Final Fantasy Casts Cure on Square Enix – Today in History – May 7th, 1990
Looking back today, it is easy to see that Final Fantasy was a success and why. Back in the day though, even Square was not all that interested in Final Fantasy, to the point that they initially wanted to only produce 200,000 copies in Japan. That is after Hironobu Sakaguchi convinced them to green light the game in the first place.
In North America Nintendo expressed their contractual right to publish 3rd party games as their own with Final Fantasy. This was great news for Square as it alleviated them of many financial obligations associated with producing NES games.
Final Fantasy is now, obviously, an iconic role-playing game. Square Enix has built an empire on the back of this franchise, to the point that they were able to buy out their competition – Enix. Enix, for those that do not know made Dragon Warrior/Quest – Final Fantasy’s direct rival on Nintendo platforms.
When released in North America, and to a lesser extent in Japan, Final Fantasy was unlike much else available on Nintendo’s first console. So unique that Square was not interested in even developing the game.
Thankfully they did because console role-playing games might have been set back many years without Final Fantasy.
Fans that took up the challenge were greeted with a world of three major continents, Black and White Mages, creatures from all walks of monsterdom, and a story that was engrossing and not like the arcade games that flanked Square’s title on store shelves.
Final Fantasy has seen re-release on many platforms over the years. There have also been a few remakes which improved on graphics and sound released as well.
If you want to grab a copy of Final Fantasy, then you can do it multiple ways. One way is to grab the Nintendo NES Classic Mini or an original copy
of the game. Another is to grab one of the remakes that Square Enix has released
I remember this thing had an 80 page manual and a double sided poster (perhaps from Nintendo Power) filled with useful (albeit sometimes incorrect) monster and item stats. I think people who weren't playing it back then realize just how truly complex it was compared to other console RPGs of the time.
Yeah, Nintendo picking up publishing rights to this definitely allowed for more pack-ins than what Square may have been able to produce. I remember the days of RPG's coming with cool tip books and such (Sword of Vermillion and Phantasy Star III being two others that had good books).
I didn't know it's final fantasy's anniversary! I am a super Final Fantasy fan, although I have not played the original Final Fantasy or the next two in the series , I have played every single one onwards up to Final Fantasy 13. I used to play it on a SNES simulator on my PC. Good times!
Considering the fact that game release dates on consoles were not kept all that well back in the day I had to make a guess as to which day in May - I chose one that had no other significant releases to write up.
It is an iconic game and one that I needed to write up sooner than later.
I have the release dates for about 5,000+ games saved in text files and try to write them up as the time nears. These nostalgia articles are great fun to do.
If you want to see other games I have written up check out the History section of Retro Gaming Magazine. Some great titles have been written up so far. Some of my staff over on RGM put their own spin on them as well (also linked to on that page).