Square Enix producers: ‘Final’ in Final Fantasy doesn’t mean ‘last’

Thirteen Final Fantasies. And then there’s the spin-offs, Tactics, and now FFXIII actually has three titles. Squeenix’s kinda slack on the whole “Final” thing. But seriously, will there ever be a “Final” Final Fantasy? Or will the series continue on to have games with 3-digit numbers? Square Enix producers Shinji Hashimoto talks on this and more. Details in the full article.

Thirteen Final Fantasies. And then there’s the spin-offs, Tactics, and now FFXIII actually has three titles. Squeenix’s kinda slack on the whole “Final” thing.

But seriously, will there ever be a “Final” Final Fantasy? Or will the series continue on to have games with 3-digit numbers? (Not that that won’t be welcome.)

According to Square Enix producer Shinji Hashimoto, the answer is a “no.” There won’t be a “Final” Final Fantasy for as long as the fans want ’em. They don’t necessarily have to stick to just one game per Final Fantasy generation either, for that matter. Hashimoto explains:

Well, when it comes down to it, it’s up to the fans’ needs, and we don’t feel that there’s actually a certain number that we should stop at.

But each Final Fantasy series has a lot of unique characters, and a world, and we receive lots of feedback from fans, saying, ‘We want to see more of this character!’ or, ‘We want to see more of this situation!’ So, we take those into account, and try to create new side stories based on that. So we’re not necessarily conscious of a certain limit that we have to stop at.

[…] The term ‘Final’ in the title doesn’t mean ‘last,’ but the teams behind it see it as a term for ‘ultimate,’ and as long as there are creators that are wanting to make Final Fantasy games, we will probably keep going.

As it is, will we be able to see a Final Fantasy move on to the DS? Not likely. Says Hashimoto:

Final Fantasy has been traditionally been made so that on top of moving story, we are also always going for the latest expression in graphics as well. So I don’t know if the DS is the ideal place to express the graphical element — but you never know what’s going to happen in the future!

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Via Gamasutra