mentions a third Final Fantasy VII spin-off has been announced, following the CG movie Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children and the mobile phone-based Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII, but "no release date or platform information has been given so far" for this new title. Finally, Warcry reveals the Final Fantasy XI clock, due out Fall 2004 in the U.S., and featuring "the time, day of the week, date and year in both [Final Fantasy XI's game world] Vana'diel and also here on Earth."

Comments

Giant, terrible projects aren't undertaken solo

[cgenman]

Despite how terrible The Spirits Within really was, the other people at the company who greenlighted and went along with the project deserve blame too. Hironobu Sakaguchi played a pivotal role in their resurrection from total bankruptcy, eventually having a hand in everything good Square put out from the Final Fantasy series to Einhander, Parasite Eve to Bushido Blade. He interrupted the streak of great games to focus on making movies, a tragic mistake which nearly cost the company it's existence (again). But this is the man who shaped Japan's premier RPG series while it was still Japan's premier RPG series. While I wouldn't give him an extra large Christmas Bonus for The Spirits Within, he does deserve a second chance, with a little oversight and the promise that he will never try to turn square into something other than a videogame company again.

There was more than one guy involved with Microsoft Bob. There was more than one guy who approved Clippy. There was more than one person who looked at the specs and decided that a 64 bit password on a wireless network would be secure enough. Why, then, is the man who was at the forefront of Square's shared delusion suddenly the sole heir of the blame? Do you want to be led into battle by a general who believes himself to be infalliable, or do you want to be led by someone who has had some experience and hard-learned lessons under his belt?

Re:Giant, terrible projects aren't undertaken solo

[dammitallgoodnamesgo]

There was more than one guy involved with Microsoft Bob

Actually, that was a woman. Melissa Gates.

Re:Giant, terrible projects aren't undertaken solo

[DrWho520]

Ofcourse they are not undertaken solo. But then again, neither are they an anarchist undertaking. A project like this is a make/break opportunity. And while Hironobu may have already "made it" by this time in history in some peoples eyes, if Spirits had succeeded, the project would have brought him to an entirely different level. I think Hironobu and Miyamoto would be heard in the same breath throughout the industry...if Sprits had succeeded. Great rewards come from great risk.

Reward is separted from punishment a line of varying width called failure. They key to success is finding where the line is thickest (the obnoxious number of sequels we see on the market today) for low risk/low return success or finding the genius to skirt the line at the thinnest point you can find an still succeed, high risk/high return. The higher the risk, the higher the ramifications. Do not forget, Square spent some 140 million dollars on this project. They pulled in about 30 million in the US theatres. The company almost ended. This was a high risk/high return opportunity, but the risk was too high.

Now while Hironobu did not go solo on the project, he was most certainly the lead on the project. He called the shots. The more authority one has in a company, atleast where I work, the more autonomy on has. I am certain the reins were thrown off years before. I am also certain some doubt was expressed by Square executives that a video game company was trying to produce a movie. I am also certain those fears were assuaged by Hironobu himself, placing his reputation on it. While it was approved activity, I am certain everyone involved understood the ramifications if Spirits failed.

Yes, Hironobu did not go about this process solo. However, he lead the charge from the only place to lead a charge, the battlefield. He was a casualty. Check that, he was the famous casualty. How about the general staff, the renderers and artists. They were not to blame, they were just doing their jobs on a failed project. It is hard to fault them, the movie was visually spectacular. What about the composers? I thought the score was on par with anything Sqare has ever released. Are they casualties? How about the writers? Is it ultimately their fault for creating an unappealing story, or were they just writing to Hironobu's vision? What about the lieutenants on the project, the people whos careers would have been built, made, on Spirits? Are they casualties? Did they retain their jobs? We will never know, because no one talks about them. They are not famous.

A monumental failure occured and the lead on the project was held responsible. What a shock. The bigger they are, the harder they fall unless they trip over their own feet. No one is immune to responsibility if their botch job is bad enough. This one was huge.

sakaguchi

[vehn23]

This is my favorite (only) square related story and no one ever believes me but.. Back in 2000, I was getting out of EQ after having played it since release. I was on the most JPN-heavy server and in the main (NA) uberguild. Anyways I was in the process of selling my account piece by piece on ebay and the winning bid for one of my better items had an interesting @square.com email. After a small amount of checking I discovered it was the head guy himself. I received payment from his assistant and transferred the item to him in game. There was a couple interesting things about him. One was that he was decked in armor he could not possibly have obtained (lustrous russet). The that he was a female woodelf bard. *sigh*

Hmmm...

[Thedalek]

Rumors and heresay. Must be slashdot.

In the linked article, it is stated that Amano and Inoue are likely collaborators: Not that they are or definitely will be linked to the company.

And, strictly speaking, doesn't Kingdom Hearts count as a Final Fantasy property, what with all the characters it uses? I think it most likely that Squarenix plans on making a fourth Kingdom Hearts game.

However, should they decide to do something else based around themes and characters from FFVII, a flat out update of the PS1 game to PS2 (or PS3) graphics and gameplay would be a welcome addition to the lineup. Especially if you could resurrect Aeris. Fanboys have been drooling over that idea for a few years now.

Re:AERIS WILL NOT BE RESURRECTED!

[GregChant]

From Coming to America: The making of Final Fantasy VII and how Squaresoft conquered the RPG market (Section Title: Let's just kill Aeris... Drama is everything):

Still, players hoped for a "better" ending, and for quite a while a rumor circulated online that Aeris could be resurrected. It all started with a post on a newsgroup by an American player who played the Japanese game and completely misunderstood a scene at the end of the second disk to mean a failed resurrection of Aeris. Then somebody who went by the name of "Ben Lansing" saw the post and decided to post on the newsgroups claiming that he was a translator at Square USA during the production of the game, and had inside knowledge on how Aeris could be revived. He supported his claims with the supposed changes made to the US version of the game, such as the Underwater materia and the new FMV sequence which he said was that of Aeris' resurrection (it was actually for the Diamond Weapon monster). He also pointed to many places in the game where the relevance to the story was unclear (such as the sick man in Midgar) which he wove into his elaborate instructions for the revival process. The whole story was too complicated to describe in detail here, but the release of the American version finally revealed many of his claims to be false. Despite many inconsistencies in his claims, many people believed him, and there were even staunch supporters who claimed to have successfully revived Aeris using his instructions. Anyway, "Ben Lansing" eventually posted that the whole thing was just a hoax, and laughed at the general stupidity of American players.

Joke's on you, buddy.

Re:Spirits Within

[Rallion]

Well, maybe not, I don't know if mainstream usa is ready for final fantasy yet.

Well, there's your answer. I wouldn't personally say that your statement is true, but I bet a lot of people think it is. Basically, all the fantasy elements were stripped out of the movie. No magic! The most fantastic things were a bunch of alien ghosts.

I think a real Final Fantasy would have done fine, myself...certainly not worse. LotR (while I highly doubt a FF movie would approach those numbers) proved that America can suck up fantasy if it's presented well.