Growing up as a Squaresoft fanboy - Part 1

Many 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 captivated by Greek mythology and fantasy stories. I was also fascinated with Dungeons and Dragons tabletop games and choose your own adventure books. The first game I experienced that captured the spirit of tabletop games in digital form was Final Fantasy for the NES. No other video game I had tried before had the combination of story, attractive 2D artwork, customization, choice and exploration; all while not being too open ended or confusing. Since then I’ve 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: Humble Origins ​

Squaresoft (at the time, Square of Japan) started out 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 the art games. One of his 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 who 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's dev group hard at work on Final Fantasy III. They were working from a hotel room in Sacramento, since Nasir's work visa had expired. Pictured from left to right, Nasir Gebelli (lead programmer), Hironobu Sakaguchi (lead designer/project manager), Hiromichi Tanaka (Game designer) and Kiyoshi Yoshii (battle programmer)​

Square had some minor successes with MSX and PC-88/98 titles, but a brand new gaming console provided them with their biggest audience yet. When Nintendo released the 8-bit system, the Famicom (that would later release overseas as the Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES), 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 and playing it with one of my cousins. It was a bog 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 in the years to come.

A demo of the impressive graphical wizardry implemented in Rad Racer. 3D effects were unlocked by pressing select and wearing special glasses.

Rad Racer product placement spot in "The Wizard". This is probably the most 90's gamer style to be captured in film.
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FINAL FANTASY​

Even though Rad Racer and other NES games Squaresoft had released had been successful, the company was still in financial trouble. Sakaguchi was tasked with 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. Released in 1987 to decent success in Japan, it would take until 1990 for the North American version of the game to be released. Surprising everyone, the North American release was a hit, selling 700,000 copies compared to the already impressive 500,000 in Japan. Final Fantasy was heavily featured in Nintendo's marketing attempts, including the Nintendo Power magazine. That is how the series first came on my radar.

Left: Final Fantasy's North American box art. Right: Final Fantasy's guide offered for free to all Nintendo Power subscribers. ​

I didn't get a chance to play it until 1991 and Final Fantasy still held up incredibly well when compared to other RPGs that existed back then. 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 RPGs like Dragon Warrior. They also managed to do away with the clunky menu based interactions RPGs were known for. Talking, collecting items and interacting was all done with one button press. Furthermore, the game allowed for the player to select a 4 member party composed of any combination of 6 classes, whereas Dragon Warrior had only one hero. The strategy and challenge level varies dramatically based on party composition

Left: Party Select Screen. Middle and Right: Everything from talking to NPCs to shopping uses a simple interface, although inventory space is limited in the NES version.

The monster sprites perfectly captured the feel of Amano's concept art, as shown on the right.​

Final Fantasy's map and level design were incredibly clever as well; the areas in which the player can explore are intentionally 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 and gain knowledge of their surroundings. The game is also decently challenging, especially if one tries to beat it without power leveling, as healing items and spells are limited. The issue with limited healing can provide a challenge to some but can also prove to be frustrating later in the game. Some of the longer dungeons will require multiple trips to beat since save points were only available in the town inns. It can be rage inducing to lose all of your progress on a trip back from a dungeon when running out of healing spells. Modern versions of FF1 and emulators make this less of an issue.

This is what peak map design looks like. The player is limited to certain areas of the southern continent until they acquire additional modes of transportation like airships.​

FINAL FANTASY 2​

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 the FF Origins collection on the Playstation. 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. Shout out to Demiforce for translating Final Fantasy II and sites like Zophar's Domain for supporting and distributing fan patches during those dark days of Squaresoft fandom.

Final Fantasy II box art in Japan. For many years I expected the real FFII to be lost forever to North America.​

Final Fantasy II was a game I didn't fully appreciate until many years later. 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 featuring an evil empire in conflict with a band of rebels, tragic and sentimental story moments, an airship engineer 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. I appreciated the push for more storytelling elements and innovative mechanics.

The password system (left) and the skill based leveling system (right). Two of the innovations introduced in Final Fantasy II.

Amano's concept art of the main party members, Firion (middle), Maria (middle-right), Leon (left), Guy (right), and antagonist (top).

FFII featured tragic moments, such as party member deaths, years before other games in the series tackled similar subject matter.
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At the same time, 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. The game isn't great at making it obvious where the player has to go or what to do at times. The limiting factor in most situations is finding the right NPC and giving them the correct password, which can lead to hours of trial and error. 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. Many of them included this horrible gimmick of the trap rooms, where every tile in the room would trigger a random battle. It made dungeons a chore to complete. 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.

