Final Fantasy
Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy, the man to whom Square Enix must give credit for designing one of the most important video game sagas, will retire at the end of the year. Sakaguchi, who over the years has worked on many projects, has in fact announced through the pages of the Washington Post that Fantasian, an exclusive game for Apple Arcade, will be his latest project.That of the creator of Final Fantasy is an important interview, because it marks the end of a cycle. A cycle that began in 1987 when he developed Red Racer. In the same year he started the work of the historic saga, which will lead up to the tenth chapter. In fact, it was 2004 when Sakaguchi resigned from Squaresoft, even before it became Square Enix thanks to the merger with Enix Corporation. After leaving his home, she founded Mistwalker, which has given the public quite important role-playing games including Blue Dragoon and Lost Odyssey.
Now, the latest project. If Final Fantasy represented for him the Final Fantasy, the new Mistwalker game for Apple Arcade represents his latest legacy to the world of video games, before his well-deserved retirement. A well-deserved retirement, because both he and Nobuo Uematsu, composer of the soundtracks of the Square Enix franchise, wanted to check every single detail and leave nothing uncovered. “I told myself that if this was going to be our last project, I wanted to be sure not to leave anything uncovered,” Sakaguchi's words. And with a tribute to Independence Day (his favorite movie) he didn't really leave anything on the table.
Fantasian as Final Fantasy. The final fantasy of Hironobu Sakaguchi is complete from yesterday, with the arrival of the second part. It will be the last project I will work on, except of course last-minute second thoughts. We are sure, however, that in case of program changes it will all be due solely to nostalgia: Sakaguchi hardly still has something to prove to this industry.
The genesis of Final Fantasy VIII are told in a book that you can find on Amazon .
Creator of ‘Final Fantasy’ reflects on his last game, his career and the puppetry of his works
Today, the Apple Arcade exclusive “Fantasian” receives its second and final update, essentially the second half of Sakaguchi’s return to form to the Japanese role-playing game genre. It’s developed by Mistwalker, the studio he created after departing Square, now known as Square Enix, where he created the Final Fantasy series.
Despite creating many games during the 1980s for Square, none were a success. “Final Fantasy” was pitched as Sakaguchi’s final game, as he considered leaving game development altogether. That’s why it’s called Final Fantasy.
Sakaguchi would go on to direct and produce nine Final Fantasy games before starting Mistwalker. And he says he sees “Fantasian” as the final game and the final collaboration between him and legendary musician and composer Nobuo Uematsu, who scored the Final Fantasy series’ most memorable tracks.
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“I feel both Uematsu and I went into this almost thinking to ourselves, ‘Hey, if this were to become our last project, we want to make sure we didn’t leave anything on the table,’” Sakaguchi said. “I’m certain Uematsu will compose music in a smaller capacity, but something on this scale, 60 tracks for a game is quite a huge task.”
Uematsu’s compositions in “Fantasian” are a mix of the classic, baroque-style melodies of his earliest work fused with synthesizer sounds to match the game’s flirtations with science fiction fantasy. Sakaguchi said that, throughout his career, he hasn’t given detailed directions to Uematsu. There’s usually just an early exchange about overarching concepts and story themes; Uematsu is then left to his own devices.
“We’ve had a very unique relationship. While we’re working, we’ll have these very long email exchanges,” Sakaguchi said, specifying that casual pleasantries and updates about their lives often ended up becoming long-winded philosophical debates about the nature of life and human interaction. Some of those thoughts would feed back into the game.
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The seed for the “Fantasian” project was planted several years ago, when Sakaguchi was replaying “Final Fantasy VI.” In the past decade or so, since Sakaguchi’s departure, the Final Fantasy series has become an incubator for new ideas about evolving or changing the role-playing genre. But Sakaguchi is still fond of the classic, turn-based format of the older games.
“It reminded me how much I really like this style of gameplay, and I wanted to go back to my roots,” Sakaguchi said. “Let’s be honest, I’m nearing the end of my video game development career. So I thought, ‘I’m going to try to develop something in a style I know really, really well and personally like to play.’ ”
“Fantasian” is the marquee title for Apple Arcade’s recent resurgence. It’s been well-received by players, and at about 100 hours of story and gameplay, it’s a significant value add for Apple’s gaming subscription service.
Aside from being a compelling game with an interesting battle system, all the backgrounds and settings in “Fantasian” are real-world, 3-D dioramas photographed to give the game a sense of place, which is evocative of the Renaissance-style painterly backgrounds of “Final Fantasy VI.” The 3-D video game characters, monsters and other items are then digitally superimposed over the dioramas.
I told Sakaguchi that since I was young, I always looked at Final Fantasy games as digital puppet shows. The limited expressions of the 2-D sprites would exaggerate emotion, much as they would in an old-time puppet show, or even Japanese Kabuki theater. This aesthetic comparison was only heightened during the memorable opera house scene of “Final Fantasy VI.”
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“The diorama backdrop paired with 3-D models is not directly tied to ‘Final Fantasy V’ or ‘[Final Fantasy] VI’, but the puppet show element — there’s a strong connection you can draw there,” Sakaguchi said. “That was something I shared with the rest of the development team very early on as we were prototyping concepts. Yes, there are certain cut scenes and camera cuts where we get a little fancy, but the overall feeling or sensation is a puppet show. I’m really glad that you specifically chose the word ‘puppet show,’ because that is kind of what we were going for.”
Sakaguchi said Mistwalker was lucky that they completed much of the diorama work before the coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020, as the game’s development required staff to be together in a physical space. The second half of “Fantasian” was finished much sooner than anyone anticipated after the first part’s release in April since much of the programming and development of systems was completed as work-from-home projects.
“I think there was a lot more energy coming from the team members because they were able to work in their own environments,” he said.
Even if Sakaguchi may be at the end of a long, storied career, it wasn’t until “Fantasian” that he was able to achieve a long-held goal: to make a tribute to the 1996 Hollywood blockbuster film “Independence Day.” He was captivated by the scene in which the alien spaceship blows up the White House, which was achieved using practical effects and explosives.
Sakaguchi’s staff created small indentations in one of the game’s final areas to present the image of a magical explosion happening from within the structure.
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He said his team was initially reluctant to blow up the beautiful dioramas and asked him if he really wanted to do this.
Sakaguchi grinned from ear to ear as he recalled, “I said yes! This is something that’s been a long time in the making for me, knowing it’s one of the last opportunities I can do this.”
If “Fantasian” truly is his last game, Sakaguchi’s final fantasy ends not with a whimper, but with a bang.
“It’s been a dream of mine,” he said.