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No idea if this is something that anyone would be interested in reading, but here it goes. I also would like some editing/feedback, if possible..
A Chronicle of a Squaresoft fanboy
A lot of gamers have their pet companies with which they develop a special emotional attachment in their formative years. For me that company was Squaresoft. From a young age, I was fascinated by greek mythology and fantasy stories. I was also fascinated with Dungeons and Dragons tabletop games and choose your own adventure books. I wished for a videogame that captured the best elements of Dungeons and Dragons, but many of the early RPGs I had access to were too clunky and obtuse for my pre-adolescent mind. The first game I experienced that captured many of the elements I desired in a videogame was Final Fantasy for the NES. No other RPG I had tried before had the combination of story, attractive 2D artwork, customization and choice and exploration, while not being too open ended or confusing. Since then I followed every game that Squaresoft released with enthusiasm. This series is both a personal story relating my experiences with their games and a retelling of the history of Squaresoft in North America.
Part 1: Origins and the NES era
Square started out originally as a small game studio focused on the Japanese PC market. Their founder, Masafumi Miyamoto, had a vision for game development that was distinct from the prevailing attitude at the time. He believed in larger development teams composed of artists, designers, writers and developers combining their talents to create state of art games. One of the pivotal early hires was Hironobu Sakaguchi, who would become lead producer and writer for many of their notable games. Iranian-American programmer Nasir Gebelli was hired soon after and he also had a pivotal role in the early hits for Squaresoft, including Final Fantasy. He was a celebrity game developer in the Apple II gaming sphere and his programming expertise brought him to Square. Many of the early era Final Fantasies had his signature "Programmed by Nasir" in the opening credits. Another important early hire was Nobuo Uematsu. He provided the music and sound engineering for many years and his soundtracks would become acclaimed worldwide.
Square had some minor success in the MSX and PC-88/98 titles, but a brand new console would provide them with their biggest audience yet. When Nintendo released the Famicom in Japan, Square quickly formed a relationship with the company and focused their development efforts on their system. Their first worldwide hit, interestingly enough, came a few months before Final Fantasy. It was "Rad Racer". It sold 1.96 million copies worldwide and was featured in the movie "The Wizard". I recall renting this game playing it with one of my cousins. It was a pretty standard racing game but it stood out as one of the more graphically impressive ones for the NES, and it was notable for including stereographic 3D effects that could be viewed with special glasses. This pattern of state of the art graphics would become a defining element of Squaresoft games.
Even though Rad Racer and other NES games Squaresoft had released had been successful, the company was still in financial trouble. Sakaguchi was tasked on creating another big hit for the company. Sakaguchi loved early era PC RPGs like Ultima and Wizardry and was pitching the idea to create a version of those games. The opportunity presented itself when Dragon Quest was released and proved to be a huge success in Japan. Square then greenlit Sakaguchi's RPG idea that eventually became Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy released in 1987 to decent success in Japan and it would take until 1990 for the North American version to release. The North American release was a surprise hit, selling 700,000 copies compared to 500,000 in Japan.
I didn't get a chance to play it until 1991 and even when considering that the Genesis had already been released, Final Fantasy still held up incredibly well when compared to other RPGs at the time. The graphics, designed by acclaimed manga artist Yoshitaka Amano, were impressive for an NES game. He would continue to work as the series concept artist for many years. The player character's sprites were fully animated when attacking and casting spells, which wasn't common in other NES RPG games like Dragon Warrior. And they did away with the clunky menu based interactions of RPGs of that era. Talking, collecting items and interacting was all done with one button press. Furthermore, Final Fantasy allowed for the player to select a 4 member party composed of any combination of 6 classes, whereas Dragon Warrior had only one hero. Final Fantasy's map and level design was incredibly clever as well. The areas in which the player can explore are limited in the early game. The designers funnel the player in a linear fashion from location to location and slowly open up as they acquire more modes of transportation. The game is also decently challenging, especially if one tries to beat it without power leveling as healing items and spells are limited. FF1 was also released as part of the FF Origins PS1 bundle. I think the NES version of the game is perfectly playable as it is for modern audiences, but some may prefer some of the quality of life, bug fixes and easier difficulty of the PS1 version.
While Final Fantasy 1 was in the process of being localized to North America, Squaresoft continued development of new Final Fantasy games in Japan. Due to the time it took to localize games in that era, Final Fantasy II was not released in North America until much later as a part of FF Origins. Final Fantasy II was in the plans to be localized for the NES but the project took so long it ran into the release of Final Fantasy IV for the SNES and was scrapped. As a matter of fact, for a long time, American players were not aware that Final Fantasy II existed because Final Fantasy IV was localized as Final Fantasy II in North America. It wasn't until gaming magazines leaked news about Final Fantasy V not being localized that we found out about the numbering discrepancy in the series. Fortunately, there were talented fans at the time working to localize many of the games that Squaresoft decided to not bring over to North America. I am forever grateful to these unnamed heroes for bringing these lost games to light through fan-made translation patches.
