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[LordOfLore]

Full article.

Controversy trails behind the Final Fantasy series with each new release. From cries of betrayal when Final Fantasy 7 jumped ship to PlayStation to frustration over the story changes Final Fantasy 15 underwent during its tortuous 10-year development process, there's simply no such thing as an easy birth when it comes to Square Enix's biggest franchise.

Final Fantasy 12, the 2006 PlayStation release whose overhauled high-definition remake The Zodiac Age launches July 11, may well have been the most tortuous release of all. Arriving years late and abandoning numerous established series traditions in favor of a radically overhauled play style, FF12 immediately inspired ardent enthusiasm and passionate hatred among the series' faithful, with seemingly little room in between.

Worse, its troubled history and belated arrival led to a cascade effect throughout subsequent Final Fantasy titles. Because it shipped so far behind schedule and appeared at the tail end of PS2's life, Final Fantasy 13's creators had to abandon plans to bring that game to PS2 and instead target next-generation HD hardware — a disruption with an impact on the franchise the company is only now beginning to get under control.

It wasn't supposed to be like that. FF12 was meant to be the safe game, the comfortable fan-fodder. Like with the charming Final Fantasy 9, the idea behind FF12 was to double down on series traditions and easy wins. Its creative team brought together Yasumi Matsuno, the visionary writer and director responsible for Final Fantasy Tactics, and Hiroyuki Ito, the systems designer who created the series' two defining play mechanics: The Active-Time Battle system and the flexible Job class system.

FF12 would combine the best and most beloved elements of the franchise in a setting steeped in Final Fantasy's established rendition of Western high fantasy: Kingdoms and royalty, knights and airships, pirates and nihilistic gods. While Yoshinori Kitase's team explored sci-fi futurescapes with Final Fantasy 10 and 13 and Hiromichi Tanaka led the charge into massively multiplayer online collaboration with Final Fantasy 11, Matsuno and Ito's names hinted at a game that would embrace fans who felt increasingly disenfranchised by the series' movement into new settings and genres.

Of course, Matsuno and Ito didn't create the game single-handedly. Their collaborators on Final Fantasy 12 included such luminaries as illustrator Akihiko Yoshida, composer Hitoshi Sakimoto and designer Hiroshi Minagawa — all of whom had been largely inseparable from Matsuno since working together at Quest on groundbreaking tactical RPGs Ogre Battle and Tactics Ogre. They'd all moved over to Square together to team up again on 1998's Final Fantasy Tactics and the stunning cinematic action RPG Vagrant Story, and Ito had contributed heavily to Tactics, refining the character class Job system he had designed for Final Fantasy 3 and 5 to its next evolution.

Square as a company, and Final Fantasy as a property, were collectively in a state of flux around the time FF12 was announced. In 2001, the company released the ambitious first (and, it would turn out, final) full-length motion picture of its Square Pictures movie imprint in the form of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. That film's crushing failure at the box office in part led the "father of Final Fantasy," series lead designer and producer Hironobu Sakaguchi, to depart from the company and establish his own studio, Mistwalker. Amidst this turmoil and the uncertainty surrounding the online-only Final Fantasy 11, fans could at least rest assured that the next numbered Final Fantasy would be a mature, grounded work created by some of the most talented people at Square. And so it would be — but the end result wasn't necessarily what series fans had been dreaming of.

Now, more than a decade later, two key personnel on FF12 hope series fans will give this polarizing entry a second chance.

 

[LordKasual]

It wasn't supposed to be like that. FF12 was meant to be the safe game, the comfortable fan-fodder. Like with the charming Final Fantasy 9, the idea behind FF12 was to double down on series traditions and easy wins.

And there it is.

At the very least, i'll always have respect square for not defaulting to this route. Because they already know it'll work.

 

[LordOfLore]

This is a good quote:

"Just echoing the same sentiments that it's a challenge, and there's nothing you can't do because it's 'Final Fantasy.' If it's fun, then it's accomplished what it's supposed to be. Of course, you'll have your chocobos and elixirs and those specific points that you touch on. But as long as you hit those, you're pretty much free to make it what you will."

 

[LordCiego]

These Polygon articles are always great, reading right now.

 

[Meowster]

Very interesting read. XII probably had the most interesting development because of all the changes, whereas XIII just had technical issues with the HD era and Versus XIII/XV wasn't even a real thing until practically a decade after it was announced.

 

[yunbuns]

This is a good quote:

It definitely is. I hate the whole bullshit argument that a FF game has to have X,Y and Y to be a 'true' FF game. As long as it's fun, has a good story with an enjoyable cast of characters than that's what matters at the end of the day at least for me me.

 

[Crankshaft]

Lord your doing the Lord's work with all these FF12 threads.

 

[SOLDIER]

Still my most disappointing FF game because of the promise of what could have been.

Fantastic writing and setting, only to sit on the benches with almost no character development or interactions, and utterly wasted villains from the Judges to Vayne.

It still stings to this day.

 

[Jb]

Really good piece, nice job Jeremy!

 

[KyanMehwulfe]

I always found that PA comic interesting because you could argue that spamming Attack Attack Attack Attack to get a 'victory' is more akin to that hhhh.

Really good piece, nice job Jeremy!

He was a big fan of FF12 at 1Up, no? I remember way back in the day on the 1Up podcast Jeff Green was pretty positive about the story, too. Something about it being the first FF he felt was designed for an adult lol. Hard to remember... It was something about the writing and story though. The game was pretty divisive so I remember one podcast pretty clearly talking praise for the it and especially its political cast or story.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

Katano also emphasizes that some of the game's more polarizing or controversial features were in place long before Matsuno left the team. "The part about the change in lead character — that change actually was pretty early on in development. Really, in terms of the story tied into development, there were some slight changes as to which character would appear at which stage, but nothing that would overwhelm development, necessarily, in terms of changes to the plot.

"It's not as though the whole tale was rewritten into something completely different as we went along. It was just a matter of following the gameplay beats and having them pair up with the story as they went along. Things like locations, and battles, and keeping it all seamless. That was the biggest element of the rewriting, making sure it fit with the gameplay."

.

 

[KyanMehwulfe]

"We didn't really want to limit players in any way, even if they found exploits. We wanted them to find these things and enjoy them. That's part of the discovery of the game: Finding those little shortcuts and exploits that you can do. It feels good, and we wanted them to feel that way."

Arguably ended up being one of the best parts of the game. The sort of, learning to 'break' it.

Which is why it was satisfying in the sense that, the game may then be playing itself, but only in the sense that a sports team 'plays itself' once the coach has given it a strategy and a set of tactics. The coach himself doesn't need to actually shoot the puck himself to feel satisfying in a well executed victory. It some ways, with his combination of involvement and then vantage or perspective, he may be the one who gets to appreciate it the best.

I've used the forest for the trees expression as an analogy a few times in the past, but I think it's apt. Especially for a game so focused on 'the journey,' where the crossing of great distances are key moments in the game. By reducing focusing on the trees, such as each individual encounter or especially the spamming of attack attack attack, the player then gets to better appreciate the forest -- the broader battlefield and your adventure across it.

 

[Visualante2]

Should have Jeremy Parish in the title. Really pleasant being able to read it in his voice. Super interesting to hear the names behind the teams, and their other games. Very saddening if there is truth to Vaan and Penelo being parachuted in mid way through development.

Would be interesting to know if they were also playing World of Warcraft around the time that Final Fantasy 11 was in development. If that had any influence too. Super humble developers. Great read.

 

[KyanMehwulfe]

Would be interesting to know if they were also playing World of Warcraft around the time that Final Fantasy 11 was in development. If that had any influence too. Super humble developers. Great read.

FF11 or 12 dev team? FF11 released like 2.5 years before WoW. They were probably playing EverQuest as it's basically the same style group reliant/pull and camp mobs style MMO hhh (opposed to UO or AC). I mean, the WoW team made WoW because they were EQ players, too lol. Overwatch's Jeffrey Kaplan was a major EQ player (Tigole = Tigole Bitties = Big Ole...) that Rob Pardo happened to be in the same guild with. He basically got invited to check out (and then join) WoW because he was a great EQ player (and obviously understood game design). Him and Furor (Afrasiabi). It was smart though; Blizzard had a habit of inviting top RTS ladder players to betas already (the old Blizzard's Friends List) and this sort of benefit for the same reason. I mean, I think Westfall and Deadmines are basically Kaplan's, and today they're still the GOAT in WoW zone story progression IMO.

FF12 guys could have tried WoW though I don't see a lot of it in it. You see a lot of small FF11 things though: the 'targeting' lines reminds me of the sometimes clinical but clean FF XI user interface; Hunts and some of their tricky spawns like light versions of FF XI Notorious Monsters. Even the way you take airships, though technically I guess FFX did that with ferries, too. Wish XII had more fishing though hhhh.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

FF11 or 12 dev team? FF11 released like 2.5 years before WoW. They were probably playing EverQuest as it's basically the same style group reliant/pull and camp mobs style MMO hhh (opposed to UO or AC).

