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Role Playing (Games)

The Lost Final Fantasy 38

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

The Lost Final Fantasy

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  • Old stuff (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by Stormwatch ( 703920 )
    Read that article a long time ago.

  • The Scoop in a Nut Shell (Score:4, Informative)

    by SScorpio ( 595836 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @12:06PM (#14257058)
    Back before the PSX and N64 came out Squaresoft (they hadn't merged with Enix until 2005) was researching the capabilities of the consoles and creating demos on them. This "Lost Final Fantasy" was nothing more than a demo of a battle engine to show off what could be done on the system. Ultimately Squaresoft went with the PSX due to their desire to incorporate full motion video in their games, and the N64s inability to handle this due to it using cartridges.

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

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

      I have very fond memories of playing FF3 over the course of many years -- finding a new translation group had picked up the task, playing up until the point where they stopped, and waiting until a few months down the road when I happened upon a better patch.
      • FF2 was completed and released along with FF1 as "Final Fantasy Origins" for PS1.

        The only one that I believe has never had an official US translation and release is FF3.
        • You would be correct. As other posters noted, FF2 was also in the GBA release of Dawn of Souls. It is interesting, a lot more advanced (imho) than FF1, and was avilable on the same system in japan. I've only put about 8 or so hours into ff2 (finally got a working copy of ff7, so thats been my timesink).

          Any big FF fan would enjoy 2, if only to see what square was trying different back in those days.
        • Correct 2 is available on the playstation with ff1.
          FF3 (the real one not 6 renamed like we got on the snes) is coming soon to a gameboy DS near you.
          http://rpgamer.com/games/ff/ff3ds/ff3ds.html [rpgamer.com] is where I read about it first. I'm sure a google for "final fantasy 3 ds" would turn up more.
          • Ooh, sounds fun. Was there really any big difference between 3 and 6j? Other than the names?

            Terra->Tina (Tina isn't a japanese name, like, at all. So it was considered "exotic")
            Cyan->Cayenne (like the spice. I dunno why)
            Kefka->Cefka
            Stragus->Strago

            Since there's no L in Japanese, I'm sure there will be a lot more goofy name changes (Rocke, Ceres, Rerm...)

            And some of the sprites (the female bosses) had additional clothes. Americans giving the Japanese a lesson on censorship -- how unusu
      • By completed, he means officially translated for NES release [lostlevels.org], although I wouldn't say the translation was complete, as there is still some mangled Engrish, but there was an official translation under progress before Square turned FF4 into FF2US.
    • "Oh well, the real lost Final Fantasies were the translated versions of FF2 and FF3 for the NES that were never released. FF2 from my understanding was completed; however, I'm not sure how far FF3 got. And before you say they were released FF2 and FF3 on the SNES were just renames of FF4 and FF6."

      Welcome to the Twenty-First Century! Final Fantasy II is available in "Final Fantasy Origins" for the PlayStation (a port of the WonderSwan Color version with some FMV thrown in) and in "Final Fantasy I & II:
      • Yes I know and have both Origins and Dawn of Souls. I'm commenting on the original offical English NES version of FF2 that was just never released. Earth Bound for the NES was found as a translated prototype and released; however, I'm guessing FF2 & 3 (if it was completed) will never be released. The fan translations were a nice replacement but it still doesn't change the fact that we will never see them.

        You might also be wondering why I didn't comment on FFV. That is because the PSX release of it

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

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

          As for an English version of the Famicom game proper, there's pratically zero risk involved in publishing a ROM onto the Revolution's online service. Ther
    • Square merged with Enix in 2003. FFII has been released abroad on both the PSX and GBA. FFIII I'm less certain about, but I think it's been released; in any case, an NDS remake is on the way. In related news, FFIV was just released for GBA.
    • I remember watching the videos of that demo-battle (Featuring 3-D versions of FFVI characters) and drooling over the possibilites. I can't RTFA here at work, but I'm curious if it's got that video linked? I'd love to watch that again...(Nostalgia)

  • Wow (Score:2, Funny)

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

    Ho-lee crap.
  • Holy cow, does that post need editing. It's like the long, loopy passages from Moby Dick about how white is usually associated with goodness. I mean:

    helping to fuel the rumors of an upcoming Nintendo 64 Final Fantasy title... ...Most of these claims were nothing more than rumors that were spawned as the result of some shoddy journalism; however, many people accepted these rumors as fact, and these faux facts were perpetuated as being truths. But many rumors are based in fact, and the rumors surrounding Fi

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

  • I remember seeing this demo in full years ago after downloading it from a gaming community. I was quite impressed because I thought that perhaps Square was presenting some work that would suggest that they were reworking FFVI in 3D, but I was dissappointed to discover that it was only just a demo.

    One of these days I'd like to see a VI remake; I'd buy it.

    • FF VI on GBA soon (Score:3, Interesting)

      by kninja ( 121603 )
      Your 6 remake will probably be on the GBA soon enough.

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

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

      My Speculation for Re-releases:
      Secret of Mana with Wireless Support on the DS/GBA
      Chrono Trigger
  • LL is now down because you caused them to exceed heir bandwidth. Thanks a fucking lot.

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