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TVTranscript
00:01It was supposed to be an ending.
00:05This was going to be their last game.
00:07They were going to put everything they had into making this fantastic RPG.
00:11Basically, it was their one last shot at redemption.
00:14Yet, it became a new beginning.
00:19We were very happy that it sold more than we had anticipated or expected.
00:24I went nuts.
00:28That year, when I made a Christmas list to give to my parents, it had one item on it.
00:33And that was Final Fantasy.
00:34But monumental successes can lead to terrible failures.
00:39It was really beautiful to watch, but you also had to listen to the story and listen to the acting.
00:43It really just killed it.
00:46Find out where it came from and where it's going.
00:50This is the epic story of Final Fantasy.
01:15In 1987, a small Japanese game company named Squaresoft is facing an uncertain future.
01:21Square was a very small publisher in Japan.
01:24They've come out with a number of games for the Nintendo Famicom here in Japan.
01:35But really, there was nothing to distinguish them.
01:40To set them apart from the large number of small development houses that were able to thrive in Japan during
01:46the Famicom's Hei Day.
01:47But if they don't produce a breakout hit soon, their doors will be closing for good.
01:51Really, they needed not just a hit, but a mega hit if they were going to keep the company around.
01:56Facing an uncertain future, Squaresoft gambles on one final game.
01:59They called it Final Fantasy because this was going to be their last game.
02:03You know, they were going to put everything they had into making this fantastic RPG.
02:07It was going to be their last one, and they were all going to go off and do their own
02:09thing.
02:11Square turns to Hironobu Sakaguchi, one of their resident game designers, to lead the project.
02:16Sakaguchi was working before at Square.
02:18I think that he enjoyed his job, but I think he was frustrated that no matter what he was doing,
02:24it never seemed to be enough.
02:25Not only for the company Square, but also for himself personally.
02:29Sakaguchi, I think, was going to leave the gaming industry.
02:32Sakaguchi, he's really the father of Final Fantasy.
02:35And, you know, if there's one man who, this whole thing, then it's his child.
02:42Inspired by Dragon Quest, Sakaguchi decides his project will be a role-playing game, and hires well-known artist Yoshitaka
02:49Amano.
02:51For the players, the actual excitement in playing the game really comes from developing a character.
02:57Seeing that character win battles, or from seeing a great storyline that takes the character into different places in the
03:03game.
03:04That in and of itself is exciting, but it has a much greater impact when it's coupled with the graphics
03:10and the music that go with it.
03:13Yoshitaka Amano is a fairly respected artist in Japan, a traditional painter.
03:18His works are very dynamic and flowing.
03:22As an artist, he really liked to challenge himself.
03:25He saw this as an opportunity to try the new thing.
03:28He saw the Famicom as just another canvas on which he could try to do something artistic.
03:36For the score, Squaresoft turns to their in-house composer, Nobuo Uematsu.
03:43I started with a computer game for a friend's company. After finishing that, another friend that worked at Squaresoft was
03:48looking for a new composer.
03:50The only available jobs for a composer back then were in the games industry.
03:53So at that time, Squares didn't have anyone in charge of their soundtracks, and that's when I joined.
03:59In my mind, Nobuo Uematsu, he really brought a lot of soul to the Final Fantasy games.
04:05With his NES and SNES music, it was just brilliant considering what limited tools he was working with.
04:11He was able to get players to really feel a story with the music itself.
04:17With the team in place, work begins.
04:19So Final Fantasy was from the beginning designed to be impressive, designed to be a spectacle that was far beyond
04:27graphically, musically, anything that players had seen before.
04:31So that's kind of been a hallmark of the series since the start.
04:34Square releases Final Fantasy in Japan on December 18th, 1987.
04:39And audiences are stunned.
04:41Final Fantasy 1 was a huge success.
04:45It didn't quite reach the stratospheric heights of Dragon Quest, but it was clearly the second best RPG that Japan
04:52had ever seen.
04:53And you know, compared to Dragon Quest, second place isn't that bad.
04:57It was enough to save the company.
05:02Of course, then, work on Final Fantasy 2 began soon thereafter.
05:07Despite the popularity of the first game, Square decides that their sequel can be even better.
05:12Never mind the consumer reaction, I think the reaction of the original designers and programmers was,
05:17Oh my God, we've made this thing so cool, you know, we have to do another one.
05:21Final Fantasy 2 arrives on December 17th, 1988, and fans take notice.
05:30Final Fantasy 2 was even more successful than the first one.
