The accuracy of the common mantra “sex sells” is apparent in all forms of media: from movies and TV shows to magazines to video games. Sexy, scantily clad female characters in video games are widely celebrated, from Lara Croft to, well, the entire Dead or Alive cast. If you were to ask gamers who the most well-known Final Fantasy woman was, the buxom Tifa Lockhart would undoubtedly be a popular response. But these characters have also received criticism for their appearance.


Commonly, a female character’s outfit or pose is not out of any practical reason such as protection, comfort, or ease of movement, but to arouse the viewer. If video games were to be believed, skin-tight and revealing clothing is the most comfortable and practical clothing available for all circumstances, and that bending over sexily is the most natural position for a woman to be in. But if the male characters tried to similarly show themselves off, the results would be patently silly. Why is this any more tolerable coming from women?


A common response to these points is that the game developers ...

He was recently voted as Eyes on Final Fantasy’s ‘Best Character’ at the 25^th Anniversary Final Fantasy Ciddies. But just what is it about this Black Mage that makes him so beloved to fans?

Vivi has a childlike curiosity and innocence that takes us, as gamers, back to our childhoods in a sense. We relive that feeling of wonderment at everything which is new. We feel excitement! happiness and sometimes even fear with Vivi.

We feel for Vivi as a character, because he is the one who seems to have been thrown in there without reason. Zidane, Garnet and Steiner are all meant to be there, or at least have a legitimate reason for being on that stage! Zidane is trying to kidnap Garnet, Garnet is trying to be kidnapped, and Steiner, is of course, trying to save her. Poor Vivi just got caught up in the action and was in the wrong place, and the wrong time.
Or maybe he was in the right place at the right time.

Final Fantasy IX deals with a lot of issues in the centre of its storyline, and for Vivi; the issues that affect him the most are those of identity and existence. ...

...

"Bite me. Oh, better yet, let me bite you!" —Rikku, Final Fantasy X-2

Have you ever felt the need to lose control? Have you ever been red with fury? Perhaps you've had a desire to dress in exotic furs? The Berserkers of the Final Fantasy series know how you feel. Recognized by their fuzzy attires and unwillingness to cooperate with others, the class first made its appearance in Final Fantasy V, where a shard of the Water Crystal is broken in Walse Tower and you receive the power of a Berserker! ...

It's time for Round 3: We're more famous for our Non-FF titles

Yasumi Matsuno - Matsuno began his career working for the company Quest, where he made his debut with his two signature SRPG series Ogre Battle and Tactics Ogre. Matsuno was eventually scouted by Sakaguchi who was a big fan of his games. Matsuno himself was a huge fan of the FF series and jumped at the chance to join Square; he took some of his Quest employees with him and they were joined with Hiroyuki Ito to create Final Fantasy Tactics, an FF SRPG in the same style as Tactics Ogre. The game's success led Matsuno to work on the cult classic genre-defining Vagrant Story which was the first game by Square to get a perfect score in Famitsu magazine.

He moved on to be a supervisor on the PlayOnline system before he was chosen by Sakaguchi to work on the next FF title. During XII's development, Matsuno worked as a producer for the spiritual sequel to FFTactics - Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. Soon afterwards, Matsuno became ill and had to leave FFXII's development. He quit Square-Enix shortly after and has now become a freelance designer who worked on Mad World for the Wii, SE's remake of his Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, and a new title with Level-5. ...

It’s that moment in Final Fantasy X. Yuna and her guardians have just discovered that Seymour is a bit of a bad guy, and now he’s going to try and take them out in the Macalania Temple. He’s summoned Anima and he’s coming at them with all he’s got.

It’s now that point in the battle where it’s time to pull out the big guns, your party is getting weaker by the second and there can be no room for error now! Your last Phoenix Down is gone… You’re almost out of hope.

But then, you press that button.

It’s time for something you haven’t seen before.
...

The Old Dogs and Up and Comers

Hiromichi Tanaka - Hiromichi Tanaka left college with Sakaguchi so they could join Square and make video games. Tanaka is best known for being a key designer for the first three Final Fantasy games being one of the founders of the Job Class system. He later moved onto work on the Seiken Densetsu (Mana) series and Chrono franchises before being brought back to work as the producer for FFXI, which he considers to be an evolution of FFIII. Later on he helmed the remake of FFIII for the DS and was tasked developing FFXIV. Due to the commercial failure of FFXIV, Tanaka stepped down from the development team and later retired from Square-Enix. He remains a controversial figure for the FF MMO community but is probably most well-known and beloved by the Mana and Chrono fans.



