Final Fantasy III (1994)
What American kids called Final Fantasy III was, in reality, the 6th installment of the Final Fantasy game franchise— A fact we were only apprised of after the release of Final Fantasy VII in 1997. Where did the intervening titles go?, we asked ourselves.
There is no single answer that covers all the bases, but in brief:
Final Fantasy II, III, and V were never released for their original ports in the United States.
Final Fantasy I for the NES hit our shores in in 1990, the same year the next-gen Super Famicom gaming system was released in Japan. The localization of Final Fantasy II was thus de-prioritized in anticipation of the Super Nintendo.
Similarly, Final Fantasy III hit the Japanese market in 1990, the same year as the Super Famicom— once again, US developers opted to focus on the bigger, better 16-bit gaming experience.
Having played fan-translated emulations of the original distributions of Final Fantasy II and III, I have to wonder if these club-footed excuses mask a darker reality— perhaps these titles were considered too challenging for stupid American kids?
That is certainly the case with Final Fantasy V, whose job system was considered ‘too complex’ for the American demographic.
I have also wondered if perhaps there was some thought that the ubiquity of the Star of David/ Seal of Solomon motif in the second and third titles would piss somebody off:
In Japanese media, the symbol is generally associated with magic and the occult; which makes a lot of sense if you bothered to do a little research:
The Seal of Solomon or Ring of Solomon (Hebrew: חותם שלמה, Ḥotam Shlomo; Arabic: خاتم سليمان, Khātam Sulaymān) is the legendary signet ring attributed to king Solomon in medieval mystical traditions, from which it developed in parallel within Jewish mysticism, Islamic mysticism and Western occultism.
It is often depicted in the shape of either a pentagram or a hexagram. In mystic Islamic and Jewish lore, the ring is variously described as having given Solomon the power to command the supernatural, including shedim and jinn, and also the ability to speak with animals. Due to the proverbial wisdom of Solomon, it came to be seen as an amulet or talisman, or a symbol or character in medieval magic and Renaissance magic, occultism, and alchemy.
The Star of David was errata’d in later versions; that is, in the versions that were released in the United States.
Another possibility presents itself: that the second, third, and fifth Final Fantasy games were simply not that good.
When I played through a fan translation of Final Fantasy II (the original II, the one for Famicom/NES), at no point did I stop to think, “I am enjoying myself.” Like its predecessor, the game is a grind-fest— only a little worse.
Final Fantasy III for NES/FAMICOM feels like something the developers were in a hurry to complete, but I really enjoyed it. Nothing about the game is perfect, but in terms of graphics and narrative depth, it’s a crowning achievement of the 8-bit era.
I am in no position to judge Final Fantasy IV. Every time I have tried to play it, I immediately lost interest.
But when it comes to Final Fantasy VI… that is, 1994’s Final Fantasy III for the SNES…
This. game. is. fucking. excellent.
Final Fantasy VI was the last installment in the franchise to feature 2D sprite-based graphics. As such, it was also the last to put the work of the dynamic duo which I like to pretend had carried the franchise to that point front-and-center.
That duo is master illustrator Yoshitaka Amano and digital artist Kazuko Shibuya. Amano had been the chief visual designer behind the franchise since Final Fantasy‘s inception, with Shibuya adapting Amano’s uncanny vision to the 8 and 16-bit screen.
Final Fantasy IV represents the climax of these two artists’ work at Squaresoft, while also representing the climax of an entire gaming epoch.
Within two years of Final Fantasy VI‘s release, the Sony Playstation would usher in the age of 32-bit graphic rendering. Yoshitaka Amano’s fluid, organic style could almost be replicated in static pixel renders, but was considered inappropriate for the angular, polygon-based graphic dispensation that would reign in the coming decade.
Final Fantasy IV stands uncontested as one of the best J-RPGs of the 2D era,with some die-hards arguing that it is instead one of the best J-RPGs of all time; Squaresoft’s magnum opus, and the alpha and omega of J-RPG gaming experience.
Taking off the rose-colored glasses of our nostalgia, though, I suspect it only looks that way in hindsight, and only to those of us who lived through it.
Even at the time, we couldn’t wait for what would come next — the possibilities were seemingly endless. The fact that so many of us are still stuck on Final Fantasy VI either means that it was just that good, or that our sky-high expectations were sorely disappointed.
Final Fantasy VI was also the first entry to replace franchise creator Hironobu Sakaguchi as director. Directorial credits are instead given to Yoshinori Kitase and Hiroyuki Ito.
Hiroyuki Ito is credited with developing the Active Time Battle System that would make Final Fantasy IV‘s approach to combat sequences revolutionary; indeed, revolutionary combat systems seem to have been his specialty. He would go on to apply his unique talents in Final Fantasy VIII, as well as the vaunted Final Fantasy: Tactics, while Yoshinori Kitase would go on to direct the heavy-hitting SNES title Chrono Trigger, as well as future Final Fantasy installments VII, VIII, X, and XIII.
Now that we’ve got some of the context, let’s get into the bread and butter of today’s assignment:
Final Fantasy III Unboxing
The Final Fantasy III instruction manual greets you as soon as you open the box.
It falls into your lap and, before you are given the chance to insert the game cartridge, you’ve already been transported into an alternate reality.
I don’t think it is hyperbolic of me to say that this unassuming little booklet encompasses the grand totality of my artistic awakening. We had no idea how good we had it, man. We would hardly see art like this bundled around a children’s video game again.
I remember thumbing through the pages of the Final Fantasy III manual again and again, just soaking it in. I was the definition of a captive audience; I could not tear myself away.
