The Squaresoft Story

Welcome to the Squaresoft story: the story of what happened to Squaresoft, the history of its games, and where it plans it go with Final Fantasy 15.

Squaresoft was once my favorite company of all time. They produced amazing JRPG's and defined the genre. After a failed motion picture deal with Columbia, a business deal with Sony and more, Square Enix was born.

Thanks for watching - hit me up on Twitter or in the comments and let me know your thoughts.

♫ Music Credits:
- Trevor Gordon Hall - Roots and Branches
- "Hearts" (Anxious Heart)- MATERIA: Final Fantasy VII Remixed

[noctuferus]

Hey Downard Thrust, love your content. I just had a quick suggestion: try to avoid thumbnails that have a red line at the bottom. I thought the image for the thumbnail was the red line that YouTube puts there to indicate a video you've already watched to completion, and almost missed out on some of your sweet content.

[beutofulldespair]

This makes me want to cry. Squaresoft was soo good snes - ps1 . Final Fantasy 7 is what got me into jrpg's. So I went back and played the older final fantasys and then finding other great games like the mana and saga series. It's easier to understand now what happened.

[GRMAdrian]

Watching this got me feeling nostalgic. I stopped after FFX. None of its newer titles appealed to me. Great vid DT.

[moondoor]

The actual Square Enix isn't capable of doing games like FF 4-12 or even Chrono Cross and Trigger...

The actual Square Enix will never create a game like FF VII, they are living up by the past.

[pelgervampireduck]

for me square died when enix bought them to destroy them out of jeaoulsy because enix never had something as big and beloved as square's franchises.
the last real final fantasy was X. XI being an online game isn't a real final fantay. XII doesn't have all the trademark elements, it doesn't feel like a final fanfasy, neither does "walking on a corridor and watching the combat play automatically XIII".
the best games made by square are final fantasy 6, 7, 8, 10, chrono trigger and xenogears. those are their masterpieces.

[lestatwa]

I think I might have watched four or five of your work since yesterday, and I have to say congratulations! Keep this good work.
About Final Fantasy it is very sad that it has lost its magic, it truly was a beautiful and very good serie of jrpg. For me it began with 7 until 12 (not the 11 though).

[vopop]

While I don't know much about their executive side, Enix did have some great talent behind it too before the merger. Many hardcore RPG fans will swear up and down that Dragon Quest 3 is the best NES RPG (I can't say I ever tried DQ3, but DQ4-6 are all excellent), and the Soul Blazer/Illusion of Gaia/Terranigma trilogy is top notch.

[StewNWT]

FFIV is still to this day my favourite game of all time. Suikoden 1, Chrono Trigger and Secret of mana may come close but NO game gives me waves of joyful nostalgia like FFIV. The MUSIC omg the MUSIC.

[VictorEspinozabr]

squaresoft and enix both made great games when they were apart.

[PastoKage]

Finally someone that share my opinion about it. You should have talked more about Sakaguchi and Uematsu, also about Mistwalker, but is ok.
Subscribed.

[BeautyandaBeast]

this vid is so crisp an clean great quality man great job

[Amocoru]

Ok, but FFX-2 had already been confirmed before Square and Enix merged. This game was already in the works and had nothing to do with their merger. Also, it's one of the stronger selling in the franchise. It's a very strong title that is massively underappreciated.

[ablationer]

I feel like everyone has completely forgotten about the Mana series. From the original classic, to the hidden gem that was Legend of Mana on the PSX, to the pretty good take that was Sword of Mana on the GBA. Every single release after that has been a disaster: Dawn of Mana where you'd lose your progress at the end of every level to hide how shallow the game was, Children of Mana's boring dungeon clearing, and Heroes of Mana's awkward attempt at being a strategy game. And don't even get me started on that mobile stuff. Such a shame.

[KuronekoGaming]

Damn, really well made video!
Great audio and well informative content that were placed beautiful in the video.

[Numenor]

While i do play games for more than 20 years now, for me the most mesmerizing games was Riven. Though games like Freelancer and especially Freespace dilogy made me see how much depth a video game can have. Freespace had no apparent character you could relate too, yet the story has a depth far more than any modern AAA titles have. Every video sequence in that game was a burst of orgasm in my head. The mesmerizing music of Riven and going down a blue-ish corridor full of puzzles and being in the middle of an unknown civilization could keep me there for ever.

Now it seems games have lost much with the implementation of microtransaction and year passes and so on. Now contracts and deadlines man more than passion and love for creativity and storytelling. So i stopped being naive, i am not expecting anything to do a come back. All hope lies with Indie Devs, period.

[caw]

You had me at "What if Final Fantasy XV turns out to be shit", because it's what we're all thinking and honestly i am expecting it to be impressive but shit at the same time. I expect incredible graphics and an awesome open world with an interesting game mechanic that lacks depth and gameplay variety. I also expect copy-paste underdeveloped anime characters, forced melodrama with cheesy dialouge and cringey lip-synced voice acting with a story line that goes from A to B without once being engaging but hey i hope i'm wrong and we do see a return to form.

[arenkai]

Square Enix' CEO admitted that they were trying to "westernize" their production to try and appeal to the masses instead of staying true to their core fanbase.
But the huge success of Bravely Default made them change their minds and they'll be focusing more on REAL JRPGS in the years to come. AND I SURE AM EXCITED AS ALL HELLS ABOUT THAT
(that's probably why they're dumping IO Interactive)


So when you make quality games the fans want to buy, they happen to sell more ?...
Who would have thought ???!!!

[roahnosh]

I still remember the tine when they were touted as the industry's leader when it comes to 3D graphics. I was so amazed wheb they released Final Fantasy VIII and the FF Movie. Then the western caught up and now the japanese relegated to doing gacha games.

[badaboom]

Wow, VERY well done!! Final Fantasy VII was the shit, after finishing it I came across The Legend of Dragoon which I also loved!

Those were the days back in high school.

Keep up the fantastic work!

[antonioperez]

I can never hear enough about final fantasy. great video!