According to Hiromichi Tanaka, FF11 was made because Sakaguchi became a fan of EverQuest while living in Hawaii during development of The Spirits Within.

 

[Visualante2]

Interesting! I did mean the team behind 12 but like they say in the interview. They were probably in the polishing phase by the time the world got Blizzard's take on MMOs. I got 12 late in Europe as well so that probably explains why I think the developers could have been influenced by it.

 

[FinalAres]

What's interesting to me about this is that XII really is Matsuno's game. I hadn't realised he'd only left 6 months before release.

It's also interesting that rather than a project beset by development difficulties (although I'm sure there were some, as with any game) it was just a game that took a long time to make. They'd stuck close to the original design document and struggled technically to achieve a lot of it.

I'd be really interested in reading something like this for XIII. This article suggests they were pushing back on some aspects of Xs design. One of my main annoyances with XIII was that it was such a huge step back From XII. I'd always assumed it was because Toriyama was a moron, and was too focused on iterating X-2, and so he ignored what XII had achieved. But I'd like to know if he was actually proactively pushing against the more open type of game XII was.

 

[SprachBrooks]

Excellent article illuminating on some of the development process of the game. That line about it perhaps feeling a little too familiar made me happy. It's actually the only open-world game––apart from The Witcher 3––that I never felt a slog to explore. I loved everything about the premise, and in my opinion had some of the best voice acting in any game I've played.

 

[Ninjimbo]

That was a good read. Maybe the Matsuno departure didn't really hurt the game at all. The game ended up being close to what they all wanted.

 

[KyanMehwulfe]

Interesting! I did mean the team behind 12 but like they say in the interview. They were probably in the polishing phase by the time the world got Blizzard's take on MMOs. I got 12 late in Europe as well so that probably explains why I think the developers could have been influenced by it.

Yeah it'd have been pretty late though I guess there's lack a 1.5 year gap so if they were playing WoW right at release they'd have still been before polish phase.

I remember the two pretty well as well haha we were still doing Ahn'Qiraj... For some reason I remember the 'targeting lines' in FF XII for the first time and thinking, god I wish we had these Ahn'Qiraj or for the Twin Emperors so we could better visualize who is/or should be attacking what haha. I also remember those targeting lines were originally poorly received and criticized (I think they were commonly mocked as laser beams on IGN PS2 board) but ended up being a pretty polished and practical part of the user interface.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

What's interesting to me about this is that XII really is Matsuno's game. I hadn't realised he'd only left 6 months before release.

It's also interesting that rather than a project beset by development difficulties (although I'm sure there were some, as with any game) it was just a game that took a long time to make. They'd stuck close to the original design document and struggled technically to achieve a lot of it.

I'd be really interested in reading something like this for XIII. This article suggests they were pushing back on some aspects of Xs design. One of my main annoyances with XIII was that it was such a huge step back From XII. I'd always assumed it was because Toriyama was a moron, and was too focused on iterating X-2, and so he ignored what XII had achieved. But I'd like to know if he was actually proactively pushing against the more open type of game XII was.

Huh?? Matsuno left a whopping two years before release.

The article doesn't really focus on the development difficulties but the project did have a lot of them. The team had a lot of difficulties making things run on PS2 hardware and they had to make the magic spells less flashy than in X (and XIII) for example. They also scrapped the two-player mode that was originally planned, as well as the playable airships vs airships battles.

As for why Toriyama went in the opposite direction with XIII, it's not like he had to copy XII. The FF games alternate between totally different teams and a mainline FF almost always starts development before the previous mainline FF is completed. FFXIII started development in 2004 when FFXII was still deep in development.

 

[Fisty]

Should have Jeremy Parish in the title. Really pleasant being able to read it in his voice. Super interesting to hear the names behind the teams, and their other games. Very saddening if there is truth to Vaan and Penelo being parachuted in mid way through development.

Would be interesting to know if they were also playing World of Warcraft around the time that Final Fantasy 11 was in development. If that had any influence too. Super humble developers. Great read.

I think i remember hearing they were both in the game early on, but they weren't the focus that they ended up being in the final game. I think SE pushed them out front for Japanese market reasons, similar to what happened with Nier

 

[FinalAres]

Huh?? Matsuno left a whopping two years before release.

The article doesn't really focus on the development difficulties but the project did have a lot of them. The team had a lot of difficulties making things run on PS2 hardware and they had to make the magic spells less flashy than in X (and XIII) for example. They also scrapped the two-player mode that was originally planned, as well as the playable airships vs airships battles.

