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Games Entertainment

History of SquareSoft 168

Posted by michael from the trivial-pursuits dept.
thryllkill writes: "GameSpot currently has an excellent article posted about the history of SquareSoft. As most /.ers know Square is responsible for bringing console RPGs to the mainstream, and some claim brought the PlayStation the success it needed to dominate the late 90s video game market. The article is light on corporate info, but a great rundown of Square's contributions. The only error I noted was the omission of Final Fantasy SGI." And FFX is supposed to ship next week.
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History of SquareSoft More

History of SquareSoft

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  • WOOHOO FFX! (Score:1, Funny)

    by LohRhyda ( 243119 )
    ITs about time. Now I will have something to de besides masturbate on an hourly basis.
    This ought to keep me a little more occupied.
    I got a FFX demo via snail mail and it was what we all expected. They bought me with the 1st 10 seconds
    of game play. My wife dies if I dont get this for christmas ;)

  • Great Games (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Erasei ( 315737 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @10:08AM (#2686625) Homepage
    Personally, I do not like RPGs at all, from Zelda through the latest Final Fantasy, just not my thing.

    But! Rad Racer [gamespot.com] is still one of my favorite games.

    Considering the very limited processors in game consoles back then compared to the computer power in todays gaming consoles, the programmers back in those days were true Code Poets. I mean, they did some amazing things with their limited resources.
    • How can you not like Rocket Propelled Grenades? Didn't you ever play Duke Nukem?

    • Re:Great Games (Score:3, Insightful)

      by CaseStudy ( 119864 )
      Most people will claim that Zelda isn't an RPG, just an arcade adventure game with some power-up elements.

      If you want to look at doing RPGs with limited computer power, I'd pay more attention to the PCs of the time. Console RPGs in the Square tradition didn't really take off until the SNES/Genesis, at least when compared to what was available on the Apple II. (Yes, I know Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior started on the NES, and Phantasy Star started on the SMS, but the first incarnations weren't very original.)
  • They were an RPG company that made a lot of great games. Then they got the bright idea to make stuff other than RPGs, except all of it sucked. So they started making only RPGs again.

    Square hasn't actually disappointed much lately, except for their bizarre character designs and incomprehensible names (I guess this is due to the lack of the great Yoshitaka Amano...)

    Weep for Amano, and Uematsu, for without them there is no Final Fantasy.

    -Evan.

  • Did Final Fantasy SGI really need to be included? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Cutriss ( 262920 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @10:16AM (#2686648) Homepage
    FF SGI was just a demo of some 3-D renders of characters from Final Fantasy VI - Terra, Locke, and Shadow, if memory serves. It was basically assumed to be a technology demo to show what style Square had planned for the N64, but when Nintendo refused to give up on the RDRAM platform for media, and Square was discovering the luxuries of FMV, Square decided to bail. The N64 was workable, but contrary to how Hiroshi Yamauchi sees it, Square was just making a much more viable business decision - Ninteno felt stabbed in the back...Not that they didn't deserve it, seeing as how they tried to give Sony the shaft in the first place by displacing them with Phillips as the manufacturer of the SNES-CDROM add-on...

    • Re:Did Final Fantasy SGI really need to be include (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Actually, even Square admits they wrongly started the Nintendo feud. Basically the Square president is quoted as saying pride was their downfall. When they switched to playstation, nintendo pres Hiroshi Yamauchi said it could not be helped. Square on the other hand returned by bashing nintendo and influencing Enix to jump ship. There are records of Yamauchi bashing Square but most likely in response to what square started.

      This is the best source I could find right away but there are plenty more:
      http://www.cube-europe.com/news/231001a.html

      Square is the one that burned their bridges with nintendo. Now they are paying the price, it is never good for a company to burn their bridges just in case they want to go back. Since Nintendo actually turned down Square's application to develop Gameboy Advance games, Square now regrets their past remarks.
      • That really makes a lot of sense. I haven't read your sources yet, but it certainly helps to remove some of the stodgy image that Yamauchi has in his mind. If Square really did bash Nintendo after jumping ship, then it serves Square right that Nintendo's being sketchy about granting them publishing license rights. They made their bed, and now they'd be lying in it.

        Of course, as I said, I haven't read your sources yet (Busy studying for finals), but thanks for the tip. :)
    • They also had a silly VRML game at one time you could play based on the characters of this SGI demo. I have no idea where it went though. It was pretty slow on my 133Mhz 6x86 at the time so it didn't play very well. You basically just walked through a maze.

  • FF I = X (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ImaLamer ( 260199 ) <john.lamar@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @10:21AM (#2686670) Homepage Journal
    I must admit that I wasn't a fan of the FF series when it was NES but after seeing FFVII I went to FuncoLand and bought the NES games (all for under $10!).

    I was younger and wanted action then. Plus NES graphics didn't give the game what Square was all about. The games are great but when you are 10 you'd rather play Contra.

    Seeing FFVII blew me away. It actually made me buy a playstation [and Quake II] even though I was/am a Sony-hater.

