#but the past two weeks ive literally been on YouTube the second it drops

[screechingfromthevoid]

No no, I need you take my shift so I can watch- yes this is an emergency. The emergency being SPOILERS Linda.

[backpackbrigade]

Backpack Playlist 5/27/19

I no longer have a radio show so this is where I’m gonna be posting my thoughts and playlists! Have fun, who cares. Apple Music/Spotify links at the bottom. Enjoy. 

“Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” - Kate Bush, Hounds of Love (1985, EMI)

A gay icon, not much to say beyond that. We love some extra as shit background vocals.

“Bags” - Clairo, Immunity (2019, Fader)

First single off Clairo’s new LP coming out at some point this year. Literally all I can think when I hear the guitar line in this song is Avril Lavigne, and I say that with the utmost respect and love. Big ups to VW alum Rostam for the production on this track and Danielle Haim for drums - does this mean Clairo is now part of the PC Music squad AND the VW-adjacent rap/indie rock squad??? Her career is definitely pretty strange so far, but I’m hype to see her blow up beyond the world of the Youtube algorithm chewing up and spitting out DIY music videos. This track is also kinda full circle for her - in her big Pitchfork feature last year, she talked about being starstruck after seeing one of the Haim sisters on a plane listening to SOPHIE, and now she’s got one of them on a track. We love growth.

“Kisses 2 My Phone” - Sega Bodega, self*care - EP (2018, NUXXE)

Lona (aka MANIIK aka BABY GAMELAN) shared this EP with me last year, and it’s been rattling around in my head ever since. Some glitchy trap beats and subtly depressing lyrics about sending kisses to your phone and losing love. Scottish experimental pop kid who gets in your ears and won’t leave.

“Even the Shadow” - Porches, Pool (2016, Domino)

A classic, both Pool and their newer album The House (2018, Domino) remind me of a very specific time in my life when I was spending 12 hours in the photo studio every other weeknight and played Porches on shuffle to get through it. Very sad stoner synthy alt-pop for gay kids with lots of insecurity but dreams of 2014 soft pale tumblr aesthetic escapism!!

“Hatin” - Rico Nasty & Kenny Beats, Anger Management (2019, Sugar Trap)

Remember when Rico was just a Soundcloud kid with a stellar remix of “The Race” under her belt?? When I first heard that track in the background of a friend from high school’s Instagram story, I literally dropped my phone trying to lyric search it to see who sang it. Big ups to Lafayette (a newly minted Howard University grad :,) ) for putting me on. Rico’s always been bffs with Kenny, so this collab record isn’t surprising, but I didn’t expect it to be this good!!! Very excited to see her blowing up on Tik Tok rn, maybe she’ll finally get what she’s owed. And she deserves more than just a 2 second cameo in the Old Town Road music video………

“Dig” - Lance Bangs, Lance Mountain - EP (2016, Citrus City)

Reminds me of screamy jangly indie rock from the summer after my first year when I lived in a commune and got a stick and poke from a friend who was three mojitos deep. Also, Citrus City is awesome and we love to support VA labels!!

“Livin’ On a Prayer” - Bon Jovi, Slippery When Wet (1986, Vertigo)

Mostly putting this on here because it’s the ending soundtrack to a great little animated short film I watched recently called WORK (2009) by Michael Rianda. It’s a super 2009 short, but it’s fascinating because it feels like the aesthetic halfway point between Don Hertzfeldt’s Rejected (2000) and Bojack Horseman (2014-) style absurdity. It’s not the subtlest anti-capitalist cartoon out there, but it’s very cute and funny.

“20 Ghosts III” - Nine Inch Nails, Ghosts I-IV (2008, The Null Corporation)

Put this back to back with Bon Jovi because the weird guitar/vocal growls sound like the “Livin’ On a Prayer” digital doo-wops put through an insane pedal filter. Heard it for the first time when I was watching Laura Poitras’ documentary Citizenfour (2014) - she used it for the super haunting opening and closing scenes, and I can’t think of any better use for Trent Reznor’s sad garage dad phase guitar music.

“Guap” - Yaeji, Yaeji EP (2016, GODMODE)

No introduction necessary, hopefully. Gives me third year queer party vibes, and if you know what that means, congratulations. You’re part of an in-group now. Listen when you need subtle hype up music.

“Indica” - Dizzy Fae, Free Form Mixtape (2018, self-released)

When I showed a friend a picture of Dizzy Fae, their first response was that she’s probably from Amsterdam or Berlin or something and floats between secret clubs all week long before performing herself. She’s actually from Minnesota and is way younger than either of us assumed, so big ups to her for projecting the coolest vibes imaginable. Her vocal distortion is a little FKA Twigs, but she knows how to fuckin rap on the rest of the EP. Well worth a full listen.

“Flower Moon (feat. Steve Lacy)” - Vampire Weekend, Father of the Bride (2019, Columbia)

Best track on this new album, imo, but I can’t stop thinking about Vampire Weekend for a completely different reason. When this album came out, literally everyone was making fun of it for sounding like a Paul Simon redux. A lot of people praised it for the exact same reason lol. But Paul Simon’s relationship with cultural appropriation is a lot like Ezra Koenig’s, and not enough people have made that connection. Remember when Paul Simon broke the cultural boycott with Apartheid-era South Africa to make Graceland (1986)?? Everyone shit all over him for not only straight up taking South African music styles and centering himself in their vocal story, but doing it all in the midst of the largest cultural boycott in modern history. It’s a good album, I won’t pretend it’s not, but it’s deeply problematic and disappointed a lot of people who expected something better from a guy who knew what he was doing. Reminds me of 2008-2012 Vampire Weekend!! Anyway, listen to this track for Steve Lacy, if nothing else.

“Ur Phone” - boy pablo, Roy Pablo - EP (2017, self-released)

Another Youtube algorithm kid, boy pablo was in everyone’s feeds because this EP is the perfect summery shimmery gaze-y indie rock. His newer album is a little more uptempo than I personally like, but this track is *chef’s kiss*

“Can the Circle Be Unbroken” - The Carter Family, Can the Circle Be Unbroken: Country Music’s First Family (2000, Sony; original recording 1935)

Really not trying to wade into the country music discourse today, but this track is genuinely full of intense longing and sadness in a way that so clearly changed country/rock music and its relationship to the guitar.

“Before the World Was Big” - girlpool, Before the World Was Big (2015, Wichita)

Their new stuff fucking slaps, and seeing them come to terms with their gender identities is fucking beautiful!! But I always come back to these weird ass nursery rhymes. It’s literally just their harmonies and two guitars, and legend has it if you turn this up to full volume in your car and drive through your hometown, your unrequited high school crush will appear with their spouse and two kids just to rub it in.

“Vroom Vroom” - Charli XCX, Vroom Vroom - EP (2016, Vroom Vroom Recordings)

I mean. It’s Charli’s early work with SOPHIE, you’ve gotta just blast this shit and ruin someone’s life. The return to queer hyper pop over the past few years is the only thing sustaining my fucking mental health.

“Xternal Locus” - Chynna & Oklou, Single (2018, self-released)

Another track Lona played for me after I picked her up from work in DC. Lowkey enough to ***** to, highkey enough to **** to ;)

“Cinema” - Kero Kero Bonito, Totep - EP (2018, self-released)

KKB really did an about face with this record, but I still fucking love them. It’s still sunny and glittery pop, but with a chilled-out vibe. Their intense pop records are like the come up, and this is the chill smoke sesh the day after. Just vibey enough to let you chill out and kick back, but keeps you on your toes with some unexpected samples and glitchy moments.

“Jack the Ripper” - SadGirl, Breakfast for 2 - Single (2018, Suicide Squeeze)

We love surf rock, and that’s all I’m gonna say for this. You either vibe with it you’re bored as shit.

“watch you sleep.” - girl in red, Single (2019, self-released)

Music To Sleep To.

Playlists

[sure-am-existing]

tl;dr Don't shoot IV drugs into your taint.

aka; the Swamps of Dagobah patient horror story, submitted to reddit by banzaipanda in 2013.

OR Nurse here. This is kind of a long one...

I was taking call one night, and woke up at two in the morning for a "general surgery" call. Pretty vague, but at the time, I lived in a town that had large populations of young military guys and avid meth users, so late-night emergencies were common.

Got to the hospital, where a few more details awaited me -- "Perirectal abscess." For the uninitiated, this means that somewhere in the immediate vicinity of the asshole, there was a pocket of pus that needed draining. Needless to say our entire crew was less than thrilled.

I went down to the Emergency Room to transport the patient, and the only thing the ER nurse said as she handed me the chart was "Have fun with this one." Amongst healthcare professionals, vague statements like that are a bad sign.

My patient was a 314lb Native American woman who barely fit on the stretcher I was transporting her on. She was rolling frantically side to side and moaning in pain, pulling at her clothes and muttering Hail Mary's. I could barely get her name out of her after a few minutes of questioning, so after I confirmed her identity and what we were working on, I figured it was best just to get her to the anesthesiologist so we could knock her out and get this circus started.

