Gamethink

When considering a franchise the size of Final Fantasy - we’re talking about more than 70 million games sold, which makes it the 4th biggest game franchise ever - what’s most surprising is not its tremendous impact on game design but rather the lack thereof.

Final Fantasy is not what one could call a genre-defining game, like the Sims or, to a lesser extent, Pokémon... two unique games which introduced a lot of novel features, which were analysed, digested and reinjected in very different games soon afterwards. No. Final Fantasy fits squarely in the Role Playing Game category, a genre which has its conventions which the early FF help establish, and that the later ones challenged and reinvented one by one. While FF has been the most innovative RPG game franchise, its innovations were vastly ignored by other RPG game authors which went in an entirely different direction. However, FF was influential and even determining in game production. The production and launch of Final Fantasy VII can be seen as the historical event that ushered the industry into a new age.

1950-1985: From boardgames to the first computer RPGs

Rise and Decline of the Third Reich, 1974

A typical wargame from Avalon Hill.

To understand RPG conventions, and to measure the extent of FF’s game design innovations, it’s necessary to go back to when it all began. Wargames, board games which oppose two players simulating a war, and whose history goes back to the XIXth century, began to be pick up momentum in the 1950s as increasing income and leisure led to a demand for intelligent games for adults. A great number of games appeared in the 60s and their gameplay rapidly evolved.

Eventually, in the early 1970s, a new publisher called TSR got the idea to create a spin-off genre to wargames, which they dubbed role-playing game (RPG). Contrary to wargames which featured full-scale armies, RPGs were set in a tactical scale, each player controlling only one character at a time. But these characters could develop and become more powerful after each game. There was also a special player, the game master, who was a mix between a referee and a story-teller. Instead of fighting each other like in any wargame, player-controlled characters had to cooperate to win. They evolved in a scenario which was told by the game master, where they had to investigate and solve puzzles together to progress, and fight the occasional monster. In fact, most of the game rules revolved around combat: how to simulate realistically a fight between more or less powerful characters and more or less powerful monsters? obviously being bit by a rat-sized monster shouldn’t hurt as much as being hit by a two-handed magical sword wielded by a veteran warrior. Also, there should be a way to reward player so that they can progress.

Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), TSR’s seminal game, addressed these problems with what would become the first historical conventions of the genre:

 characters and monsters have hit points. Each time they are wounded, they lose a certain number of points (damage points), and when this total reaches 0, they are eliminated.
 When a character attacks another, they have a certain random chance to hit them. If they do, the damage points are also determined by random. So, random has a great influence on the outcome of battles.
 when a character defeats a monster, they get a certain number of experience points (XPs), and, most often, "spoils of war" like gold or special items. When a character has accumulated enough XPs, they gain a level, which gives them more hit points and better abilities.

Dungeons & Dragons player’s manual, 1983 edition

Which introduced generations of players to the joys of pen-and-paper RPGs.

There were a number of "pen & paper" role playing games before the first computer version, some of which had very different rules for combat or character evolution. There was no questioning that D&D was the most popular, though, but there is another reason why it inspired the first batch of computer RPGs like Wizardry. The fact that characters could grow forever, that they could continue to accumulate experience points and levels and hit points and power was very fit for the solo experience of computer gaming.

Along with Wizardry, the early eighties saw a number of more or less sophisticated titles of the same vein. Its main competitor was Ultima, whose 3rd episode (Ultima III: Exodus) was very instrumental in defining "classical" computer RPGs. At the time, there were no console RPGs whatsoever [1], partly because of technical hardware limitations, but mostly because RPGs were tought to noble for those cheap machines. When the first round of console RPGs appeared (1986-1987, which saw the first episodes of Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy and Zelda), many RPG conventions were in effect, in additions to the ones above.

Wizardry I, 1981, Apple II

Otherwise known as the "Proving grounds of the mad overlord". Over 25 years after publication, the game feels so basic, yet it has been one of the most influential ever.

 The first phase of the game is character creation. The player controls a party of complementary characters, which have a race and a class (or job, occupation, whatever). Original D&D classes are fighter, thief, cleric and wizard. Advanced D&D (AD&D) adds druid, paladin, bard, assassin and monk to the mix. Typical CRPG classes are close cousins to those. Characters are also defined by randomly determined statistics, such as strength or intelligence. High scores in these give them various bonuses. And of course, they start with 0 experience points and a little amount of hit points which will increase as they gain experience levels (see above).
 once the character party is created, the game is divided in 4 phases, which are: visiting towns, traveling in the outside world, exploring dungeons and fighting. In towns, no combat will take place. There are shops where characters can spend their money upgrading their equipments, an inn and/or a temple when they can rest, heal themselves and save their games, and non-player characters (NPCs) that the party can talk to (they usually have one line of speech that they will repeat ad-lib). Talking to the right NPC is usually how the party gets a new objective and can progress through the game. In the outside world, the scale changes. The player sees an overhead map of the world where towns or dungeons are the same size as one character. The player can move the party, despite the terrain constraints (i.e. the party cannot cross high mountains, they need a ship to travel on water, etc.). Each time the party takes a step, there’s a chance they meet monsters ("random encounter") which they have to fight. In dungeons, the scale is the same as in towns, but there are random encounters like in the outside world. Chests, containing various useful items, can be found in remote areas of the dungeon, encouraging the player to explore them a bit (thus triggering many random encounters) to get the best items. There can also be puzzles to solve to progress. Finally, at the end of each dungeon, a more difficult fight awaits the party. Combat is divided into turns (or "rounds"). Each character and opponent will act once during a given turn. Before the turn rolls out, the player gets to choose the actions for each of the characters. Those action usually include attack, use item and flee, plus a special action depending on the class of the character, like the use of magic for a wizard. In the world of D&D, curative items (potions...) were considered "magic items" and were uncommon. Items that could be used offensively during battle were even rarer. That proved to be too much of a limitation for CRPGs were items of both kinds are relatively abundant. After combat, the party is rewarded with gold, experience points (which are split among characters) and, randomly, with items. Each opponent type will net a fixed amount of gold and XP. Then, if players have enough XP, they may gain a level and see their abilities raise, among which their hit points total. In addition to these 4 phases, when outside of combat mode, the player can usually consult a status screen which describes all the statistics and equipment of the characters, and allows them to make some configuration adjustment (like changing the weapons used by the characters).
 characters evolve by: gaining experience points and therefore levels, which enhances their statistics and unlocks new capabilities; amassing gold, with which they can buy better equipment at shops; and by finding items, either in chests or after battles. Therefore, the player is encouraged to explore levels and to look for random encounters in order to gather enough power to progress in the game. The class that the player chose at the beginning of the game for one character is pretty stable and restricts the character evolution in one direction. For instance, a "warrior" will become much stronger with extra levels but will never learn magic. Conversely, a "wizard" will get some powerful offensive spells but will always be a mediocre brawler. Character classes also have a strong influence on what equipment each character is allowed to use: fighting-types characters may use heavy weapons and armor while magic-users can only don robes and wield sticks or rods.

1987-1997: Enter... Final Fantasy!

Final Fantasy, 1987, NES

The fight against the Lich, in its full NES glory

Final Fantasy episodes will bash these conventions one by one, while delivering a unique experience with ground-breaking production values. For instance, as early as the first episode, music received a lot of attention, although it was often seen as a byproduct by most computer RPG authors. Technically, Square always strived to make the most out of the hardware platform it was developing on. But obviously, what made the FF games unique were radically innovative gameplay choices. In the 1st episode, the player composes a party of 4 characters by choosing their job. The available FF jobs were much less restrictive than the traditional RPG classes. For instance, knights had special skills and were not just dumb warriors. The red mage could cast offensive and defensive magic and was also a decent fencer. Choosing a different combination of jobs would result in a radically different adventure: some combinations made the beginning of the game very easy but the end very difficult, other were the opposite; some required the player to amass a lot of money, while for some others money wasn’t important. Plus, there was a lot of equipment to collect, which added a real depth in the game. Configuring the party, both at the beginning of the game and through the story, was essential.

The 2nd episode introduced a radical change - no more experience and levels. While all others RPG to date (and virtually all others since then) revolved around the idea of collecting XP to grow in levels, FFII just got rid of those notions. Instead, each statistic of the characters progressed as it was "used". If a character was hurt a lot, they would gain HP. If it used a spell often, it would become a better magician. This was the first time that an FF game attempted to reinvent character progression, what will become a recurring feature of the FF franchise.

That is well illustrated by the 3rd episode. Instead of restricting the player to a handful of jobs, this game featured as many as 25 different jobs, which - and that was the great advance - the player could switch jobs anytime, when characters were not fighting, at least. Each of these jobs came with one or more special skills, useful during combat and sometimes during exploration. But there was a catch: the more a character used a certain job, and the more efficient this character will be using this job. This was the first example of dual character progression: on one hand characters could amass XP and gain levels, which made their statistics progress; on the other they could see their "job level" increase and be more competent with their special character skills.

Final Fantasy IV, 1991, SNES

A scene from the opening of FFIV, on an airship.

The 4th FF game, the first on the Super Nintendo, reverted to a simpler, level-based progression system. This more mature game was much more based on story and pre-defined characters, each with their own background, than any of the previous instalments. To that effect, each character had a fixed job and would only get new abilities when they reached a certain level. The great innovation was in fact the battle system. Previously, all RPGs, FFs included, organized the combat in "rounds". During one round, all characters and all of their opponents had one opportunity to perform one action. Then, everyone had to wait until the next round to act again. FF IV replaced this turn-based system by the "Active Time Battle" (ATB). In ATB, time flows continuously. Each action takes some time to execute. So, stabbing with a dagger takes less time than preparing a complex incantation. Anyone can act as soon as they are ready. It is indeed possible that a very fast character could act twice or more before a very slow character has the chance to act once. However, time continues to flow even when the player chooses what action to perform. So, monsters can attack if the player fails to react quickly.

This move to realtime wasn’t exactly isolated. Many computer-based RPGs had explored that possibility, such as Dungeon Master or The Eye of the Beholder. But such games coupled that with a 1st person perspective. At the other end of the spectrum, in the Zelda series, which was pretty much unrivalled in the action-RPG niche that it had created, every action was in real time from the beginning. But then, the battles were much less complex than in the FF, they didn’t involve co-ordinating a party or choosing between dozens of special skills.

FF V still used ATB, was less story-driven than its predecessor but returned to the job system of FF III. Like in FF III, the four characters could change jobs anytime outside of battle. But in FFV, the dual progression system was much more structured. In addition to XP, at the end of each battle, characters would gain ability points (AP). Each job featured a few abilities that could be unlocked once the required number of APs had been acquired. What was more interesting was that these abilities could be combined. Once learned, an ability could be used with another job. So, for instance, it was possible for a character to learn some white (protective) magic as a white mage, then turn into a knight and still be able to use white magic as previously. To keep characters balanced, it was only possible to use one extra ability. So if our knight chose to use white magic, he wouldn’t be able to use other skills like stealing or summoning monsters. By the time they published that 5th FF game, Square had already played with the notion of jobs and skills a lot, and was therefore able to offer hundreds of special skills to acquire. Therefore, contrary to most RPGs, most characters were still far from being completely developed towards the end of the game.

Final Fantasy VI, 1994, SNES

One of the most memorable FF cutscenes ever, a night at the opera in Final Fantasy VI, a.k.a "Aria di mezzo carattere"

The 6th episode holds a special place in FF history as in many fans memories. It was the third FF game to be published in the USA (after the 1st and the 4st episode. At this stage, no FF had ever been published in Europe...). FFVI featured a very strong story like the 4th one, which didn’t focus on one single character but rather explored the background of many heroes, a flexible character progression system like in the 5th, and sterling production values. This was the last episode on the Super Nintendo, a platform that Square knew perfectly at the time, and as such, FF VI was a technical demonstration of excellence. Hey, the game still looks good today, so it’s difficult to imagine the impact it had on the unprepared audience of the time!

Final Fantasy VII

If I were to nominate 3 games of which it can be said that there was a "before" and an "after" in gaming history, FFVII would definitely be on the top of my mind. I’m not certain which the other 2 would be but FFVII has definitely earned to figure in that list.

FFVII was the first super-production in the history of videogames. By the time of its release, Square had already garnered quite a reputation in RPGs, even in the western world, and all FF games sold a few million copies. With a new generation of hardware coming up [2], Square intended to amaze the world once more. To this end, they assembled a development team of over 100 specialists working on hardware never seen before in the gaming industry.

Final Fantasy VII, Playstation, 1997

Sephiroth, the emblematic villain of FFVII

FF VII required the use of CD-Rom because its production relied heavily on pre-rendered, streamed media. The investment Square had made had to be seen and has obviously a direct impact on gameplay. The switch to 3D and the storage possibilities offered by 3 CDs (a thousandfold increase since the last episode) opened new possibilities in terms of content. Specifically, it was now possible to replace traditional 2d sprites by lifelike animations of very complex 3d models.

The combat mode is the one that received the most attention. Fighters, now evolving in parties of 3, could unleash killer moves under certain extreme circumstances: limit breaks. The use of magic, especially summoning, was also much more impressive.

In terms of character progression, FFVII remained true to the FFIV system whereby each character was of a set type, using the same category of weapons throughout the game. However, the equipment system became much more abstract. The player could only equip each character with one weapon and one protection equipment, and not a whole set of armor (helmet, armor, shield, leggings...) to mix and match. But the weapon and armor would have slots where the player could insert colored spheres, "materia". APs won after each battle would improve each materia sphere and unlock new abilities. Finally, different combinations of materia on weapons or protections could yield some exciting results. This system was the most flexible way to assign abilities to characters, giving the player both freedom and constraints, as equipment always had a limited number of slots.

When Final Fantasy VII was released, it was so impressive that it put PC role playing games to shame. PCs of that time certainly had better CPUs and RAM than the Playstation 1, but didn’t usually have the 3D capability of the console... The next year, the game was ported to the PC but wasn’t as nearly successful as the console version. Still, it allowed PC-centric developers to finally take notice of the richness of the Final Fantasy gaming system and they eventually started incorporating some typical FF elements in their productions.

Other playstation 1 episodes

Shortly after the massive success of FFVII, Square released Final Fantasy Tactics (FFT). The game was designed by the people behind the tactical RPG Ogre Battle. Ogre battle was an attempt to trade strategy for adventure in RPGs. In this game, there were no dungeons to explore, no random encounters or chests to open, but maps to conquer with armies and cities to free - while keeping some essential RPG characteristics like character development and a similar form of story-telling.

FFT is a follow-up to that genre, but dressed in a final fantasy theme. FFT is, unsuprisingly, focused on combat which now takes place in detailed environments. While in traditional FF episodes, it was unnecessary to move individual fighters, position is now key in FFT. The player must bring the characters near opponents to attack them, move them around to gain position-based advantages, etc.

The job system is back, with some improvements. Characters still win Ability Points (now called JP), but after each successful action. They can use their JPs to learn skills from their current job, but in any order - unlike in FFV where abilities were learned in a set order. Originally, characters can only choose between two jobs, but others are unlocked as abilities are learned. For instance, learning two "squire" abilities allows a character to become a knight or an archer. There are now 5 ability slots. The first one is an action ability and depends of the job of the character, like in FFV. For instance, white mages can always cast white magic. The second one is another action ability which has been learned previously - still like in FFV. The 3rd one is a reaction ability, that will be triggered automatically under some circumstances, the 4th one, a support ability - a passive, permanent bonus, while the last one is a movement ability that enhances movement. All in all, FFT had the most complex and flexible job system to date, with approximately 400 abilities to unlock...

Finally, The game was supported by a complex and twisted story, not unlike FFVII.

The reception was fairly good, and although the game was not released in Europe, and although the development budget was a fraction of that of the main FF episodes, it easily became a million-seller. It was more of a critical success, the depth of the game being universally acclaimed.

Meanwhile, the development of FFVIII was well underway. From a production point of view, while FFVII would focus on the most spectacular aspects of gameplay, with never-seen before combat animations, full-motion videos, prerendered environments, with FFVIII Square would deliver the same level of finition to all components of the game. Exploration mode, for instance, would feature well-defined characters, and not the blocky, lo-poly simplifications seen in FFVII.

The expectations for this game were so great that its development budget, although rumored to be slightly greater than FFVII’s, was entirely recouped in pre-orders on the very day its Japan launch date was announced.