    The FF games are great, like Pokemon for Gboy it helped teach my little brother to read. He loved the gameplay and the graphics, but he learned real quick that you needed to read the dialouge to win.

    FFVII, being my first actual FF game, took me at least two work weeks of time to complete. I would sit up and play all night. My friend [who is a FF nut - which I never knew] that turned me onto the game can hear the music and pick it up right away.

    I was playing some mp3s and the Sephiroth music came on and he jumped out of the chair. "I know what that is!"

    See what these games do to people.

    And: Not only graphics, but the sound was awsome in the PSX games. FFVII wasn't the best, but it was great to play.

    • New /. poll: best-loved Final Fantasy Theme

      My personal favorite would have to be Beatrix' theme from FFIX ("protecting my devotion?") - it starts off as kind of an ominous theme when she's a bad guy, grows more pensive as she questions her allegiance to the mad Queen, and eventually becomes triumphant as she helps Steiner defend Alexandria.

      Runners-up from FFIX: the theme from the game where the frog-king Cid has to sneak up and steal the key from the red monster, and the swamp frog-catching music. Both are laugh-out-loud funny to listen to, IMHO.

      I'll have to go back and play FFVII; right now I'm having problems remembering the tunes from it as well :)

      • FFIX was way better than VIII I must say.

        IX had the classic characters and even a few loops that you were tossed through.

        IX also had great mini-games.
        • Not to mention VIII had too much of a soppy story line... you know, even though I loved the Junctions and not having to pay for armour and weapons and stuff, I got tired of Rinoa and Squall going through "young love". Blech.
          • the FMV of the dance at the Garden is really great, tho. I've saved a game just before that so I can watch it as much as i want (awwww)

  • Finaly Fantasy is my Ideal Life (Score:3, Funny)

    by ecliptik ( 160746 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @10:21AM (#2686673) Homepage
    Where else can I have multiple girls after me, walk into people's houses and look through their stuff with no consequences, be able to weild a sword that's twice my body mass, oh ya, and the cross-dressing is kinda nice also...
  • ...or even Atari.

    It always makes me cringe when people say that Square is the greaest games company ever. They are so not. Some of their games are pretty damn good, mind you, but they really are not the last word in originality, innovation and fun.
  • This is probably very redundant, but I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents...

    When Sony first released the playstation, I totally dismissed it as another company with no gaming experience trying to get a piece of the home video game pie.

    but when FFVII was released, I think it gave the playstation a lot of credibility.

    I can tell you this: the only reason *I* bought a playstation was so I could play FFVII. If it had ended up on the N64, I probably would have bought an N64.
    • I'm with you on that one - I think FFVII established the PSX more than any of the sports titles or platformers did at the time. It convinced me to purchase one, that's for sure.

      I totally dismissed it as another company with no gaming experience trying to get a piece of the home video game pie.

      This sounds somewhat familiar for today's market as well - although notably not Sony this time. Will the rabid Xbox dismissives vaporize if MS or a third party produces a killer app for this dark horse? Nintendo can cruise for a while - Mario Sunshine, Zelda, Metroid, Resident Evil, and anything Pokemon or whatever Rareware decides to put out will be the bread and butter for the system in the near future. Sony's library is already excellent, and I don't see it faltering anytime soon.

      All I know is that this previously low-key hobby of console collecting is getting hellaciously expensive, and I'm loving every minute of it :)

      • Will the rabid Xbox dismissives vaporize if MS or a third party produces a killer app for this dark horse?

        Probably, I didn't have a Playstation until FFVII. and since then I've gotten a few good games. I feel the exact same way about the X-Box. yeah, the stuff looks pretty, but as I firmly believe, pretty graphics a good game do not make. Of course, FFX and Devil May Cry have convienced me I need a PS2, so if FFXI or FFXII come out on Xbox, I'll probably need one of them too.

        All I know is that this previously low-key hobby of console collecting is getting hellaciously expensive, and I'm loving every minute of it :)

        Damn straight. I just got a Dreamcast and a couple games for less than a hundred. Life is good.
  • Wow! This must be the first piece of software whose release schedule moved *up* since the beginning of time :)

    However... Does this mean that it'll be buggy? One problem with console games is they can't release patches. Have to get it right the first time. I can see why they would want to release it before Xmas (especially after bleeding money with the FF movie... ) But I hope business decisions don't result in a game of diminished quality.

    (Wait... Why do I care? I can't afford a PS2 anyway :(... )
    • I somehow doubt it since the Japanese version of FFX has been out for quite a while now. I'm sure there are subdle differences between the Japanese and Western PS2, but they can't be that great. From the hardcore people in the US who got their hands on FFX, I haven't heard anything bad about it as of yet.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Anyone else really like the film ?

    I thought it was great, ok the story wasn't perfect but I thought it was enjoyable. And this summer wasn't exactly great for movies was it ?, (the only other summer movie I enjoyed was the planet of the apes remake) I really think this should have done better at the box office.

    BTW in the article it says the film only took $80 million and cost $140 million, but that $140 million doesn't include the money spent on publicity which I read was at least another $20 to $30 million worldwide. So the film did very badly (even waterworld made money thru video and tv rights but it is doubtful that FFTSW ever will).

    The really sad thing is it will probably put the studios off making cgi films aimed at adults as the only successful ones have been for kids (shrek, toy story, etc.). But I think the potential for a truly great cgi film with an adult film is huge.
    • The film would have been much better if they did not hire well-known voices for the characters. I felt that detracted from the experience. It works in cartoons because cartoons are much more obviously fake, but as they approach realism, they need to use new people for the voices.

      Maybe this whole CGI thing will be a good way to get ugly (Hollywood ugly, not real ugly) people into film. :-)
    • I really couldn't follow the story the first time I watched the movie. Try watching the DVD version with the commentary (there are two tracks of it!) turned on. After watching it this way I could actually understand and appreciate the plot, although I think they could have done a better job to explain the story better in the movie.

      other cons: The acting wasn't very good. The characters lips did not match what they were saying.

      Remember, the movie took almost 4 years to make. In a few years our video games will be able to render at this quality!
  • Sqaure is responsible, more than any other factor, for my severe interest in "video games". Early on, VGs were of course interesting, but there's mention to be made for the one-two whammy of RPGs and then Squaresoft. From the Nintendo, to Super Nintendo, to Game Boy, to Playstation, to others, Square has been one of the major companies I've followed.

    I purchased FFVII before I bought a playstation. I stayed up for weeks playing that game, maxing the clock past 99:99 (yes, at the last hour the seconds go up to 99). All other RPGs were rated on a scale as compared to the FF series. I have yet to purchase a PS2, GC, or Xbox, but the deadline for FFX is coming and I'm getting the shakes.

  • Never saw the appeal (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CaseStudy ( 119864 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @10:45AM (#2686805) Homepage
    I never "got" Square games. Sure, they were among the prettiest out there, but as games they were clunky and repetitive, and as stories they were just silly anime plots with almost no interactivity.

    In every Square-style console RPG I tried, I'd hit a "wall"--there would be some point at which I just decided it wasn't fun anymore, either because the incessant combat was no longer interesting, because the story had crossed the line into nonsensical, or because the game was unbalanced and I didn't feel like "levelling up" to correct the designer's mistakes. I never got that in Planescape: Torment (though Curst came close) or in Fallout.
  • Last year I heard a comment from friend of mine, a game artist/illustrator who lives in Tokyo. We were talking about Manga and Anime stuff and I told her I enjoy playing games made by SquareSoft, especially the Final Fantasy line. She surprised me by saying that she personally dislike SquareSoft. That really got me because to me Square made pretty good games, and I asked her why. She said that Square used to "steal" artists from smaller companies to work for them with promises of higher payments and treated them like used scraps when the products finally shipped. So basically she likes games made by Square but not Square as a company ..

    =Spike=

  • Brownie Brown (Score:3, Informative)

    by Nerds ( 126684 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @10:53AM (#2686854) Homepage
    Kind of on-topic: The article states that Square probably won't be releasing a game on a Nintendo system any time soon, but Brownie Brown will [ign.com]. They're made up of former Square employees who were behind Secret of Mana and they have confirmed that a GameCube RPG is in the works.

  • Cheers to Squaresoft (Score:2, Insightful)

    by lysurgon ( 126252 )

    Cheers to squaresoft for taking the art of storytelling in the medium of (console) videogames to another level. They made significant quantum leaps at every platform level:
    • FFI was something truely original in terms of gameplay design for the NES
    • Chrono Trigger (which I'm currently playing again via the sweet fruits of emulation) took that gameplay design to it's peak with the most ambitious story (the only possible competition on the 16-bit platform is from Phansasy Star).
    • FFVII made the PS, and it showed everyone that 3d graphics and cd-quality audio can be more than eye/ear candy.

      Now for the important stuff. Anyone know if they plan to do another FF Tactics-style game? That was the bomb.
    • I personally liked xenogears far more than the FF efforts on the psx(too much sitting back to watch FMV which you cant skip which gets annoying the second time through). While the second cd was rather rushed and the format of the game switched to more of a "misson" format, the fighting system for both the robot mode and human mode was excellent!

      The story was great too(and at some points rather disturbing and not for children), also the runtime to play the game took 60-80 hours or so. Pretty good for a game that had more of the snes effort of chrono trigger. The sprite based animation was pretty good too.

      I'd like to find a copy somewhere, ebay i guess.

      I would like to see a sequel or game in a similar format by square. I never did play Chrono Cross.

      Final Fantasy Tatics was an awesome game. Yet another square psuedo 2d game that in many ways played better than the 3d for the sake of 3d Final Fantasy efforts on the PSX. The job system in that game was a lot of fun, especially how you could customize the characters virtually any way you wanted. It also presented multiple ways to play through the game by that virtue. I would like to see a sequel.
      • I would like to see a sequel or game in a similar format by square. I never did play Chrono Cross.

