The Complete History of 8-Bit Final Fantasy

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This video serves as a compilation of the first three videos published in our "Complete History of Final Fantasy" series. Join us, for a long-form retrospective review of Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy 2 and Final Fantasy 3 as we summarise this formative moment in gaming history down to a modest 3 1/2 hours!
00:00:00 Final Fantasy
01:21:00 Final Fantasy II
02:26:13 Final Fantasy III
Twitch: / levelup_lauren
Patreon: / ffunion
Website: www.finalfantasyunion.com
Twitter - / ffunion
Discord: / discord
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Credits
Writers: Darryl
Editors: Zhané

[@A_real_Ha_So]

I remember just turning 21 in '91 and a friend giving me the first FF and Nobunaga's Ambition and fell in love with both. 32 years later and am still buying the latest installments.

[@marlonthomas8042]

Nobunagas ambition is that old of a franchise? Wow

[@JediRone]

Nobunaga's Ambition was Awesome!

[@NihonNoMajin]

NA us such a fun strategy series! 35 here and FF is my favorite franchise 🫡

[@pikachuattack542]

Nice!

[@jamesromesburg3733]

Question about Nobunagas, what was the last good one in the series in your opinion. Haven't bought one since sphere of influence: ascension and afraid to invest in a newer version.

[@Unalochy]

Three and a half hours about old FF games, I'm all in!

[@austinhensley5705]

What a way to make a Monday so much better!

[@Glokta4]

Amazing video, so incredibly thorough. Thank you for all your work.

[@BCBS4631]

thats so awesome you got john oeths renditions of final fantasy music. i love it

[@ninjahedgehog5]

Chaos used some of my wonderbread and threw away the twist tie

[@davidgeorge3944]

Fantastic video as always 👏 always here for the new FF union drops! 💙

[@RandomBucket]

3.5 hours of FF info! My Tuesday morning is now going to be the best one ever thank you! 🤩

[@faisal1979m]

Amazing FF history upload well done with the relaxing background music

[@amincooper1]

Great work listened to its entirety. I learned a lot. Thank you

[@ThatLuckyBear]

First time at the channel and I'm astonished at the quality and readability of this breakdown. Brilliant work. See you again once I beat some more Final Fantasy games (on 4 now!)

[@natehancock9663]

Thank you for this content seriously i would buy a physical copy of this documentary. Thanks for your hard work, Darryl & Lauren!

[@36inc]

man this was alot- one thing though im not saying nobuo isnt the legend he is and a genius- but youd be surprised how common it is to put some of your most memorable songs together in one go. in my genre shortest it could logically take is 45 minutes but with his limitations and expectations you can reasonably shorten that mandatory input time to 10 minutes. this usually just means that you had one of those momentum shifts, where you just hum and it comes together. ive done it twice now two of my easiest songs to get through was in such a momentum shift its just like how an athlete has their hot and cold phases. sometimes your mind just snaps into perfect harmony with the body-and you fully enjoy it so it even feels really brief.

[@oblivioustouch9012]

Great video. I loved it as always

[@BigGahmBoss]

Correction: Toriyama was not a rising star when he did the art for Dragon Quest. It's easy to not realize it in the west, but the manga he did before DragonBall (Dr Slump) was widely successful. So much so that he was already a millionaire before drawing the first Goku image

[@BigGahmBoss]

You even confirm this later on around the half hour mark when you acknowledge that Toriyama was a renowned artist lol

[@TwinAnchors_]

You could argue that fits rising star. Once dragonball got popular, he was a titan in the industry. It's like uh... saying timothee chalamet was a rising star a few years ago. Undoubtedly a millionaire at that point.

[@BigGahmBoss]

@@TwinAnchors_ are we just having this discussion because we're not recognizing American fame? Enix hired him because he was an icon

[@7milesdavis]

So he was at the absolute peak of his fame then? Or would he go on to be increasingly well known over the years? I think rising star works. There is a big difference between being famous in Japan and being famous worldwide.

[@BigGahmBoss]

@7milesdavis I think it can easily be debated in both directions, honestly. Because it's hard to call a literal millionaire a rising star in anything. Sounds to me like he made it with Dr Slump alone. But if you're strictly looking at it from the international market and taking the big picture out of it, then yeah. I guess To aid my point, the script referred to Toriyama at the same point in his career as "renown" so even they acknowledge both sides

[@IceLexicon]

Excellent. Work can wait.