In terms of gameplay, FFVIII focused on the summoned monsters, called Guardian Forces in this episode (GF). It is GF that grow in level and power and that can be junctioned with the human characters in order for them to do anything beside just attacking. The magic system also changes. Spells no longer cost a certain amount of magic points, instead, in order to cast spells, characters must draw magic from a living source like monsters. Contrary to all FF before then, there is no distinction between the world exploration mode and the city mode. The party is always evolving in detailed environments which never change in scale. In what will become a recurring feature from now on, the power of enemies and bosses is adjusted, depending on that of the party. So while it is still possible to level up and power up the party, it is no longer necessary. Weapons can now be upgraded, using rare items obtained from monsters. In addition to the main storyline, which now revolves around a love interest, the player has to play through a secondary story with a different cast of characters at regular intervals. Finally, FFVIII was the first game to introduce a complex mini-game, "Triple Triads", with enough substance to keep the player interested for many hours.

Final Fantasy IX, which was developed alongside FFVIII, may have been brilliantly executed from a technical point of view, but was probably the least innovative in terms of gameplay. If FFVII was epic, if FFVIII could be called romantic, FFIX tried to connect with the nintendo roots of the series by offering a cast of cute, super-deformed characters. With FFIX character development system, abilities could be learned through items. Equipping an item would grant the character the possibility to use its abilities. Meanwhile, successful battles would earn the character ability points. Amassing enough AP while having a certain item equipped allowed the character to learn the ability permanently. An identical system had already been used by Vandal Hearts II, released a year before, so this was a bit of a let down.

Final Fantasy IX, Playstation, 2000

A screenshot of the Chocobo Hot or Cold minigame.

Apart from that, FFIX forced characters to be of a set class which they couldn’t change during the game. Each character had the physical attributes of that class, for instance, Vivi, the designated Black Mage, wore the typical black mage sombrero/dark robe costume.

Like FFVIII, FFIX featured some content-rich mini-games, like Tetra Master, a card game like Triple Triad, or the infamous Chocobo Hot and Cold.

During these Playstation years (1997-2000), the greatest innovation outside of Final Fantasy was the advent of mainstream massively multiplayer online role playing games, MMORPGs - Ultima Online, Everquest, Asheron’s Call, which all garnered a following of several hundreds of thousands of PC players.

MMORPGs introduced a radically different model of gameplay than traditionnal PC RPGs. Because all players were using the game simultaneously, these games had to be entirely real-time - the game wouldn’t wait for an individual player. By the same token, there couldn’t be different game modes, so the transition between exploration and combat was seamless, commands were identical. In a sense, exploration was just combat without opponents. MMORPGs also introduced a very different relationship with time and progression. Because one game had to keep players entertained for years, progression had to be very, very slow. Players still needed to feel that their characters would progress, but the progression curve needed to be extremely long and flat. But even with games that long, there always had to be something to do, so the contents of these games had to be extremely detailed, with thousands of items to collect or monsters to meet. After such a long exposure to the game, seasoned players would start to see beyond the mechanics of the game and the abstraction would naturally start to fade. They would no longer see monsters but "mobs" (mobile objects), instead of talking about official character classes, they would use their actual function in the game: heavily-armored fighters would be called "tanks", powerful wizards, "dealers" (for damage dealers)... And obviously, social relations were very important in such games. There were aggressive players who liked to fight others, and gregarious ones who would associate to form guilds.

While MMORPGs had to implement deep character customization systems like Final Fantasy games, they still relied heavily on notions like fixed classes, experience points and levels, and money. So these gaming genres had little influence on one another.

2001-2007: Final Fantasy on Playstation 2

Each Final Fantasy debut on a new platform had to impress, and Final Fantasy X was no exception. Now, the whole world was rendered in real-time 3D. Of course, to keep the same visual impact as with pre-rendered environments, the finesse of the modelization was leagues beyond the level of other early playstation productions. In fact, the new 3d environments easily surpassed their pre-rendered predecessors, as many effects and animations could be applied to them. In FFX, full-motion videos, that is pre-rendered videos, which had previously been one of the key selling point of the series, were almost abandoned to the profit of animations using the real-time engine. Facial animations of the real-time models received a lot of attention. For the first time, cut-scenes would also be dubbed. In terms of graphical research, this episode was easily the richest to date. The apparence and costumes of each of the dozens of characters was extremely detailed. The architecture of the cities, and especially the design of the temples, received a similar treatment.