        Gods! Get it and play it now! Chrono Trigger is great, yes, but Chrono Cross is leaps and bounds beyond it - It has a much much more complex and mature plot that deals a LOT with the events in Chrono Trigger, a unique battle system that's fun and challenging, but not excessively hard (You can run away from bosses!). It has excellent character development, but too many characters to develop (44 playable characters) means that the development gets spread thinly between quite a few. You can New Game+ and Continue+ in it, and unlike Xenogears, Chrono Cross has a Fast Forward option you can use when you're playing New Game+/Continue+ so that you can skip a lot of the useless stuff.

        The best part by FAR is the plot though. PLAY THIS GAME!
      • Y'know, I was just watching old promo movies for Xenogears and saying to myself "Damn, self. That was the Sweetest game ever." I don't ever remember being so enthralled in a game that you just sit down and play it for days and days on end. As far as plot goes, nothing even comes close to touching it as far as I've seen. The intro movie makes no sense until you're just about right on top of the final boss, mostly because the story takes you from the VERY beginning. You end up discovering so much about the world, the entire view of it changes.

        Yeah, but that's just ranting and raving. Truthfully, Xenogears is still one of the best games ever made, just for the depth. Now to find some cash before Xenosaga. . . . .
      • One of my biggest issues with the FF series, and, to a lesser degree Chrono Cross/Trigger, is that in order to get all the neat stuff, you have to ignore the plot. For example, when some Renoa gets sick in FF 8, you'd think that you'd be hurrying back to wherever you're supposed to go to fix her up. But theres all kinds of exploring and card gaming and items to get that you can only get at that time. Or just before then end, when you're "in a rush" to save the world - it's one of the best times to spend a couple years of game time hauling around the map killing stuff and picking up anything you forgot.
    • Now for the important stuff. Anyone know if they plan to do another FF Tactics-style game? That was the bomb.

      Hoshigami - Ruining Blue Earth [hoshigami.net] is about as close as you're gonna get for the time being, though if you can overlook the shoddy graphics, you may also consider going after Tactics Ogre or Kartia, both from Atlus. Final Fantasy Tactics was actually produced by a team that was mostly composed of members that originally did Tactics Ogre.
      • God bless you Atlus for Persona 2: EP. If I was a chick I'd have Jack Frost's baby. I'm looking forward to their Wizardry PS2 game too. (since I have an aversion to playing anything on the pc for some reason)
      • Kartia is also noteworthy for having character designs by the great Yoshitaka Amano, of Final Fantasy fame, in full, 32-bit prerendered PSX glory....
    • I prefer the Star Ocean series... a dream come true for the anal-must-get-everything-in-the-game players, without being insane(4 CDs in 12 hours?!? Who is that dedicated? See the FF9 FAQ about Excaliber 2 if you don't understand what I'm talking about)

      Star Ocean was one of the more advanced SNES games which unfortunately didn't make it to the States... Star Ocean 2 is one of my favorite PSX games, and I'm eagerly awaiting a translation of the Game Boy version, and the upcoming SO3 for PS2.
    • FFI Original? It ripped off the gameplaying style of the 1984 Japansese Famicom RPG Dragon Quest. (Dragon Warrior in the U.S.)
    • While I agree that Chrono Trigger is probably my favorite SNES RPG, I also would like to mention Lufia, Lufia II, and Breath of Fire as other great RPG's you really shouldn't miss out on.. :)

      I'm replaying through Dragon Warrior III on the Gameboy Advance (it's a "color" cart), having a blast, and am looking forward to playing Lufia on the GBA.
    • Now for the important stuff. Anyone know if they plan to do another FF Tactics-style game? That was the bomb. AFAIK, FF Tactics was only produced by Square. It was developed by the same house that does the Ogre Battle series (also excellent games -- if you can follow the convoluted plotlines. :) ). I forget the name of the developer, though... --Jeremy

  • Umm.. I would give Chrono Cross about 2/10, not 10/10. There were so many characters that if you replaced one in your party with another, nothing changed, not even what the characters say (well, except for crazy accents). I think that about half of the tracks on the OST are either remixes of the Chrono Trigger theme or Scars Left by Time. The plot was absolutely horrible: I spent over thirty-five hours bumbling about in Captain Planet rip-off miniquests and listening to characters spout Green Party policy (who I would then fight and then they would join my party). When I finally did beat what I thought was the final boss, the Time Devourer (omni-dragon), I was teleported back to Opassa Beach where the Crono, Marle, and Lucca yelled at Serge for being born for about fifteen minutes, revealing the real plot of the game, when I was whisked away to fight the real Time Devourer, which explained what happened to Schala half-way through Chrono Trigger when she disappears after activating the Mammon Machine. The fight with the real time-devourer was a unique concept, I'll give Squaresoft that, but if they pull something like the Chrono Cross (the artifact) again, they should at least leave more clues as to the sequence of elements to use. All in all, in spite of explaining a few mysteries about Chrono Trigger, the game was a huge disappointment for me.