She continued her theatrics the entire ten-minute ride to the O.R., nearly falling off the surgical table as we were trying to put her under anesthetic. We see patients like this a lot, though, chronic drug abusers who don't handle pain well and who have used so many drugs that even increased levels of pain medication don't touch simply because of high tolerance levels.

It should be noted, tonight's surgical team was not exactly wet behind the ears. I'd been working in healthcare for several years already, mostly psych and medical settings. I've watched an 88-year-old man tear a 1"-diameter catheter balloon out of his penis while screaming "You'll never make me talk!". I've been attacked by an HIV-positive neo-Nazi. I've seen some shit. The other nurse had been in the OR as a trauma specialist for over ten years; the anesthesiologist had done residency at a Level 1 trauma center, or as we call them, "Knife and Gun Clubs". The surgeon was ex-Army, and averaged about eight words and two facial expressions a week. None of us expected what was about to happen next.

We got the lady off to sleep, put her into the stirrups, and I began washing off the rectal area. It was red and inflamed, a little bit of pus was seeping through, but it was all pretty standard. Her chart had noted that she'd been injecting IV drugs through her perineum, so this was obviously an infection from dirty needles or bad drugs, but overall, it didn't seem to warrant her repeated cries of "Oh Jesus, kill me now."

The surgeon steps up with a scalpel, sinks just the tip in, and at the exact same moment, the patient had a muscle twitch in her diaphragm, and just like that, all hell broke loose.

Unbeknownst to us, the infection had actually tunneled nearly a foot into her abdomen, creating a vast cavern full of pus, rotten tissue, and fecal matter that had seeped outside of her colon. This godforsaken mixture came rocketing out of that little incision like we were recreating the funeral scene from Jane Austen's "Mafia!".

We all wear waterproof gowns, face masks, gloves, hats, the works -- all of which were as helpful was rainboots against a firehose. The bed was in the middle of the room, an easy seven feet from the nearest wall, but by the time we were done, I was still finding bits of rotten flesh pasted against the back wall. As the surgeon continued to advance his blade, the torrent just continued. The patient kept seizing against the ventilator (not uncommon in surgery), and with every muscle contraction, she shot more of this brackish gray-brown fluid out onto the floor until, within minutes, it was seeping into the other nurse's shoes.

I was nearly twelve feet away, jaw dropped open within my surgical mask, watching the second nurse dry-heaving and the surgeon standing on tip-toes to keep this stuff from soaking his socks any further. The smell hit them first. "Oh god, I just threw up in my mask!" The other nurse was out, she tore off her mask and sprinted out of the room, shoulders still heaving. Then it hit me, mouth still wide open, not able to believe the volume of fluid this woman's body contained. It was like getting a great big bite of the despair and apathy that permeated this woman's life. I couldn't fucking breath, my lungs simply refused to pull anymore of that stuff in. The anesthesiologist went down next, an ex-NCAA D1 tailback, his six-foot-two frame shaking as he threw open the door to the OR suite in an attempt to get more air in, letting me glimpse the second nurse still throwing up in the sinks outside the door. Another geyser of pus splashed across the front of the surgeon. The YouTube clip of "David at the dentist" keeps playing in my head -- "Is this real life?"

In all operating rooms, everywhere in the world, regardless of socialized or privatized, secular or religious, big or small, there is one thing the same: Somewhere, there is a bottle of peppermint concentrate. Everyone in the department knows where it is, everyone knows what it is for, and everyone prays to their gods they never have to use it. In times like this, we rub it on the inside of our masks to keep the outside smells at bay long enough to finish the procedure and shower off.

I sprinted to the our central supply, ripping open the drawer where this vial of ambrosia was kept, and was greeted by -- an empty fucking box. The bottle had been emptied and not replaced. Somewhere out there was a godless bastard who had used the last of the peppermint oil, and not replaced a single fucking drop of it. To this day, if I figure out who it was, I'll kill them with my bare hands, but not before cramming their head up the colon of every last meth user I can find, just so we're even.

I darted back into the room with the next best thing I can find -- a vial of Mastisol, which is an adhesive rub we use sometimes for bandaging. It's not as good as peppermint, but considering that over one-third of the floor was now thoroughly coated in what could easily be mistaken for a combination of bovine after-birth and maple syrup, we were out of options.

I started rubbing as much of the Mastisol as I could get on the inside of my mask, just glad to be smelling anything except whatever slimy demon spawn we'd just cut out of this woman. The anesthesiologist grabbed the vial next, dowsing the front of his mask in it so he could stand next to his machines long enough to make sure this woman didn't die on the table. It wasn't until later that we realized that Mastisol can give you a mild high from huffing it like this, but in retrospect, that's probably what got us through.

By this time, the smell had permeated out of our OR suite, and down the forty-foot hallway to the front desk, where the other nurse still sat, eyes bloodshot and watery, clenching her stomach desperately. Our suite looked like the underground river of ooze from Ghostbusters II, except dirty. Oh so dirty.

I stepped back into the OR suite, not wanting to leave the surgeon by himself in case he genuinely needed help. It was like one of those overly-artistic representations of a zombie apocalypse you see on fan-forums. Here's this one guy, in blue surgical garb, standing nearly ankle deep in lumps of dead tissue, fecal matter, and several liters of syrupy infection. He was performing surgery in the swamps of Dagobah, except the swamps had just come out of this woman's ass and there was no Yoda. He and I didn't say a word for the next ten minutes as he scraped the inside of the abscess until all the dead tissue was out, the front of his gown a gruesome mixture of brown and red, his eyes squinted against the stinging vapors originating directly in front of him. I finished my required paperwork as quickly as I could, helped him stuff the recently-vacated opening full of gauze, taped this woman's buttocks closed to hold the dressing for as long as possible, woke her up, and immediately shipped off to the recovery ward.

Until then, I'd only heard of "alcohol showers." Turns out 70% isopropyl alcohol is about the only thing that can even touch a scent like that once its soaked into your skin. It takes four or five bottles to get really clean, but it's worth it. It's probably the only scenario I can honestly endorse drinking a little of it, too.

As we left the locker room, the surgeon and I looked at each other, and he said the only negative sentence I heard him utter in two and a half years of working together:

"That was bad."

The next morning the entire department (a fairly large floor within the hospital) still smelled. The housekeepers told me later that it took them nearly an hour to suction up all of the fluid and debris left behind. The OR suite itself was closed off and quarantined for two more days just to let the smell finally clear out.

I laugh now when I hear new recruits to healthcare talk about the worst thing they've seen. You ain't seen shit, kid.

[stressedoutteenager]

The perfect timing (Part V)

This is based on a prompt I got: Soulmate AU: In which you turn 18 and see everything through your soulmate’s eyes when you’re not sleeping anymore but are not fully awake yet.

Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV

How is Sana supposed to forget about it when she hears the voices of those two people she wants to forget for a while coming from her backyard. 

It's winter. It's really cold outside. Why the hell are her brother and his friends hanging out in the backyard?

She hears Yousef's voice and freezes. Her heart aches at the thought that he's not her soulmate. Sana knows that your soulmate is not the only person that you can end up with and be happy. Still, there is this small voice in the back corner of her head that keeps repeating: it's not him, why even bother?

But that's the thing. Sana can't control her feelings. She likes Yousef, a lot. He understands her. He is always there when she needed him even without her having to tell him that. He thinks of her a lot and surprises her with small things. He never judges her. He did all that while they were still 'just friends'.

She can't take it anymore. She doesn't want to hear their voices. Sana jumps off her bed and quickly goes to her window, closing it. Well, apparently the boys decided, exactly in that moment, that they want to go inside because Sana sees them walk to the back door. 

One of them looks up at her window. Yousef. When he sees Sana standing there he smiles at her which makes Sana's stomach sink. 

Whatever made him avoid her for a week straight is probably solved, even when they have not talked about it yet. Now, since the previous day Sana has been the one to not be able to look at him. She feels guilty. Yousef is not her soulmate and she feels bad about it. She shouldn't. Because it doesn't matter. She likes him and hopefully he likes her back. 

But until that awful sinking feeling in her stomach she gets whenever she thinks of him not being the one whose room she saw on her 18th birthday goes away, she won't be able to look him in the eyes.

"Sana! The pizza is here!", she hears Elias shout. 

She's really hungry but is it worth facing Yousef and Adam. Sure of the fact that she will be awkward around them without them knowing why makes her doubt it. But she is really hungry. So she stands up reluctantly. 

"Sana!", Elias shouts again as she steps into the hallway.

"Coming.", she answers.

Five minutes later she sits there, in her living room and observes the boys. Well, two of them. 