As for every new Final Fantasy episode, FFX reinvented character progression, introducing another abstraction: the sphere grid. The sphere grid is a very large maze-like structure of connected nodes. Each character is represented on the grid as a sphere. When a character levels up, they can move their sphere from one node to another connected node. Each time a sphere passes on one new node, various bonuses are awarded to the character, ranging from increase in their characteristics (strength, intelligence etc.) to new abilities. Because the spheres of each character in the party started on a very different location on the grid, there were some abilities that would naturally be acquired by one rather than the other. Towards the end of the game, however, it was very possible that all characters had moved their sphere across each and every spot on the grid. And yet, it was still possible to progress! special items could be used to modify the grid, replacing lesser nodes with more powerful ones. While it was possible to finish the game in some 40 hours, some optional battles still offered challenge for players who had completely maxed out their party, which required at least 200 hours of gameplay, with a slow progression curve not unlike MMORPGs.

Final Fantasy X, 2001, Playstation 2

A combat scene

Like FFVIII and IX, FFX had a complex mini-game: Blitzball, which wasn’t a card game this time but an intricate strategy/sport game. It tied in with the main game as it was necessary to recruit players, who were characters in the real world, and it yielded rewards which were, most often, not available elsewhere. Also, like in FFVIII, it was possible to upgrade weapons using found objects, only the forge system was much more complicated. Finally, the combat system has been modified. The ATB, in place since FFIV, has been replace by the conditional time battle system, CTB. The CTB is a turn-based system that determines when a character or an opponent can act next. Some actions are quick, but some are long, and some characters are fast, others are slow. So, a fast character executing quick actions could act several times before a slow one executing long actions.

Final Fantasy X, 2001, Playstation 2

The sphere grid.

FFX story is a return to the principles that made FFVII a success: an epic tale, deep and complex. The theme of the identity of the hero - who is he? where does he belong to? can he even exist? is, like in VII, central to the story.

FFX was also the first FF episode to have a sequel: FFX-2, set in the same universe. While both games share the same world, the same mythology and the same storyline, they are very different.

FFX-2 uses a unique storytelling device, splitting the history in 5 chapters. During each of the chapter, the player can travel anywhere in the world using an airship. That’s only logical, since the world of Spira hasn’t changed much since the end of the previous episode, so the discovery of new locations cannot excite players too much. Specific events and actions close each chapter. When the player start the next chapter, what they found in each location would have changed depending on what they did in the previous chapters - each action can have lasting consequences. To do some quests right, the player would have had to act accordingly in each chapter. There are possible choices that the player must make that would make the story evolve in one direction. Each time the player completes a quest, the percentage of completeness of the game increases, ever so slightly. It is very easy to miss an action at any stage of the game, which makes the goal of 100% completion impossible. However, after the game is complete, it is possible to do it again, keeping the previous game percentage, and to improve it by completing the quests that had been left behind the last time.

It also introduced a brand new character development and combat system. Contrary to previous episodes where only a subset of the party was fighting at one time, FFX-2 features only 3 playable characters which are active during the whole game. So it is not possible to switch characters during the game, but it is possible to switch classes even during combat. The game also use an ability point system to unlock new abilities, but ability points are no longer awarded after a successful fight, but after each successful action, so it becomes possible to learn new abilities during combat and start using them right away! It is even possible to select which ability each character will be learning at any time.

The Ivalice era: 2003 - 2007

While X-2 was the first episode to be a direct sequel, with a continuing storyline, Square had several games take place in the world of Ivalice. The term Ivalice was originally coined for Final Fantasy Tactics, but it was still a generic final fantasy world without any distinguishing characteristics. These were introduced by the 2003 GBA game Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (FFTA), and retained for Final Fantasy XII (PS2, 2006) and Final Fantasy XII - Revenant Wings (DS, 2007).

Ivalice is home to several races: humans, long-eared vieras, mystic nu mous, reptilian bangaas and cute moogles. It is dominated by an empire whose laws are executed by armored Judges. Apart from that, there is little in common between different iterations of Ivalice. In FFTA, Ivalice is a dreamworld that is created when the main characters read a magical book, whereas it is very real indeed in FFXII and in FFXII-RW.