    • I wouldn't say something as extreme as that, but in general the game was a letdown. The 40 characters absolutely sucked ass but more importantly, the gameplay just didn't seem challenging. You could use the same strategy over and over for every enemy in the entire game. Plus (SPOILER) what's with that stupid Darth Vader aspect of the plot? If Serge's father had his soul removed and his appearance changed, wtf does it matter that he's the main badguy? The plot did a good job of tying everything together imo but you're right, too much liberal hand-wringing taking place here. By saving Kid's life you killed the faries! It wasn't the Dwarves' fault, it was your fault because you killed the Hydra! Don't you feel guilty?
    • I didn't like CC much either. But I think most of the reason for that was due to it being a sequel to Chrono Trigger. CT is even now one of the best games of all time, and after waiting years for a sequel a great amount of expectation is built up. It's not easy to make a sequel, especially not after wating so many years.

      I didn't like the game itself that much either. I agree about the Chrono Cross being a bit hard to figure out, and the OSt wasn't great either. The plot itself was overly complicated, and it wasn't that great by then end (when you could actually understand it). There were too many characters to develeop strongly. THat said, it was an ok game.
  • I've been playing the Japanese version of FFX for the past few months (though I haven't beaten it yet). I must admit it is a *very* visually appealing game. The character's are also more likable than, say Squall of FF8. It also has an interesting new level advancement system where you get points which allow you to move your characters around a large map - different locations means getting different abilities. Its kind of hard to describe but it works really well, and it is easier to use than say, junctioning, and makes more sense than materia.

    The voice acting in the Japanese version is *amazing* and I hope they got American actors that are up to par. I would have prefered that the American version of this game have just been subtitled in English, but I understand most wouldn't like that.

    The only downside, and this is sort of major for me, is that the game is *extremely* linear in nature. The story is great but it doesn't give you much chance to explore outside the rigid framework they give you. I've noticed there's been less and less freedom in FF games recently.

    Lastly, I must say the underwater polo game is awesome!
    • Interesting to hear you say that...I don't have FFX yet (waiting for American release at the end of this month) but this is one of things I've been wondering about. I can't imagine why they're heading towards a more linear structure...that's always been one of the reasons I liked the FF series so much, there's a lot of stuff to be discovered, places to go, etc. Can't imagine why they would want to be like everyone else with fake choices and little freedom to move around the world. Looking forward to FFX all the same.
  • as FFVII. Unnoticed, but released at almost the same time as FFVII, hard to find in th US, was the true role-playing revolution of the 90's. Panzer Dragoon Azel (Panzer Dragoon Saga) was made by Sega's Team Andromeda for the Sega Saturn, and in my opinion, crushed Final Fantasy Seven in every way possible. Real Time Fighting, Unlimited character exploration/evolution, Beautiful graphics, and an incredible world, any true fan of RPG's should take a look on ebay and think about spending the $200 that a single copy of this game goes for! Square, being Sony's whore at the time, got more recognition, but in my estimation, Team Andromeda was the victor,
  • Ugh not looking forward to FFX at all...I couldn't even stand FF7. Well at first it was okay, but the random getting jumped every 2 seconds, combined with slow combat just drives me nuts! The summonings are cool the first dozen times you see them... I think I'm too stuck in my CRPG ways :) Can't wait for Morrowind myself!

  • Actually, I did find a very signifcant omission... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Cutriss ( 262920 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @11:20AM (#2686997) Homepage
    The article gives a brief one-paragraph synopsis of Final Fantasy (NES) just like everything else, but what it fails to mention is this:

    Square's games, other than Rad Racer, were *not* selling well at all in the US, and they weren't doing too great in the Japanese market either. Final Fantasy was named as such because it was a last ditch effort by Square to stay in the market. The CEO at the time (I think it was Sakaguchi then...) had stated that if Final Fantasy didn't succeed, they were going to close up shop. So it had the prospect of being literally "final".
    • That's one of those (surprisingly persistent) gaming urban legends that have been passed down from year to year. Kind of like a "Good Times" virus of gaming.

      Fact is, Square was knee-deep in the black at the time, and was one of the few gaming companies with several million dollars in the bank. The name "Final Fantasy" was probably more of a bad translation than anything else.

      • Re:Actually, I did find a very signifcant omission (Score:4, Informative)

        by Cutriss ( 262920 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @01:41PM (#2687850) Homepage
        I hereby mod you to (-1, Wrong).

        The name "Final Fantasy" was probably more of a bad translation than anything else.Kinda hard to mistranslate it when the name is written in katakana. What else are you going to read it as when you read "Fainaru Fantashii"? And apparently, if it is an urban legend, it's enough to fool GameSpot [videogames.com] and also Mr. Sakaguchi himself in this interview [techtv.com]. Listen to the beginning of the second clip - He says right at the beginning that Square was really struggling at the release of the original Final Fantasy.
        • Thank you for clearing that up! I've heard people argue about this for years, but no one ever had any proof. I'm glad someone put this issue to rest. I'm going to bookmark those links in case it ever comes up again.

