Final Fantasy on Sega?

[Ayen]

No, I didn't find any hacked roms of Final Fantasy on the Sega Genesis, but if you know any kindly point me to their general direction.

This is more of a "what if?" scenario. What if Final Fantasy was on Sega? How different, if at all, do you think they would have been? I'm thinking if they were on Sega it would have been spread out like this:

FFI-III: Sega Master System
FFIV-VI: Sega Genesis/Mega Drive
FFVII-IX Sega Dreamcast

Yes, I skipped Sega Saturn. We all know FFVII would have sucked on the Sega Saturn and it would have been a smarter move to wait for the Dreamcast to port it.

I can't speak about the Master System since I haven't gotten around to playing many games there, but I think the ones for Sega Genesis would be mostly the same, except the sound quality might have suffered a little bit. The instruments used for FFVI I believe are things the Genesis couldn't do as well as the SNES. Since the Sega Dreamcast was ahead of its time (originally came out in 1998) I think the latter three would have looked a lot better than on the PlayStation, especially IX which everyone says pushed what the PS1 could do to its limit. I'm guessing those limits wouldn't have been present on the Dreamcast and it would have looked beautiful. My only concern is a Dreamcast port of VII probably would have had those stupid round circle mouths they put on the NPCs in the PC version.

Discuss.

[Galuf]

instead of Kefka it would be Robotnik. no lies i seen the future.

but yeah my first console was genesis. maybe i wouldve got into FF at an earlier age had it been on there.

[Wolf Kanno]

It would have changed a lot of things I think. Though I disagree about the PS1 era being held off until the Dreamcast as part of the reason why Square jumped to PlayStation was because they wanted to move beyond cartridges to expand the games. Sega never had that problem so I'm pretty sure the PS1 FFs would have appeared on the Saturn or even Sega CD depending on the game.

Honestly, I feel it would have been bad for everyone. The Seaf systems wouldn't have had the power to make impressive games like VII- IX and so them being on the Saturn wouldn't have saved that poor system, Sony would lose another killer app and probably be in a closer competition with Ninetnedo, and Sega's implosion was less about making crummy consoles no one played (despite what people think the Saturn was actually fairly popular from a global sales standpoint) and more to do with terrible management of the companies resources which caused them to burn money faster than they were making them. Hell part of the reason why the Dreamcast failed was because not only did Sony do a pretty great marketing campaign for the PS2 but at the time of it's release, it was the cheapest DVD player on the market, a strategy they tried to re-use with mixed results with Blu-Ray on the PS3. So FF would have probably jumped to Sony eventually regardless and RPGs were not a strong global market in the early days to make much of an impact. The big change would be that the PS1 games would have probably looked less interesting on the Saturn hardware and would have made far less of an impact. We probably wouldn't have had the RPG Boon in the late 90s for console RPGs. Of course this is all speculative...

[Ayen]

I would've thought if any of them were ported to Saturn it'd just be VII since the Dreamcast would've been out by the time VIII and IX were released. That's how Resident Evil worked. The first one was on Saturn and then its sequels were on the Dreamcast.

[Wolf Kanno]

I would've thought if any of them were ported to Saturn it'd just be VII since the Dreamcast would've been out by the time VIII and IX were released. That's how Resident Evil worked. The first one was on Saturn and then its sequels were on the Dreamcast.

Yeah but VII was in development for several years due to the technical limitations of the cartridge and Square dealing with Sony behind the scenes to jump to their system. Had Square had accessed to a CD based game console early, they could have potentially released VII earlier and thus all the PS1 FF games would potentially be moved up a year or two. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if FFVI and CT became Sega CD titles instead of Genesis games, though I feel the changes to moving them to such systems would have been negligible. This is also assuming Square remained loyal to Sega the whole way through and didn't jump ship the second better hardware came out. I wouldn't be surprised if Square would have ditched Sega for the PlayStation to make VII purely because the system had the better specs for it. So it's likely it would have played out the same regardless of Nintendo or Sega having the franchise if that happened.

[maybee]

Final Fantasy I- IV

I'm guessing that they would of been like the Wonderboy in Monster World series. A mix of a platforming game, with a RPG feeling and setting. Sort of like a Mario meets Zelda 2.



Final Fantasy V- VI

Would of went into a more Phantasy Star like setting. Maybe keep the Monster World platforming style, since Square kept to the same formula for years, but boss fights would be more RPG feel and style.



Final Fantasy VII- IX

Skies of Arcadia. Everything would be a bit more open up now, and everything would be early choppy 3D graphics, with the Cloud Strife blocky Lego arms etc. Though instead of traveling by flying boats, it would be dragons, since it follows the early Monster World style. Final Fantasy IX would most likely have beautiful graphics for it's time.

Final Fantasy X

The last Final Fantasy game, it would probably be like Sonic The Hedgehog and now be part of the Nintendo family. Final Fantasy X would most likely be delayed, and be dropped on the Nintendo Wii as a early Wii title. Final Fantasy X-2 would most likely be a early Nintendo DS game ( 2006 )

[Bolivar]

The soundtracks would have been completely different, missing those synth strings that Uematsu rocked on the SNES. I would actually like to see what he could've done with the Genesis, though, given what some composers were able to achieve with notably inferior hardware.

Square also probably would've gotten away with more of the adult content that Nintendo of America blockaded. I think the console landscape might be different as far as Sega not struggling like they did and can only imagine if other publishers followed suit (as they did for Sony) and made the Dreamcast the haven for Gen 5 JRPGs. Who knows, they might have stayed in and Microsoft never enter due to a crowded market, with one already incorporating their technology anyway. I think PlayStation might still have dominated, though, as Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid would nonetheless be transformative games to contend with.

[Hipster Username]

This thread heavily reminds me of that Alternate Video Game History thread that was around last year or so.

As a franchise, there would probably be more sports spinoffs for the earlier entries, like what happened with Sonic.

[Ayen]

The soundtracks would have been completely different, missing those synth strings that Uematsu rocked on the SNES. I would actually like to see what he could've done with the Genesis, though, given what some composers were able to achieve with notably inferior hardware.

Square also probably would've gotten away with more of the adult content that Nintendo of America blockaded. I think the console landscape might be different as far as Sega not struggling like they did and can only imagine if other publishers followed suit (as they did for Sony) and made the Dreamcast the haven for Gen 5 JRPGs. Who knows, they might have stayed in and Microsoft never enter due to a crowded market, with one already incorporating their technology anyway. I think PlayStation might still have dominated, though, as Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid would nonetheless be transformative games to contend with.

Metal Gear Solid, yes, but Resident Evil was also available on the Saturn and Dreamcast. Granted, the Saturn port of Resident Evil 1 sucked donkey balls.