Dispatch— Created ago 36 years old, the iconic Japanese video game series “Final Fantasy” has a special place in the hearts of gamers. Here are five things to know about the franchise, whose newest installment, Final Fantasy XVI, was released Thursday.< /strong>
1. Cult video game series
With 15 numbered main episodes, but also dozens of other titles, The series launched in 1987 on Nintendo console has sold more than 173 million copies worldwide to date.
This institution of Japanese RPG (role-playing game) helped popularize outside Japan a genre generally characterized by random encounters with monsters, turn-based combat and a team of customizable heroes whose statistics progress after each battle.
The series, known for its complex plots in fantasy or science fiction universes and renowned for its rich bestiary and its constant renewal, was initially the game of last chance for its creator Hironobu Sakaguchi—who after several commercial failures was considering leaving the industry—and for the game publisher Square (now Square Enix), in a delicate financial situation at the time.
2. A franchise that has experienced crises
Despite its past successes, its rich heritage and the capital of love that its fans have for it, the franchise was in a bad way at the beginning of the 2010s, marked by commercial failures, the development of the 15th episode which dragged on, and especially the strong criticism against the massively multiplayer role-playing game (MMORPG) Final Fantasy XIV released in 2010, weighed down by technical and playability problems.
Faced with the failure of this game which aimed to compete with the reference of the genre World of Warcraft, Square Enix adopted a radical solution: completely redesigned under the leadership of the visionary Naoki Yoshida (also producer of FFXVI), it was relaunched in 2013, this time unanimously acclaimed by critics and players. This title, one of the most profitable in the series, still has an active community of players.
3. Successful symphonies and flops at the movies
The action of the Final Fantasy games is punctuated by the grandiose music created by Nobuo Uematsu, first accommodating the limited sound palette of Nintendo's first console before being performed by symphony orchestras around the world, even featuring in the playlist of the opening ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000The FF universes have also been adapted into novels, manga, anime and films, including “The Spirits Within”, a feature-length computer-generated film with a gargantuan budget of $137 million. Released in 2001, it received disastrous reviews and proved to be a financial disaster for Square. The adaptation of “Final Fantasy X” for traditional Japanese kabuki theater, presented in Tokyo this year, has received a much better reception.
4. Final Fantasy XVI and “Game of Thrones”
Despite a developer roster that includes several series veterans, Final Fantasy XVI, released Thursday, completes the franchise's shift toward action games, abandoning turn-based combat to target a broader audience in the face of ever-increasing development costs.
It also introduces a darker, more adult atmosphere with its share of political intrigue, betrayal, violence and sex inspired by the series “Game of Thrones,” which Naoki Yoshida said he forced his team to watch.
The result is a game rated “PEGI-18” (“intended for adults”) in Europe, whose two-hour playable demo available since last week has garnered generally positive reviews from players, even if some consider it too linear.
5. Another FF planned this year
Final Fantasy VII, which marked a turning point in the series when it was released in 1997 and the abandonment of Nintendo consoles for Sony's PlayStation, will return this winter in the form of the second part of a remake.
The first 3D episode of the franchise, FFVII took players' breath away with its cinematic sequences, its story set in a science fiction universe, and its characters. It remains the most successful episode, also establishing the series with the Western public.
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