Squaresoft
History
Square is a Goliath in the gaming industry. It's
Final Fantasy franchise one of the largest sagas on
any gaming platform. Recently Final Fantasy XI went
to the Playstation and PC. FFXI is a Massive Multiplayer
Online Role Playing Game. Squaresoft was orginally American
in the 1986 when it was formed. After the successful
launch of Final Fantasy for the NES, Squaresoft moved
to Japan where it incorprates itself today. In 1998,
Square joined Electronic Arts, American game company,
to release titles for Playstation from 1998 to 2001.
Square and Electronic Arts still publish Squaresoft
games in Europe. Square joined RPG maker Enix to form
Square-Enix in 2002. Enix and Square still work on their
separate titles, but they've combined to get a bigger
share of the global market. Final Fantasy 7 several
million titles on Playstation. The graphics are some
of the best on Playstation. Final Fantasy 7 was a technical
marvel when it came out in 1997. Squaresoft than released
the old Final Fantasy games on Playstation with new
features and cut scenes. The game made Square expand
to a larger company. Final Fantasy 8, a whole new game
based on Final Fantasy traditions, was released in 1999
without the costing as much as Final Fantasy 7.
Square also released a horror game called Parasite
Eve to compete against Silent Hill and Resident Evil.
It did well. Square made a sequel called Parasite Eve
2. They also put Xenogears (popular), Valiant Story
(did very well) and Secret of Mana on Playstation. Chrono
Cross did well in 2000, but not as well as Valiant Story
or Final Fantasy 9. Rad Racer, Bushido Blade, Chocobo's
Dungeon were other Playstation games developed by Squaresoft.
In 2001, marked the new age for Squaresoft. The multi-hundred
million dollar project known as Final Fantasy X made
it's debut. It was able to combine voice acting with
detailed high resolution graphics with dvd quality FMV.
The graphics at that time were almost as good as Metal
Gear Solid. Squaresoft also had some other titles like
the Bouncer, and Driving Type S that were average. This
is Squaresoft's weakness, they make a damn good RPG,
but the other titles suck except for Parasite Eve.
In the early 1990s Squaresoft developed RPGs for
other publishers including Breath of Fire for Super
NES and Super Mario RPG for Super Nintendo. I played
Super Mario RPG and thought it was good. Squaresoft
left development for Nintendo 64, but they are developing
titles for Gamecube. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles,
marks the first offline multiplayer supported RPG. They
are also developing Parasite Eve Rebirth for Nintendo.
One unexcepted RPG that Square developed that
exploded with popularity is Kingdom Hearts. Kingdom
Hearts combines Final Fantasy characters with Disney
characters. The title did very well selling over a million
copies in the US.
The future still looks bright for Squaresoft. It
depends a lot on how good their next RPG will result.
And the gamers have liked a lot of them.
Here is the complete game list
- Super NES
- 1991: Final Fantasy IV, Romancing SaGa
(Japan only)
- 1992: Final Fantasy V (JAP only for the Super NES,
but fan-translated in 1998; released in the United States on the Sony
Playstation under Final Fantasy Anthology), Final Fantasy Mystic Quest
- 1993: Secret Of Mana, Romancing SaGa 2
(Japan only)
- 1994: Final Fantasy VI, Live
A Live (Japan only, but fan-translated in 2001)
- 1995: Chrono Trigger, Secret Of
Evermore, Seiken Densetsu
III (Japan only, but fan-translated in 2000), Romancing SaGa 3
(Japan only), Front Mission (Japan only, but fan-translated in
2001)
- 1996: Bahamut Lagoon (Japan only, but fan-translated
in 2002), Rudra no Hihou (Japan only, fan-translated in
2003), Super Mario RPG, Treasure Hunter
G (Japan only, fan-translated in 2003)
- 1998: Radical Dreamers (Japan only, fan-translated
in 2003)
- Playstation
- 1996: Tobal No. 1
- 1997: Bushido Blade, Final
Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy Tactics,
- 1998: Brave Fencer Musashi, Bushido Blade 2,
Einhander, Final
Fantasy VIII, Parasite Eve, Saga Frontier, Xenogears
- 1999: Chocobo Racing, Chocobo's
Dungeon 2, Final Fantasy Anthology, IS:
Internal Section
- 2000: Chrono Cross, Final Fantasy IX, Front Mission 3,
Legend of Mana, Parasite Eve II,
Saga Frontier 2,
Threads of Fate,
Vagrant
Story
- 2001: Final Fantasy Chronicles
- 2003: Final Fantasy Origins
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