Kazushige Nojima - Nojima joined Square sometime in the mid-90s making his debut as the director of the cult Super Famicom game Bahamut Lagoon. His first and most notable intro to the series was working with Kitase in adapting the original story by Nomura and Sakaguchi for FFVII. ...

So I was asked to give a helpful guideline of the movers and shakers of our beloved FF series so people will have a more educated idea of who to vote fir in the 25th Anniversary Ciddies.

Part One: The Big Guns

Hironobu Sakaguchi - Creator of Final Fantasy, Sakaguchi was the director, designer, and producer of the first five Final Fantasy games. He stepped down from this position during FFVI's development but still worked on as a producer and later executive producer for the rest of the series until he left Square in 2002. Sakaguchi was also one of the Big 3 of the creation of Chrono Trigger, he promoted the use of Mode 7 and the jump to Sony's CD based system to better utilize technology for the series. He wrote the original story with Tetsuya Nomura for FFVII, came up with the concept for Parasite Eve, and was the Executive Producer for most of Square's non-FF titles released in the PS1 era. His creation and push for technology made Square into a powerhouse but his foray into the movie industry nearly bankrupt the company with the commercial failure of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. He currently runs his own game development company ...

Final Fantasy is a diverse series. Each game has its own fans, its own flavour, its own strengths. If there was ever going to be a single, uniting factor though, the soundtracks to Final Fantasy are definitely it. You could listen exclusively to video game tracks or you might throw them on to relax or even to rock out with some nostalgia, but no matter the reason, the FF music is something memorable.

One group of FF fans have combined their passion for music and passion for FF into something great: a Square-Enix tribute band called The World Is Square. The Boston five-piece have put out their first tribute album - No Phoenix Down Can Save You Now - and have been playing live shows all over the place, so you just know they're good.


I had a quick chat with them to find out a little bit more about how the band came to be, what makes them tick and some other quirky facts along the way!

Q: What came first: a love of music or a love of Final Fantasy?
Lauren: Definitely a love of music. We all have pretty varied tastes in music, I'd say music was our all around first passion.

Q: What were the first FFs you guys played?
Josh: The first ones I played were FFVII & Tactics.
Dave: I love Tactics, but mine was FFVI.
Lauren: FFIX, I still love ...

[IMG]http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk48/nmfloropoulos/1000px-Kain_lean_FMV_DS-1-1.jpg[/IMG]

"All those who challenge me will fall." - Kain Highwind, Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy

Dragoon. Dragon Knight. Lancer. Whatever you choose to call them, the dragoon class is a force to be reckoned with in the Final Fantasy series. ...

The Distant Worlds show has been making the rounds, bringing the wonder of Final Fantasy music to fans around the world. On November 2 it stopped in London. Psychotic was lucky enough to go along, and has this personal account of the event to share. Enjoy!

There was a real buzz around the Royal Albert Hall, everybody was excited and expectant about what they were going to see. Cosplayers milled around; Rinoa was accompanied by a pair of SeeDs, a Cid Highwind cosplayer had somehow managed to bring in a huge spear, but perhaps the highlight was a man dressed in golden spandex with a chocobo hat.


Arnie Roth burst upon the stage to the crowd's excitement. The excitement reached fever pitch when he introduced Masashi Hamauzu and of course, Nobuo Uematsu. Uematsu was his typical eccentric self, wearing white socks with sandals. The crowd went even crazier when Roth declared that the previously unannounced Hironobu Sakaguchi was in attendance, although the spotlight failed to find him so who knows if the great man himself was really there.

The London Philharmonic ...

​Have you ever wondered what it would be like if all the Final Fantasies were put into one continuous history? This report is a history of Final Fantasy, transcribed and put together to show what it might look like if FFII was a direct sequel to FFI, with the others following suit, creating one immaculate and detailed universe instead of separate ones. Be warned, this topic will spoil every Final Fantasy game for you. Forever!