Final Fantasy II was a disappointment to me the first time I played it. It felt like it took one step forward and three steps back when compared to the original. It was the first Final Fantasy to feature many staples of the series: Named characters with backgrounds, an overarching story including an evil empire in conflict with a band of rebels, a character named Cid, and Chocobos. It had many clever systems that could've worked better with more polish, like the learned password system and the Elder Scrolls style skill based leveling system. But there were many elements that felt like a step down from the original. The game is a lot more open and easier to wander into dangerous areas from the start, which makes it unwelcoming to beginners. It isn't always super obvious on where to go or what to do at times. The choice of giving skill levels to each spell made it so late game spells were not powerful enough when compared to basic spells. And finally, the dungeon design was a step down from the original. The dungeons were overly long and samey. And many of them included this horrible gimmick of the trap rooms, where every tile in the room would trigger a random battle. It made exploring the dungeons feel like a chore. All in all, Final Fantasy II had many interesting elements that would shape the future of the series, but it is hard to recommend to anyone who isn't a die-hard Final Fantasy fan.
Final Fantasy III was released in Japan in 1990 to even bigger success than the previous titles. It sold 1.4 million copies in Japan and was held in high regard by reviewers, rating it on a comparable level to the latest Dragon Quest game at the time or release. Despite that, a concurrent North American release never was in the plans, as far as I know. For many years, the game was unavailable to North America except through fan translation patches and emulation. I played it for first time around the same time that I played FFII and enjoyed it more than its predecessor. Final Fantasy III throws out many of the changes made in the second game. It went back to blank slate characters with no backgrounds or personalities. It goes back to the experience points based leveling system and classes. It was the first game to include the Job System, which allows players to assign classes to characters at any time outside of battle. It seems to be a well received feature, considering how many times it has returned throughout the series. The map design and dungeons are also vastly improved compared to the predecessor, with one notable exception (the final dungeon). The game goes back to the guided/funneling style of world map of FF1, but it is significantly larger and layered. The party also gets non-combat NPC companions that give some personal stakes to the story beats. It is also the first game to include Moogles, a race of furry critters that would reappear in many games of the series. It was a game that felt like an improvement to FFII and more emblematic of the direction that Final Fantasy would take going forward, but not a groundbreaking, can't miss game. This game wouldn't get a North American release until more than a decade later on the Nintendo DS. The DS version is a 3D remake that is very loyal to the original, but they added names, personalities and story moments to the main characters. There's no reason not to play the DS remake as it provides an equivalent experience to the NES game and the new story additions don't feel out of place.
To Be Continued...
A Chronicle of a Squaresoft fanboy
A lot of gamers have their pet companies with which they develop a special emotional attachment in their formative years. For me that company was Squaresoft. From a young age, I was fascinated by greek mythology and fantasy stories. I was also fascinated with Dungeons and Dragons tabletop games and choose your own adventure books. I wished for a videogame that captured the best elements of Dungeons and Dragons, but many of the early RPGs I had access to were too clunky and obtuse for my pre-adolescent mind. The first game I experienced that captured many of the elements I desired in a videogame was Final Fantasy for the NES. No other RPG I had tried before had the combination of story, attractive 2D artwork, customization and choice and exploration, while not being too open ended or confusing. Since then I followed every game that Squaresoft released with enthusiasm. This series is both a personal story relating my experiences with their games and a retelling of the history of Squaresoft in North America.
Part 1: Origins and the NES era
Square started out originally as a small game studio focused on the Japanese PC market. Their founder, Masafumi Miyamoto, had a vision for game development that was distinct from the prevailing attitude at the time. He believed in larger development teams composed of artists, designers, writers and developers combining their talents to create state of art games. One of the pivotal early hires was Hironobu Sakaguchi, who would become lead producer and writer for many of their notable games. Iranian-American programmer Nasir Gebelli was hired soon after and he also had a pivotal role in the early hits for Squaresoft, including Final Fantasy. He was a celebrity game developer in the Apple II gaming sphere and his programming expertise brought him to Square. Many of the early era Final Fantasies had his signature "Programmed by Nasir" in the opening credits. Another important early hire was Nobuo Uematsu. He provided the music and sound engineering for many years and his soundtracks would become acclaimed worldwide.
Square had some minor success in the MSX and PC-88/98 titles, but a brand new console would provide them with their biggest audience yet. When Nintendo released the Famicom in Japan, Square quickly formed a relationship with the company and focused their development efforts on their system. Their first worldwide hit, interestingly enough, came a few months before Final Fantasy. It was "Rad Racer". It sold 1.96 million copies worldwide and was featured in the movie "The Wizard". I recall renting this game playing it with one of my cousins. It was a pretty standard racing game but it stood out as one of the more graphically impressive ones for the NES, and it was notable for including stereographic 3D effects that could be viewed with special glasses. This pattern of state of the art graphics would become a defining element of Squaresoft games.