[@ducksoup10]

Exactly what I was thinking! Lol

[@Betterthanzero]

When you said, "a game of this scope" in reference to FF1, it was eye opening to realize how far games have come since then! Also, I didn't realize that King's Knight from FF15 was a reference to a real game. Very cool!

[@Kaljuun13]

For a silly moment, the title made me think of the old Nuklear Power webcomic that told the entire FF1 story in a parody way. Ran for years. 8-Bit Theater. Heh

[@RaineAsteria]

I like swords.

[@Kaljuun13]

@@RaineAsteria then you'll love the sword-chucks. :3

[@notmousse]

Welcome to Corneria ​@@RaineAsteria

[@balthezaar100]

Fighter-doken

[@reiddutchess9955]

It’s almost unbelievable that Nobuo ever struggled to make ends meet as a musician. My brain doesn’t even comprehend how that is possible.

[@ecritdelajaponographie8565]

"Saiken" (再建) means "rebuilding". I think the reference is meant to be "seiken" (聖剣), i.e., "holy sword".

[@SickSoundingStuff]

Having just played FF7 Rebirth, I find it amazing that the piece of artwork shown at 1:50:43 time slot of the monsters created for FF2 have been on the enemy roster this long. Take a look for yourself. Even the Blob of Jelly thing with a ton of Eyeballs is there. It's just too cool to see the origins of these creatures done in watercolor. Edit: There's even a Barret in a sailors outfit if you look hard enough. Ha!

[@pikachuattack542]

I still haven't beat it, given I'm playing other games too, but good god I love the game. Exploring Gongaga and trying to head to the airfield cuz I wanna avoid burnout when I play it again.

[@SickSoundingStuff]

@@pikachuattack542 Honestly, for me, Gongaga was a bit exhausting to try and figure out. I had to really study the map to try and find routes to places I wanted to go (looking for mushrooms that pointed in certain directions) and even then sometimes I was wrong or would get lost. It was easily my least favorite area to explore. I thought that was my opinion because I had a cold while playing through that part but it's an opinion I've seen shared elsewhere. Up until shortly after Chapter 13 you can go back, so if it's giving you trouble you can just dip for a bit. I'm a bit obsessive so I HAD to complete the area before moving on. It's a great game otherwise. No other major complaints.

[@jjinc1957]

Amazing historical endeavor! I absolutely loved this work: Thank you!

[@FullMetalXV]

These are the youtube videos i live for

[@thesecorridorsoftime]

3,5 hours? Yes! Thank you! ❤

[@LunarWingCloud]

I just got the Pixel Remasters and this was the perfect video to hype me up to play them

[@Scitch-et4vk]

Great video

[@ThisICommand666]

Cannot wait for the 16-bit era!

[@Mana2Burn]

What a magical time to be in the industry. Lightning in a bottle that would go on to change many people’s lives including mine.

[@dakotawinston7677]

Greetings, nice to meet you the next two weeks of my lunch breaks.

[@Plistor]

This was so good that my leg fell asleep and i rolled my ankle

[@2ndchanceguy]

Fun fact! Final Fantasy taught 6 year old me to read!

[@zalden2565]

I regular cite final fantasy as a significant factor in my early reading abilities

[@througtonsheirs_doctorwhol5914]

made me learn to read english. As a francophone it was what truly put me o nthe road to being bilingual

[@voshadxgathic]

It's not official content, but I'd love a video about the 8-bit theater comic strip.

[@matthewhensel7050]

I hope y’all are making a 16 bit video!!! 🥹👉👈

[@tinyetoile5503]

If those american sales for dragon quest include canada, then my mom is apparently one of the few people who actually bought the game. Crazy to think about

[@driftninja64]

amazing video. epilepsy warning at 15:16 thanks for all the hard work making a video of my most favorite final fantasy.

[@evolancer211]

12 isn't that old to start learning a musical instrument for a career

[@darkmessiah757]

For Japan and their culture, it kinda is.

[@througtonsheirs_doctorwhol5914]

it is old, you gotta learn the music language early to make it easier , like learning additional languages as a kid.

