June 28th, 2009

Final Fantasy XIV, a New MMO RPG

Final Fantasy as it was said from the beginning of its release, wasn’t planned to last since it did have the shape of an idea instead of a series. Hironobu Sakaguchi the head of a back then small company hardly believes that the RPG has reached to the stage that turned the company into an international powerhouse. Almost twenty years ago Nintendo Famicon has appeared with a new console that set up the birth of this field on the market. Adventure games and RPG started to infiltrate into the Japanese systems and quite soon they would cast the arcade shooters into the shadow.

At that time Sakaguchi , with his distinctive, sophisticated art style, came up with a fantasy epic game which followed the soil that other RPGs have stepped before. But yet the genre wasn’t too spread, but competition started to heat up. When Final Fantasy was released, it was the time of SEGA’s Phantasy Star and Dragon Quest III, both of them classic games and rivals as well. Final Fantasy, through its emerging on the market, was the cementing element between Square comp and Nintendo, which in the end would push them further to the international success.

It took Nintendo three long years to finally reach the American kids, having all the time in front the leading teams formed by Phantasy Star and Dragon Quest. Their success was the end of the idea that the American console players didn’t agree with RPGs, since the RPG feature offered them a deep, intricate game.

The path that Final Fantasy took all these past years was shaped in the long series releases of the game reaching the incredible number of sequels of 12. This last one needed a 5 years time to develop all this because Sakaguchi was acting on the role of the executive producer, while Yasumi Matsuno was given the part of producing and directing. Because of his hit Vagrant Story on PS1, he started to draw his own ideas in making the Final Fantasy XII. With Sakaguchi leaving, he ended up in taking the executive duties as well. He co-opted Akihido Yoshida, a well known illustrator to print his sense of color and design throughout the game.

With Matsuno’s taking total control a seamless combat was integrated into the field displaying a real-time action and strategy this feature bringing the biggest change to the gameplay that the series had ever experienced. Due to his overworking program Matsuno retired into a supervising duty, meanwhile other members were promoted to replace him. These reasons have determined the Final Fantasy XII to be released in delay, but the producers’ efforts earned the respect of critics, being awarded with a 9 out of 10. This happened in 2006, and in this year’s EA Square announced Final Fantasy XIV, a new MMO RPG that follows the story from where FFXI has left it.