| Finally Fantasy! |
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| news - General Community News | ||||||
| Written by Zymon | ||||||
| Monday, 16 November 2009 22:20 | ||||||
 In this column I'm going to tell you a bit about the game Final Fantasy which is getting it's 13th (!) installment coming next year. What is the secret about this successful series of games and what has kept it alive this long? Hopefully this will help you by shedding some light about what this Final Fantasy is all about.
When looking back now though, we know that this wasn't going to be the case at all. Sakaguchi successfully managed to bring Squaresoft back on its feet, the first 5 games in the Final Fantasy series got mixed critic but they served their purpose. Especially the fourth game was successful, but it wasn't until when Final Fantasy VI arrived that Squaresoft where to have their major breakthrough. With an extraordinary story and fantastic designed characters by Yoshitaka Amano FFVI would take the world with storm. And with one of the most praised video game music creators of all time, Nobou Uematsu, supporting with a stunning soundtrack, this was going to be an instant classic. Final Fantasy VII followed, now in 3D on the Playstation. This was the game that where going to put Squaresoft in the history books forever. Even today there are people claiming that Final Fantasy VII with its 40 hours of game play is the best game ever made. Final Fantasy VIII, IX and X followed with even more praising and Squaresoft had during this time grown into being one of the biggest game developing companies in the world.
Enix were the creators of Dragon Quest, another famous RPG saga which had the unfortunate timing of co-existing with Final Fantasy. The series were even so immensely popular, especially in Japan where Square and Enix where to battle against each other throughout the whole 90s'. Dragon Quest was never really intended to take over the western gaming market, that was instead what Square managed to do the Final Fantasy, and so Enix was going to stand in the shadow of the big brother Square for quite some time. Mentionable as well when talking about Enix for the RPG liker is that Enix is the developer of Valkyrie Profile, another great RPG series which will get its third installment sometime next year. Square and Enix became Square Enix in 2003, and they continued the series without the creator of it, Sakaguchi. Nobou Uematsu stayed to make the soundtrack for Final Fantasy XI, the first Final Fantasy to be an online experience. It was received with mild critic and the lack of Sakaguchi was visible. But even without him, Final Fantasy XII was to be an ok game, enjoyed by many.
 Success!
As Square Enix has yet to prove that they can really make an epic RPG without Sakaguchi, Final Fantasy XIII is going to be one hell of a show down. Square Enix has during these last years managed to release two other big RPG games, The Last Remnant and Infinite Undiscovery. Many claimed that both these games were a blatant failure for the company. Full of clichés and huge problems with frame rates The Last Remnant were to fail on the simplest things, even the battle system was terrible. Infinite Undiscovery was ok but didn't really succeed in compelling the gamer with bad character design and lousy voice acting. It's far away from being an epic RPG.During this time Hironobu Sakaguchi released not so well received Blue Dragon and another game that has been widely discussed, Lost Odyssey. Lost Odyssey was the game that would prove Sakaguchis superiority in making RPG's that would enchant the player holding the game control. Lost Odyssey featured many things that could be related to the older beloved Final Fantasy games that Sakaguchi worked with. However Lost Odyssey was criticized for being too reactionary with an outdated battle system and boring characters. Many did enjoy the emotional storyline and beautiful musical score by formerly employed Nobou Uematsu though. JRPG’s hasn’t really managed to compel the western market the way it did back in the 90’s. People has agreed that “it was better before” mostly driving at the fact that Japanese game developers tries too hard with making the JRPG’s something it shouldn’t be. They often lack what was essential and most important back when the classics came out. Therefore the hype is currently enormous on the next installment in the Final Fantasy series. The fans are thirsty for a new game that won't be forgotten in centuries, something new, but still a game that will be as revolutionizing as Final Fantasy VII was. In this clip, the release date is shown, as well as comments from people behind the game. And they promise a lot. Final Fantasy Dated - Clip from Gametrailers.com  From what has been shown at E3 this year and other exhibitions one can tell that FFXIII will be an amazingly beautiful game, if it really does shine as brightly as it does in trailers. All we can do is wait and hope. Can we really expect a new JRPG that will revolutionize the RPG genre one more time? Time will tell if Final Fantasy XIII is going to be the RPG everyone has been waiting for. Perhaps, this will be the Final Fantasy that Hironobu Sakaguchi once thought of.
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