05:34I think that word of mouth on the first one, the Famicom user base had expanded further.
05:40Users were ready for another RPG of this kind.
05:45Square had really succeeded in making that mega hit that they wanted.
05:51The success, and they had the name recognition, and all they had to do from here on out was keep
05:55making the games.
05:57Sakaguchi and his team began working on number 3, and concentrate on a new look.
06:02Final Fantasy 3 had much more complicated graphics than either the first or second Final Fantasy.
06:10Final Fantasy 3 was a late-generation Nintendo game that came out in 1990, and by this point, Nintendo's system
06:18had given up all its secrets.
06:20So, what the developers were able to do with it was far beyond what they were able to do even
06:25two, three years before.
06:27The improvements don't go unnoticed.
06:30When Square releases the game on April 27th, 1990, millions of fans rush out to buy it.
06:37Final Fantasy 3 was a big success, just like 1 and 2 before.
06:41Square had a good brand name, and they kept making quality titles.
06:44For Square, the series truly proves to be a fantasy.
06:47The fans had come to see Final Fantasy not just as a popular game, but it had become a cultural
06:52phenomenon.
06:53But would their success translate to another country, or on a new system?
07:10After the runaway success of the first three Final Fantasy games in Japan, plans are made to bring them to
07:15the US market in 1990.
07:17But Square gets some help.
07:19Actually, Square didn't bring the first Final Fantasy game to the US. It was brought over by Nintendo themselves.
07:25Part of the reason the delay is that, at the time, Square didn't have a very large US presence.
07:31So the resources necessary for translating a large text-heavy RPG was probably beyond that company.
07:38Nintendo's help with the translation and a promotional push with their Nintendo Power magazine helps the game find a new
07:44audience.
07:44The Nintendo Propaganda magazine had huge 8, 10-page spreads on it every month for 6 months.
07:52And I read them and I couldn't believe what I was reading.
07:55This game wasn't like other games.
07:57I went nuts.
08:00My friends went nuts.
08:01We could just tell that this game was something special.
08:04That it was more to it than other games.
08:07That it was a world.
08:08Maybe not the most complicated world, but at the time, there was nothing like it.
08:14That year, when I made a Christmas list to give to my parents, it had one item on it.
08:18And that was Final Fantasy.
08:19That was the only thing I wanted.
08:22Word begins to spread, and Square soft swan song becomes a hit all over again.
08:26It's kind of a common misconception that Final Fantasy 1 didn't sell well in America, but actually it was quite
08:32popular.
08:33But the video game world is changing, and a leap forward in technology leaves the two sequels by the wayside.
08:39Final Fantasy 1 came out in the U.S. after Final Fantasy 3 was released in Japan in 1990.
08:45By that point, Nintendo had kind of closed the book on the Nintendo Entertainment System and was really gearing up
08:51for the Super Nintendo launch.
08:52Square begins work on the sequel, but changing technology requires a Final Fantasy facelift.
08:58On July 19, 1991, Square releases the fourth Final Fantasy game in Japan, which arrives in the U.S. several
09:05months later as Final Fantasy 2.
09:07The popularity of the Final Fantasy series plays an important part in the launch of Nintendo's new system.
09:12Final Fantasy fans are notoriously devoted to their series. When their favorite series made the jump to Nintendo's new hardware,
09:19they did too.
09:22Square and Nintendo's relationship went both ways. Nintendo's popular hardware helped Square sell lots of copies of Final Fantasy games,
09:29but in turn, the popularity of Square's Final Fantasy games drove players to choose Nintendo's hardware.
09:36Nintendo probably saw that Final Fantasy was a key franchise they had that would set their system apart from others,
09:42and because of that, they latched onto it and promoted it to give them an edge above their competitors.
09:48On December 6, 1992, Square releases Final Fantasy 5 in Japan. The game is considered too hard for American gamers
09:55and isn't released in the U.S.
09:56But fans would not have to wait long. The sixth game in the series arrives in Japanese stores on April
10:012, 1994.
10:05The game arrives in America as Final Fantasy 3, and it once again takes the video game world by storm.
10:12Final Fantasy 6 was a graphical powerhouse. It was the most beautiful game you'd ever seen.
10:18I think it was the first game in which Yoshitaka Amano's art was able to be preserved in the characters
10:24and in the world, not just in the monster designs.
10:28Graphic technology had improved to the point where small bits and pieces of his style were able to show through.
10:35It had a fantastic musical score. The music is widely considered to be Nobuo Umatsu's best score.