Right so that's what I'm saying. XIIs issues were them trying to get their ideas working on the hardware. With XIII and XV there were significant issues around the visions of the game's themselves. XIII suffered from no one understanding the vision of the game until they put out that demo with ACC, and XV had a massive story rewrite.

As for why Toriyama went in the opposite direction with XIII, it's not like he had to copy XII. The FF games alternate between totally different teams and a mainline FF almost always starts development before the previous mainline FF is completed. FFXIII started development in 2004 when FFXII was still deep in development.

The teams don't work in isolation though. As shown from this article, they review ywhat worked and didn't work when going forward, regardless of it being a different team. It's why XIV feels like a spiritual successor to XII, despite being by different teams.

XIII on the other hand feels like a direct evolution of X and X-2 but completely ignores anything from XII. And you absolutely should be reviewing what was good and bad about the latest game in your game series. What I want to know is whether Toriyama made a game nothing like XII due to incompetence or a genuine creative vision.

 

[BNGames]

I respect that there are people out there that like this game, but for me it was bland and boring. This was about when I dropped off the series as a whole.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

The teams don't work in isolation though. As shown from this article, they review ywhat worked and didn't work when going forward, regardless of it being a different team. It's why XIV feels like a spiritual successor to XII, despite being by different teams.

XIII on the other hand feels like a direct evolution of X and X-2 but completely ignores anything from XII. And you absolutely should be reviewing what was good and bad about the latest game in your game series. What I want to know is whether Toriyama made a game nothing like XII due to incompetence or a genuine creative vision.

They do...

FFXIV (2.0) could take inspiration from XII because it entered development four years after XII came out. Not to mention 1.0 was Square's biggest failure in years so it makes sense that the new version would try to find inspiration in the classics. Also, most of the FFXII team was merged into the FFXIV team so it's not that correct to say they're different teams.

FFXIII entered development too early in FFXII's development cycle to be able to take any inspiration from it. Similarly FFX didn't take any inspiration from FFIX.

 

[jimmypython]

They do...

FFXIV (2.0) could take inspiration from XII because it entered development four years after XII came out. Not to mention 1.0 was Square's biggest failure in years so it makes sense that the new version would try to find inspiration from the classics. Also, most of the FFXII team was merged into the FFXIV team so it's not that correct to say they're different teams.

FFXIII entered development too early in FFXII's development cycle to be able to take any inspiration from it. Similarly FFX didn't take any inspiration from FFIX.

The lineage for FF13 is more of FF6-FF7-FF8-FF10: Kitase
FF14ARR is FF6-FF9-FF12: Ito

 

[Muffdraul]

Fucking give Jeremy Parish the clicks then, he deserves them.

Hear, hear.

 

[Phatcorns]

Great read. From the sounds of it, the departure of Matsuno wasn't as big of a deal as people made it out to be at the time.

Man, I remember when this game came out I was doing a foreign exchange in Japan and bought the limited edition FFXII PS2 and a crappy capture card for my laptop just so I could play it. Good times!

 

[FinalAres]

FFXIII entered development too early in FFXII's development cycle to be able to take any inspiration from it. Similarly FFX didn't take any inspiration from FFIX.

You're being obtuse for the sake of it.

X didn't take inspiration from IX because they were fully simultaneously developed with X coming out just a year after IX.

XIII only started very early testing in 2004, battle system testing using the character models of X-2. Even as early as 2006 when the e3 trailer came out, and several months after FFXII's release, there was no game plan, just early concepts. We know this all from the post mortem.

It's nothing like the same situation, and what you're saying about the teams being under no obligation to take into account previous Final Fantasy games design into account is frankly ridiculous, evidenced by the fact That XIII turned out to be the worst modern FF, and arguably the worst full stop.

 

[FlutterPuffs]

You're being obtuse for the sake of it.

X didn't take inspiration from IX because they were fully simultaneously developed with X coming out just a year after IX.

XIII only started very early testing in 2004, battle system testing using the character models of X-2. Even as early as 2006 when the e3 trailer came out, and several months after FFXII's release, there was no game plan, just early concepts. We know this all from the post mortem.

It's nothing like the same situation, and what you're saying about the teams being under no obligation to take into account previous Final Fantasy games design into account is frankly ridiculous, evidenced by the fact That XIII turned out to be the worst modern FF, and arguably the worst full stop.

Yeah I remember this, something about the gameplay being shown was just a proof of concept.

 

[UltimaKilo]

I was so hyped for this game: the visuals, the city exploration, the music, the size and scope... but then the story, lack of character development and stupid MMO style battle system quickly soured me on the game. Maybe I'll try to play it again.

