Development history of the Final Fantasy series

This is the video game development history of the Final Fantasy series.

Final Fantasy
Final Fantasy was developed during Square's brush with bankruptcy in 1987: in a display of gallows humor, director Hironobu Sakaguchi declared that his "final" game would be a "fantasy" role-playing game, hence the title.
When Sakaguchi was asked what type of game he wanted to make, he replied "I don't think I have what it takes to make a good action game. I think I'm better at telling a story." Sakaguchi's concept was a game with a large world map to explore and an engaging story. The development team was composed of seven people, large at that time. Although spells are still classified at certain levels for some purposes (characters can still only be equipped with three of the four available spells of any given level, for instance), every spell is now assigned a point value. When cast, that value is subtracted from a total number of magic points that apply to all spells known by a character. Many new items have been introduced. Healing items are now much easier to procure, and less expensive, as well. The party starts the game with 500 gil instead of 400 gil as in previous versions.

The omake artwork gallery and item collection present in the PlayStation version have been omitted, but the bestiary gallery remains and operates more or less exactly as it did previously. Certain classes have been modified: the Thief and Monk have become more powerful, whereas the Red Mage has become less so. Stat growth has been altered, and Intelligence now affects the strength of weapon-based magic spells. The game can now be saved at any time, anywhere. There are three available save game slots; however, there is no way of clearing or deleting their contents aside from starting a new game. Because the changes introduced in this version make the game less challenging, many monsters and boss monsters have had their hit points increased once again; for example, the final boss Chaos now has ten times as many hit points in this version as he did in the Famicom/NES original. Four new optional dungeons have been introduced, one corresponding to each Fiend, and becoming available after that Fiend is defeated. These dungeons are especially challenging and feature items and monsters not found anywhere else in the game. At the end of each dungeon, there are a variety of boss monsters from Final Fantasy III through Final Fantasy VI. Finally, during character creation, the player can choose to have the game randomly assign a name to each character, using character names from other games in the series.

Mobile phones
In , Square Enix released a version of Final Fantasy for two Japanese mobile phone networks. A version for NTT DoCoMo FOMA 900i series phones was launched on March 1, 2004 under the title Final Fantasy i. A subsequent version for the CDMA 1X WIN-compatible W21x series was released on August 19, 2004 as Final Fantasy EZ. Another version, simply titled Final Fantasy, was also released for SoftBank phones on July 3, 2006. Graphically, the games are superior to the original 8-bit game, but not as advanced as many of the more recent console and handheld ports. Square Enix planned to release this version of the game for North American mobile phones sometime in 2006.

PlayStation Portable
For the 20th anniversary of Final Fantasy, Square Enix has remade Final Fantasy for the PSP along with Final Fantasy II. The first game was released in Japan on April 19, 2007, the North American version was released on June 26, 2007, the European version was released on February 8, 2008, and the Australian version on February 28, 2008.

The PSP version has higher-resolution 2D graphics, the FMV sequences from the Origins release and the bonus dungeons from the Dawn of Souls release. It also borrowed the soundtrack from the Origins release, though the extra dungeon boss battles use the music that was used in the game they originated from (e.g Gilgamesh's music from Final Fantasy V while fighting Gilgamesh), and the gameplay from the Dawn of Souls release. The Japanese script and English translation are also borrowed from the Dawn of Souls version, aside from the PSP exclusive dungeons. The PSP version has aerial effects on the towns and dungeons. Scaling and rotation effects (similar to Mode 7 effects on a Super Nintendo console) have been added to the world map. It also contains an all-new dungeon, as well as an Amano Art Gallery. The gallery uses the PSP's high resolution to display high-quality art by Yoshitaka Amano, with new pieces of art being unlocked as the player progresses through the game. The new dungeon, titled "Labyrinth of Time", is a dungeon with a time limit, in which the player's HP constantly decreases as time passes. The player is able to exchange abilities such as White Magic usage and the Dash command in order to extend the time limit, allowing them to delve deeper into the dungeon.

Final Fantasy II - Final Fantasy XIII

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu