Wark Digest #178 - The Beat Goes On

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 we saw sad news turn into old news, and take a crash course on how Final Fantasy spawned most of Square’s prominent RPG IPs—including one series with a new game out next week.

This week’s newsletter is 2026 words, a 10-minute read.

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conTIKI takes a bow at a recent performance, with Nobuo Uematsu in the center

The Beat Goes On

A little misunderstanding this week sparked an outpouring of praise for Final Fantasy’s esteemed composer, Nobuo Uematsu, but it seems rumours of his true retirement have been greatly exaggerated.

What’s going on:

• The social media accounts for Fantasian Neo Dimension shared a quick video message of Uematsu-san from a recent event, where he asked players to give the game a try, as “This is my final project as a composer of video game music”

• This sparked a bevy of discussion, with people taking this as confirmation that Uematsu had officially retired and, seemingly, wouldn’t be working on game music moving forward

  • And naturally, with that some major outlets even speculated the change had something to do with health concerns

• A few hours later Uematsu issued a quick statement: “Wait, wait, wait! Everybody calm down! There seems to be some misunderstanding, but I'm not retiring from video game music work! I'm going to cut back a bit on my video game music work because I want to have more time to make the music I want to make. It would be difficult for me to take on the entire soundtrack of a video game because the time commitment for composing would be too long, but I would like to continue to work on jobs such as one theme song.”

What we thought:

• From the get-go, this seemed to be an easy misunderstanding, but it’s also easy to see how the initial message could easily be misinterpreted, given the translation on-screen

  • “This is my final project” sounds pretty conclusive, after all

• In reality, Uematsu’s revised statement doesn’t sound much different from what he said before Fantasian’s original release in 2021

  • During development, both Uematsu and Hironobu Sakaguchi were pretty vocal that the game might be the last project they each make before retiring

  • It was uncertain if he would even be able to take on the full project; as he told Famitsu in 2019, Uematsu was facing some undisclosed health concerns that he claims almost took his life, instead leaving him hospitalized (but not completely bedridden)

  • At that time he realized he “should be thinking about what kind of things I’m going to create”—which sounds a lot like this week’s claim he wants “to have more time to make the music I want to make”

• So, ultimately, not a lot has changed three years after Fantasian’s initial launch, though it seems Uematsu is taking his semi-retirement to another level, being even more selective than he already has been in recent years

• He certainly hasn’t retired from performance, as he’s been quite busy lately with shows for his current band conTIKI (at which he’s been visited by many old colleagues lately, like Sakaguchi and Yoko Shimomura) and the Sienna Wind Orchestra’s latest Brass De Bravo tour

• There’s one thing we can take away, or reconfirm beyond the shadow of a doubt, from this incident: Uematsu is a deeply beloved composer for so many people, judging by the outpouring of support and gratitude sent his way

What’s next? This is great news for the third installment of the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy, as he could still compose a new vocal theme to go alongside “Hollow” and “No Promises To Keep.”

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Thundaga Round!

• Final Fantasy XIV’s Halloween event, All Saints’ Wake, returned today and runs until Monday, November 4—where players can earn a Flying Pumpkin tabletop item and a new cosmetic set “Night of Devilry” for completing the quest “The Aether-Starved Ahriman” from Old Gridania

• Following up on last week’s Ever Crisis news, (young) Angeal has indeed been added as the newest playable character, alongside several other updates:

  • The level cap is now 90, up from 80, and there’s a golden bomb event on to help players muster the EXP to get there

  • A new Guild Battle will begin October 23, focused on physical Water

  • With the new character comes a new Colosseum, plenty of login rewards and easy rewards

  • The new “First Soldier” chapter alludes to the origins of both the Buster Sword and the Masamune—featuring Lucretia, a new SOLDIER named Alissa, and a man who appears to be the iconic katana’s smith

• The PC edition of Final Fantasy XVI has been updated with changes to Graphical Fidelity mode, bug fixes, and other improvements

• Friendly reminder: Final Fantasy Brave Exvius has less than a fortnight left before its servers are turned off for good, so if you have any unfinished business in-game, it’s time to do so while you still can!

• Final Fantasy Trading Card Game’s next set, Hidden Legends, is out in November, and we now know that its pre-release kit will include a promo card of The Emperor in his Stranger of Paradise DLC look, along with card sleeves featuring classic moogle art

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Crash Course: FF and Square’s “Other” RPGs

Next week Square Enix is releasing Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven, a 3D remake of a Super Famicom game that didn’t see the light of day in the west in its own time. For those who’ve never played the SaGa games, this “other” franchise in Squeenix’s toolbelt has a deep connection to Final Fantasy—and it’s not the only IP in the company’s roster to hail directly from their flagship series. Here are some other big names from Square history and how they blossomed from Final Fantasy:

SaGa series
Original game: Makai Toushi Sa-Ga (NA: The Final Fantasy Legend), Game Boy, 1989
Most recent game: SaGa: Emerald Beyond, multiple platforms, 2024
Key staff: Akitoshi Kawazu

After developing Final Fantasy II’s unconventional levelling system, Kawazu was tasked with creating a new RPG for the Game Boy, which was selling incredibly well. Square’s intent was to capitalize on the popularity of both Final Fantasy and Tetris by creating a RPG suited for portable play. What we got in Makai Toushi Sa-Ga was a nonlinear RPG that built off FFII’s system, while also taking some strange detours from typical “fantasy” settings. It was released in North America as The Final Fantasy Legend, once again to capitalize on the first game’s success, and its two direct sequels followed.

