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When SquareSoft released the very first "Final Fantasy", it was seen as a make-or-break effort by the struggling little company. With the might of Enix on the Japanese gaming market and beginning to claim a monopoly with its hugely popular Dragon Quest games, few expected the humble swansong "Final Fantasy" to defy its name and expectations. Fewer anticipated its blossoming into an entire long-running series and the global titan it would become.

Fast forward to the present and it has grown and multiplied into a franchise with countless installments. Naming and providing short descriptions of each of the mainline (numbered) Final Fantasies from the first to the fourteenth installment is a reasonable task for the ordinary fan. Now try and do that for every single prequel, sequel, spin-off, re-release, movie, anime series and Final Fantasy-related media that has ever graced the presence of a shop shelf or digital distribution service. How does one keep track of this army of Final Fantasies?

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With Final Fantasy XIII, XIII-2, Lightning Returns: FFXIII, along with XIV, no word on XIII Versus, and Phase-0 seeming like it is going to not see an overseas release anytime soon, it is likely that more and more fans are smashing the Final Fantasy series. Is it a bit harsh to give up hope on the franchise now? With a series that had arguably XIII great main series games, many good spinoffs and often was the “console RPG to beat” for any RPG company, do we dare shake our head at this franchise now?

Let us take a little look back on the main series. We all know the story. In 1987, Square said they were going out of business so they decided to make one last game, and it was going be an RPG. The game ended up being called Final Fantasy. To the surprise of Square, it made huge success in Japan. They decided to make Final Fantasy II and the game was a huge success.
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(A1) What is "World Building"
World building refers to the art of creating an imaginary world. Although called "world" building, the scale of creation can vary greatly. At times it can be as small as a town, or as large as a universe. The world that is made typically depends on the scale of the story and how willing one is to explore it. A self-contained tale of a young boy growing into man hood, or other slice off life tales, can be contained within a small rural town, but tales involving conflicts between nations require national scale at a minimum.

(B1) How detailed should I be in my world?
As detailed as the story requires! In open ended RP's or stories you might need to decide on the daily comings and goings of the shop keeper on the edge of town, or the life of soldiers before the war, and so on. In small scale and self-contained stories or RP's, you might only needs one house and two people fully developed. the world should be built to accommodate the story.
It's best to break down your world into four parts;
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This week's issue of Famitsu magazine has confirmed a resurfacing of the PC version of Final Fantasy VIII for Japan. This digital re-release will follow the footsteps of the Final Fantasy VII PC re-release, which appeared exclusively on Square-Enix's own digital online store.

Famitsu has not tentatively provided any release date, or a word on the method of digital distribution. There have been registries in the Steam database for both FFVII and FFVIII, though whether anything will emerge in the near future will remain to be seen.
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Following reports of significant losses for FY 2013, Square Enix has revealed plans to re-release Final Fantasy XIII-2, which debuted on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 about a year and a half ago in December of 2011. Ultimate Hits: Final Fantasy XIII-2 will simply repackage the original, and Final Fantasy XIII-2: Digital Content Collection will feature the main game along with 19 previously released DLC packages as a single unit.
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This article is essentially my response to Ohri-Jin's Square-Enix News thread on the company's recent ¥13.7 billion loss (approximately 134.7 million USD). Square-Enix' primary source of concern according to their own reports is the 'competitive' console market, a particular reference to the failures of Sleeping Dogs, Hitman Absolution and Tomb Raider in hitting sales expectations.

The company has promised extensive restructuring, and the most notorious casualty of recent company woes? Yoichi Wada, CEO of Square-Enix since late 2001, stepped down from his position in favour of the little-known Yosuke Matsuda. This week, Square-Enix has revealed further details and slideshows of the turbulent first quarter of this year. I will analyse extracts and piece together what I think the company will aim to do next from a business point of view.

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Many felt that FFXIV had a lot of problems when the game came out in 2010. Square Enix even apologized for the game's lack of luster. There was a promised redesigning, so Square Enix picked up a new producer from Dragon Quest X in Japan. The new development was named A Realm Reborn. It has been in a closed beta testing period, and people can expect its release this summer. A Realm Reborn will feel like a new experience for fans with a new story line, system, and a new graphics engine. It'll seem like a new gaming experience to those playing FFXI or new to MMOs.