While Elias, Yousef and Mutta are discussing something Sana doesn't care about, Adam and Mikael are sitting on the couch and talking. Very closely. Obviously in their own little bubble. Mikael laughs about Adam smearing some cheese on his own cheek; however he managed to do that. 

They're really comfortable with each other. Yes, all of the five boys are comfortable with each other and don't shy away from physical contact but Mikael and Adam are different with each other. Sana always knew that. It was very obvious to her from the moment she started hanging out with them. 

Out of nowhere a thought comes to Sana's mind. She stops eating.

Maybe that's why she only saw so little of her soulmate's room. Maybe that's why all she saw was so blurry. 

Because Adam might be her soulmate but his soulmate is someone else, Mikael.

Sana had heard of this possibility. It's supposed to be very rare. 

 -

Yousef is supposed to listen to his friends and their ideas for a YouTube video but honestly, he can't be bothered. Not when Sana is sitting a few metres away from him, eating her pizza and not taking her eyes off Adam. She has been distant in the past two days. He knows he has no right to complain about that, he was the one who freaked out when he finally had some proof that Sana could be his soulmate.

That book.

He had overheard Sana telling her friend that she has a book she always reads when she gets overwhelmed.

On his 18th birthday he saw the first Harry Potter book, worn out and with a torn bottom right corner.

On Sana's 18th birthday he found her book, the first Harry Potter book, worn out and with a torn bottom right corner. 

That Elias told him that it is Sana's feel-better book made it certain for him. 

In that excitement he didn't know what to do. He just blurted out: "Elias, what colour is Sana's room?"

And while Elias answered with blue, rather suspiciously, Yousef had no idea what to do with himself. He always had a feeling that Sana is his soulmate but he couldn't just go and ask her. What if she wasn't? But she is!

Well, he freaked out. He thought if he was around Sana he would blurt it out, make her feel like she has to do something about the fact that she's his soulmate. 

And, she didn't tell anyone what she saw. At least none of the boys and not even her mother. Only that she saw blurry things, mainly wall colours. 

So he could not just dump all that information on her. Plus, there was still the possibility that she is his soulmate but he is not hers. Supposedly that's very rare but it can happen.

It all overwhelmed him. He never thought this would do that but it did. Of course the boys noticed that something was up. After Sana's birthday, when Yousef, who always is the one most keen on hanging out at the Bakkoush house, kept asking if they can go out or meet at someone else's house. 

And on New Year's Eve, when he convinced them to sleep over at his and not at Elias', they made him talk. They know how to get information out of Yousef very well, they have been friends forever. It ended with Yousef confessing that Sana is probably his soulmate. 

As soon as the words had left his mouth the boys all jumped on him to hug him and congratulate him. When that died down, after a long time, their comments did not stop. All of them similar to each other.

"I mean, we all knew you were perfect for each other anyway."

"Dude, she's my sister but even I'm rooting for you two!"

"Okay but she has no idea you're her soulmate, right?", Mikael had asked, sounding genuinely disappointed and he's the one who couldn't care less about this concept.

Needless to say that made Yousef worry even more but Elias proceeded to tell Yousef just the basics of Sana's room which made him a hundred percent sure that she is it.

The more it hurts now seeing her avoid his eyes and be so concentrated on Adam. Sana and Adam have always been good friends, bonding over their pretty similar humour and their interest in science. However, the way she looks at Adam and once in a while at Mikael, is different from that. 

They need to talk. Before her 18th birthday they had started hanging out a lot. They talked and texted a lot. Pretty much all day. He hates that there's this distance between them now. 

Okay, he thinks, now is the time. She's at home, he's here. None of them does anything in particular. They should talk now. He takes a deep breath and stands up.

Turns out the universe hates him.  The same time he stands up, Sana's phone rings. She looks down on it and she quickly answers the call and leaves the room. He can't help himself and looks after her.

That evening he doesn't see her anymore. She leaves a few minutes after the call and tells Elias that she'll be home in an hour. Yousef waits an hour, even when the other guys decide to leave.  Sana doesn't come home in an hour. She texts her brother that she'll be a bit late and to please tell their parents if necessary. So finally Yousef leaves, as well.

-

"Are you at home? :)"

Sana rereads this message once, twice, and many more times. 

Yousef sent her this message half an hour ago. She didn't see it until now. She was at the shop, getting something for her mother and did not look on her phone for a while. 

Now she's walking back home, without looking at where she's going. All she can look at is the message on her phone.

"Walking home now"

She sends the message and stops walking for a moment. Why? She doesn't really know herself. When they were sitting in the living room and Eva called, Sana had to leave right then but she did notice Yousef looking at her like he wanted to say something. Is this about that?

"Do you have time to meet me? Only if you want, of course."

"Right away?", Sana asks.

She's still standing in the middle of the sidewalk, just a few metres away from the shop she just left. Staring at her phone.

How is it possible that she's excited and anxious at the same time? She sees that he's typing and presses her lips together.

When he takes more than a minute to type, Sana thinks it might be better for her to start walking again. If she moves, she feels less ... unsure and anxious.

Her phone vibrates and her breath catches in her throat. Does she want to see what he texted her?

Who is she kidding? Of course.

This time she doesn't stop walking.

"Yeah, if you want to.

The basketball court in half an hour?"

Sana doesn't think about it. If she does she will doubt her decision. Right now, she tries to text him back with one hand, still walking.

I'll meet you th

"Ow", she exclaims, dropping the bag of groceries, her hand going to her head.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!", the other person says.

Both of them look up at the same time and freeze.  Sana's eyes widen and Yousef's mouth literally falls open.  They both need a second to collect themselves and until they do, they stand only a step away from each other.

Sana is the first one to take a step back and shake her head to clear her thoughts. 

"Yousef.", she says breathlessly, "Hi."

"Hi.", he answers, smiling at her.

They both knee down to get the bag that Sana dropped. Yousef is faster and just takes the bag, ready to carry it.

"I was about to text you back.", Sana says, holding up her phone.

Yousef nods. He saw that Sana was typing and couldn't tear his eyes off the screen of his phone. That's why they walked into each other anyway. It's funny, really. They took turns in avoiding each other over the last couple of days and end up walking into each other randomly.

"So?", he asks, looking at Sana questioningly.

Sana knows what he means. So, are you up to meet me now? Not later.

"There's this coffee shop around the corner.", Sana suggests, still not really able to look Yousef in the eyes. 

Sana leads the way at first, with Yousef falling in step right next to her. He keeps stealing glances at her but all she looks at is the pavement they're walking on. Yousef tries to meet her eyes more than once but never succeeds. Sana is trying her best to not look at him.

Only when they have their coffees, Yousef can't wait any longer. If he does he will lose his confidence and end up not saying anything at all.

"Sana.", he says. 

Sana's eyes snap up from staring at her cup of coffee and she smiles weakly at him. She still can't look Yousef in the eyes. Her heart aches when she looks at him and has to think of Adam in that shirt. 

When Yousef starts talking again, Sana looks anywhere but at his face. At his cup of coffee, his hands playing with the lid of the cup, his leg bouncing up and down. 

"I need to tell you something.", Yousef says, taking a deep breath. 

He is really going to do this. Even when it can end in something that will ruin him. He needs to talk about this with her. She is the one that told him that it's easier to talk about things instead of bottling them up. 

The nerves get to him and suddenly he feels really warm. It's unbelievably cold outside and this café is not too warm either but he just feels like taking of his coat.

Sana's eyes follow that movement. He puts down his cup, opens his coat and finally takes it off. Yousef turns around in his seat to hang his coat over the backrest of the chair. 

What she sees makes her just talk without thinking. The first time today she actually looks at Yousef. 

"Why are you wearing Adam's shirt?"

She's looking at the long-sleeved, blue shirt. With the dark-grey and white splatters over one side. It's the exact same one. Sana is sure. 

Yousef looks down on himself but turns his gaze to Sana. He looks very confused. Confused because Sana is looking at him for the first time in days. Really looks at him. And confused because it sounds like it is a pressing question to her.

"I'm not...", he says, unsure why Sana sounded like it is an important thing what he's wearing.

Sana's eyes roam over the shirt once, twice, and then she looks up at Yousef. The confusion apparent on his face makes her doubt for a second. Still, she needs answers. 

"Adam wore it the other day.", Sana only states. 

Yousef picks the hem of the shirt and looks at it. The other day... oh, on New Years. 

Nodding, Yousef looks at Sana. She has the most serious look on her face while also looking very worried with her eyebrows furrowed.

"Yeah, the boys slept over at mine on New Year's Eve but Adam forgot to bring clothes for the next day so he just grabbed something of mine before we came to yours to film a video.", Yousef explains. 

He doesn't know why Sana's eyes widen, her mouth falls open and she looks so shocked that he fears that he did say something wrong without realizing. Wouldn't be the first time. 

Sana opens her mouth and closes it again, three times, without being able to say anything. Worried, Yousef goes to sit on the edge of his seat and leans a bit towards Sana. She keeps looking from his eyes to his shirt. 