Even though Rad Racer and other NES games Squaresoft had released had been successful, the company was still in financial trouble. Sakaguchi was tasked on creating another big hit for the company. Sakaguchi loved early era PC RPGs like Ultima and Wizardry and was pitching the idea to create a version of those games. The opportunity presented itself when Dragon Quest was released and proved to be a huge success in Japan. Square then greenlit Sakaguchi's RPG idea that eventually became Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy released in 1987 to decent success in Japan and it would take until 1990 for the North American version to release. The North American release was a surprise hit, selling 700,000 copies compared to 500,000 in Japan.
I didn't get a chance to play it until 1991 and even when considering that the Genesis had already been released, Final Fantasy still held up incredibly well when compared to other RPGs at the time. The graphics, designed by acclaimed manga artist Yoshitaka Amano, were impressive for an NES game. He would continue to work as the series concept artist for many years. The player character's sprites were fully animated when attacking and casting spells, which wasn't common in other NES RPG games like Dragon Warrior. And they did away with the clunky menu based interactions of RPGs of that era. Talking, collecting items and interacting was all done with one button press. Furthermore, Final Fantasy allowed for the player to select a 4 member party composed of any combination of 6 classes, whereas Dragon Warrior had only one hero. Final Fantasy's map and level design was incredibly clever as well. The areas in which the player can explore are limited in the early game. The designers funnel the player in a linear fashion from location to location and slowly open up as they acquire more modes of transportation. The game is also decently challenging, especially if one tries to beat it without power leveling as healing items and spells are limited. FF1 was also released as part of the FF Origins PS1 bundle. I think the NES version of the game is perfectly playable as it is for modern audiences, but some may prefer some of the quality of life, bug fixes and easier difficulty of the PS1 version.
While Final Fantasy 1 was in the process of being localized to North America, Squaresoft continued development of new Final Fantasy games in Japan. Due to the time it took to localize games in that era, Final Fantasy II was not released in North America until much later as a part of FF Origins. Final Fantasy II was in the plans to be localized for the NES but the project took so long it ran into the release of Final Fantasy IV for the SNES and was scrapped. As a matter of fact, for a long time, American players were not aware that Final Fantasy II existed because Final Fantasy IV was localized as Final Fantasy II in North America. It wasn't until gaming magazines leaked news about Final Fantasy V not being localized that we found out about the numbering discrepancy in the series. Fortunately, there were talented fans at the time working to localize many of the games that Squaresoft decided to not bring over to North America. I am forever grateful to these unnamed heroes for bringing these lost games to light through fan-made translation patches.
Final Fantasy II was a disappointment to me the first time I played it. It felt like it took one step forward and three steps back when compared to the original. It was the first Final Fantasy to feature many staples of the series: Named characters with backgrounds, an overarching story including an evil empire in conflict with a band of rebels, a character named Cid, and Chocobos. It had many clever systems that could've worked better with more polish, like the learned password system and the Elder Scrolls style skill based leveling system. But there were many elements that felt like a step down from the original. The game is a lot more open and easier to wander into dangerous areas from the start, which makes it unwelcoming to beginners. It isn't always super obvious on where to go or what to do at times. The choice of giving skill levels to each spell made it so late game spells were not powerful enough when compared to basic spells. And finally, the dungeon design was a step down from the original. The dungeons were overly long and samey. And many of them included this horrible gimmick of the trap rooms, where every tile in the room would trigger a random battle. It made exploring the dungeons feel like a chore. All in all, Final Fantasy II had many interesting elements that would shape the future of the series, but it is hard to recommend to anyone who isn't a die-hard Final Fantasy fan.
Final Fantasy III was released in Japan in 1990 to even bigger success than the previous titles. It sold 1.4 million copies in Japan and was held in high regard by reviewers, rating it on a comparable level to the latest Dragon Quest game at the time or release. Despite that, a concurrent North American release never was in the plans, as far as I know. For many years, the game was unavailable to North America except through fan translation patches and emulation. I played it for first time around the same time that I played FFII and enjoyed it more than its predecessor. Final Fantasy III throws out many of the changes made in the second game. It went back to blank slate characters with no backgrounds or personalities. It goes back to the experience points based leveling system and classes. It was the first game to include the Job System, which allows players to assign classes to characters at any time outside of battle. It seems to be a well received feature, considering how many times it has returned throughout the series. The map design and dungeons are also vastly improved compared to the predecessor, with one notable exception (the final dungeon). The game goes back to the guided/funneling style of world map of FF1, but it is significantly larger and layered. The party also gets non-combat NPC companions that give some personal stakes to the story beats. It is also the first game to include Moogles, a race of furry critters that would reappear in many games of the series. It was a game that felt like an improvement to FFII and more emblematic of the direction that Final Fantasy would take going forward, but not a groundbreaking, can't miss game. This game wouldn't get a North American release until more than a decade later on the Nintendo DS. The DS version is a 3D remake that is very loyal to the original, but they added names, personalities and story moments to the main characters. There's no reason not to play the DS remake as it provides an equivalent experience to the NES game and the new story additions don't feel out of place.
To Be Continued...
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