Part One, the planet of Spira
Our story starts in the settings of Final Fantasy I. Final Fantasy I has to be the beginning of the Final Fantasy Universe. For obvious reasons - it was the first game, after all - but also for plot reasons. You see, Final Fantasy I takes place in a timeloop - with Chaos sending the Four Fiends into the future to send Garland into the past who would eventually become Chaos. It is up to the Four Warriors of Light to stop this continual loop by defeating Chaos. The implications of this is that ...

It’s a simple fact of life that everybody has, at some point, had parents. Even immaculate conception along the lines of Jesus Christ and Anakin Skywalker needs at least one parent. Some people have adoptive parents. Parents are everywhere. So too are parents present in the Final Fantasy series. Most of the time. While it seems a sad trait that the main parties are usually orphans of one kind or another, there are some NPCs who are parents, some main characters who fortuitously retain their parents, and some who even are parents themselves. In a toast to the people who raised us, let’s look at the parents throughout Final Fantasy and the impacts they have had! Watch out for spoilers, kids.

Final Fantasy
The original Final Fantasy was light on plot and character development, there’s no denying. However, this was the first instance of a character having both parents alive. Princess Sarah, of Cornelia, was kidnapped by the wicked Garland. Her father who is aptly named King of Cornelia, tasks the Light Warriors with rescuing his daughter and defeating the evil knight. Queen Jane, who resides elsewhere in the castle, appears rather distraught at her daughter’s disappearance. You can always be sure that your parents are missing you when you’re kidnapped by an evil knight, I guess.

Final Fantasy II
The main party of Final Fantasy II are all presumed orphans, their parents killed by the Palamecian Empire in the raid on Fynn. However, Final Fantasy II is also the first instance of a party member being a parent! Josef, of Salamand, joins the party as they search for the Goddess’s Bell. Sadly, when exiting the Snow Cavern with the bell, the party is ambushed and Josef sacrifices himself to save them.

In another sad moment, the King of Fynn, father to Princess Hilda, leader of the Wild Rose Rebellion, passes away from the injuries he received in the raid on Fynn. Lastly, there is an NPC named Elina, who resides in Castle Deist. Her son is Kain, whose name would later become synonymous with dragoons. Little wonder, since his late father, Phillip, was a dragoon and his almost-step-father-until-he-too-died, Ricard, was also a dragoon. Happy families is not what Final Fantasy is all about, it seems.

Final Fantasy III
There are many more biological parents present in Final Fantasy III than the previous games in the series. The kings of both Sasune and Saronia are alive – at one point. King Gorn of Saronia is mind-controlled by Gilgamesh into attacking his son, but he resists, stabbing himself. On his death bed, he begs forgiveness for all the things he did whilst under Gilgamesh’s power. Sad stuff! Takka, in the DS remake, is the adopted father of Refia.

Cid Haze, and his wife Mrs Cid, are the pseudo-adoptive parents of the main party – the onion kids. After Cid and the four children survived an airship crash ten years prior, he and Mrs Cid looked after them until they found other families. Though Mrs Cid falls ill during the course of the game, the party heals her right up with an elixir. Phew!

Final Fantasy IV
Thanks to Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, we have an abundance of parents. That’s something to celebrate, I think! Our first parent is Tellah, most famous for his line “You spoony bard!” Sadly, his daughter Anna dies in the attack on Damcyan, which then prompts the famous line. However, in a valiant sacrifice, Tellah casts the ...

In the late 13^th century and early 14^th century there was a particular Japanese man who went by the name Masamune. He was particularly renowned as the best sword smith ever to live, and created many masterful pieces of work. Masamune’s skill was legendary – literally – and so it is no surprise that his name entered Japanese folklore. Being a series native to the land of the rising sun and so heavily based on mythos from around the world, it is little wonder that every Final Fantasy game to date references the legendary sword smith, attaching his name to the most powerful of swords.

There is one particular legend regarding Masamune and his student, Muramasa. Muramasa was a fine sword smith, and thought himself comparable to his master, so he challenged Masamune to see which of them could make the ultimate sword. They worked tirelessly and once they were complete, it was time to begin the test.

To test which sword was greater, the two men would suspend their blades with the sharp edge facing the current. Muramasa's sword, the Juuchi Yosamu, sliced everything that flowed towards it; fish, leaves floating down the river, the very air which blew on it. Masamune was impressed with his student’s ...