    • Re:Actually, I did find a very signifcant omission (Score:4, Informative)

      by Whelkman ( 58482 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @09:00PM (#2690558)
      Don't put too much stock into this article. It's full of fluff and omissions. Most of it is mini-reviews of games and the only real history they give is the breakup with Nintendo that everyone knows about. They didn't even mention the tension that lead up to the breakup. The writers obviously didn't do any research or they'd know the abusive license policies Nintendo had in the 80s and early 90s and how Square did not like those policies to say the least. They didn't mention Nintendo's strong arm intimidation tactics nor their exhorbinant licensig fees.

      They also barely mentioned the renaming scandal. The real reason Final Fantasy IV was called II was Nintendo originally was supposed to port all three NES Final Fantasies. But they grossly underestimated the translation effort and it took them three years. Nintendo will tell you the renaming was to "prevent confusion," but it was really a coverup.

      Nor did they mention the constantly broke stats of the company in the 1980s or the truly terrible Famicom Disc System games that never made it over here.

      This is a sad article. If I wanted reviews I'd go elsewhere. A history is supposed to be about the company's workings over the years, not one paragraph blurbs about the U.S.-only releases of a company.
  • 1990: Square releases Final Fantasy 1. Realises people will play games with shitty graphics, no story as long as they are interrupted every three minutes with slow, unrewarding, repetitive fighting.

    1992-94: Square releases FF 2 and 3, which rock.

    1994: Square releases Chrono Trigger, which sucks, and yet nobody seems to notice. Birth of the fanboy.

    1995: Square releases Secret of Evermore, which is a good game, and thusly the newly born fanboys hate it. They proceed to beat Chrono Trigger again, trying to make the primitive chick get nekkid.

    1997: Square revolutionizes the RPG world by introducing the first in a long line of homosexual protagonists. Mister T gets his first job as a game model.

    1997: Realising that matches in fighting games last too long, sometimes upwards of 90 seconds, Square releases Bushido Blade. Gameplay consists of running at a guy and pushing a button.

    1998: Square releases Final Fantasy Tactics, revolutionizing the world of Games that Look and Play Just Like Shining Force, But Aren't.

    1998: Xenogears is released, a 60 hour game with 10 minutes of pretty FMV and 20 hours of engaging gameplay. Also, 29 hours and 50 minutes of utter crap.

    1999-Present: Same Old Shit.
    • Xenogears...Xenogears...Xenogears...

      I heard the fanboy blathering that went on with XG and finally found a video store renting it. After a slow start, I played right through the due date. 3 times, for a total of 22 dollars in rental fees. I beat the game but didn't finish all the side quests.

      The gameplay was pretty cool with the new-for-its-time combo system and giant mecha always rock. What really got me was the story, and more importantly, the presentation of said story. I had DREAMS about these people! I was that into their pasts, the deceptions, and where things were going.

      Also, and this may be a negative for some, when I got to Disc 2, I thought it was almost over. Nope, like 20 more hours of play! Yay!

      So I recently scored a used copy and a strat guide for like 20 bucks, before the FF movie - rerelease of all Square RPGs at $50. I also got Vagrant Story (awesome) and Front Mission 3 (good start).

      GTRacer
      - FFVI was the only good FF

  • I hear everybody talking about Final Fantasy, but hardly anything about Secret Of Mana... I LIVED by that game back when I was 13... The music alone was enough to give me chills... (I know, I BADLY needed a life...) ;-)
    • yeah, i'm with NightWhistler... i played secret of mana on snes until my thumbs bled. i made it all the way to the dragon at the end, but could not beat the dang thing. then one day, some little girl wrote over my saved game. *sigh* perhaps someday i'll play it again.
    • I liked the intro music to the game. This was a great game to play with friends as it was one of the few that actually supported 2 player simultaneously back in the days of SNES. I spent quite a lot of time searching for the weapon orbs but I could never find all of them. I think there might have been a bug in the game because I had one weapon up to level 9, which I don't think was possible.
  • This is the most racist video game ever made, the review is posted somewhere online if someone can find it. Square's portrayal of black people in this NES "classic" was nothing short of outrageous... does anyone remember this game?
  • As the last Final Fantasy game for the PlayStation, Final Fantasy IX is a fond farewell to the superdeformed style and off-the-wall characters that fans of the series grew up with. After Final Fantasy VIII, Square could have continued on its path to the uture without looking back. The fact that it stopped and peered over its shoulder should be considered a treat to RPG fans everywhere.
    Is this guy insane? FF8 SUCKED. I was glad to see Squaresoft return to its successful roots by basing FF9 more on the old way of doing things (that FF8 Draw crap was horrid and boring and monotonous)

    FF8 was no "path to the future". If anything, it was a horrifying shift in Squaresoft vision, focused more on churning out cool looking graphics and awesome soundtracks than on plot and old-school play value and fun.

    Magius_AR

    • are you on drugs?

      FF8 had one of the most emotionally engaging plotlines in a game i've ever played. hell, i still watch the intro and end videos from time to time just to get the chills.

