Just being clear, I will talk about the Final Fantasy series as a whole, but mainly covering the best games in the series in my opinion. These games are Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy VI or Final Fantasy III in the US, and Final Fantasy VII. This is going to be a shitload of games, so if you need to use the bathroom, I recommend you use it now.
Before:
There isn't much of a before to Final Fantasy because it was less than five years between when Square started and when Final Fantasy was produced. The company of Square was founded in 1983 by Masafumi Miyamoto. It was originally a subsidiary of the company owned by his father, Denyusha, which was a powerline construction company. They originally made computer games such as The Death Trap.
[COMMAND] : take piss *enter*
*computer answers* do not know how to take piss.
Originally, Square was reluctant to produce games for home consoles, but they decided to do it. The first game they produced for home systems was Thexder and was only available for the Famicom. The first game square produced for the NES was 3-D Worldrunner.
"It might be 3D but it ain't no Avatar."
The company also produced the more popular game Rad Racer.
"If you're racing aqainst against VW Bugs
of course you'll win!"
Even though the company the company was very sucessful, the had a rush of bankrupcy in 1987 with Rad Racer and 3-D Worldrunner barely keeping the
company afloat. So, as a final farewell, Square game designer, Hironobu Sakaguchi, decided that this would be his "final" game and it would be a "fantasy" hence the name Final Fantasy. The game was released in Japan in 1987 and was released in 1990 in the US.
*Sings Final Fantasy fanfare.*
After:
Final Fantasy featured a new type of battle system letting you battle up to nine enemies at once instead of one at a time like in other RPGs such as Phantasy Star. Also, after defeating an enemy, you are rewarded with experience points, gold, and sometimes items. The combat system is menu based allowing the player to make a selection of an attack out of various options. At the beginning of the game you have the option of choosing four out of six characters that have their own job or class. These classes are fighter, thief, monk or black belt, red mage, white mage, and black mage. Your characters will later be upgraded based on your character choices. Fighters become knights, thieves become ninjas, monks become masters, red mages become red wizards, black mages become black wizards, and white mages become white wizards. The mages and wizards can learn different spells based on which one you choose. The object of the game is to go around the country playing as the fabled light warriors defeating the four fiends to restore the four orbs that each represent a simple element, earth, fire, wind, water, from their current dark state. After restoring the four orbs, a portal opens taking the light warriors 2000 years in the past and they discover that the four fiends sent Garland (now the archdemon Chaos) to the past to create a time loop allowing him to live forever. Now your objective is to fight and defeat Chaos ending the time loop.
"Imagine what Chaos looks like in 16-bit."
The game was very popular in Japan and was released in the US three years later because of the popularity of Enix's Dragon Warrior in America. But because of the large time gap between the release of Final Fantasy in Japan and the US, they already had Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy III released in Japan but decided not to release them because Square thought it would cause to much confusion. So, to release Final Fantasy IV in America, they put it under the name Final Fantasy II in the US.
"IT'S FINAL FANTASY IV NOT II!"
After Final Fantasy IV, Square produced the sequal Final Fantasy V intending to release it as Final Fantasy III in the US, but the project fell through because Square thought the game didn't appeal to the average gamer.
The sequal to Final Fantasy V, Final Fantasy VI, was released in the US as Final Fantasy III. Final Fantasy VI uses the same battle system as the original Final Fantasy, but you get gil instead of gold. As an addition to the combat system, there is an Active Time Battle system or ATB that times between a charaters attacks. This system was introduced in Final Fantasy IV and is now a Final Fantasy game regular. Also, characters can be equipped with various items known as "relics" that changes a characters status or applies a magical spell in response to being near death. In addition, characters can equip magicite which allows the character to receive Magic Aquisition Points (Magic AP for short) after battles to recieve spells specific to the magicite. One thousand years before Final Fantasy VI, there were three gods known as the Warring Triad were the source of all magic and start the war known as the War of Magi. This released magical enery into the world that turned any person who touched it into an esper, who were the soldiers of the gods. After repenting the war, the Warring Triad turned themselves into stone and gave free will to the espers. Their only request to the espers were to keep their power sealed so it couldn't be misused again, so the espers went to a hidden world taking the statues of the gods with them. About 18 years preceding the game, Emperor Gestahl and his general Kefka discover a weakening in the barrier between the world and take advantage of it by attacking the esper's land eventually capturing several espers. In the game, Gestahl experiments infusing humans and machines with magic by using the espers as a power source. This resulted in Magitek. Kefka was one of the first people infused with magic becoming a prototype for the Magitek Soldiers. This experiment was still in its prototype phase and impaired Kefka's sanity giving him the most hilarious laugh. The Empire is on the verge of discovering magic's full potential, but a group of rebels, known as the Returners, want to overthrow the Empire freeing its territories.
"Final Fantasy even has an opera version"
Final Fantasy VII was originally intended for the Nintendo 64, but lacked the capacity of storage space the game needed so they released it for the Sony Playstation. The game uses rendered polygons instead of 2D sprites and scaled battle sequences to make it more realistic.
"How does he hold things? He has no fingers!"
The story of the game revolves around a claimed formal member of SOLDIER and mercenary, Cloud Strife, who helps several others of the group AVALANCE to stop the corporation Shinra from draining all the planets energy. The antagonist of the game, Sephiroth, is a former member of SOLDIER and reappeared after several years after disappearing in battle which he was concluded to have died. The series continues today with the most recent installment of the series, Final Fantasy XIII, and the recent announcement of Final Fantasy XIV the series is still wildly popular in both Japan and the US. Square eventually merged with Enix to create SquareEnix and they have re-released Final Fantasy through Final Fanatasy VI in america placing each game in its proper order in the series.
"They should release the games for the Virtual Console."
Added 6/19/2010: By request, and I thought it was a great idea, I amgoing to talk about Fianl Fantasy XIII to show how far the series has come. Final Fantasy XIII is the highest selling game in the series to date, but was criticized for being too linear. The game primarily focuses on the world of Cocoon which is a sphere that floats above the suface of Pulse. Both worlds are controlled by mechanical beings with godlike power called the fal'Cie.
They are based around a crystal created by the Maker, a godlike figure. The fal'Cie have the ability of marking the humans that live on Cocoon and Pulse making them their servants, called I'Cie. They are given a "Focus", a task to complete. If the task is completed in time, the I'Cie are turned to crystal. Otherwise, they become mindless monsters called Cie'th. The I'Cie aren't told what to do, but are given visions to interpret. If the I'Cie falter in a quest, they are sent upon by a large mechanical monster called an Eidolon. If the I'Cie defeats these things in battle, the Eidolon fight for them. The I'Cie's transformation to crystal isn't permanent because they can be turned back to human at any time and are given another task by the fal'Cie. Cie'th can be transformed into a different kind of crystal from which other I'Cie can learn their focus and complete it. Both worlds are at war, though at the opening of the game, there hasn't been anyone from Pulse or Cocoon in centuries sincce the last time Pulse invaded. The aftermath of the war left a large hole in Cocoon, which was repaired by pieces of Pulse by the fal'Cie. Cocoon is controlled by the Sanctum goverment, which encouragees the hatred of Pulse. The fal'Cie don't control the humans directly, but make their wishes known by the Sanctum. The Sanctum oversees two military branches known as the Guardian Cops and PSICOM. These special forces deal with anything having to do with pulse. The fal'Cie have given the humans advanced technology, though magic still exists. Tht humans don't have access to the magic that the I'Cie and fal'Cie have, but use distilled chemical forms.
"Look at how far we come."
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