FFTA introduces a number of interesting innovations. In terms of character development, FFTA retains the job system of FFT with a twist: the abilities of a class cannot be learned in any order, but require a specific item to be equipped - not unlike in FFIX. Equipping a specific weapon allows a character to learn new actions, armors would teach reaction abilities, and so on. Because there are rare items, there will be rare abilities as well. The world of FFTA has no fixed form: each time the party is allowed to travel to a new location, the player is invited to decide where to position this location on a map. Depending to the relative locations of towns, forests, mountains and other terrain, some specific treasure may appear. In addition to the main quest, there are many missions that the party can undertake - literally hundreds. Most would only appear under certain circumstances, so clearing every mission is a very time-consuming process.

Final Fantasy XII, 2006, Playstation 2

A scene from the grandiose opening

FFXII took the world of Ivalice to the big screen, with a radical change of perspective. In FFXII, like in MMORPGs, there is no distinction between exploration and combat - although the game does behave slightly differently in cities. Characters that move near monsters engage in combat, and if the party manages to move away from monsters, all fighting cease. All of this happens in complete real-time - the only difference with a genuine MMORPG is that the players are afforded the luxury to pause the game! Still, managing a party of 3 characters in real-time can be too much to handle, especially considering the number of abilities available. This is why FFXII introduced the gambit system. Recognizing that Final Fantasy players would spend more time configuring their party than actually playing the game, the gambit system allow them to go a step further and program the behavior of the characters. A gambit is composed of several instructions, each bearing a condition. So, at any time, the character follows these instructions in sequence. The player can still override the gambit and manually control one character. During the adventure, the player will discover or purchase new gambit conditions or options.

The character development system can be seen as a simplification as that in FFX. It features a grid, made of adjacent squares. At the beginning, each character has a certain number of cleared squares. They can then clear adjacent squares on the grid, provided they accumulate enough License Points. Each square grants the player a license to do something new - the right to equip a weapon or armor, to learn a specific magic, or an immediate bonus. The more powerful the license, the more points it will cost. License points are collected for each kill. Then, once a character is allowed to equip something or to learn a new spell, they still have to find said equipment or spell...

Final Fantasy XII, 2006, Playstation 2

The gambit system

Like FFTA, FFXII features many optional missions and subquests, which end up to be pretty much non optional to keep the party powerful enough to continue the main adventure. In addition to the License Point mechanisms, the game also featured another game progression system involving items. Some items, including the most powerful equipment, would be available for purchase after selling certain combination of items. This system requires the player to spend considerable time searching for rare items in order to get the best gear... A final RPG convention that FFXII bashed pertained to chests. In pretty much every RPG in the 20 years prior to FFXII release, there have been chests in set locations with set contents (treasure). But in FFXII, treasure chests may or may not appear, and their content is also determined randomly. Moreover, once open, some may reappear under certain conditions!

FFXII-RW is currently the latest installment of the franchise. Set immediately after the events of FFXII, it is hardly an RPG in the proper sense of the term, but rather some sort of realtime strategy game with a final fantasy branding.

Producing Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy took gaming industry to a new level with core game production metrics - size of development teams, development and promotion budget, and obviously sales - of a completely different order of magnitude.

Since Final Fantasy VII, all main installment of the franchise (that is VII, VIII, IX, X, X-2 and XII) sold more than 5 million copies. VII came close to 10 million, X and VIII did almost 8 million, and the other 3 are at around 5 million.

Portable episodes were quite successful as well, despite a much smaller development effort: the DS remake of FFIII sold over 2 million copies, a figure that the FFIV-DS could very well reach. FFTA sold approximately 2 million units, and FFXII-RW which has just been released in the USA, close to a million.

Final Fantasy VII wasn’t the first title to sell millions of copies - the 1985 Super Mario Bros sold 4 times as much. But this was the first time that a seemingly reproducible formula for success was exhibited.