  • Tom's harware's version (Score:4, Funny)

    by stud9920 ( 236753 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @12:47PM (#2687507)
    Squaresoft was founded in 1973. click here for next page. ---> And then in 1998 came Final Fantasy X.
  • Tetris Jr. [agunn.com] It's "Not for Wimps" and "Totally Cool"!
  • I played a lot of Square games mostly FF, FF2(US), FF3(US), FF7, FF8, Chrono Trigger. I haven't played FF9 yet so what I'm saying might not entirely be true. But what I found that the series started with a lot of fun and challenge to just being about eye candy with the movie sequences. In fact at one point I didn't even feel like finishing FF8 I would have prefered having an option "Watch the story".

    I mean, seriously, FF was challenging. The best thing of all was that you had 4 characters and you could pick any combination. If you found the game too easy, just pick a harder team to play with. Just pick 4 of the same type and the game will be hard, either at the beginning, end or the whole game (anyone who tried playing with 4 white mages knows what this is about). The magic system was limited, but it was all part of the gameplay/challenge.

    FF2 was fun, but you didn't control your team, complete opposite of the first one. Characters would come and go and only the main character would always stay. Your only choice was the name of the characters. It was also one of the first games I played where some of the good guys died (old guy with meteo, the twins...). And at the end of the game some characters were really strong (Rydia), the special items you could steal/find also had some interest for the end game.

    FF3 was a good all around game, characters were pretty different from one another, some nice features like the input for the special moves with Sabin. And here again you had some very powerfull items (economizer, atma weapon, multiple magic, multiple attacks...). The magic system was pretty fun too.

    FF7 was simply overkill. You were SO strong there was not any challenge left. But the nice movies made up for it, and you kind of felt like a god walking around.

    FF8 on the other hand, I didn't like the magic system (too long to store magic to be usefull) it was only good to boost the stats. Leveling up was not usefull until very late in the game where you had bonuses for stats on level up (what's up with that? I WANT to be able to level up).

    But the others never came close the fun I could get from playing FF1. Who doesn't remember seeing a pack of sorcerers and saying "Oh f***"...slain, paralyzed, slain, paralyzed, slain, slain...ah the sweet memories. Or how about meeting Warmech? or 4 gas dragons? FF7 and FF8 had ruby/ultima/omega weapons for really though battles, but in FF1 the most challenging enemies could be encountered randomly. How can it get better? And at least the final boss could be hard, if he used the right spells you didn't stand a chance.

    Oh and did anyone else exploit the NES random generator in FF1? I remember using a Kyzoku trick (I found it myself, I'm guessing others did the same thing or a variance in another city). Just after getting the boat, you would save in coneria, power down the NES (or was it reset, power, reset...), turn it on, immediatly enter the boat, and the first battle was always a pack of Kyzoku (120G each). I found it was the best way to get easy money early on with weak mages teams, even more so once you could buy/use a LIT2/FIR2 spell to finish them quicker.

    And just a quick note, Chrono Trigger rocked, it was just a fantastic game for replay value. I would love to try Chrono Cross :(

    • Hmm... I wonder sometimes.

      The first console-style video game I ever played was Dragon Quest (a.k.a. Dragon Warrior here in the US of A) back during the greatest Nintendo Power subscription giveaway ever. I didn't really get into it at the time. Not a bad game, I just wasn't really into gaming at the time as a whole.

      Then, about five years down the line, I got a chance to play Final Fantasy VI (or, if you prefer Final Fantasy III). I enjoyed it. There were a number of problems with it, and it doesn't rank particularly highly in my personal rankings of the series today, but there was something special about it. I scrounged up Final Fantasy IV (...er, FFII) and the original in secondhand bins and enjoyed them. At that point, I considered myself a fan of the series, and eagerly awaited Final Fantasy VII.

      And it was good. Real good. A lot of the same problems which plagued the sixth game were still there, primarily associated with balancing the storytelling aspects and actual play mechanics. But the story was awesome, and it was a truly immersive experience.

      In was during the period between FFVII and FFVIII that I managed to play and beat the other games in the series, including the three games unreleased in the US. Two of these rank as my favorite games in the series, though for different reasons than I liked FFVII. But then came Final Fantasy VIII....

      Its amazing how hated this game is. I've never been able to understand it. Actually, that's not true. I understand it quite well. I understand it in the same way that I understand the period back when any Street Fighter clone could make millions, or when any vaguely Doom-like game dominated the computer marketplace, regardless of quality. I just try to deny it....

      Final Fantasy VIII was uneven. It had its problems, and it could have been better balanced by a long shot. But practically every complaint is the same: "interactive movie," "draw system sucked," etc. And many of these points contradict each other: why do so many people who complain about the game being so entirely unchallenging complain about the difficulty of the final boss, for instance? Why do people simeltaneously complain about spending hours drawing magic and then say the game is too simple because magic is too plentiful? Ultimately, the major complaint about FFVIII is that it wasn't what people were used to. They were expecting the same ol' stuff, or, at the very most, a minor evolution. Take, for instance, Chrono Trigger, which I've always considered a fun diversion, but nothing particularly revolutionary. The aesthetics were different, and there were some evolutionary changes, many of which introduced a whole new set of problems, but the base system was markedly similar to the Final Fantasy series, and the game, IMO, of course, is certainly not worthy of sheer degree of accolades it recieves to this day.