However, it then jumped to the Super Famicom for the Romancing SaGa “trilogy,” all three of which stayed in Japan. Bearing some graphical familiarity with FFIV-VI, these embraced more open-ended story progression than Final Fantasy’s straightforward tales. Then, after dropping the Game Boy games’ alternate moniker, 1997’s SaGa Frontier brought the series back to English just in time to aid people who’d beaten FFVII and were hungry for more RPG goodness.

Mana series
Original game: Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden, Game Boy, 1991
Most recent game: Visions of Mana, PS4/PS5, XBX S, and Switch, 2024
Key staff: Koichi Ishii

Another attempt to break into the mobile market on Game Boy, Seiken Densetsu adopted a more Zelda-like style of top-down action RPG. It was released in North America as Final Fantasy Adventure, but when its successor, Secret of Mana, launched, it had become its own entity—despite the use of a chocobo in Adventure. (More on that in the latest Kupo Chronicle!)

It was something of a departure for Square, which was known for slower, more methodical turn-based battles at the time. The series has had a slight resurgence in recent years, thanks to the remakes of Secret of Mana and Trials of Mana, as well as the Collection of Mana.

Parasite Eve series
Original game: Parasite Eve, PS1, 1998
Most recent game: The 3rd Birthday, PSP, 2011
Key staff: Hironobu Sakaguchi, Takashi Tokita, Yoko Shimomoura

You might look at this PS1 survival horror RPG and (rightfully so) wonder what the hell it has to do with Final Fantasy—especially since it was developed as an adaptation or sequel to a Japanese novel of the same name.

At one point, FFVII almost took place in real world New York, with Cloud as a detective in pursuit of an alien named Jenova. In the end FFVII’s engine was re-appropriated to suit PE, and the book’s world was adopted, but the game’s sequels strayed farther and father from the source. Many years later The 3rd Birthday’s director, Hajime Tabata, would become the director of FFXV.

So, the connection here is a little more spiritual, but nonetheless there’d likely be no Parasite Eve with no Final Fantasy. (Sadly, Square Enix has been letting this IP stagnate since 2011, which was just a disappointing place to leave it.)

Xenogears (Xeno- series)
Original game: Xenogears, PS1, 1998
Most recent game: Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Switch, 2022
Key staff: Tetsuya Takahashi

The jump from FFVI’s world to FFVII’s was jarring enough, but it almost went so much farther. At one point Tetsuya Takahashi (a graphic designer on FFIV-VI and Romancing SaGa) submitted his own story outline to be considered as a potential storyline for Final Fantasy VII. Mechas were a bit too science fiction for a mainline FF, but Takahashi’s idea was given its very own game instead—which went on to become a cult favourite in its own right.

Despite the critical success, Takahashi believed there was no future for this series at Square, since FFVII had stolen the spotlight. He took his chances elsewhere and founded Monolith Soft, where he went on to make Xenosaga Episode I-III and Xenoblade Chronicles. They aren’t overtly connected to Xenogears, but the latter has become Nintendo’s own brand of exclusive RPGs, and their roots are distinctly traceable to Square.

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Around the Union

“Breaking a game” can be seen as an ultimate challenge—using the tools the devs provided to do something they never intended for you to do, or finding exploits that missed the playtesting period. Of all the hundreds of items in Final Fantasy over the years, we’ve compiled a list of “7 Overpowered Items That Broke Final Fantasy”—from potent Mixing combos to an item with the power to… break the economy?!

How many of these have you taken advantage of over the years? And did we miss one of your favourite OP items? Let us know in the comments!

The results after four generations - now in graphic form!

And last, the Wark Digest Reader Poll rolls on into its fifth round this week, but first, the results of last week’s poll…

Which PS2-era FF is your favourite?
Final Fantasy X - 60%
Final Fantasy XII - 29%
Final Fantasy X-2 - 7%
Final Fantasy XI - 3%
I haven't played any of these - 1%

“What can X-2 do for you?” Not much, it seems. Meanwhile FFXII put up a valiant effort, but could not conquer Ondore’s lies to take the top spot. Instead, Final Fantasy X wins a decisive victory and becomes the PS2 champ. (Also note, this is the lowest “haven’t played” result to date, so clearly there’s a lot of love for the PS2 era games amongst our community!)

For this week’s poll, we reach an era of the series that’s a little harder to encapsulate; where previous groupings in this exercise covered spans of a couple years, round five covers almost fifteen, with a major MMORPG in the middle. So, which HD-era Final Fantasy is your favourite? Then next week, the spin-offs will enter the arena: Tactics, Dissidia, Crystal Chronicles, Type-0, and World of Final Fantasy.

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Until next time, kupo!