other than FF

[feioncastor]

Square actually has another series with almost as many entries as Final Fantasy, and it's commonly called the "SaGa Series".

It consists of:

Final Fantasy Legend (Gameboy)
Final Fantasy Legend II (Gameboy)
Final Fantasy Legend III (Gameboy)
Romancing SaGa (Super Famicom?)
Romancing SaGa 2 (Super Famicom?)
Romancing SaGa 3 (Super Famicom?)
SaGa Frontier (PSX)
SaGa Frontier 2 (PSX)
Unlimited SaGa (PS2)

Note that the Romancing SaGa games have yet to be released in North America. And I think, I'm not sure, but I think Unlimited SaGa never made it to North American PS2s.

But that's not it for Squaresoft. Shortly before Final Fantasy VIII came out, they released a game called "Brave Fencer Musashi". It's an action/adventure/RPG, involving real-time combat and a LOT of fun. It was released for the Playstation 1.

The follow-up to that game, Samurai Legend Musashi, was okay, but was nothing compared to Brave Fencer.

Square also collaborated with Nintendo to develop Super Mario RPG: The Legend of the Seven Stars. This game was a fantastic example of an RPG that just wasn't quite so dark and serious as Final Fantasy could be. In my opinion, Super Mario RPG holds up alongside many Final Fantasy games as an outstanding RPG, because of its catchy gameplay, familiar characters, all new and awesome characters (Geno!), and for featuring the FF4 boss music and victory fanfare in a somewhat hidden (and really hard) fight.

As is mentioned in the post above mine, the Seiken Densetsu series is also great. The first entry of the series appeared in North America on the Gameboy as Final Fantasy Adventure. It was a heck of a lot of fun, but even before I knew that it wasn't an FF game in Japan, I could've guessed it wasn't because it doesn't play anything like an FF game. The next game in the Seiken series was Seiken Densetsu 2 for the Super Famicom, which was released in the USA as "Secret of Mana" for the SNES, and it's just wonderful. It, along with the other Mana/Seiken games, is an action RPG. The battles aren't at turn based at all, but you still can't just go up to your enemy and hack'n'slash away. Well, not if you want to beat your enemy, anyway. You do move freely around in combat, and you do get a means of aerial travel that is not an airship. It may be the best use of a 3 player adapter for the Super Nintendo. Heck, it may be the only use for a 3 player adapater for the SNES. After Seiken Densetsu 2 came, of course, part 3 for the Super Famicom, which just never got around to getting released in the USA. I've seen bits of it, and it looks neat enough. If it ever makes it stateside, it will be a guaranteed purchase for me. There are a few other games with "Mana" in the title (Legend of Mana, Sword of Mana), but I'm not certain how they fit into the Seiken series. If anyone else can explain, sweet. If not, that's okay too.

Another Square game that is often overlooked is Einhander. It's a side-scroller flying game, where you control a single-manned fighter ship, in a futuristic war between the Earth and the Moon. I loved Einhander. It reminded me a lot of a fast-paced Super R-Type.

Around this time, Square put out a game called "Bushido Blade", which was a fighting game, as in 1 on 1 fighting stuff. It was an okay game, but the peculiar thing was how realistic the damage was. You could go against an opponent and strike him 20 times and he'd still be standing, or you could go get one accurate (or lucky) shot and take him down in one hit.

There's also a game called Parasite Eve. I know it was a somewhat big deal when it was in development because people were comparing it to Resident Evil, but I never got around to playing it. I've been told that it's a significant part of Square-Enix's catalog of games, but I don't know enough about it to describe it, so if someone else feels up to it...

There's the ever wonderous and mysterious Xenogears, with a really sweet battle system and giant robots that are way too big for the average fair fight. Did anyone else feel like they kind of rehashed Xenogears' battle system in Chrono Cross?

And finally, there's the game that may actually count as a Final Fantasy game, but it's not actually part of the series, and that game is FINAL FANTASY TACTICS, which is the single greatest game ever made, ever. This game has changed the way I do things. Square put together a game that has dominated the genre of SRPGs and actually come to redefine them. If you've never played a Strategy RPG and you play FFT as your first SRPG, chances are you'll be disappointed in the other great SRPGs out there because of how wonderfully done this game is.

I don't count FFT as an official entry in the Final Fantasy series. I think they called it that because having Chocobos and Cloud wouldn't make much sense if they didn't.

Interestingly enough, Final Fantasy seems to be utilizing the land of "Ivalice" more and more in their stories, and unless I'm mistaken, FFT for the Playstation is the first time Ivalice is used.