Final Fantasy Turns 20

1up has a massive quartet of features up this week, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Final Fantasy series. Starting with 'Origins', the site looks at the beginning of the series, an event that was supposed to spell 'the end' for Square. The company lived on, of course, and in 'Everyone's Fantasies' series author Nadia Oxford looks at the rise of the Final Fantasy dynasty going from 8-bit obscurity to the 'mega-fame' of FFVII. Her final piece in the set 'Fertile Fantasy', examines how Square/Enix is now franchising the heck out of the name. To wrap up with 'Future Fantasy', Jeremy Parish looks at the staggering fifteen games with the FF brand due out in the next year. "Even if all of Fabula Nova Crystalis slips to 2009, that's still one title per month -- and we haven't even seen what's on the roster in the way of announcements for the new year. Clearly, Final Fantasy is going strong, but Square Enix's franchising efforts may be doing as much harm as good; of those 15 titles, only one is a new 'true' Final Fantasy game. True, the series has always supported its share of spin-offs -- even blatant name-whoring back in the Game Boy days. Still, we can't help but worry that the Final Fantasy name is being spread a bit too thin; if Square Enix really hopes to keep the series alive for another 20 years or more, they'll need to reconsider what the name Final Fantasy really means."

Comments

Four white mages...

[lonesome_coder]

...'nuff said.

Re:Four white mages...

[colmore]

FF1 is a great game. Anyone who likes older console games and hasn't played through it should. It's kinda hard though, harder than later members of the series at least.

Here's a breakdown:

- Run away. The dungeons are hard. (especially the marsh cave - the first real dungeon, the ice cave, the fiend of wind's dungeon(s) and the final castle) There are a small handful of really efficient places to level up. When you aren't actively leveling up, you should run from just about everything. Once you have protection from death effects and reusable healing items, you can be more lax with this, but in general run away. This, by the way, is what the much-maligned Thief is useful for; he's got the best chance of getting away. But in practice, the fighter, red mage, and black belt get away about as often.

- Starting right after you get your first orb lit up, keep 99 heal potions at all time. The game lacks effective healing (except for 3 vital items you find in the late game) so you'll want to have access to the at most 2970 points of healing the potions offer. However, white magic isn't all that great. It's pretty viable to not have any healing except potions.

- Here's where to level up: until level 8 or so, walk around outside towns. After level 8, make sure you have Fire 2 and ideally Harm 2, and go to the tip of a little peninsula east of the second town. There's hard but not too hard monsters that will give you 600-1000 XP per encounter; just be sure to nuke the frost wolves a.s.a.p. Later, there's recurring undead on a square in the waterfall, and once you have ProRings, the Eye at the end of the Ice cave can be fought again and again. Much much later, the vampires on the penultimate floor of the final level are the fastest way to reach levels 30-50.

- Though it lacks flavor, the party of 2 fighters and 2 red mages is so good as to be something of an easy mode. Black and white magic are both kind of underpowered, and having a team that can all take punches makes up for not getting Harm, Heal, and Nuke. Make sure you don't skip Fast, Invs2, Exit, all the Cures, all the Fires (for undead, the other attack spells aren't nearly as important). Life and the aElement defense spells are pretty good. Everything else is either useless or good only in a specific fight (e.g. sleep against the pirates) or is available too late (aRub). Really black magic sucks in the game. It's useful against a handful of obnoxious encounters with massed enemies, but not so much against any of the bosses. Red mages much better than black mages.

- If you do want a black and white mage instead, I'd still put a second fighter in as #2. The first two positions absorb the lion's share of attacks, and having both get to wear full armor is amazingly useful. The upgraded thief gets almost as good of armor as the knight and he can cast Fast, so a thief is a pretty viable option. Black belts only get better than fighters at the very highest levels, and they have the most boring upgrade. Red mages aren't really strong enough to stand in position #2; it'll be hard to keep a second-in-command red wizard alive in the final dungeon.

- Use the floater in the desert southeast of the volcano. If there's a clue to do this that's placed in the game, I've missed it. I think everything else can be figured out by talking to people.

- Use attack magic to kill enemies that have ugly mass attacks or instant death effects. Hit bosses with swords.

- Don't throw away magic items just to keep lousy helmets and shields on non-knight/ninja characters. You want a fire item, a harm item, a lit item, 2 or (much better) 3 heal items, and the white shirt.

- Speaking of items, the swords and armor that are extra strong against certain elements or types of enemies don't actually have any effect. There's a patch out there for the ROM that will enable this feature. It's worth seeking out, as Square *did* intend the Dragon sword to be good against Dragons etc. But if you don't use it, don't hold on to any weapons or armor for specific encounters.

- Once you beat the game, there's a rare challenge enemy on the walk up to the fourth fiend.

Ok, that's enough. I love that game.

Re:!Final

[Lendrick]

That would be really sad, if it were remotely true. :)

HOWTO: Final Fantasy Fan

[Anonymous Coward]

Feeling left out from the Final Fantasy lovefest? Regretting you never played any of the games? No problem just follow these easy steps to get you up to speed in any FF thread:

1) Pick a FF game between 1-12 - This is your BEST FF EVAR!!! title. Make a note of it.
2) Pick a DIFFERENT FF game between 1-12 - This is your WORST FF EVAR!!!. Make a note of it.
3) Pick one or more random reasons why your random choice from 1) is the ONLY TRUE CHOICE. Best battle system, greatest story, best characters are good picks.
4) Pick one or more random reasons why your random choice from 2) is the COMPLETE GARBAGE. Worst battle system, worst story, worst characters are good picks.

