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The History of Final Fantasy
Nerezza writes "A new site, Oscuro Destiny, has put up its first feature! Final Fantasy is a feature article series from an up and coming site." Includes info on the history of Squeenix and a look at the MMOG.
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What gives? There's nothing about me, Pam Anderson, and Jenna Jameson spending a night together in here! Just something about some guys Cecil and Kane!
Easy guys, I put my pants on one leg at a time. The difference is after I put on my pants I make gold records!
FF Legend were part of the SaGa series.
FF Adventure was part of Seiken Densetsu
Technically, they're not part of FF, since Nintendo had Square slap FF on them so they'd sell better through name recognition.
Insert Sig Here
shoptroll hit the nail on the head. The point of the feature was to delve into the series, meaning the numbered Final Fantasies. I COULD have gone off track into the Adventures, and the Tacitics and all the others, but I didn't have a year to do it in :)
-Chris St. Pierre
~Owner and Webmaster, Oscuro Destiny
~http://www.oscuro-destiny.com
The newest combination product: A squeegy and kleenex
If you had read the article, you would probably know that it was supposed to be their final game before they would have gone bankrupt. But, FF did well enough that they didn't go bankrupt, so of course they had to expand on their new found success.
Every time one of those games game out, we'd be overwhelmed with FF-geeks. And look out if/when the release date was pushed back. You'd think you'd just told them their mother died. For some of the geeks, I wondered if that was worse.
/. is a bunch of nerds at a million typewriters. It's not a political conspiracy determined to undermine your beliefs.
The Word Final was used because it was a game made on the verge of bankrupcy, and was supposed to be Square's "Final" Fantasy. It was taken with such awesome response, that they were able to continue production. As for the stories being crap, it's all a matter of opinion. I'm personally drawn in by the stories of Final Fantasy, especially the later ones. Levelling up is barely ever on my mind. I continue for the story. If you're looking for a customizable character FF, it's FFVIII you want then, since classes do not exist and aren't defined. FFVII similarly has no defined class system.
-Chris St. Pierre
~Owner and Webmaster, Oscuro Destiny
~http://www.oscuro-destiny.com
They left out one of the best in the series, Final Fantasy Tactics. And it's lesser counterpart FF Tactics Advance.
mods, what the heck, funny??
this is serious! ^_^
i remember being about 8 and playing ffa1
for the gameboy over a 10 hour long cartrip..
at the end of this game, YOU KILL GOD.
(now i'm way more accustomed to asian thought,
but at 8, i wondered if i was going to hell
for beating this game... ^^)
still, those gameboy ffa's were so good,
i could remember wanting to go back and
play again just to 'see' friends from
back in the storyline.
hey, c'mon, i was little.
Gamespot already did a History of Final Fantasy, a fact that this article points out on its second page.
This article seems to be nothing more than a re-wording of that piece; am I missing something?
Also, please note the difference between "its" (possessive) and "it's". The article is full of all sorts of apostrophe wizardry.
I'm not saying this to disparage the piece, only to let the author (who has already posted in this story) know about it. Even though I'm not a fan of the outcome, as a fan of the series I appreciate the effort!
If you could be anything you want, I'll bet you'd be disappointed.
Have you actually played those games? I have, and they are rather sub-par. And considering that Final Fantasy came after those three games, makes the case for bankruptcy even better.
To quote that article that you stated, about one of those games, King's Field, they had to say this: "It's sad to say, but this is Square's worst US release." That came one year before the release of Final Fantasy
While Rad Racer and 3-D Worldrunner were popular, they came three years before Final Fantasy was released. So it is more than possible that they were going bankrupt between 1987 and 1990.
It's funny just for the points outlined above. A lot of people assume that the GB games were actually part of the Final Fantasy series when, in fact, they are not.
I'm glad you like it, and happy to see that readers who don't appreciate /.'s posting decisions continue to read and post!
I'll be sure to direct more quality features your way as soon as we butcher them with our inability to produce!
-Chris St. Pierre
~Owner and Webmaster, Oscuro Destiny
~http://www.oscuro-destiny.com
ITs all opinions. I find they had great storylines for the most part. As for being linear and having job classes- those are good things. Classless games end up being unbalanced where you just find an ubertemplate, and the non-linear games end up being snores with no stories.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
... as a failed attempted to copy Final Fantasy VII.
