An Introduction to Square-Enix

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April 26th, 2006
Final Fantasy XI (Xbox 360)
The Spirits Within

It was year 2001 and Square Soft realized the franchise needed to enter new ground in order to further innovation. Sakaguchi decided to create a new subsidiary called Square Pictures to produce the first-ever Final Fantasy film. Computer graphics had evolved enough to render photorealistic humans, so Sakaguchi thought the new studio could make a movie cast entirely with computer-generated (CG) characters, requiring real-life actors only to do the voices.

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was hit theaters in 2001, but was a box-office failure. Although it was a good science-fiction film, it failed to convey many of the elements found in the Final Fantasy video game universe. Fans of the games felt betrayed when they discovered that there were no airborne vessels, elemental crystals, or the rich magical styles found in the games.


The movie cost the studio $137 million and only made $87 million in the box office, worldwide—from which Square received less than half. The weak theater ticket sales coupled with the stratospheric costs associated to do a 100% CG movie had Square Pictures losing as much as $120 million dollars.


Final Fantasy XI

Back on the video game front, Square chose to develop a game that would take it into a new frontier. With a larger number of feasible platforms and a prevalence of online gaming in 2001, Square decided its next title would make extensive use of Internet-based gameplay. The first massively multiplayer online in the series, Final Fantasy XI, launched in Japan in May 2002 for the PlayStation 2, followed by a Windows PC version in November.

Then at E3 2005, Microsoft and Square-Enix announced that Final Fantasy XI will also be ported to the Xbox 360, marking the first Final Fantasy game to hit an Xbox platform, and the first MMO that is playable across three platforms - allowing PC, PS2, and Xbox 360 owners to play together in a single environment.

Final Fantasy XI takes place in the world of Vana'diel, which is at the brink of war as the five dominant races have united to fight the beastmen forces created by the god Promathia. These five races, the Hume, the Elvaan, the Tarutaru, the Mithra and Galka are also the creation of a deity, the goddess Altana, and during the Age of the Beasts, the Age of Magic and the Age of Power, they created three major nations: Bastok, San d'Oria and Windurst.


The game begins as you choose one of the five races, which will set the basic traits of your character, such as face, gender, body size, and nationality. Initially six job types are accessible to begin the quest, including warrior, monk, white mage, black mage, and red mage. One of the cool features of Final Fantasy XI is the ability to change jobs at any time during the game, and without penalty, the opportunity to have a support job – essentially two simultaneous occupations. As the game progresses, new jobs will become available as well.

Even though the adventure begins in one of the three nations, eventually you will travel to many regions, cities, and towns found in Vana'diel.

Being that the Xbox 360 version is the last edition of the game, it includes content that was previously released only as expansion packs. The first one is the Rise of the Zilart, released under the title Jiraato no Genei in Japan and included as part of the PC and PS2 versions of FFXI in North American and Europe. This new content adds three new jobs (Samurai, Ninja and Dragoon), 40 new areas to explore, and access to all summons (calling on an entity to cast magic spells).

The second expansion pack included with the Xbox 360 version is Chains of Promathia, originally released simultaneously worldwide in September 2004. This expansion added nine new regions to explore, nine new NPCs, and dozens of enemies.

Finally, the much-anticipated Treasures of Aht Urhgan expansion pack is also included with the Xbox 360 version, letting players explore the land of Aht Urhgan and confront new hordes of beastmen. This expansion adds three new jobs (Blue Mage, Corsair and Puppetmaster) and also includes new modes, such as Besieged and Assault.

Final Fantasy XI is the first massively multiplayer online role playing game to hit the Xbox 360 and acts as an early glimpse of the great MMO games that will soon launch on Microsoft’s next-generation console. There is no doubt, this is a great time to be a MMO gamer!


Credits

Our thanks go out to Square Enix and the sources listed below in contributing the information referenced in this overview.
  • http://www.square-enix.com/na/company/infomation/
  • http://www.square-enix.com/jp/company/e/history/
  • http://www.square-enix.com/na/game/year/
  • http://www.dragonquest8.com/
  • http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/index.shtml
  • http://www.mobygames.com/
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