"But.. he said that ...", Sana points to the paint splatters that turned out to look really good on the former plain blue shirt, "... happened while painting his walls."

Sana speaks slowly, confused, not really being able to understand anything because the pieces of information in her head don't fit together.

Yousef tries to think of the first of January, when the boys followed Elias home to film something for their YouTube channel. That day Yousef was so afraid that the boys would slip up and tell Sana what he has told them about her being his soulmate that he didn't pay much attention to anything else.

However, he remembers what Adam said.  "That happened when we painted the walls but it looks good and I somehow ended up wearing it today."

Even though he doesn't understand what importance it has who wore what shirt Yousef answers Sana. 

"He said the walls. My walls. Around a week before your birthday I changed my room and the boys helped me paint the walls and build some furniture."

Sana lets Yousef's words sink in for a moment. She can't keep her eyes off of him now. The worried look on his face makes her want to cry. He cares so much even when Sana distances herself. 

One dark-grey wall, three white ones. 

The shirt that has paint splatters in those colours.

The boys painted Yousef's room. The boys painted Yousef's room in those exact colours. 

That shirt is Yousef's. Not Adam's. He just borrowed it. 

"Tell me, how did you paint your room?", Sana asks, so quietly that Yousef barely can hear her over the noise in the coffee shop. Sana is sitting on the edge of her seat now, leaning towards Yousef. 

"We saw that picture on the Internet so we painted one wall dark-grey and the rest white.", Yousef says, still not understanding what's going on. "Why?"

The next thing neither of them expected. Sana jumps out of her seat, almost spilling her coffee, and hugs Yousef. It happens fast and at first she doesn't realize what she's doing. Her arms wrapped around Yousef's neck, her face buried on his shoulder. 

At first Yousef doesn't know how to react. He stiffens. But then he notices Sana relax and slowly wraps his arms around her. His heart is beating so hard that Sana can probably feel it but he doesn't care. He doesn't even care what made her do this, he just cares that Sana feels comfortable enough with him to hug him. To hug him like this. 

Yousef doesn't know how long they are in that embrace for. At some point Sana leans back, still not moving too far away from Yousef. She looks him in the eyes and with the widest smile, showing off her dimples, she tells him what she just figured out.

"I think I saw your room.", her smile gets even bigger, "I think you're my soulmate!"

[quoratopstories]

What is the weirdest/grossest/most disturbing thing seen by emergency room staff? Do you ever find it difficult not to faint?

Not a personal experience. I came across this on a similar thread on Reddit. It is quite long but the OP elicits quite the imagery, if you will.

OR Nurse here. This is kind of a long one... I was taking call one night, and woke up at two in the morning for a "general surgery" call. Pretty vague, but at the time, I lived in a town that had large populations of young military guys and avid meth users, so late-night emergencies were common. Got to the hospital, where a few more details awaited me -- "Perirectal abscess." For the uninitiated, this means that somewhere in the immediate vicinity of the asshole, there was a pocket of pus that needed draining. Needless to say our entire crew was less than thrilled. I went down to the Emergency Room to transport the patient, and the only thing the ER nurse said as she handed me the chart was "Have fun with this one." Amongst healthcare professionals, vague statements like that are a bad sign. My patient was a 314lb Native American woman who barely fit on the stretcher I was transporting her on. She was rolling frantically side to side and moaning in pain, pulling at her clothes and muttering Hail Mary's. I could barely get her name out of her after a few minutes of questioning, so after I confirmed her identity and what we were working on, I figured it was best just to get her to the anesthesiologist so we could knock her out and get this circus started. She continued her theatrics the entire ten-minute ride to the O.R., nearly falling off the surgical table as we were trying to put her under anesthetic. We see patients like this a lot, though, chronic drug abusers who don't handle pain well and who have used so many drugs that even increased levels of pain medication don't touch simply because of high tolerance levels. It should be noted, tonight's surgical team was not exactly wet behind the ears. I'd been working in healthcare for several years already, mostly psych and medical settings. I've watched an 88-year-old man tear a 1"-diameter catheter balloon out of his penis while screaming "You'll never make me talk!". I've been attacked by an HIV-positive neo-Nazi. I've seen some shit. The other nurse had been in the OR as a trauma specialist for over ten years; the anesthesiologist had done residency at a Level 1 trauma center, or as we call them, "Knife and Gun Clubs". The surgeon was ex-Army, and averaged about eight words and two facial expressions a week. None of us expected what was about to happen next. We got the lady off to sleep, put her into the stirrups, and I began washing off the rectal area. It was red and inflamed, a little bit of pus was seeping through, but it was all pretty standard. Her chart had noted that she'd been injecting IV drugs through her perineum, so this was obviously an infection from dirty needles or bad drugs, but overall, it didn't seem to warrant her repeated cries of "Oh Jesus, kill me now." The surgeon steps up with a scalpel, sinks just the tip in, and at the exact same moment, the patient had a muscle twitch in her diaphragm, and just like that, all hell broke loose. Unbeknownst to us, the infection had actually tunneled nearly a foot into her abdomen, creating a vast cavern full of pus, rotten tissue, and fecal matter that had seeped outside of her colon. This godforsaken mixture came rocketing out of that little incision like we were recreating the funeral scene from Jane Austen's "Mafia!". We all wear waterproof gowns, face masks, gloves, hats, the works -- all of which were as helpful was rainboots against a firehose. The bed was in the middle of the room, an easy seven feet from the nearest wall, but by the time we were done, I was still finding bits of rotten flesh pasted against the back wall. As the surgeon continued to advance his blade, the torrent just continued. The patient kept seizing against the ventilator (not uncommon in surgery), and with every muscle contraction, she shot more of this brackish gray-brown fluid out onto the floor until, within minutes, it was seeping into the other nurse's shoes. I was nearly twelve feet away, jaw dropped open within my surgical mask, watching the second nurse dry-heaving and the surgeon standing on tip-toes to keep this stuff from soaking his socks any further. The smell hit them first. "Oh god, I just threw up in my mask!" The other nurse was out, she tore off her mask and sprinted out of the room, shoulders still heaving. Then it hit me, mouth still wide open, not able to believe the volume of fluid this woman's body contained. It was like getting a great big bite of the despair and apathy that permeated this woman's life. I couldn't fucking breath, my lungs simply refused to pull anymore of that stuff in. The anesthesiologist went down next, an ex-NCAA D1 tailback, his six-foot-two frame shaking as he threw open the door to the OR suite in an attempt to get more air in, letting me glimpse the second nurse still throwing up in the sinks outside the door. Another geyser of pus splashed across the front of the surgeon. The YouTube clip of "David at the dentist" keeps playing in my head -- "Is this real life?" In all operating rooms, everywhere in the world, regardless of socialized or privatized, secular or religious, big or small, there is one thing the same: Somewhere, there is a bottle of peppermint concentrate. Everyone in the department knows where it is, everyone knows what it is for, and everyone prays to their gods they never have to use it. In times like this, we rub it on the inside of our masks to keep the outside smells at bay long enough to finish the procedure and shower off. I sprinted to the our central supply, ripping open the drawer where this vial of ambrosia was kept, and was greeted by -- an empty fucking box. The bottle had been emptied and not replaced. Somewhere out there was a godless bastard who had used the last of the peppermint oil, and not replaced a single fucking drop of it. To this day, if I figure out who it was, I'll kill them with my bare hands, but not before cramming their head up the colon of every last meth user I can find, just so we're even. I darted back into the room with the next best thing I can find -- a vial of Mastisol, which is an adhesive rub we use sometimes for bandaging. It's not as good as peppermint, but considering that over one-third of the floor was now thoroughly coated in what could easily be mistaken for a combination of bovine after-birth and maple syrup, we were out of options. I started rubbing as much of the Mastisol as I could get on the inside of my mask, just glad to be smelling anything except whatever slimy demon spawn we'd just cut out of this woman. The anesthesiologist grabbed the vial next, dowsing the front of his mask in it so he could stand next to his machines long enough to make sure this woman didn't die on the table. It wasn't until later that we realized that Mastisol can give you a mild high from huffing it like this, but in retrospect, that's probably what got us through. By this time, the smell had permeated out of our OR suite, and down the forty-foot hallway to the front desk, where the other nurse still sat, eyes bloodshot and watery, clenching her stomach desperately. Our suite looked like the underground river of ooze from Ghostbusters II, except dirty. Oh so dirty. I stepped back into the OR suite, not wanting to leave the surgeon by himself in case he genuinely needed help. It was like one of those overly-artistic representations of a zombie apocalypse you see on fan-forums. Here's this one guy, in blue surgical garb, standing nearly ankle deep in lumps of dead tissue, fecal matter, and several liters of syrupy infection. He was performing surgery in the swamps of Dagobah, except the swamps had just come out of this woman's ass and there was no Yoda. He and I didn't say a word for the next ten minutes as he scraped the inside of the abscess until all the dead tissue was out, the front of his gown a gruesome mixture of brown and red, his eyes squinted against the stinging vapors originating directly in front of him. I finished my required paperwork as quickly as I could, helped him stuff the recently-vacated opening full of gauze, taped this woman's buttocks closed to hold the dressing for as long as possible, woke her up, and immediately shipped off to the recovery ward. Until then, I'd only heard of "alcohol showers." Turns out 70% isopropyl alcohol is about the only thing that can even touch a scent like that once its soaked into your skin. It takes four or five bottles to get really clean, but it's worth it. It's probably the only scenario I can honestly endorse drinking a little of it, too. As we left the locker room, the surgeon and I looked at each other, and he said the only negative sentence I heard him utter in two and a half years of working together: "That was bad." The next morning the entire department (a fairly large floor within the hospital) still smelled. The housekeepers told me later that it took them nearly an hour to suction up all of the fluid and debris left behind. The OR suite itself was closed off and quarantined for two more days just to let the smell finally clear out. I laugh now when I hear new recruits to healthcare talk about the worst thing they've seen. You ain't seen shit, kid. tl;dr Don't shoot IV drugs into your taint.