[@JanusThePaladin]

Anyone else want to see that original ff2 script as a real game?

[@tinyetoile5503]

I think you might be a bit confused on how to use the word "predecessor"? You keep using it to mean "one that comes after" (calling FF2 the predecessor to FF1 in this video for example) but it means the opposite, "one that comes before" (ie, FF1 is the predecessor to FF2)

[@samjames7244]

Thanks

[@FinalFantasyUnion]

Thank you so much Sam, that's very kind of you! ~Darryl

[@samjames7244]

@@FinalFantasyUnion haha sorry didn’t realise it posted a comment with just “thanks”! 😂 love the content man, and appreciate the work you have put into this

[@flansburgh1100]

Fighting Fantasy is such a bland name. I'm sure the books are great, but I'm very glad Square had to choose something else. Final is so much more poetic.

[@dylanmiller9162]

Agreed absolutely, though re: great or not, fighting fantasy books were a huge part of inspiration in making the Souls series

[@througtonsheirs_doctorwhol5914]

@@dylanmiller9162 Lone Wolf is way more in the vein of Dark Souls than Fighting Gantasy though. Lone Wolf were the ultimate RPG books series, Fighting Fantasy only stand alone episodes. Lone Wolf is a saga, like the Souls world

[@dylanmiller9162]

@@througtonsheirs_doctorwhol5914 Absolutely, honestly I’m not as familiar, I’m just citing Miyazaki calling them an inspiration

[@througtonsheirs_doctorwhol5914]

@@dylanmiller9162 The quality of the horror in a continous world is unequalled in Lone Wolf, Miyazaki chan might have known

[@dylanmiller9162]

@@througtonsheirs_doctorwhol5914 Totally, but I don’t think it came up in the video like Fighting Fantasy did?

[@Tootbook]

I sold my copy of ff1 for weed. Im so sad i didnt treasure what i had. I had all of them. I sold them all for small amounts of weed. I didnt realize my emotional connection to each game. I will never forgive myself.

[@evolancer211]

My mom worked at Broderbom during this time, unfortunately no free games 😕

[@Ds117]

I've been on final fantasy for years and years now. 😊😊

[@navi2710]

Damn it, i feel old for playing SCH.

[@darkmessiah757]

Something about the Japanese public being educated on RPGs is hilarious to me, especially in hindsight, where RPGs are massive over there. Its like if FPS ganes had to be explained over here in the west.

[@ethanleasure1561]

1:08:50

[@bigblue344]

Heh, another story about something "deep and symbolic" in Japanese media that just ended up being "We used it because it sounds cool!" 40:30

[@martincoborn]

This is exactly what I need. I was looking for something else to listen to than Trump or Ukraine or everything else depressing. Fantastic work!

[@DcoyCartes]

MORE

[@evolancer211]

Can you go over that again, rated 59.53 out of 30?

[@Kakerate2]

wild how a lot of these people got starts on just hard work, instead of years wasted in school. these things dont happen anymore :/

[@booradley6832]

43:34 I had that game, called "Legacy of the WIzard" in the US and it SUCKED you cant figure out whats going on at all.

[@yotaruvegeta]

RIP, Toriyama.

[@impotenceaura]

Love the video FF union & team.

[@levi1929]

Sakaguchi looks like a total knob. He seems so proud of himself in every photo!

[@SventFulgur]

I mean he kind of earned it 😅

[@booradley6832]

What a strange thing to say. "People came to interview you on camera about how they're such huge fans of your massively popular work and you're proud of yourself? What a dickhead." Do something productive maybe you'll feel good about yourself too.

[@levi1929]

@@SventFulgur More so than I did, and I'm a complete bell end. Good point, well made.

[@diebesgrab]

“The Complete History of 8-bit Final Fantasy” Complete? 8-bit? THEN WHERE’S THE SEGMENT ON FINAL FANTASY GAIDEN? False advertising! I call shenanigans!

[@OtherlingQueen]

That initial draft of the FFII story with the three sons is suspiciously similar to the plot of Akira Kurosawa's film Ran (1985).