10:42For their next game, Square lays the foundation for a game unlike any other. But their path will take them
10:48away from the company that had first helped them become a success.
10:53As a software provider of great content and games, to meet the consumer demand, it requires a lot of investment
10:58and time.
11:00For Final Fantasy 6, we expanded, we opened some doors. And in order to keep on doing that with the
11:06next installment, we as a development team wanted to obviously make it visually more advanced.
11:11And I think it was only going to work for us if we went with the hardware that had more
11:15capacity for us.
11:16After Final Fantasy 6 came out, everyone assumed that Square would move on to the Nintendo 64.
11:22In fact, Square released a graphical demo using the Final Fantasy 6 characters.
11:27This graphical test was preparation for developing Final Fantasy 7.
11:31When Square did announce Final Fantasy 7, it wasn't for the Nintendo 64. It was for the Sony PlayStation.
11:39We saw that the PlayStation was going to be better for us with its higher performance.
11:43Square stuns the game world and strikes an unexpected alliance with Sony.
11:48I do remember that one day Sakakuchi-san and I just bumped in the hallway and he was wearing something
11:53on top that already had a PlayStation logo on it basically.
11:55And said, this is what we are going for. And so I just said, okay, that's fine. And that was
12:01pretty much it.
12:02A new game is planned. One that will finally achieve the movie-like game quality the previous incarnations have been
12:08building towards.
12:12The big leap came with Final Fantasy 7. That was when the company switched to the PlayStation game console.
12:17With the enhanced capabilities of the console, I now had 3D graphics as a method of expression.
12:24I now had the use of camera moves and was able to show visuals from different angles.
12:28I was able to really expand my visual expressions and create a much more intricate storyline as well as intricate
12:34visuals for the game.
12:38When creating 7, we were just so sucked into creating the game that it didn't feel as long as a
12:42development period as I thought.
12:45Seeing things that we had never seen before done in the sense of creating movies.
12:49Character designer Tetsuya Nomura is called upon to bring his 3D fantasy to life.
12:55I was in charge of the character design for Final Fantasy 7. This was the one Final Fantasy to date
13:00that I've been most deeply involved in.
13:02It was the first 3D game going on the PlayStation. I also saw how the monsters and characters and all
13:07those things worked out.
13:08So I kind of oversaw a balance of all those elements.
13:14It was something that the team was so excited about what we were doing that it just didn't seem like
13:17we were spending so much time on it.
13:20We also felt as if we were creating the next generation role-playing game, like we were all leading the
13:24way and we were all creating something.
13:25We were pioneering this genre over again. I think the final product was very close to what we had envisioned
13:30and what our goal was.
13:33Final Fantasy 7 is released in both the US and Japan as a PlayStation exclusive in 1997 and Sony launches
13:39a massive worldwide ad campaign. And it pays off.
13:45Traditionally, role-playing games have appealed to about 10-15% of the market. You know, very dedicated part of
13:49the market, but not huge. And what Final Fantasy 7 did was just explode that.
13:55Suddenly, everyone wanted to play the game and role-playing games were no longer kind of this niche thing.
14:02Three million was a goal that we had in mind. And in the US, maybe a million. And it did
14:06go to a million. It went beyond a million.
14:08So we did feel as if, oh, are we going to really be able to beat these numbers? And when
14:12we did, we were excited. But also, at the same time, that it went beyond those numbers.
14:16We were very happy that it sold more than we had anticipated or expected.
14:23Work begins on Final Fantasy 8.
14:26Square releases Final Fantasy 8 to an eager crowd of fans in 1999.
14:32When a Final Fantasy game comes out in Japan, it's an event.
14:37We talk about Myst being the biggest CD-ROM game of all time.
14:41They sold four million units in over a four or five year span.
14:49Final Fantasy 8 sold over three and a half million units in about a month in Japan.
14:56A ninth installment quickly follows, featuring the return of artist Yoshitaka Amano.
15:01As the Final Fantasy series became increasingly cinematic, logically it seemed like the next step was to make a movie.
15:08And that movie put Square in a whole other circle.
15:22By 1999, game giant SquareSoft announced its plans to produce a film based on its hugely successful Final Fantasy franchise.
15:29Hundreds of millions of dollars go into the making of Final Fantasy The Spirits Within, directed by Sakaguchi.
15:35The movie arrives in theaters on July 11, 2001, but the reaction is not what Square had been hoping for.