      For all the cries of evolution and change in video games, little actually does change on the mechanical level (if not the aesthetic level): current FPSes are certainly different from the games in the heyday of Wolfenstein 3D but the differences are not entirely drastic. Things have been refined and developed, and I don't mean to suggest that games like Serious Sam or American McGee's Alice are neccessarily the same, but there is a clear continuity. When this continuity is broken, people complain. About anything and everything the game might feature, regardless of its relevance, or, in extreme cases, even logic.

      Is Final Fantasy I a good game? Of course. I enjoyed it at the time, and I enjoy it today. But it is in no way, shape, or form, the pinnacle of video game entertainment. I for one, would rather play a game which at least makes some motions toward an attempt at a clear break with tradition: the tried and true is good, but complacency is not. For that reason, I find Final Fantasy VIII to be the best game in the PSX trilogy, and would rather play it any day over the rather regrettable Final Fantasy IX which adopted such a wholesale and uncritical invocation of the past that it wound up feeling and playing like a bad parody of the series.

      Am I right in my views? Well, no, of course not. Heck, I seem to be a distinct minority. But I'm used to that. I'm telling anyone that my way of looking at things is right or wrong, just noting some oddities I've observed over the years. Oh well....

      (And Chrono Cross was a wonderful game, IMO, and easily surpassed its predeccessor. But despite some strong late-game story connections, there's little connecting the games in structure or style)
  • is squaresoft developing for gamecube?
    • No, as the article mentioned Square and Nintendo hate each other. Nintendo thinks it doesn't need Square (thus forcing me to buy 2 different systems :P), and Square is always trying to prove it can sell consoles (i.e. FFVII) to rub salt in Nintendo's eyes. Like the end of the article mentioned. Square develops for the WonderSwan Color. Which isn't that bad of a handheld. It just has a fraction of the market that the GameBoy does(i.e. silly business decision on Square's Part).
  • Kinda off-topic: what's the hardest party that you've played for FF1? I made it through with 4 White Wizards (and beat WarMech too). It's really hard at the beginning, since you can't hit anything, but eventually you get some items and it gets a lot easier.

    I've been meaning to try 1 White Wizard, but haven't had the time recently...

    -Chris
  • Personally I loved Ehrgeiz.. I'm a big sucker for fighting games, and it was just fun to play it.
    Unfortunately I traded it for someone to let me copy a paper so I could pass my last year of high school. I kinda miss that game! :)

    I wish that square could work something out so they could put a true Final Fantasy game on the GBA. But it looks like we'll have to wait for Sony to come out with a portable system before that will happen. It doesn't looks like that's going to happen for awhile either. :( (I mean a true portable system. That you can hold in your hand and put in your pocket. Not a psone that costs $300 by the time you've made it portable..)
    • Well, there is the WonderSwan Color in Japan - Square already has ported FF 1-3 to it. They were hoping to put 4-6 on the GBA, but Nintendo put their foot down on that idea.

      I'm half expecting Square to pull a Camerica/Tengen on this one, and just reverse-engineer the system so that they can release without Nintendo's approval... :)
  • Final Fantasy Legend III Unlike in previous Final Fantasy Legends, you don't choose the species of your party members

    Actually, you could choose the species of your party by eating the meat from enemies you fight, or you could turn your character into a cyborg. I think the transformation went like: monster->beast->human->cyborg->robot.

    It's the only FF game I had for the gameboy. I thought it was fun.
  • If square ever get to Final Fantasy 30, as of FF-XXX. How many people will mistaken this as an adult video?
  • There's another project Square is currently working on. Final Fantasy Unlimited is an animated TV series based loosely on the concepts of the Final Fantasy worlds. It's currently rumoured that an entirely new series spawned off of this anime will be created. That's right, another new offshoot of Final Fantasy.

    Currently FF:U has 10 episodes that have already aired in Japan with decent viewership. The world of FF:U has a semi organic look (not too much though) with interesting backdrops and character, beast, and environment styles that sometimes harken back to the Yoshitaka Amano style to a retro 70/80's style. However with Square currently under the gun due to the mass losses from Spirits Within I'm defenitely questioning whether or not anyone outside of Japan who isn't watching fansubs will see it. Let alone if they finish the first game related to the show.

    You can see more about this on the Studio Gonzo [gonzo.co.jp] site, TV Tokyo's [tv-tokyo.co.jp] site, and catch previews [animedaisuki.com] over at Anime Daisuke [animedaisuki.com].

    I've seen up to episode 7 as translated by Soldats and I really like it. It's bizzare mix of recognizable series elements, magic through technology (a gun that can summon monsters?), and an overall easily acceptable experience. Even if Lisa really needs a new bra. BOING!

    At least they got this version right. The last time they did a History of Final Fantasy Andrew Vestal made some hee-larious sweeping generalizations. You need a Gameshark to unlock Hide? HAHAHAH.

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