The developers have stated that there are many changes to come, such as chocobo riding battles and new player versus player battles. Magitek Armor from FFVI is also to be expected. A Realm Reborn has a new system called the Hunting Log. This is much like a bounty hunter's list. If you kill a set of monsters on the list, you'll get extra experience. You'll go through a list of monsters that you'll need to hunt down for the log. Players can travel anywhere while keeping this log. It's meant to give an extra reward to players who see different areas.
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So you’re wandering through cave, fighting off bats and slime monsters when you stumble upon a yellow-eyed green blob wearing a cloak. Nothing about it really screams threatening. The knife it’s carrying is pretty small and it’s a diminutive creature. So you pummel away at it as it inches towards your characters. It’s not attacking so this should be an easy battle, you think, chuckling to yourself. Then it happens. The little monster reaches your battle line and plunges that blade deep into your character’s gut.
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Art has an interesting way of touching our lives. You can be the artist and instill inspiration amongst many. You can be the viewer, admiring from afar, wondering what inspired artists to create a masterpiece. Art comes in many forms...simple or complicated, big or small.

Here at Final Fantasy Forums, we will explore different forms of art by many artists out there. As we all know, deviantART has a plethora of art waiting to be discovered, so I started looking for Final Fantasy artworks that I’d like to share with this community. Lo and behold, I came across a Zell Dincht art piece a few weeks ago, which instantly blew me away. (Perhaps a few of you may have seen this?) The details applied by the artist was simply fantastic.

Featuring Tulio Minaki from Brazil, who recently started studying at Digital Hollywood University in Japan. He’s now a step closer to attaining his dream - to work for Square Enix (in Japan), particularly in some of the Final Fantasy production. Now wouldn’t that be something? Let’s keep our fingers crossed.
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Hey everybody, this is Noblesse Oblige, and welcome to this month’s installment of the Roleplayer. This month’s issue was delayed and the “Featured” section will not be included. I apologize for this delay, due to the fact that I had finals this week.

Today we will be discussing both old and new RP’s to go around. There’s much fun to be had in the world of RP’s, both Original and Unoriginal. Let’s check the currently ongoing and new RP’s.

Original RPs (ORPs)
-Strana Fantasia Reale: ...

Wonderful members of Final Fantasy Forums,

I am pleased to announce that I have received a piece of prose already! However, I am still in the process of editing it. Therefore, I would like to share Mitsuki's lyrics to You Are Not Alone from Final Fantasy IX!

These are from the Clan archives - expect to see more content from the Clans later!

The story I received earlier this week will be posted in a week's time! Keep the entries coming!
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How well do you know the periodic table of elements? Better yet, ever wondered if there was a fun and easier way to memorize the elements? Anyone taking chemistry class in high school or college, you’re in luck! Here’s an interesting discovery: a periodic table featuring Final Fantasy characters (including the minor ones) ranging from FFI - FFXIII. Genius!

From the looks of it, many of the names accurately abbreviate to the corresponding elements. A few are a bit off (Josef for Hf), but take into consideration the phonetics and initials for the heroes, villains, summons, and monsters - it works.

There’s few major characters missing in action - which people complained about - but that can’t be helped. If it doesn’t fit, no amount of desperation can make it fit. Sorry, Vincent. Vaan stole your seat. And Ramza could’ve replaced Ramuh easily.
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I of course, refer to Final Fantasy returning to the PC in terms of future HD console installments receiving PC versions, like plenty of other multiplatforms such as Dark Souls, Resident Evil 5, ORC, 6. I am not on about future Final Fantasy titles being exclusively PC; that will certainly never happen for obvious reasons. I am also excluding the MMO titles from this discussion, because it makes perfect sense why they're on the PC.

Even if their management has been appalling, Square-Enix has been pretty good when it comes to PC ports of their Eidos titles. They even came out with a PC version of The Last Remnant (granted, it's because they wanted to make a worldwide hit, hence Unreal Engine 3 being used), a game I have never played, but I heard the PC version is infinitely preferable to the Xbox 360 release.
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