Source: http://ift.tt/2jupCGH... Read other answers by

Lesslie John on Quora:

What are some hilarious Marijuana stories/incident?

Read more answers on Quora. via Quora http://ift.tt/2jEEShX

[virginieboesus]

The History of Final Fantasy

These days, it’s actually really hard to imagine the gaming industry without Final Fantasy. No matter if you’re a fan of RPGs or not, you’ll almost certainly have heard of the franchise. In fact, you’ve probably seen the adverts for Final Fantasy XV all over TV, billboards and YouTube, especially with the mobile game that is now available as well. But there was a time before this behemoth (pun intended) of a franchise existed and it is a story well documented amongst Final Fantasy fans.

However, in the effort to write up a really cool and educational post, I’m going to cover it once again! Why not, right? So, without further adieu, let’s dive into the deep end of Square Enix’s past and look at the history of Final Fantasy.

It’s All In The Name

It all started as the console market was being revolutionised by the brand new Nintendo Famicom, eventually released outside of Japan as the Nintendo Entertainment System. Around that time, a young 21-year-old developer joined a small company then known as Square, with hopes to bring them into the limelight of the computer games industry. His name was Hironubu Sakaguchi.

At that time, the Famicom was gaining huge strides due to the likes of Super Mario Bros and The Legend of Zelda, which also meant that expectations of video games were rather high. Therefore, it was definitely a turbulent climate for a small company to try and make their way into.

Nevertheless, Sakaguchi and his team got to work on various games, including Rad Racer and a number of other titles. These games definitely showed off the development prowess of the team, but there was one huge problem; they didn’t sell.

So it was that Square was running out of money fast, edging closer and closer to bankruptcy.  Many people would have just given up at that point, but Sakaguchi was determined to put his mark on the gaming industry before it was all lost. He and his team decided to try one final time, this time focusing their efforts on an epic fantasy adventure to rival games like Wizardry – a “final fantasy” if you will.

The Revival Of A Company

The appropriately named Final Fantasy hit the shelves in Japan on the 18th of December, 1987. This was also the same week that saw the launch of Phantasy Star from SEGA, and was just two short months ahead of Dragon Quest III as well.

However, Sakaguchi had a few tricks up his sleeve to help the game. Firstly, Square had brought on Yoshitaka Amano, the artist behind the Vampire Hunter D anime, to create the visual designs for the game. Secondly, the soundtrack was composed by Nobuo Uematsu which, when combined with the story and visuals, created a complete and well-crafted package that gamers could pick up and enjoy immediately.

It was this release that finally turned the tide for Square, dragging them back from the brink of bankruptcy. One single game proved so popular that it saved the entire company. So, if you’re ever wondering why Square Enix (as they are now called) are so protective about the series, it is because they literally wouldn’t exist without it.

A Not-So-Final Fantasy

Before the first game had even started to be localised for other countries, Square had started putting together plans for a sequel. How could they not, when the game had saved them all?

On top of that, their biggest competition (Enix’s Dragon Quest) series was producing new titles almost every year. Square had to compete, so another Final Fantasy was needed, despite the confusion that the name would cause.

At the time, RPG series tended to focus on sticking to pre-determined conventions. Whether this mention continuing with the same characters through each game, or at least keeping it within the same world, each game was an actual sequel to the last. Sakaguchi and his team decided to break away from that with Final Fantasy II. Instead, the game featured an entirely new world with new characters, backstory and a more complex plot.

Experimentation quickly became one of the staples of Final Fantasy sequels, beginning with Final Fantasy II. For example, a brand new leveling system was put into place. Rather than simply gaining levels from experience points, you powered up your skills by using them or weapons that were related to them. For example, using magic more often would make a character better at using magic. This was a huge change of gameplay direction for RPGs in general at the time.

Sadly, it didn’t get well received, due mostly to the fact that it meant you had to grind far more often. This was both frustrating and tiring for many players. So it was that development quickly moved to the third game in the series.

The 8-Bit Trilogy

Final Fantasy III marked the last game in the series to be released on the Famicom and NES. It continued the experimental attitude of the second game, although to a much smaller extent. That level of experimentation was moved over to the SaGa series instead.

Dropping the new leveling system, Final Fantasy III introduced the Job system. This allowed each character to take on the role of over 20 different “jobs”, or classes. These could be switched in and out at any time as well, meaning that each character could learn a vast array of abilities. It also added a tactical element to party structure, as you had to plan out how each party member would work and what role they would play.

The game, itself, was well recieved, helping to bring back some love to the series. However, it was a short-lived game and, despite building the framework for the rest of the series, quickly disappeared from memory.

The 16-Bit Era

So it was that Final Fantasy III ended the series’ run on the Famicom and NES. However, that was only because of the release of the Super Famicom (or the SNES outside of Japan). This brand new system launched the next generation for gaming, bringing the world into the 16-Bit era.

Square was, however, reluctant to throw all of their chips into one basket and fully commit to a new system. As such, they planned to create two new Final Fantasy games at the same time, named Final Fantasy IV and V respectively. IV would be released for the NES, which was now reaching the end of its life cycle, whilst V would be developed for the SNES.

Unfortunately, it was just too much for the company to handle, so they were forced to scrap the original NES game known as Final Fantasy IV. Thus, they put all of their focus onto the SNES game, changing its name from V to IV.

This version of Final Fantasy IV sort to refine the gameplay of its predecessors, doing away with the interchangeable job system in favour of predetermined classes for each character. This meant that the classes could be far more complex, but also helped the developers create a more in-depth storyline.

Final Fantasy IV added everything from meaningful relationships between characters to complex political struggles. Despite still being firmly rooted in the fantasy genre, this allowed the developers to show fans that they could expand the horizons of the series beyond standard tropes.

Experimentation continued as well, as Square made huge changes to the standard turn-based battle system that had been in place since the very first game. Final Fantasy IV was the first game to introduce the Active Time Battle system, which meant that characters would need to “rest” after each attack, with the rest time varying depending on the strength of the attack. It also meant that the Speed statistic suddenly became even more important.

This was because, the higher a character’s Speed (or Agility), the shorter their rest time was. Finally, it was Final Fantasy IV that saw the introduction of Save Points, which by today’s standards, is now seen as an outdated gameplay mechanic. However, at the time it was a brilliant addition that meant the pacing and length of the game could be greatly improved.

Interestingly enough, due to the fact that Final Fantasy II and III were not localised outside of Japan, when Final Fantasy IV came to the West on the SNES, it was renamed as Final Fantasy II. This was cover up the fact that we had essentially missed two full games (and wouldn’t be the last time this happened).

Making It Easy For The West

The RPG genre had never really been big in the West. In fact, it was still very much a niche genre until Final Fantasy IV (I mean II) came out on the SNES. It was that game which really introduced Western audiences to the genre. Therefore, Square wanted to take advantage of this and grow the Final Fantasy brand in the States as quickly as possible.

However, they had already needed to make Final Fantasy IV (II) easier than its Japanese counterpart for it to be successful. So it was that the view of developers became the idea that the Western audience just wasn’t able to handle the complexities of the RPG genre. So, Square decided to make an RPG just for Americans; Final Fantasy Mystic Quest.

It removed the free-roam aspects of the genre, as well as taking away control of all characters except for the main protagonist. In essence, it cut out all of the tactical elements and grinding, but kept the standard slow pacing. You can find out how well it turned out in my review of Final Fantasy Mystic Quest here.

In the end, it was a really bad decision. Even when Mystic Quest was released in Japan (amusingly named Final Fantasy USA), it didn’t sell very well at all. This was a learning experience for Square, who decided that they wouldn’t dumb down any future releases outside of Japan (thankfully).