It’s something I can’t place my finger on, but Yoshitaka Amano’s artwork is haunting.
The more I have steeped myself in literature and art, the more I circle back to those by-gone days of sitting cross-legged in my bedroom on the threshold of the 6th grade, contemplating the arcane riddle that is the Final Fantasy III instruction manual.
Shades of Henri Toulousse Lautrec, Ukiyo-e woodblock prints, Jean Basquiat, Picasso, Gustav Klimt, Aubrey Beardsley, Paul Klee, and Frank Franzetta all come through in Amano’s work to produce something new and different.
Something that is compelling, addictive, yet oddly repulsive. Something cryptic, taboo, forbidden,… almost luciferic — and this is appropriate, because the themes embraced by the storyline of Final Fantasy 6 are straight out of the Book of Enoch.
Final Fantasy VI is like if the Gnostic Gospels were packed into the shell of a 16-bit game cartridge; like if a game were scripted by the Essenian Doomsday Cult, with Richard Wagner in charge of the soundtrack and set design.
It functions as much as a game as it does a legitimate work of art, being possessed of that quality which literary critic Matthew Arnold called ‘High Seriousness’.
Don’t believe me? Just watch:
The Toriyama/ Amano Axis
I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating:
At the time, I don’t think any of us realized how spoiled we were with the level of craft and application went into commercial art. There is something about analog media that hits different, and it’s a distinction none of us would appreciate until it was too late.
This was back when every Magic card in the pack looked authentic. It wasn’t immediately obvious which were destined for the trash. In hindsight, none of them were. We were only on the Dark Ages set. You could still pick up packs of Arabian Nights at Toys-R-Us.
But we wanted bigger, better, more. We would settle for nothing less than fully immersive artificial worlds. Everyone was pumped for the next wave of digital graphics, the next phase of the digital renaissance.
We recorded the cut scenes from Resident Evil I and Final Fantasy VII on VHS in order to re-live them.
We eagerly pawned three gaming systems, along with all our games, at Funcoland and supplemented the trade with a year’s allowance to experience the latest next-gen gaming platform.
Analog art made with analog materials was something we took for granted. And why wouldn’t we? This stuff was just used for marketing.
Above, you see the original box designs for the first three Final Fantasy titles released for Japan’s Famicom gaming platform.
These were exclusive to Japan; why they thought these wouldn’t fly with an American audience is beyond me—
But the fact is that Yoshitaka Amano’s role, here, was to produce visual copy for Squaresoft’s marketing department. Squaresoft was probably copying the homework of rival developer Chunsoft, who had commissioned Akira Toriyama to boost the aesthetic profile of an experimental product called Dragonquest.
Chunsoft/Enix recieves credit for pioneering the J-RPG as a genre, and for launching that genre into the stratosphere; for Chunsoft/Enix is responsible for the first five titles of the Dragonquest franchise.
Wizardry and Ultima were American Dungeons & Dragons emulations that had been making waves in Japan since 1981, but Dragonquest was the first digital Dungeons and Dragons emulation unleashed on the public that was distinctly and unapologetically Japanese.
Game designer Yujii Horii was driven by the goal of making RPGs more accessible when he translated the Dungeons and Dragons formula into an introductory product for the Japanese console gaming market.
The result was 1986’s Dragonquest, a game which set itself apart from its inspiration by eschewing the extreme difficulty typical of Western RPGs, focusing instead on character development, emotional involvement, and rich storytelling.
Dragonquest also distinguished itself by committing to artistic excellence on every level. Chunsoft enlisted classically trained musician Koichi Sugiyama to compose the soundtrack, and manga artist Akira Toriyama was brought on board as lead character designer and illustrator.
Toriyama had only recently made a name for himself as the artist and creator behind Dragon Ball, which was first serialized by Shonen Jump in 1984— though Dragon Ball only two years deep, it was already a cultural phenomena.
Collaborating with Akira Toriyama was not solely out of concern for Dragonquest‘s artistic merit; it was a marketing decision motivated by the desire to drive sales among a demographic unfamiliar with the new product.
The extra investment really paid off; 1.5 million copies of Dragonquest were sold in Japan alone.
The game didn’t actually do that well in the rest of the world— only 500,000 copies sold in the United States, where it was re-named Dragon Warrior; it probably would have done better if they had used Toriyama-san’s visual copy.
In 1986, the year Dragonquest was released, Hironobu Sakaguci and the gang over at Squaresoft were really struggling.
Rumor has it that Sakaguchi named the project Final Fantasy because it was his last chance to get it right; his final opportunity to make the fantasy of succeeding as a game developer a reality before giving up and going back to college.
Squaresoft’s answer to Dragonquest was Final Fantasy; their answer to Akira Toriyama was Yoshitaka Amano; and their answer to classical composer Koichi Sugiyama was Nobuo Uematsu, a self-taught musician who British radio’s Classic FM Hall of Fame has affectionately referred to as ‘the Beethoven of game music‘.
The early history of both franchises is a throw-back, not just to another graphic dispensation, but to what, when contrasted with today’s grabasstic and vile marketing tactics, appears to have been an entirely different belief system. It was a time when artistic integrity and commercial viability were not seen as mutually exclusive categories; a time when people were willing to experiment and take risks in the name of excellence. Who has time for that anymore?
We’ve lost something along the way, folks, and I’m not sure things are going to start looking up anytime soon— but you can fit the entire 8-and-16-bit Dragonquest and Final Fantasy catalog onto a Samsung with room to spare, so that’s pretty cool.
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