Today I will start talking about a series of games like Final Fantasy and this is not without reason, because this game universe is already 27 years old, and it seemed like just yesterday we saw little pixel men attacking enemies with swords, and so much time has already passed.
I want to dedicate my short, let’s say, post today not to the first game in the series, but to the creators of this game, if possible with photographs of the developers, so don’t bombard me with slippers, tomatoes and angry comments.

So, we can begin.First I want to tell you a little about the creation of the series.Yes, of course Wikipedia will be used as an assistant, so don’t be doubly offended.

Square entered the Japanese computer gaming market back in the mid-1980s, with several simple RPGs, driving simulators and platformers for Nintendo’s Family Computer Disk System game console. Some of them were quite successful, but overall they were not very popular, so by 1987 the company was on the verge of bankruptcy. Lead designer Hironobu Sakaguchi foresaw the collapse of the company and decided to implement his latest project: to create a role-playing game based on the then existing Dragon Quest from Enix, The Legend of Zelda from Nintendo and Ultima from Origin Systems. Sakaguchi planned to leave the industry immediately after finishing the game and called it Final Fantasy, as it was, as he believed, his last work and, most likely, Square’s last work. The rest of the development team saw this project as their only way out of the current financial crisis.
Yes, the collapse was quick, but in the end a new game series was born, which is now famous throughout the world.

Now it’s time to talk about the game developers themselves.We will start, of course, with the chief game designer, and as you already noticed, he sounded here.
Allow me to introduce Hironobu Sakaguchi.

This genius was born on November 25, 1962 in Hitachi City, Ibaraki Prefecture.Not much is known about him before his career, so let’s skip that and move on to his college years. In 1983, he dropped out of university and became an employee of Square, which at that time was a division of Denyūsha Electric Company. Square soon became its own company, with Sakaguchi serving as director of planning and development. The company’s first games were not very successful and sold rather sluggishly. Then, in conditions of uncertainty, Sakaguchi decided to create his last work (as he then planned), which he gave the appropriate name – Final Fantasy. The game was released in Japan on December 18, 1987 on the Famicom platform (also known as the Nintendo Entertainment System). Unexpectedly for the entire Square and Sakaguchi himself, the game was a huge success. Naturally, plans to close the company that were in the air were immediately forgotten, and work began on the sequel to Final Fantasy. In 1991, Sakaguchi was promoted to vice president of the company, and in 1995 he was promoted to president of Square LA, Inc. (now Square USA, Inc.) to promote the company’s products on the Western market.

The last Final Fantasy game he worked on as a game producer was Final Fantasy IX. However, Sakaguchi later also took part in work on such famous Square projects as Vagrant Story and Kingdom Hearts.

In 2001, Sakaguchi released the animated film https://nokyccasinos.org.uk/review/winstler-casino/ Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, based on the Final Fantasy video game series. And although the work was warmly received by critics, it failed at the box office, which seriously undermined Square’s position and forced the company to merge with one of its competitors, Enix Corporation.
After this, Sakaguchi voluntarily left his post as vice president of Square and began working at his company Mistwalker, which was founded in 2001.
Here’s how everything turned out for the main creator of this series.

Now you can move on to the directors, designers, artists, composers of this series of games.I’ll start in order.

First, we need to mention Sakaguchi again,
after all, he directed the first five games himself, supervised the process and built the entire game world, but then more and more often he began to act as a producer,
for which I thank him very much.

Let’s meet the main artists of the series.
I’ll probably start with Yoshitaka Amano.

He was born on March 25, 1952 in Shizuoka.Almost nothing is known about him, so I’m sorry about that.In addition to creating the characters and logos for Final Fantasy, he is also known for his illustrations for Vampire Hunter D.
He was replaced by Tetsuya Nomura during the development of Part VII.He designed the enemies and minor characters in the previous parts, so it’s not surprising that the character designs will change in Part VII.After all, the first six games were based on a fairy-tale atmosphere, but there is a cyberpunk feel there.Nomura was responsible for all the characters in the series, except for Part XI, where Shuko Murase, Toshiyuki Itahana and Shin Nagasawa did their best.
The artist for Part XI was Nobuyoshi Mihara, and Part XII was by Akihiko Yoshida.