Prior to 1997, all multi-million sellers were either adaptations of existing franchises, for instance, arcade hits (Pac Man or Space Invaders on the Atari 2600), one-off successes (Pitfall on the Atari), official games of very powerful intellectual properties like ET on the Atari or TNMT on the NES, first-party games benefiting from the firepower of the console manufacturer (Super Mario Series) - when they didn’t came bundled with the machines themselves (original Super Mario Bros, Tetris on Gameboy). Now and again, a genre-defining game appeared that became massively successful. That has been the fate of the first Zelda, or that of Street Fighter on the Super Nintendo. Finally, some were just decent games which were released at the end of a console cycle when the installed base was over 50 millions.

But FFVII was different. It was not an arcade hit. It certainly wasn’t a one-off success. It wasn’t based on a non-game license. It wasn’t a first-party game - although it received a fairly decent push by Sony. It wasn’t bundled with all the playstations. It certainly didn’t invent a new genre, and it arrived early in the PSX lifecycle.

How did it do it? well, its development answered a question. What could happen if unlimited amounts of money were thrown at a game development (in that case an unprecedented $45 million?) what if it were complimented by a massive, $100m advertising campaign? would that be more efficient than, say, spreading those cool $145m on 15 games?

The answer brought by the sales was a resounding yes. Once the development and promotion budget are paid for, any other copy sold is profit. In other words, no effort should be spared to make a million-seller. Why, in this time and age, very high-profile games would most likely net 5 millions in sales. With the time-to-market constraints, which make development times of more than 2 years unlikely, this means that it is practically impossible to pay more than $30 million in development alone - that’s 250 man/years of development for you - which can produce $250 million in sales or more. And in the process, building such a strong game will establish a name for the developer and publisher, create or fortify a franchise and intellectual property, and yield research and development advances for future productions. [3]

Of course, all of this is not that simple. Creating a great game, which is based upon a clear and strong concept, is no small feat. Harnessing a 100+ development team requires very specific skills, and most great game authors make terrible managers (the opposite being, sadly, even truer). And these numbers doesn’t take into account contingencies the general overhead costs of operating a large game company...

So, what is the formula?

a robust concept. it doesn’t have to be ground-breaking, but it must be solid, and enable a compelling gameplay.

unlimited development budget. How must it be spent? not to inflate the duration of gameplay, as it was generally believed up to 1995. Not to produce the most technically-advanced tour de force (indeed, square could have given FFVII the technical polish of FFVIII with more development time... would it have even impacted the sales figure?). No. Content, content, content. The most skilled persons must be hired to produce sterling content, even if they hail from outside the gaming sphere. This means, the best composers. The best writers. The best artists.

On artwork, every effort to reach perfection will be rewarded. All characters must be designed in the greatest amount of detail. Once defined by the story, use the greatest characters illustrators to bring them life. Not enough? Hire costume designers. Weapon specialists. Pass after pass, take your characters to perfect design. Environments must be stunning. They will be if enough time, research and attention is devoted to their modeling. Again, if this is not enough... Bring in architects. Archeologists. Sculptors. Do not seek to streamline your production chain by reusing elements. Develop each new scene from scractch. Maintain strong artistic direction and enforce the game visual consistency at all costs.

Animation will make or break the versimilitude of the game. In 3d environments, there are little limits to what an excellent animator can achieve - the end result will all depend on the amount of work that has been done.

Technically, even if using never-seen before techniques rarely sell... the role of the developers is to ensure allow perfect content to blend in the game. To make decisions and choose what to optimize to get the perfect experience. To get a bug-free game...

But eventually, it all goes back to content. Jam as much content as possible. More gameplay content, more choice in gameplay strategies, and more fiction. Especially more fiction. Games must be the gateway to a large imaginary worlds, that go way beyond the game proper.

At any rate, this heralds a new era, the economy of the blockbuster. Game publishers no longer strive to innovate with each new game in order to merely break even, then fund their next game. Rather, they reach the critical mass which allow them to fund very high-profile games with which it is possible to make tens, no, hundreds of millions - and probably billions in the not too distant future.

For the time being, with only a handful of super-productions per year, all are able to coexist and to be successful - to the expense of lesser games that attempt to compete directly with them. In parallel, other markets subsist for much less ambitious projects - casual gaming, or secondary distribution channels for major consoles (that is Xbox Live Arcade, Wii Virtual Console and Playstation Store). The natural consequence is that the number of super-productions is bound to increase, because they are the only ones which can yield super- profits. What will happen then...