The Fifth Fantasy

Final Fantasy V, having been developed whilst the world was experiencing Mystic Quest, finally released in Japan in December of 1992. It had been designed to give the deepest experience of a Final Fantasy game to date – that’s the reason why the West didn’t get the game.

With an updated version of the Job system, as well as an Ability System that connected to it, character depth was greatly improved. If you were to level up one class high enough, you could then unlock the ability to cross-equip some of that class’ skills onto another one (this idea would later be used as a key feature in Final Fantasy XIV).

Despite this, Square remained vigilant with their storytelling, creating unique characters rather than relying on nameless protagonists. The storyline was littered with memorable moments, grand villains and emotion. It was a really strong entry in the franchise – one that we didn’t get to experience outside of Japan, at first.

Goodbye To The 16-Bit

And so we come to the end of the SNES’ life cycle as well, and with it, the last in the second trilogy of Final Fantasy games. Final Fantasy VI released on the 2nd of April, 1994. It marked a huge change for the series in terms of setting style, as it moved away from medieval fantasy and dove straight into steampunk.

The world mixed swords and magic with a society of industry and machinery. This was introduced to players immediately in the opening scene through the use of Magitek Armor right at the beginning of the game.

In the West, the game was hyped up through previews and ads across all sorts of gaming magazines. There was even an animated TV advert as well.

On top of this, Square had learnt their lesson; the game was not going to be made easier for the West. Instead, the game itself scrapped the Job system once again, focusing on the characters themselves (like Final Fantasy IV). Square also decided to buck the trend of J-RPGs of the time by expanding the game’s world, rather than narrowing storylines.

This meant that a whole host of sub-plots and backstory events were included. Considering the fact that gamers at the time weren’t used to open-world games or massive narratives at the time, this helped to make Final Fantasy VI really stand out from the crowd.

The game received glowing reviews across the board and, to this day, is very as one of the best games in the series as a whole.

All Lucky Sevens

First years, Square had been partnered with Nintendo. In fact, they even put together a tech demo for the Nintendo 64 that uses characters from Final Fantasy VI. This lead to many believing that the next Final Fantasy was an imminent N64 release.

However, since Nintendo was determined to stick with cartridges for the N64 whilst Sony had just released the PlayStation using CDs as a medium, the time for change had come. Square jumped ship to the new console. Many fans were outraged at first, viewing the company as traitors.

However, it turned out to be the right decision, as fans would soon come to realise.

Sakaguchi moved away from being the director of the next Final Fantasy game, instead acting as Producer due to the larger team needed to produce the seventh game. In fact, the team had grown four times as large compared to that of Final Fantasy VI! With Sakaguchi no longer in the director’s chair, Square put Yoshinori Kitase in the role instead – he was the director of the huge success that was Chrono Trigger.

Whilst the team had very limited experience with CGI graphics, through hard work they managed to start bringing everything together. It was at that point that they knew the Western audiences would be sold on the game, because of how amazing it looked. However, he was concerned about the Japanese audience and how they would react to the new Final Fantasy game being on Sony’s console and not Nintendo’s.

On the 31st of January 1997, Final Fantasy VII was released into the wild. Nervousness was certainly the feeling of the day in Square’s offices. However, within the first three days of release, Final Fantasy VII sold 2 million copies! Once it hit Western shores, that number jumped up to 10 million, sealing the deal and letting Square and its fans know that the jump had been the right move.

Square had dared to fight against two prevailing theories;

Americans and Europeans would never play RPGs

Americans and Europeans cared more about action than story

They took a stand to prove these ideas wrong, and they were successful. Final Fantasy VII was a runaway success that, to this day, is still beloved by millions. It has even lead to sequels and prequels called Crisis Core (PSP), Dirge of Cerberus (PS2) and Advent Children (movie). Sadly, Square has yet to reach quite that level of success again.

Divided We Stand

Moving on from Final Fantasy VII, Square had another lesson to learn. Final Fantasy VII had seen many delays during development due to poor planning. As such, Square decided to split their development team in two in order to plan and work on two new games at the same time.

Whilst this had been tried before when working on the original Final Fantasy IV and V, things had moved on considerably since then.

Thus, work on Final Fantasy VIII and IX began almost simultaneously. VIII would stick with the more modern style setting of VI and VII, whilst IX would return to the medieval world, filled with nostalgia. It was a bold decision.

Final Fantasy VIII was set in a world inspired by modern-day Europe and threw away much of the traditional leveling system. Whilst you still grew stronger through gaining experience points, you could actually improve your characters’ stats further by “junctioning” (equipping magic onto your individual stats). This also lead to the removal of MP (magic points), as Magic was “drawn” out of monsters or Draw Point, giving you limited numbers of each spell until you found another place or monster to draw it out of.

Despite the fact that the game received critical praise, earning scores of 9 or higher across the board, it split fans considerably. Some loved the game’s new style of gameplay and epic tale of romance, whilst others found the Junction system to be overly complicated and the Draw system tedious.

As for Final Fantasy IX, development was marred by confusion. To begin with, Square wasn’t sure whether they wanted it to even be a numbered sequel. This is because numbered sequels were considered the “bread and butter” of the franchise and the game was very much a nostalgic throwback to the older games. To be a numbered sequel, the game had to be worthy of it. In the end, it was.

Returning to the deformed character styles of Yoshitaka Amano, Square took Final Fantasy IX’s design back to the style of the older games, which adding in new gameplay features and a massive plot that spanned four discs.

It was largely considered a work of art upon release, actually being the highest rated game of the series so far. However, it ended up being the worst selling of the PlayStation era games, possibly due to the end of the 32-bit era coming ever closer.

The 32-Bit Swan Song

As we reached the end of the 20th century, the 32-bit era of the PlayStation, Sega Saturn and N64 was coming to an end as well. So, in order to get as much out of the 32-bit consoles as possible, Square began to release a bunch of spin-off and cash in titles.

These included Chocobo Racing, which was a Mario Kart inspired game with the main character being a chocobo with rocket-propelled shoes. There were also a few small RPGs featuring said chocobo as the main character.

However, amongst all of these cash in titles was one spin-off game that was truly worthy of the Final Fantasy name; Final Fantasy Tactics.

It was actually developed around the same time as Final Fantasy VII, but focused more on the traditional 2D graphical style of RPGs, except for the 3D world. The standard turn-based RPG battle system was replaced with a tactical RPG system, which resembled chess. On top of this, the Job system made a comeback, but in far more depth.

Despite the game featuring a brilliant and rich storyline, the hardcore tactical gameplay proved to be its downfall, at least at the time of launch. Sales were very poor, partly because everyone had recently fallen in love with the gameplay style of Final Fantasy VII. In fact, the game sold so badly that it wasn’t even released in Europe!

However, in 2001, Square decided to re-release it in the “Greatest Hits” line of games. This is the American version of Europe’s Platinum range of games. It was then that the game suddenly shot up in popularity. Sure, it may not have come close to the main numbered series in sales, but it sold well enough to spawn two sequels on the GameBoy Advance (which were nowhere near as good) and a port to the PSP with improved dialogue.

The New Millenium

The move into the 21st century marked yet another change in the Final Fantasy franchise. Having seen what CGI storytelling could do through Final Fantasy VII, VIII and IX, Sakaguchi began work on Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.

This was not the next game in the series, nor another spin-off title. Instead, it was completely CGI movie, similar to that of Dreamworks and Pixar. However, instead of creating cartoon graphics for kids, Sakaguchi and his team created a photo-realistic movie to show what they could do. It took three years to create and, to this day, is still one of the best reviewed videogame to movie adaptations.

However, it had almost nothing to do with Final Fantasy, except for the idea of the planet’s “spirit” being called Gaia. The Spirits Within was actually just a relatively standard science fiction film. Because of this, and the fact that it was far too deep and philosophical for a standard action movie, it failed miserably.

In fact, it was one of the biggest commercial failures and financial losses in movie history, nearly bringing Square back to the position they had been in before Sakaguchi first released Final Fantasy all those years ago.

The Tenth Release

Luckily for Square, the next game in the Final Fantasy series released very soon after. Sakaguchi, due to his involvement with The Spirits Within, had only acted as Executive Producer on this new game, but you could still feel his influence.

Having been in development for over two years, Final Fantasy X was the first game in the series to appear on the newly released PlayStation 2. Once again, the team behind it had ditched traditional RPG design in favour of experimentation.

This lead to a battle system known as the Conditional Turn Battle system, where using certain actions meant that a character would have his or her next turn pushed further down the queue. On top of this, you could swap characters in and out of battle as long as they were still standing.

The other major point of experimentation worth mentioning, apart from the inclusion of voice acting for the first time in the series, was the Sphere Grid. In another effort to step away from traditional leveling, Final Fantasy X saw characters gain Sphere Levels which could then be spent to move around the Sphere Grid.

