pgtl_10 said:
Was final fantasy 5 any good? I always wondered why it wasn't released in the US or did they release it here? I heard it was thought to be too complicated for American gamers that is why it was never released here during the SNES era.
Mejilan said:
FF Extreme, as the SNES version of 5 was called, was cancelled. FF5 did arrive here on the PSOne, eventually, however.
Here's the expanded series of events, as I understand it.
NoA brought FF1 over to America. Square just took it for granted that NoA was going to do FF2&3 as well. NoA wasn't interested. So Square blamed NoA for not bringing the games over. Spawning a lot of FF-fanboy rumors saying that NoA "prohibited" Square from bringing the FF games over, because they were "repetitive". The illogic of that idea compared to NoA's allowing of four Dragon Warrior games on the NES simply fueled the anger.
Square made their own Square of America (later personified by Ted Woolsey). Square brought over FF4 as "FF2".
Square was going to bring over FF5 as "FF3", but it started hitting delays.
FF6 came out in Japan, where supposedly people had been complaining that FF5 had bad grafx, and that the plot wasn't up to Square's standard. The Job System was great, but if it were to be combined with American stupidity, it could make the game nearly-impossible. All this seems to add up to FF5 being a bad choice for localization. And FF6 fixed all of these things. Of course, that all seems to just be speculation.
Square gave "FF3" a couple extra delays, and very quietly switched "FF3" from being FF5 to being FF6.
Square of America still wanted to bring out FF5, since it was pretty much done, and they had worked hard on it. They decided to avoid the ever-growing naming confusion by calling it "Final Fantasy Extreme", signifying and boasting it's more "hardcore" style at the same time. I think there was also some talk about how they wanted Square of Japan to pump some more grafx into it, so it wouldn't be outdated.
But Square was already moving on to the future. They made the FF6 3D tech demo, started making FF7 and dumped Nintendo for Sony.
Since Sony was going to be publishing (and massively advertising) FF games from then on, Square of Japan didn't need Square of America, so they fired them, ending everyone's hopes for Final Fantasy Extreme.
Now acting as Square's mouthpiece, Sony brought back up all the old issues that had been building, fixed the FF series numbering in America, and basically blamed everything that was wrong with Square/FF on Nintendo.
FF7 (and FF in general) became huge. Then Square dumped Sony for EA. Square ported FF4-6 to the PlayStation, and Square-EA brought them over to America. Then Square dumped EA and merged with Enix, who had just finished firing their second Enix of America.
Here's some scans from the old "Ogopogo Examiner" newsletter that Square of America put out.
LOL @ "Final Fantasy Adventure 2"
LOL @ lazy Japanese, needing vactions
LOL @ switcheroo