Now comes my favorite part.Musical.
Of course, I can no longer contain this admiration for the music I created..
Nobuo Uematsu.

This brilliant composer was born on March 21, 1959 in Kochi.He is a self-taught musician.started playing the piano at the age of twelve. Graduated from Kanagawa University.) in Yokohama, in 1986 he joined Square (now Square Enix) as a composer.Uematsu always composed the music, being in close contact with the other developers; during the production process, Sakaguchi regularly approached him with requests to write one or another theme song, for example, for some specific battles or game locations.Uematsu usually waited until the main script was completed and began work only after fully studying the plot, characters, concept drawings and other materials accompanying the game. First of all, he created the main theme of the entire game, and then, focusing on its style, he came up with the rest, secondary melodies. Dealing with the themes of specific characters, the composer took a particularly careful approach to studying the script, trying to convey the character traits of the character being described as clearly as possible with the help of music. When some plot points seemed unclear to Uematsu, he always turned to the writers and asked them to provide more information about those events in the game that caused him doubts.The music of the first parts of Final Fantasy was seriously influenced by the technical limitations of consoles; Sakaguchi had to limit the composer’s capabilities, forcing him to abandon some specific notes.For the first time, Uematsu was able to show all his skills only during the transition of the series to a more powerful Super Nintendo system, that is, in the game Final Fantasy IV.At the moment he no longer works for Square Enix, but the music part is not over yet.

Next up is Masashi Hamauzu.He was born in Munich on September 20, 1971.Hamauzu was brought up in a musical family, but moved to Japan as a child. He became interested in music in kindergarten, and even then his parents gave him his first piano lessons.In 1996, Hamauzu was hired by Square (now Square Enix) as an intern, and after some time, made his debut as a composer, writing the music for the game Chocobo no Fushigina Dungeon. During his work, his collaborator was often the composer Junya Nakano, with whom he became friends and subsequently participated in many projects. In addition, Hamauzu collaborated with arranger Ryo Yamazaki on some of the compositions of SaGa Frontier 2.

After Nobuo Uematsu Hamauzu left Square Enix in 2004, he became the company’s chief composer, leading the entire music staff. Participated in leading projects, including the multi-budget Final Fantasy XIII. In addition to composing soundtracks, Hamauzu has worked on several individual albums, for example, in 2006, he played keyboard arrangements for Yasunori Mitsuda’s collection Sailing to the World. The composer composes music in a variety of genres, but classical and ambient can be seen most clearly in his work.

And the last composer in this tandem is Hitoshi Sakimoto.

He was born on February 26, 1969 in Tokyo.Known for the music in Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy XII.
He began to be interested in music and video games in elementary school. He began to receive his first money for composing melodies at the age of 16. Sakimoto’s professional career began a few years later, in 1988, when he began working as a freelance composer, composing music to order and programming sound drivers for games. Five years later, after creating the soundtrack for the game Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen, he became famous. In 1997, Hitoshi Sakimoto went to work for Square (now Square Enix), where he worked on the game Final Fantasy Tactics and achieved worldwide recognition thanks to it.

In 2002, he left Square and founded his own recording studio called Basiscape, however, continuing to work on games in the Final Fantasy series. Basiscape has included ten renowned composers and has become the largest independent music company in the gaming industry. In addition to composing soundtracks for video games, Sakimoto is also known for his participation in the creation of several anime and pop albums. His music is performed by many symphony orchestras around the world.

So my story has come to an end.Of course, I was worried, looked for information and even listened to my favorite songs in order to do my job well.I hope everything turned out well for the first time.
See you on the pages of my blog.Goodbye.