The Sphere Grid was a huge board full of nodes that contained skills and stat increases, as well as special lock nodes that need key spheres to unlock. In essence, it was a giant puzzle that you had to move the characters around in order to grow their stats and abilities. This added an insane amount of customisation to the characters, as you could choose how they developed depending on how you moved around the grid.

Finally, the developers ditched the World Map idea (except when you’re in an airship), favouring a “connected world” style of gameplay. This meant that there were no immersion-breaking changes in the size of the world. No longer would you step out of a town and suddenly be a giant character towering above the rest of the world as you moved to the next location. Instead, every single road, forest and town were part of one single world connected by loading zones.

Final Fantasy X marked the moment in time that the series turned around again, becoming the king RPGs once more. The gameplay and storyline where sheer brilliance and are remembered very fondly to this day.

The First True Sequel

Square was so elated with how well received Final Fantasy X was that they decide to do something they had never done before; make a new game with the same world and characters. For the very first time, Squaresoft made a direct sequel to a Final Fantasy game!

Because development and release of Final Fantasy XI were already looming, they had to choose a different naming convention. Thus, they named this new game Final Fantasy X-2, starting a new naming convention that would stick when they eventually made more direct sequels in the future.

Final Fantasy X-2 was very much a game about fan-service. It focused on being more light-hearted than the rather dark and depressing story of Final Fantasy X. A good example of this is when you first start up the game and are greeted with a pop concert.

Also, due to the fact that the game only featured 3 playable characters, the developers opted to bring back the Job system in order to give more variety to the characters. However, this was done through a “dress up” system, where you had to get different outfits to unlock the different classes.

Despite the fact that it doesn’t hold very fond memories with many Final Fantasy fans, it sold rather well.

A Historic Merger

For years, Square’s Final Fantasy series and Enix’s Dragon Quest franchise had been bitter rivals in the gaming industry. All of that changed shortly after the release of Final Fantasy X-2.

It was, at this time in Final Fantasy’s history, that Square merged with Enix to create a brand new entity that is still known as Square Enix today.

However, it also marked the end of Sakaguchi’s reign as the king of Final Fantasy. Following the merger, his new bosses took one look at the stain on his record caused by The Spirits Within and that was all there was to it. So, after working at Square for 21 years, Sakaguchi left the company he had helped to build and moved on to start a new business.

Multiplayer Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy XI was a game that caused a lot of controversy with fans when it was first announced. It was going to be a massively-multiplayer RPG (MMORPG) similar to World of Warcraft or EverQuest. This angered many longtime fans, similar to how Final Fantasy VII had done the same before release.

This was especially true in Japan, as online gaming hadn’t really been a success compared to the West.

However, Square Enix had a trick up their sleeve – one that they would use again later in the franchise’s life. You see, Final Fantasy XI was a cross-platform MMORPG, which meant that PC and PS2 players were able to play together on the same servers. This was a first in the industry. On top of this, the Job system returned, which meant that one character could play all of the classes in the game.

This was a huge selling point compared to other MMORPGs, as traditionally, you would have to “role”, or play as, multiple characters to try out and enjoy the different classes. Having all of them available on one character made life far more simple for gamers.

However, to this day, Final Fantasy XI is widely regarded as one of the most challenging MMORPGs. In fact, the game has one boss fight that became legendary when elite end-game players fought it for 20 hours straight, in a huge group, only to eventually give up before they could kill it.

Despite this, the game continued to run on a Pay to Play monthly subscription model for 14 years! The servers were eventually shut down and the game closed in 2016.

The Return of Nintendo

It wasn’t long after the release of Final Fantasy XI that Square Enix announced that they would be bringing a new game in the franchise to Nintendo’s GameCube console. It wouldn’t be a main numbered entry, but rather a spin-off series of its own known as Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles.

The game featured multiplayer and returned to the more child-friendly graphical style of the original Nintendo Final Fantasy games. It sold relatively well, especially since the development team featured less than 20 people. As such, it has since gone on to create its own series on the DS and Wii consoles.

The Twelfth Battle

By the time Final Fantasy XII came out, the cards were already stacked against it. The next generation of consoles was already beginning as the Xbox 360 had been released and the PS2 was losing traction.

However, Square Enix was undeterred and created their most ambitious game to date. Utilising the idea of a connected world that they had perfected with Final Fantasy X, the team created a huge game world suitable for an MMORPG. However, the game wasn’t an online one, instead sticking true to the single-player RPG style.

The turn-based battle system was heavily altered again, with battle scenes removed from the game. Instead of running around and then being pulled out of the game map and into a separate battle scene randomly, enemies now appeared on the game map and battles took place in the game world. The active time battle system made a comeback, but with an MMORPG style twist as well.

The storyline was also set in the same world as Final Fantasy Tactics and another PSX game, Vagrant Story. This helped to capture the interest of fans of both of these games. It was very well received by critics, but due to the PS2 reaching the end of its lifecycle, sales were low.

It did, however, get a small sequel on the Nintendo DS a year later.

Lightning Strikes In Threes

With the PS3 coming out, fans of Final Fantasy waited eagerly for the next game in the series; Final Fantasy XIII. Originally slated to be the flagship game in a new collective series known as Fabula Nova Crystallis, it featured a strong, female lead character called Lightning who was dubbed as a mix between Terra from Final Fantasy VI and Cloud from Final Fantasy VII.

Final Fantasy XIII was an absolutely beautiful game, really showing what the PlayStation 3 was capable of. However, it was ultimately frowned upon by fans due to the simplistic combat system (you could let the game fight for you if you wanted to) and extremely linear first half of the game. It was even nicknamed as a corridor simulator by fans of the series.

Nevertheless, Square Enix developed a direct sequel, utilising the naming convention started with Final Fantasy X-2.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 focused on Sarah, Lightning’s sister, and featured the ability to travel through time. This was designed to remedy to feeling of XIII being too linear. However, the fact that you only had two playable characters (plus monsters that you could tame) meant that the battle system felt just as simplistic as the original game.

Despite the multitude of endings adding to the replayability of the game, fans were waiting for the other games in the Fabula Nova Crystallis instead. However, they were to be disappointed when one of them was taken away to be its own game (we’ll get to that) and the other just seemed to fade away (we’ll get to that too).

It wasn’t long after XIII-2 that we were then given Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, the third game in this mini-series within a series. Taking place 500 years after the events of XIII-2, the game features a clock that was constantly ticking down to the end of the world.

With a Job system in the style of Final Fantasy X-2’s dress up game coming into play again, plus the fact that Lighting was the only real playable character, it was a very different Final Fantasy game. This was in keep with the idea of experimentation that permeates the franchise. However, by this point, fans were ready to move on from Lightning.

Refocused

As mentioned earlier, one of the planned games for the Fabula Nova Crystallis mythos was taken out of the collective to become its own game. This became known as Final Fantasy Type-0 and was released for the PSP originally, before eventually getting an HD remake for the PS4.

Similar to the spin-off prequel to Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core, Type-0 uses an action-battle system as the basis for combat. The game itself is a huge departure from the standard gameplay of the franchise, with 14 playable characters and (on the PSP version) multiplayer with a 3-minute time limit.

The game is structured using a mission-based format as well, similar to Crisis Core, and also features an arena mode as well.

An Era Reborn

The next game in the Final Fantasy series was Final Fantasy XIV, a second attempt to create an MMORPG after the success of FFXI. However, the original version of XIV was a disaster.

The game itself needed top of the range PCs to be able to even run the game. From there, it was full of bugs at launch and felt incredibly empty due to the size of the world and lack of NPC and monster population. Despite this, it did gain dedicated players who stuck with it.

However, Square Enix could see how badly the game was doing and, rather than risk tarnishing the Final Fantasy name again (like they did with The Spirits Within) they decided to take action. A new development team took over the game, adding in various patches to fix the most broken bugs whilst creating a storyline that led to the End of an Era event.

This involved one of the moons coming down to the planet, summoned by one of the antagonists. That moon subsequently exploded to reveal Bahamut, the king of dragons within it. Bahamut proceeded to obliterate the world whilst a powerful mage sent players’ characters into the future.

This was the end of the original Final Fantasy XIV and marked the day the servers were turned off.

The new team then went to work to rebuild the game from the ground up. This lead to new graphics and systems being used to make the game work better on all types of PCs, but also on the PS3 as well (plus the PS4 at a later date). Thanks to this, cross-platform gameplay was added successfully to the game as well.

The gameplay was altered and improved immensely as well, and a new storyline was written. This led to the game being relaunched as Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn.

In this new version, players of the original could continue with the characters that they already had, as the developers had written the plotline of these characters being sent forward in time. The new game took place 2 years after Bahamut’s attack and reintroduced previous players through one starting storyline and new players through a different one.

From here, the game became a resounding success and is currently one of the most popular MMORPGs available, with two expansion packs and additional content being added to the game for free every 3 months. There have also been a number of Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festivals around the world as well.