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
if you actually read anything past "release date", you would have noticed that final fantasy was also released in 1987, alongside 3D Worldrunner, and Rad Racer. only the US/International release was delayed for 3 years.
so yes. they were released at the same time. the fears of bankruptcy have never been corroborated by anyone in Square. it's simply hearsay, and further proof that this "article" wasn't reasearched very well.
to like a site doesn't mean you have to enjoy the choices of articles.
sorry. your piece was fluff. poorly-researched, and poorly-written. it's nothing personal. though I would suggest actually playing every Final Fantasy before trying to publish some sort of definitive history.
I could have gotten a more detailed look looking at the box. Not any mention of the story and the fact it is another crystal war saga where a war took place over 20 years prior to you "start" of the game and the land you live in is the war ravaged remains. Nothing about the player vs player combat "game" (which I think is the best PK implementation yet since it basically forces you to learn the normal game before you can kill people so your target isnt a noob but someone who can very likely kill you too is you get too cocky) Nothing about the jobs (a re imagining of the FFV job combination which is much more like FFV than FFX-2's misserable and idiotic magic girl transformation system) Really nothing at all printed about it, or any of the 200 hour storyline. And yes I agree this article is a ripoff of the gamespot one
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Way way too short, hardly touched on anything, no real substance, just some brief remarks about each "category" in the games.
You'd think there would be 5 or 10 pages per game with some screenshots, quotes, etc..
All your base are belong to Google.
man. where should I start on this one?
It is painfully obvious that Chris St. Pierre hasn't actually played the first three games of the series. normally, this wouldn't be something I'd hold against someone, but one would expect that someone who is writing a history of a certain topic would actually be fairly well-versed in the subject matter.
the reason the above gripe is so important, is because the author starts making more assumptions on the series based on his lack of knowledge ("Some say it resembled an early Final Fantasy V"). to anyone that has actually played the first three games (all fully translated by various romhacking groups), this is a direct assault on their intelligence.
Later sections tend to fluctuate between downright amateurish and passable, but all read like high school essays. Nobody cares about the author's personal experiences with the games. What's worse, in later articles, many of the authors start openly speculating on the motives of Squaresoft's development team, while trying to pass these comments off as fact.
Minus numerous factual errors (Uematsu stopped being the primary composer near the end of FF8, not X2 as one author speculated), and largely sub-par writing styles, it's obvious that the authors actually care for the series. But would it have hurt them to spend at least an hour researching before writing something that's supposed to be a big draw on their site?
if this lack of discipline is what I am to expect with the rest of the site, I don't think I'll ever be going back. and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.
My original post had no line breaks, making it VERY hard to read. This one does have line breaks.
Hmm...this is a hard one to reply to...not because I have to take up a defensive position, but because it was the one of the ONLY responses so far to provide any sort of criticism worth reading, so I appreciate it.
One important thing to note is the nature in which the feature was written. It was an undertaking that in no doubt had the standards set high. After all, it IS Final Fantasy we're talking about. It also crossed my mind that the writers staffed for the project were not perfect, were not all writers by trade, and most of all were taking time they didn't have to write.
I'll start at the beginning of your post.
To begin, I have played all the Final Fantasies (I am Chris St. Pierre) in the numbered series, except for XI, being as I don't usually enjoy MMOG's.
When I stated "some say it resembled an early FFV", it meant just what it said. Some people, as in not all and less than most, have said, as in told me directly in one way or another, that there were some resemblances to FFV. Whether or not I believed it didn't make the fact that they did different, and that's how it ended up in my train of thought. Consequently, you see it in the article.
As for the capability of the writers, it is completely understandable that some feel what they read may be amateurish, and some may be passable, etc. However, it is also important to understand that many of these writers are just starting out, and have tried their hardest to convey their thoughts in the best way they could. As for passing off speculation as fact, I believe that's just a writing discipline that is taught to some people...meaning state without doubt. No, "I think" or "Maybe". I'm sorry if that bothered you.
The Uematsu fact you mentioned I believe was mis-worded by the author. Yes, after FFVIII he was no longer the primary composer, but FFX-2 is a game in which he did not exist at all. I believe that was the point that was trying to be made, and it was mis-worded. In regard to the lack of research, a lot of this was intended to be a group of different perspectives describing the games as they are, and not as "research intensive".
Lack of discipline is very difficult to define...from the outside you see lack of discipline. I will not deny that I was very lax on the writers this time around, and maybe too lax. However, as a team, I was proud to see how they all worked together and were able to come through for me, even down to the last 3 hours, when some writers backed out, leaving entire sections to be written the night before. I strive with all my power and time to keep organizational sanity amongst the site and its staff and definitely appreciate any help that can be given. This was the first feature done...the first piece I asked anyone to write that exceeded a page at the most, and it was widely accepted and completed.
