Final Fantasy, in the minds of many, is the greatest console RPG series ever. Back in 1987, Japanese games developer Squaresoft released its first Final Fantasy game. The game became a phenomenal success and it was inevitable then that Squaresoft would start creating the next game in the series, Final Fantasy II. Final Fantasy II was an equal success, probably an even greater success, and Squaresoft continued from there on and today they have released around 10 Final Fantasy games. In development at the moment are Final Fantasy X (already released in America and Japan, coming soon to Europe) and Final Fantasy XI. FFXI is a fully online game – a first in Final Fantasies.

Final Fantasy XI is a so called Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, or MMORPG. This means that the game will be played online against hundreds, and sometimes, thousands of other players. The setting in FF XI, as in all other FFs, is fantasy. The players will log on to one of the servers and then start playing in the world of Vana’diel. You choose your race, class, looks, and then you move into the world of Vana’diel, ready to battle some monsters. For fans of the series, and of MMORPGs in general, this will be something fresh.


And on to the series’ history:

The series started out on NES (Nintendo) with Final Fantasy I. Nr.2 and 3 were also released on the NES. Then nr.4 and all the way up to nr. 6 were released on SNES (Super Nintendo). Final Fantasy VII, which I think is the best of all the Final Fantasies, was released in Japan in 1997 on the PlayStation. Later that year it was released in America and then a few months after the American release it came to Europe. Later FFVII was also released on the PC. FFVIII was released in Japan in February of 1999 and then came to America and Europe later in the year. FFIX came to Japan in the year 2000 and also to America, but only came to Europe in 2001. The latest installment, FFX, was released in Japan in July of 2001. It reached the States just before Christmas and now many Europeans are waiting anxiously for the game to be released here.

The next for us Europeans:

Final Fantasy X will offer something new to the series– voice acting. It’s the first Final Fantasy to include voice acting. Some of those who have heard the English voice acting in the game think that it’s not good, others think it’s great, and some think it’s just average. I myself think that some of the characters are well acted, some are OK, but others are just plain bad. It’s also the first game in the series to go fully 3D.


Not all Final Fantasies have been completely successful. Last year Squaresoft released Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, a movie with the games’ name. The movie was lacking in many aspects, most notably script and acting. At least the visuals of the film were good. All was done in computers; the characters, the environments, everything, and it looked almost as if it were real. Almost. Let’s just hope that if Squaresoft decides to make another movie they’ll put more work into script and acting.

This movie-flop ate up a lot of cash from Square’s wallet as the movie cost a lot to make and didn’t bring in a lot of cash. But they’re still standing and probably always will be, as long as they make fun and original Final Fantasy games.