[@iansmith8783]

Which was itself suspiciously similar to the plot of King Lear

[@Krizzah47]

still waiting for 32 bit

[@forcelightningcable9639]

It’s nice to be able to cook lunch while listening to a fantastic documentary on the history of one of my favorite game series. It is actually possible to feel happy living in late capitalism sometimes. (Also just a side note, seeing rad racer after playing nothing but side-scrollers in the early 90’s blew my young child mind)

[@BaldingSasquatch]

Please stop saying cruise chaser blassty i've never heard a worse title in all my years.

[@aidanhogan-thomas1797]

The 80s were a wild time. Lol.

[@lucianoprocopio937]

Cruise Chaser Blassty Cruise Chaser Blassty Cruise Chaser Blassty Cruise Chaser Blassty Cruise Chaser Blassty Cruise Chaser Blassty Cruise Chaser Blassty Cruise Chaser Blassty Cruise Chaser Blassty Cruise Chaser Blassty Cruise Chaser Blassty Cruise Chaser Blassty Cruise Chaser Blassty Cruise Chaser Blassty Cruise Chaser Blassty Cruise Chaser Blassty Cruise Chaser Blassty Cruise Chaser Blassty Cruise Chaser Blassty Cruise Chaser Blassty Cruise Chaser Blassty Cruise Chaser Blassty Cruise Chaser Blassty Cruise Chaser Blassty Cruise Chaser Blassty

[@navi2710]

I'm getting tired of FF7 fans constantly telling people who don't think Rebirth is a 10 out of 10 that they should stop playing the game. I think a game should be rated overall and I fight Rebirth to be a 6 out of 10. Has good ideas but SE went with quantity over quality.

[@t6y6fihu8hy9jjuhi]

"Quality over quantity" I miss this Square, now is all about mobile and milking a single FF game into a billions of expansions, merchandise, propaganda and junk mobile spin offs... Not to mention The Hobbit style milking they are doing with FF7R, making it into 3 games instead of only one big and complete one...

[@CC-bn2ws]

I stopped buying ff after 12. And today I feel like the limited story they could put into early ff and dq, we're far far superior than what is put out today. Or maybe is just the game mechanics, I liked having classes, and hated when they started and continued making everyone being able to do anything or everything at once....

[@DannySweZ]

I like them all but hey ive grown and evolved with the series

[@7milesdavis]

Same, only I stopped playing new releases after X. I bought 12 for my switch but I don’t have any desire to play it. I don’t think the modern games will be held in such high regard.

[@sinom]

Can you really call it "the complete history of 8-bit final fantasy" when it doesn't include the 8-bit spin off games?

[@MultiMelodia]

Marketing in the west aside, final fantasy adventure and final fantasy legend aren't true final fantasy games, or even true spin-off titles. The former is the first Mana game, and the latter are the first Sa*Ga installations. To label them anything else is just keeping a confusing marketing trick/misnomer from the 80s alive and confusing newcomers to the series.

[@DarttheLegend]

Seiken Densetsu is a Japanese title, not a German one, the ei is pronounced phonetically, not the German way. It’s not “saiken”. Japanese is a completely phonetic language and therefore extremely easy to pronounce, there is exactly ONE way to pronounce each of the 5 vowels in Japanese. Just don’t try to apply English language rules to Japanese, it’s a lot easier than English.

[@FinalFantasyUnion]

Thank you for the advice! I'm always trying to get better with how I pronounce Japanese words/names, but there's always room for improvement! ~Darryl

[@DarttheLegend]

@@FinalFantasyUnion thank you for not taking it the wrong way. I know that people who pronounce things wrong usually just don’t know, and in my experience, pointing out that it’s simpler than one would think usually helps. Here’s a list of the way vowels are pronounced in Japanese using English phoneticism. A- ah E- eh I- ee O- oh U- oo If you ever see two next to each other there aren’t usually any special rules you just pronounce both of them, except in the case of ou which is just a doubly long “oh” sound, sometimes that is romanized as “oh” but the Hepburn is “ou”

[@bluebirdsigma]

It may seem like much, but it's simple in the long run. By the way: It's pronounced Say-Ken Den-Seh-Tsoo. The last "oo" can be pronounced so short, sometimes you omit it or barely sounds like a sigh if you're speaking fast.

[@cj5273]

boring