A sprawling map that doesn't naturally funnel the player to any particular location and zones with powerful enemies near beginner areas leads to quick frustration.
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To Be Continued...

 

[sandogma]

Great write up so far! I always enjoy reading about peoples introduction to our favorite games and the way it impacted them and why. For me, my introduction to RPG's was a dungeon crawler on the Atari ST, I can't remember what it was called, but I was too young to fully grasp it, so it felt obtuse and confusing and boring. Later on when I had an NES, my Dad got me a Dungeons and Dragons game (Heroes of the Lance). Other than a really cool boxart, the game was horrible. At that point I had made up my mind that RPG's were lame and not for me.

That said, one day I was over at my neighbors watching him play Final Fantasy II (IV in Japan) and I was immediately intrigued. After that moment, I was determined to find a Final Fantasy equivalent for my old NES and I was so happy to see that there was.
To me, this game and the original Zelda were my first "open world" games, as they felt huge and unrestricted, making traversal scary as there were no clear indications as to where to go. I remember reading the paper foldouts that came with the game, including the map and thinking just how large the world was. I remember reading the monster guide and on the other side looking at all the statistical information on the weapons and armor and thinking that this game is truly hardcore.

It really felt like I was about to partake in a grand adventure. I can't recall if I actually beat the game, I was still in elementary school. I know I did beat it many years later when I bought the port for my GBA. Either way, I share your fondness for this game and series. Thank you for sharing your experience and I look forward to reading the remaining parts!

 

[Strategist]

Great write up so far! I always enjoy reading about peoples introduction to our favorite games and the way it impacted them and why. For me, my introduction to RPG's was a dungeon crawler on the Atari ST, I can't remember what it was called, but I was too young to fully grasp it, so it felt obtuse and confusing and boring. Later on when I had an NES, my Dad got me a Dungeons and Dragons game (Heroes of the Lance). Other than a really cool boxart, the game was horrible. At that point I had made up my mind that RPG's were lame and not for me.

Yeah, I felt the same way as a kid. I tried many D&D branded games like Eye of the Beholder but they were all filled with ugly graphics, clunky menus and provided very little guidance. I appreciate them a little bit more as a grownup, but I didn't get into D&D games until Bioware started making them.

To me, this game and the original Zelda were my first "open world" games, as they felt huge and unrestricted, making traversal scary as there were no clear indications as to where to go. I remember reading the paper foldouts that came with the game, including the map and thinking just how large the world was. I remember reading the monster guide and on the other side looking at all the statistical information on the weapons and armor and thinking that this game is truly hardcore.

It really felt like I was about to partake in a grand adventure. I can't recall if I actually beat the game, I was still in elementary school. I know I did beat it many years later when I bought the port for my GBA. Either way, I share your fondness for this game and series. Thank you for sharing your experience and I look forward to reading the remaining parts!

Yeah Zelda/Zelda 2 also were favorites of mine growing up. And by no means did I beat the game when I was in elementary school. It took me several years and starts and stops to fully beat it. I still loved the game even when I didn't fully know how to beat it.

Glad to hear that someone enjoys my ramblings. I have a mind filled with useless Squaresoft and Final Fantasy factoids. As long as someone reads them, I'll keep sharing them.

 

[Aziamuth]

For me, Final Fantasy II loses me with its "interesting" dungeon design. The level up system is very original and, in concept, good

 

[Strategist]

For me, Final Fantasy II loses me with its "interesting" dungeon design. The level up system is very original and, in concept, good

The level up system was ahead of its time as it was similar to what the Elder Scroll games use. Use a weapon and gain skill. Attack a lot and gain strength, take damage and gain HP, use magic and gain intelligence, etc... The problem is that the system is very easy to cheese and there are multiple bugs that can be exploited to level up quickly.

 

[Aziamuth]

The level up system was ahead of its time as it was similar to what the Elder Scroll games use. Use a weapon and gain skill. Attack a lot and gain strength, take damage and gain HP, use magic and gain intelligence, etc... The problem is that the system is very easy to cheese and there are multiple bugs that can be exploited to level up quickly.

I'm personally offended with the fact that the progress in leveling certain skills can be reset depending on situations. For example, if you heal it's harder to level up your health and defense

 

[Strategist]

I'm personally offended with the fact that the progress in leveling certain skills can be reset depending on situations. For example, if you heal it's harder to level up your health and defense

I kind of get where they are coming from with that concept. They were trying to force class roles into the system. If you use strength weapons, you lose intelligence. If you get too tanky, you lose MP. It theoretically forces the player to specialize, but not really because all of this can be worked around.