 

[Victrix]

the story, lack of character development and stupid MMO style battle system quickly soured me on the game

I feel like I live in bizarro land every time I see comments like this. Or I played some version of FF12 that was way better than whatever you played.

 

[RedlineRonin]

Did not realize the pedigree. Guys who made Tactics, the job system, and the ATB system, and they came up with the stuipd (imho) license board.

Will def give this revised version another go round tho. Hear the ZJS improves things quite a bit.

 

[BossDarkseid]

I feel like I live in bizarro land every time I see comments like this. Or I played some version of FF12 that was way better than whatever you played.

I mean, it didn't have an MMO style battle system for one

Lack of character development is only really true for Vaan and Penelo, but they really get development as the player discovers things - they are designed at vehicles for the player afterall.

 

[Raging Spaniard]

Great article but I have a hard time believing thats the way the story was meant to be wrapped up. Too rushed and nonsensical near the end.

 

[aadiboy]

I like how back in those days it was a big controversy how long it took FFXII to release -- 3 years after X-2 and 4 years after XI. I would kill for that turn around time today. It was well worth the wait too, considering how jam-packed the game is with content.

 

[jwhit28]

I hope FFXVI goes back to turn based battles to do something different from XV and VIIR the way XII changed it up in response to X was turn based. It's hard to say S-E doesn't throwback to the traditional FF settings and themes when XIV exist but I hope they do a mainline single player high fantasy game again.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

LORD MATSUNO *bows*

Arguably ended up being one of the best parts of the game. The sort of, learning to 'break' it.

Which is why it was satisfying in the sense that, the game may then be playing itself, but only in the sense that a sports team 'plays itself' once the coach has given it a strategy and a set of tactics. The coach himself doesn't need to actually shoot the puck himself to feel satisfying in a well executed victory. It some ways, with his combination of involvement and then vantage or perspective, he may be the one who gets to appreciate it the best.

I've used the forest for the trees expression as an analogy a few times in the past, but I think it's apt. Especially for a game so focused on 'the journey,' where the crossing of great distances are key moments in the game. By reducing focusing on the trees, such as each individual encounter or especially the spamming of attack attack attack, the player then gets to better appreciate the forest -- the broader battlefield and your adventure across it.

This kind of "secret shit under the hood for you to play with if you seek and respect the intricate, whirring logic behind it all" is kind of a lost art. I mentioned this before somewhere but the greatest enemies are the BEST people at breaking a game, and the WORST people at playing a game. RPGs have found a way to get past those by showering power upon the player, and the normal/hard/safely-ensconced-away-from-the-main-game-secret-boss requires the perfect use of all those whereas anyone can win by falling off a log below that.

Yeah it'd have been pretty late though I guess there's lack a 1.5 year gap so if they were playing WoW right at release they'd have still been before polish phase.

I remember the two pretty well as well haha we were still doing Ahn'Qiraj... For some reason I remember the 'targeting lines' in FF XII for the first time and thinking, god I wish we had these Ahn'Qiraj or for the Twin Emperors so we could better visualize who is/or should be attacking what haha. I also remember those targeting lines were originally poorly received and criticized (I think they were commonly mocked as laser beams on IGN PS2 board) but ended up being a pretty polished and practical part of the user interface.

"Which Lucky Charm am I banishing again?"

 

[caffeware]

do you guys remember the first excuse for matsuno's departure was an 'eye problem'.

 

[BocoDragon]

Basch is 28? Damn.

 

[Meowster]

Basch is 28? Damn.

an elder by jrpg standards

 

[aadiboy]

Basch is 28? Damn.

No, Basch is 36. He's the second oldest party member after Fran.

 

[Isotropy]

If you keep abreast of all FF-related interviews, it's not news that Matsuno's departure did not result in any huge changes. Kawazu said way back in 2006 that things like the story and whatnot (including Vaan) were set in stone quite early in development.

This is why, for example, the game has easily its largest share of FMV scenes at the climax and ending. This was all planned and given plenty of money, I never understood people who said the story stop/doesn't end etc. It makes zero sense.

Good to have (another) article clarifying it though.

 

[Alastor3]

Still my most disappointing FF game because of the promise of what could have been.

Fantastic writing and setting, only to sit on the benches with almost no character development or interactions, and utterly wasted villains from the Judges to Vayne.

It still stings to this day.

Does a storyline really need character development if the characters are already developped? We are following a story, the story is developing that's enough. Tho I would like to know more about themselves