I'm hoping that despite your dissatisfaction with this feature, and this goes for anyone dissatisfied, that you will still give the site chances...watch it mold into something stronger and better. It is, after all, the only thing I ever ask for. No site can start on top. Some start strong, some sluggish. Although we're starting sluggish, I'm still moving forward, and intend to continue trying to increase the quality of writing and content that appears.
Thank you for posting your comment, and thank you for reading my response. If you have anything you'd like to discuss with me further, I'm MORE than happy to discuss it via IM. AIM: NerezzaConvoca.
-Chris St. Pierre
~Owner and Webmaster, Oscuro Destiny
~http://www.oscuro-destiny.com
well, good luck with the site. the only thing I could suggest is some sort of copy editor that can do a bit of fact-checking.
/. headline that it was some sort of history. However, when writing the foreward (or whatever introductory piece) you might want to think about adding some sort of explanation of the motives or purpose of the article. you'd be amazed on how much this helps to not only clear up misconceptions, but provide the reader with some sort of expectations from the piece.
I guess a large part of this was my fault, as I had assumed from the
Well, you kill the god in the first game, but in the sequel, the god will kill you. In the third part, the killed ones will proclaim you a god, though, so it's kind of a win-win situation anyway, considering the greater story arc.
Or something along those lines. =)
Thank you for that. Yeah, When it was originally submitted "The History of Final Fantasy" was not the title it was given. In fact, the entire description that was sent in was scrapped and rewritten before it was posted. Not that it was any more in-depth, but it was completely different.
:)
No worries though, I'm glad you've pointed all these things out, and hope that you can give us another chance, if it's at least quick glances now and then to see how we're doing.
-Chris St. Pierre
~Owner and Webmaster, Oscuro Destiny
~http://www.oscuro-destiny.com
It's a real pity this article isn't better. There's certainly room for a good article on the history of the series; the gamespot article was by no means definitive.
But this article was so bad as to be painful at times. First of all, if you're going to produce something of this length, PLEASE get somebody intelligent and literate to proof-read it before you post it. I'm not just referring to some of the obvious spelling and grammar errors in there, but also to the fact that it read like it was written by a bunch of 14 year old fanboys. Yes, I love the series as well, but you don't have to write every section of the article as though it's an advert for the game in question. Tone down the gushing a bit and turn up the actual content. You're not actually trying to make a profit off sales of the games, so you don't need to come over like an official advert.
But please, please, don't then go and spoil the plot to pretty much every game in the series. Final Fantasy games live or die by their plots and giving away the whole thing isn't going to convince anybody to go out and play it. By all means sketch out the background to it, giving a bit of detail about the world, the protagonists and the villains. What we don't need is a breakdown of who does what to who and when. If we want to know that, we'll go play the game.
Also, if you're going to write an article like this, try to actually include some content that the audience isn't likely to already know. Most Final Fantasy fans, even very casual ones, will know the main features of each game in the series. If you want us to read though something that long, you need to do a bit of research and tell us something we might not know. Maybe talk a bit about the public and critical receptions that each game received, compare the numbers of copies they sold with their main competitors or talk a bit about the inspirations for and motifs within each of the games. This information is all out there; if you want us to read and enjoy your article, go find it. Moreover, as a number of other comments have already pointed out, for the love of god, make sure you get your facts right and keep fact separate from opinion.
Finally, where was all the missing stuff? No mention of Final Fantasy Tactics, Crystal Chronicles or Kingdom Hearts? It's a bit hard to see how you can do a complete history of the series withot touching on these. Sure, none of them appeal to quite the same audience as the "numbered" Final Fantasy games, but Square has a habit of using them to test ideas that later appear in the main series.
Nerezza writes "A new site, Oscuro Destiny, has put up its first feature! Final Fantasy is a feature article series from an up and coming site." Includes info on the history of Squeenix and a look at the MMOG.
I'm sorry to be so negative, but it kind of rubs me the wrong way that the submitter is a bit less than forthcoming about the fact that he is the webmaster of said site. Slashdot at its best feels like a community of like-minded souls sharing links and news, not promoting their own fan sites.
my password is private, but unchanged.
He invented moogles, for chrissake!
Regardless of the other qualities of the feature, I have a question; Where is Yoshitaka Amano? While Nabuo gets extensive mention and a bio, I don't think I saw Amano's name more than twice the whole time; and only briefly in the two biographies! Ever since his first character designs on FFIV, I believe his illustrations have shaped the entire franchise into something extraordinary, giving the designers inspiration and providing a truly unique flavor to the series.
The omission of his contributions isn't just bad; it should be immediately corrected. Here's some help.