The Lost Final Fantasy

Lost Levels has a great piece looking at the never-released Final Fantasy title. Really nothing more than a tech demo from the N64 days, it's an interesting bit of videogame history nonetheless. From the article: "Other gaming magazines, including Nintendo Power, also ran articles on the demo with different information, helping to fuel the rumors of an upcoming Nintendo 64 Final Fantasy title. When no further information about the game appeared and Square subsequently announced that a game titled Final Fantasy VII would be released on the Sony PlayStation, fans cried foul and accused Square of betraying Nintendo ... Most of these claims were nothing more than rumors that were spawned as the result of some shoddy journalism; however, many people accepted these rumors as fact, and these faux facts were perpetuated as being truths. But many rumors are based in fact, and the rumors surrounding Final Fantasy 64 are no exception. The images of the demo that were shown in GameFan, Nintendo Power, and other magazines were real, which meant that the demo itself was real. So what exactly was the demo, and where had the information in the magazines come from? "

Comments

The Scoop in a Nut Shell

[SScorpio]

Back before the PSX and N64 came out Squaresoft (they hadn't merged with Enix until 2005) was researching the capabilities of the consoles and creating demos on them. This "Lost Final Fantasy" was nothing more than a demo of a battle engine to show off what could be done on the system. Ultimately Squaresoft went with the PSX due to their desire to incorporate full motion video in their games, and the N64s inability to handle this due to it using cartridges.

The video is kind of neat to see what Squaresoft could have done on the N64, but it's unpolished due to it being just a demo. The only real issue is that this news is from several years ago as the job I was working at the time I remember first reading about this was from 2003 at the earliest. Oh well, the real lost Final Fantasies were the translated versions of FF2 and FF3 for the NES that were never released. FF2 from my understanding was completed; however, I'm not sure how far FF3 got. And before you say they were released FF2 and FF3 on the SNES were just renames of FF4 and FF6.

Re:The Scoop in a Nut Shell

[voice_of_all_reason]

Not sure what you mean by "completed," since FF2 and FF3 have had fan-translations for a long time now.

I have very fond memories of playing FF3 over the course of many years -- finding a new translation group had picked up the task, playing up until the point where they stopped, and waiting until a few months down the road when I happened upon a better patch.

Re:The Scoop in a Nut Shell

[Guppy06]

"I'm guessing FF2 & 3 (if it was completed) will never be released."

I'm willing to bet that S-E didn't reinvent the wheel when they brought FFII over here on the PlayStation and GBA. I don't think they ever tried translating III before, but I'd wager that any translation work done for the Famicom version is already out in the wild on other platforms.

As for an English version of the Famicom game proper, there's pratically zero risk involved in publishing a ROM onto the Revolution's online service. There might be a good chance it could happen (and maybe a few Enix games as well; I think so far DQV for the SFC was at least partially translated before Enix fled North America).

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

With such quality writing, it's truly a shame that this is only the second article posted to that site this year.

Ho-lee crap.

Re:Question

[b1t r0t]

Yeah, I know, it's silly. The first one was supposed to be final, but they kind of screwed that up. It was too successful, it got a sequel, and it kind of went on from there.

From Wikipedia:

Square Co., Ltd. first entered the Japanese video game industry in the mid 1980s, developing a variety of simple RPGs for Nintendo's Famicom Disk System (FDS), a disk-based peripheral for the Family Computer (also known as the "Famicom," and known internationally as the Nintendo Entertainment System). By 1987, declining interest in the FDS had placed Square on the verge of bankruptcy. At approximately the same time, Square designer Hironobu Sakaguchi began work on an ambitious new fantasy role playing game for the cartridge-based Famicom, inspired in part by Enix's popular Dragon Quest (known in the United States as Dragon Warrior). Sakaguchi had plans to retire after the completion of the project so he named it Final Fantasy because it was his final game, although it was also going to be Square's final game. In fact, it's commonly believed that the game was named Final Fantasy because of Square and not Sakaguchi, although Sakaguchi himself has confirmed it was named because of his plans for retirement. Either way, Final Fantasy turned out to be far from being Square's or Sakaguchi's last game. Final Fantasy reversed Square's lagging fortunes, and became their flagship franchise.

Re:Must... edit... post... must... edit... post...

[Jakeypants]

I agree with your comment that you posted on the article, but had there been no article, you wouldn't have made a comment. Since there was, however, an article, you posted a comment on it that I agree with. Because there was an article, you could post a comment, and you did, and the comment in question is one that I agree with.

Re:Too bad they went with Sony...

[antime]

But the demo was running on Silicon Graphics workstations, not Nintendo hardware. It's impossible to tell from those shots what a game would have looked like on the N64.

FF VI on GBA soon

[kninja]

Your 6 remake will probably be on the GBA soon enough.

They re-released
Breath of Fire I and II
Final Fantasy I and II
Final Fantasy IV
Final Fantasy III on the DS

Final Fantasy VI on GBA is mentioned on several gaming sites but I bet it will be out next year about this time (last year they re-released I and II, this year IV, and next year it will be III an VI if current trends hold).

My Speculation for Re-releases:
Secret of Mana with Wireless Support on the DS/GBA
Chrono Trigger

Re:I really stopped playing after FF6

[justchris]

Ummm, I think you played the wrong Final Fantasy Tactics.

The original Final Fantasy Tactics was on the Playstation, and it was one of the best Final Fantasy games ever. The story was superior in all ways. The characters were memorable, and the gameplay was very nearly perfect.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance was on the Gameboy Advance, and pretty much was a result of Square eviscerating everything that made the first game fun. They took out the key game mechanic that made it superior to every other Tactical RPG I've ever played, they added judges, dumbed down the story, added races and thereby limited jobs, and all around shat upon some fond memories.

On the other hand, I agree, FFVI was a great game. I think the story in IV was better, but VI was a better game.

If you like the old Final Fantasy games, pay attention to the development house Mistwalker, and specifically Lost Odyssey (I think that's the name of it) which they are developing for the Xbox 360.