You are now ready to jump into any FF thread on any message board on the net.

Have fun!

PS. Don't hold back! Never be afraid you are 'going too far' or are being a bit 'over the top' with your FF comments. Feel free to savage mercilessly anyone who dares to not hold your exact same, randomly, picked FF favorites choices...

Re:HOWTO: Final Fantasy Fan

[feepness]

Stupid anonymous troll.

FF5 was obviously the best Final Fantasy evar. And you only need one look at FFXI to see that there is an absolute worst to the series. FF5's pause menu completely changed and redefined an entire era of video games, while FFXI's boot screen was a disgrace that should have every copy burned and the ashes buried with all the remaining copies of "ET".

Re:Fantasy of Finality

[Stormwatch]

What nonsense. Hironobu Sakaguchi chose that name because Square was nearly bankrupt in 87, so he expected their next game to be the last.

Re:Fantasy of Finality

[Chris Mattern]

The title "Final Fantasy" is another example of Engrish. The Japanese meaning of the title is "Fantasy of Finality,"

OK, you've intrigued me. How can the title have a Japanese meaning when *it's not in Japanese!* (Yes, the game has the same English title in Japan. No, it's never had a Japanese title).

Chris Mattern

Great Memories

[neostorm]

I've been a gamer for almost 3 decades now, but in 1987 I played Final Fantasy 1, and that game I hold responsible for inspiring me to aim my career towards the game industry (something I've since built my career out of successfuly).

I hold that first NES FF game responsible for the direction my whole life took, so there's some serious gravity to this series for a person like myself. The series has undergone many changes, but I don't know if there will ever be a point in my life where I can't appreciate it on some, purely nostalgic level for that reason. :)

Re:!Final

[gknoy]

The original is almost devoid of story/plot, the battle engine sucks, and the graphics aren't that good. It really shows its age.

The graphics sucked, the characters are nameless and have almost zero character development. The plot DOES exist, but it's all based on uncovering what happened (in a very linear manner), and solving the problems of the world.

FF1 is far from perfect, and yet .. I've enjoyed playing it more than almost any other (except 6, mostly). The simplicity of its sandbox meant that it was easier to absorb. (I still know at a near-instinctive level how to get through almost the entire game, despite having not played it in 8 years) Moreover, it allowed you to try very different party setups, and play a "meta-game".

Black Belt Challenge: Start with 4 characters, and let everyone die in the VERY FIRST fight except the single Black Belt. Play the rest of the game with only this character, and do not rez the others. This is very VERY hard. (I've never done it.)

Variants of strange parties:
- all white mages (how the hell do you do damage??)
- no casters (how the hell do you heal!?)
- ALL mages (red, red, white, black was VERY VERY fun, and was pretty much easy-mode for the ENTIRE game, with the sole exception of the end dungeon ... which was backbreaking punishment, and which I never decided to finish. Damnably fun before that, though!)

I enjoyed the plot and character development of Final Fantasy 6 much MUCh more. I still get chills even thinking about the Celes opera scene, it was so well done. However, the massive scope of that game made it really hard to get ALL of it. Heck, I never managed to get far in the second phase of the game. So, overall, even though there are MANY weaknesses of FF1, it will always hold a warm place in my heart.

The only games (that I can think of) I've re-played as much as FF1 were:
- Fallout (1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2,... 2?),
- KOTOR 1 (light, dark, light with dark powers (FUN!)),
- Deus Ex,
and I think Starfleet Command (3, though they are so similar I consider it effectively the same ;)).

8 bit obscurity?

[bluephone]

Ok, when FF debuted, 8 bit was IT. The NES was only a couple years old, and a massive hit. Final Fantasy was Square's bet-the-house gamble, and it was a smash hit. It was THE seminal RPG for computing platforms. It solidified game systems and computers as the next great frontier for role playing games, relegating tabletop games to a mere niche in comparison. It singlehandedly saved Square, and yet again made the NES the must-have system. It was one of the top selling games on the top selling system, and changed the game (no pun intended) almost overnight for competitors. How the hell is that obscure?

Pass it on

[halcyon1234]

After 20 years, there's a whole generation who may not have even heard of the earlier some of the Final Fantasy games. With the holiday's approaching (or here, or never coming, depending on who's above you), now'd be the perfect time to pass it on to the next generation. Hop over to eBay and yoink a copy of FFVII and Tactics, and a used Playstation, and put it under someone's holiday-specific-gift-covering-item. =)

Re:Fantasy of Finality

[Conception]

It's nothing of the sort. Even in TFA, it says,

"Square Enix's rescue from oblivion does seem like the stuff of legends, so it's no surprise that fantasy is what the company does best. The Final Fantasy series acquired its ironic name 20 years ago when SquareSoft employee Sakaguchi put together an RPG that was supposed to be the teetering game company's swan song, but turned out to be its savior instead. Sakaguchi probably never imagined that he'd see an age where fans, reviewers and the world in general joke repeatedly about a 12-title series that isn't anywhere close to being final. Today, the series continues to innovate, draw fans, and divide them."

And I've heard that story repeated elsewhere many times. Sorry, bub.