Wark Digest #114 - Fan Fest and Reflection
Welcome back to the Wark Digest, your weekly newsletter of new developments and historical insights from the Final Fantasy universe. I’m Chris, aka Hoogathy, and this week, as fans descend upon Las Vegas for a weekend of FFXIV frivolity, we have our fingers crossed for a big announcement—and a healthy dose of retrospection from series veterans to digest.
This week’s newsletter is 1427 words, a 7-minute read.
FFXIV Fanfest (Round 1) Approaches
Even as this week’s issue goes live, the Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival has just gotten underway in Las Vegas. Since most of the festivities will be available to stream on the game’s YouTube and Twitch channels, here’s the schedule for the weekend, and what we hope to see. (Events below are listed in Pacific time.)
What’s going on:
Day 1’s festivities include some of the biggest segments:
10AM-11:30AM: Keynote address from Naoki Yoshida
11:30AM-12PM: Opening Ceremony, with guests from the Development & Operations team
1PM-2PM: A Realm Revisited, with the NA Community team looking back at the game’s last decade
2PM-4PM: Beginning From the End: The Annotated Endwalker, with Naoki Yoshida and Natsuko Ishikawa reflecting on the expansion’s development
5PM-6PM: Glamoured to Life - Cosplay Walk, highlighting cosplayers from the community
7PM-8PM: Piano Performance by Keiko, presented by Masayoshi Soken
Day 2 is a little more subdued, but could still be captivating:
10AM-11:30AM: Letter From the Producer LIVE Part LXXVIII
1PM-3PM: Crystalline Conflict Regional Championship
4PM-5PM: Speaking the Language of Creation, a panel with Michael-Christopher Koji Fox and Kate Cwynar of the English Localization team
7PM-8:30PM: The Primals Live in Concert
Everything except the daily concerts should be broadcast on YouTube and Twitch
What we’re thinking:
It’s unfortunate that the concerts won’t be shared with the rest of the world simultaneously, but at least we’ll probably get a chance to check them out at some point down the line
If there is another “La-Hee” moment, it would’ve been so much better to experience it simultaneously across the world
The Keynote will likely be the highlight of the weekend, if it brings the highly-anticipated announcement of FFXIV’s next expansion (“7.0”)
Expansions are typically unveiled at Fan Fests (with Endwalker bucking the trend somewhat for obvious reasons), so the odds are good
That being said, with three Fan Fests lined up, it’s likely any announcement will be a rough foundation, with more solid, substantial details to follow at the next event in London this October (and possibly the expansion’s release near the third event in Tokyo in January)
Of course, these issues are written in advance, so maybe you’ve already heard some exciting news on this front! We’ll discuss any announcements next week
Overall the lineup sounds like an interesting mix of news, celebration, and insight, and we hope any of you in attendance have a great time! (And please, feel free to share your personal highlights in the comments or on our Discord!)
What’s next? Is it just me, or would it be awesome to have an official event like this for more than FFXIV? They could call it the Final Fantasy Fan Festival, or FFFF for short.
Highlights From the Special Interview
Recently, Square Enix shared a “35th Anniversary Special Interview” to commemorate the console launch of the Pixel Remasters, featuring Hironobu Sakaguchi, Kazuko Shibuya, and Yoshinori Kitase (hosted by Chiaki Matsuzawa). This enlightening roundtable is now available in two parts (1, 2) with English subtitles, and we can check out the anecdotes for ourselves.
What they’re saying:
In retelling the story of the series’ name, rooted in their desire to make a game with an acronym in the “Roman alphabet,” Sakaguchi recalled that he once received fan mail from kids who were told that “Final Fantasy” meant “kyukyoku no gensou” (“the ultimate illusion”) and retroactively adopted this cooler meaning
Dragon Quest, released a year prior, was “like getting punched in the head” for Square, leaving them wondering why they couldn’t produce a game like that too (ultimately lighting their passion to make FF the best game they could)
Briefly, the team considered making Final Fantasy II a direct sequel “with the same protagonist,” but ultimately Sakaguchi left the concept to Akitoshi Kawazu
“In hindsight that was probably the biggest decision we ever made, to completely change the story and even the game system. Myself and Hiromichi Tanaka were quite exhausted after making FFI, so we said ‘oi, Kawazu, you think of something!’”
With cartridge memory increasing exponentially from game to game, Final Fantasy III had some “spare memory” that allowed them to introduce summons
FFIII’s final dungeon, the Crystal Tower, originally had a save point part-way through, but one of the playtesters “got too used to the game” and called the dungeon “a walk in the park,” so Sakaguchi removed the point (and has been getting flak from Japanese players ever since!)
Speaking of which, Sakaguchi pointed out that FFXIV players see the Crystal Tower as “holy ground,” and he totally agrees now
The jump to 16-bit was revolutionary for artists like Shibuya, but still required “a lot of ingenuity”—in FFIV, “each pixel was a matter of life or death”
Bringing back the Job System for FFV was an ability-first decision, with major implications for the design team who had to draw so many different configurations of battle sprites (but the Dancer and Beastmaster designs were a fun task in Shibuya’s eyes)
The birth of Sakaguchi’s daughter influenced FFVI’s turn away from the crystals, and its ending—”the miraculous feeling of a new life coming into this world from nothing”
Conversely, the destruction of the world wasn’t in the original plans, and was added to separate the party and have them reunite
Tetsuya Nomura, a monster designer at the time, “asked to have a dark guy called Shadow with a dog”—or, as Sakaguchi’s loving parody put it, “Mr. Kitase, go on, put in some darkness!”
Kitase gets asked by fans and fellow staff alike when he’s going to remake Final Fantasy VI, but with FFVII Remake still ongoing, he can’t even give it thought
What we thought:
The candid nature of this roundtable is a genuine delight, even subtitled
The sort of holistic, experimental game design that made the early games groundbreaking seems to be a lost art—development has expanded so dramatically over time, and the agility that Squaresoft had between 1987-1994 is hard to achieve in AAA games (outside of the modern indie game scene)
So many defining elements came about as surprises implemented by staff (like the speed of FFIII’s Nautilus, or dramatic scenes that sprang from the friendly competition between Sakaguchi and Kitase in FFV)
From the warm memories these veteran creators still hold, it’s clear that the development of the early games was truly a labour of love, friendship, and a desire to yield the most interesting results possible with the technology (even if that meant having sprites spinning all the time in FFIV, because they could only show so much expression with 16x16 sprites)
It’s ironic that Sakaguchi attributes the creation of summons as a means of filling some extra cartridge space (though he does seem to be speaking partly in jest), as the size of the FFIII Famicom cartridge was long cited as the main reason why the game wasn’t ported or remade until the DS version rebuilt it in 3D
Final thoughts? Sakaguchi said it best in his closing remarks: “I am very touched by the thanks that have come back to me for making the originals, including everything in FFXVI. I think [the Pixel Remasters] are close to the roots of Final Fantasy, in the soft and kind way they have been done, showing the light side of people. […] I hope [everyone] can experience the warmth in Final Fantasy, and come together as friends again. That would make me really happy.”
Around the Union
Admittedly, it’s been a slow month over on YouTube as we’ve been recharging our batteries after the launch of FFXVI, but we’re back with a big bang! This week we’re “Exploring One of the Greatest NPCs of All-Time,” FFXVI MVP Dion Lesage! (Of course, this means we’ll be plunging into spoiler territory, so be forewarned!)
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Until next time, kupo!