15:41The movie was very confusing. It didn't appeal to Final Fantasy fans because it lacked the melodrama, the plot twists,
15:48the flamboyancy that had come to characterize the Final Fantasy plots.
15:51I think that movie just really underscores the fact that it's really difficult to replicate animated human characters.
15:59It is just hard to say, you know. If you can say that, oh, was this movie really supposed to
16:03be a Final Fantasy movie?
16:05Or, you know, did it just have the same name attached to it? It was a little unclear.
16:08Final Fantasy The Spirits Within was really one of the biggest blows the company has suffered.
16:13They put a ton of money into this movie, really high expectations for it.
16:18It was really beautiful to watch, but, you know, you also had to listen to the story and listen to
16:22the acting and it really just killed it.
16:25You know, if that was successful, then maybe Square would still be doing movies today.
16:29It's a shame because it was just a wonder to look at.
16:32Despite the box office failure of the film, Square pushes forward in the series, using technology from the film to
16:38make a game for Sony's new PlayStation 2.
16:42Every Final Fantasy has a new something, a new challenge.
16:46For Ten, it was definitely including voiceover as one of the key elements.
16:49The Guardian Worm, Evre. The great sacred beast.
16:55It added more life and added voices to the characters that we created.
16:58Roger! I'll give the command!
17:00In a way, I think that kind of completed and made the full circle from starting from 7.
17:04On July 19th, 2001, Final Fantasy X arrives for the PlayStation 2 and fans line up to buy the game.
17:10It sells over 2 million copies in the first 48 hours.
17:14Work begins on several games at once.
17:17Final Fantasy X-2, an expansion of the story in Final Fantasy X.
17:21Find the sphere and the fiends appear.
17:25And Final Fantasy XI, a massively multiplayer game set in the Final Fantasy universe.
17:31Why is this?
17:33Yeah, I really wonder why the series is so popular. I don't know.
17:36But I think it is the new element, the new challenges that we put in every installment.
17:41For example, Final Fantasy XI is fully online, but still, it's a Final Fantasy game.
17:48In 2002, Square delights Nintendo fans by announcing Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles for the GameCube.
17:54The first in the series to appear on Nintendo's home console in almost a decade.
17:59To play the game to its fullest, you need three friends, four players total.
18:04You need four Game Boy systems that are hooked up to the GameCube.
18:07So it's really unique for a Final Fantasy game in that you have this group feeling to it.
18:14Game giant Squaresoft announces Final Fantasy XII to an eager crowd of fans.
18:21Final Fantasy is the most successful role-playing franchise with millions of adoring fans.
18:28For a series that has been out for over 10 years easily, I think by now there's a different generation
18:33of users and gamers who are playing the current Final Fantasies.
18:36So in a sense, this game has provided content for a few generations so far, and hopefully that will continue.
18:43That will be one of my dreams.
18:45To continue Final Fantasy, and to many generations, that can be something.
18:52When a consumer sees Square on the box, they know this game is going to have amazing production values,
18:58this game has been tested to death to make sure it's fun, and you know, this game is going to
19:03be solid.
19:06I think for gamers, whenever a new Final Fantasy game is announced, the world pretty much stops.
19:12Even fans that don't like Final Fantasy, they want to know what's going on, because it just has such a
19:18huge impact.
19:21It's such an incredibly successful series, wildly popular.
19:27With all our games, especially Final Fantasy, we try to do what is at the highest point of interest of
19:33every installment of the series.
19:35We start fresh and do something completely new.
19:38We just don't do any repeats. We do eight full model changes. We always try to keep up with ourselves.
19:46I don't really have this huge goal right in front of me. It's more what we believe in.
19:50What we believe is going to make a unique and great product.
19:53That is all we basically focus on, and see how that rolls into something grand.
20:04There are certain styles for Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy-ness, if you will.
20:09Since the beginning of the series, my staff has been able to work with the latest technology and the latest
20:15tools of the time,
20:16and really challenge themselves every time they work on a new title.
20:23The series is like a giant toy box, and you find something entertaining and really cool to look at,
20:29and wondering, wow, how did they put all this fun stuff in here?
20:40As far as the future goes, I think Final Fantasy is going to be around for a long, long time.
20:45As long as Square keeps the talent fresh and the games interesting and exciting,
20:50I think that consumers are going to enjoy the games.
20:55I hope that the series will continue in the way forever,
20:58as long as there are users out there who want Final Fantasy.
21:02Really, I don't think there's going to be a Final Final Fantasy.
21:05Final Fantasy.
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