Final Fantasy XIV is the story of how Square Enix was able to salvage a completely failing game and turn it into a true success story.

Brotherhood And The Future

Finally, we’re going to talk about the third game from the Fabula Nova Crystallis; the one that just seemed to vanish. For years, no news was heard about this game, originally titled as Final Fantasy Versus XIII. Because of this, everyone had come to the assumption that this awesome looking game had been quietly cancelled.

Then, at E3 2013, everyone was focused on the PS4 and Xbox One, not really expecting anything of note to come from Square. However, when Sony’s press conference started, we got something no one was expecting. Tetsuya Nomura appeared on the screen to announce that he had a surprise for us all.

A trailer appeared, showcasing an utterly beautiful looking game from Square Enix. Part way through the trailer, Noctis, the main character of Versus XIII came into view, followed by some of the most amazing looking gameplay ever. Then, the Versus XIII logo finally appeared on the screen, only the shatter into pieces and be replaced with the title Final Fantasy XV.

The long lost game was back, and was now a main numbered title! The crowd erupted, and the game was alive.

It eventually released on the PS2 on the 29th of November 2016. With a massive open world, exciting and frantic gameplay and a story about brotherhood and friendship, it was a return to form for the series. Since then, it has seen numerous DLC added to it, including one that fixed one of the less popular sections of the games. This shows Square Enix’s continued desire to improve and make Final Fantasy games as good as they can be, first seen in how they handled Final Fantasy XIV.

With more DLC coming in 2019, set the end the story of Noctis and his friends, we can now start to look towards the future of Final Fantasy and the 16th numbered title in the series. Considering the success of both Final Fantasy XIV and XV, I think the future is a bright one.

And That’s All Folks

Final Fantasy has a storied history of twist and turns, successes and failures. It is one of the longest running video game series to date and looks set to keep going for a long time to come. It helped save a company from the brink of collapse, popularise the RPG genre in the West and create a devoted fan base.

Have you played a Final Fantasy game? Which is your favourite? What do you think the future holds for the franchise? Let me know in the comments below!

from More Design Curation https://www.16bitdad.com/the-history-of-final-fantasy/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-history-of-final-fantasy source https://smartstartblogging.tumblr.com/post/172910252185

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The History of Final Fantasy

These days, it’s actually really hard to imagine the gaming industry without Final Fantasy. No matter if you’re a fan of RPGs or not, you’ll almost certainly have heard of the franchise. In fact, you’ve probably seen the adverts for Final Fantasy XV all over TV, billboards and YouTube, especially with the mobile game that is now available as well. But there was a time before this behemoth (pun intended) of a franchise existed and it is a story well documented amongst Final Fantasy fans.

However, in the effort to write up a really cool and educational post, I’m going to cover it once again! Why not, right? So, without further adieu, let’s dive into the deep end of Square Enix’s past and look at the history of Final Fantasy.

It’s All In The Name

It all started as the console market was being revolutionised by the brand new Nintendo Famicom, eventually released outside of Japan as the Nintendo Entertainment System. Around that time, a young 21-year-old developer joined a small company then known as Square, with hopes to bring them into the limelight of the computer games industry. His name was Hironubu Sakaguchi.

At that time, the Famicom was gaining huge strides due to the likes of Super Mario Bros and The Legend of Zelda, which also meant that expectations of video games were rather high. Therefore, it was definitely a turbulent climate for a small company to try and make their way into.

Nevertheless, Sakaguchi and his team got to work on various games, including Rad Racer and a number of other titles. These games definitely showed off the development prowess of the team, but there was one huge problem; they didn’t sell.

So it was that Square was running out of money fast, edging closer and closer to bankruptcy.  Many people would have just given up at that point, but Sakaguchi was determined to put his mark on the gaming industry before it was all lost. He and his team decided to try one final time, this time focusing their efforts on an epic fantasy adventure to rival games like Wizardry – a “final fantasy” if you will.

The Revival Of A Company

The appropriately named Final Fantasy hit the shelves in Japan on the 18th of December, 1987. This was also the same week that saw the launch of Phantasy Star from SEGA, and was just two short months ahead of Dragon Quest III as well.

However, Sakaguchi had a few tricks up his sleeve to help the game. Firstly, Square had brought on Yoshitaka Amano, the artist behind the Vampire Hunter D anime, to create the visual designs for the game. Secondly, the soundtrack was composed by Nobuo Uematsu which, when combined with the story and visuals, created a complete and well-crafted package that gamers could pick up and enjoy immediately.

It was this release that finally turned the tide for Square, dragging them back from the brink of bankruptcy. One single game proved so popular that it saved the entire company. So, if you’re ever wondering why Square Enix (as they are now called) are so protective about the series, it is because they literally wouldn’t exist without it.

A Not-So-Final Fantasy

Before the first game had even started to be localised for other countries, Square had started putting together plans for a sequel. How could they not, when the game had saved them all?

On top of that, their biggest competition (Enix’s Dragon Quest) series was producing new titles almost every year. Square had to compete, so another Final Fantasy was needed, despite the confusion that the name would cause.

At the time, RPG series tended to focus on sticking to pre-determined conventions. Whether this mention continuing with the same characters through each game, or at least keeping it within the same world, each game was an actual sequel to the last. Sakaguchi and his team decided to break away from that with Final Fantasy II. Instead, the game featured an entirely new world with new characters, backstory and a more complex plot.

Experimentation quickly became one of the staples of Final Fantasy sequels, beginning with Final Fantasy II. For example, a brand new leveling system was put into place. Rather than simply gaining levels from experience points, you powered up your skills by using them or weapons that were related to them. For example, using magic more often would make a character better at using magic. This was a huge change of gameplay direction for RPGs in general at the time.

Sadly, it didn’t get well received, due mostly to the fact that it meant you had to grind far more often. This was both frustrating and tiring for many players. So it was that development quickly moved to the third game in the series.

The 8-Bit Trilogy

Final Fantasy III marked the last game in the series to be released on the Famicom and NES. It continued the experimental attitude of the second game, although to a much smaller extent. That level of experimentation was moved over to the SaGa series instead.

Dropping the new leveling system, Final Fantasy III introduced the Job system. This allowed each character to take on the role of over 20 different “jobs”, or classes. These could be switched in and out at any time as well, meaning that each character could learn a vast array of abilities. It also added a tactical element to party structure, as you had to plan out how each party member would work and what role they would play.

The game, itself, was well recieved, helping to bring back some love to the series. However, it was a short-lived game and, despite building the framework for the rest of the series, quickly disappeared from memory.

The 16-Bit Era

So it was that Final Fantasy III ended the series’ run on the Famicom and NES. However, that was only because of the release of the Super Famicom (or the SNES outside of Japan). This brand new system launched the next generation for gaming, bringing the world into the 16-Bit era.

Square was, however, reluctant to throw all of their chips into one basket and fully commit to a new system. As such, they planned to create two new Final Fantasy games at the same time, named Final Fantasy IV and V respectively. IV would be released for the NES, which was now reaching the end of its life cycle, whilst V would be developed for the SNES.

Unfortunately, it was just too much for the company to handle, so they were forced to scrap the original NES game known as Final Fantasy IV. Thus, they put all of their focus onto the SNES game, changing its name from V to IV.

This version of Final Fantasy IV sort to refine the gameplay of its predecessors, doing away with the interchangeable job system in favour of predetermined classes for each character. This meant that the classes could be far more complex, but also helped the developers create a more in-depth storyline.

Final Fantasy IV added everything from meaningful relationships between characters to complex political struggles. Despite still being firmly rooted in the fantasy genre, this allowed the developers to show fans that they could expand the horizons of the series beyond standard tropes.

Experimentation continued as well, as Square made huge changes to the standard turn-based battle system that had been in place since the very first game. Final Fantasy IV was the first game to introduce the Active Time Battle system, which meant that characters would need to “rest” after each attack, with the rest time varying depending on the strength of the attack. It also meant that the Speed statistic suddenly became even more important.

This was because, the higher a character’s Speed (or Agility), the shorter their rest time was. Finally, it was Final Fantasy IV that saw the introduction of Save Points, which by today’s standards, is now seen as an outdated gameplay mechanic. However, at the time it was a brilliant addition that meant the pacing and length of the game could be greatly improved.

Interestingly enough, due to the fact that Final Fantasy II and III were not localised outside of Japan, when Final Fantasy IV came to the West on the SNES, it was renamed as Final Fantasy II. This was cover up the fact that we had essentially missed two full games (and wouldn’t be the last time this happened).

Making It Easy For The West

The RPG genre had never really been big in the West. In fact, it was still very much a niche genre until Final Fantasy IV (I mean II) came out on the SNES. It was that game which really introduced Western audiences to the genre. Therefore, Square wanted to take advantage of this and grow the Final Fantasy brand in the States as quickly as possible.

However, they had already needed to make Final Fantasy IV (II) easier than its Japanese counterpart for it to be successful. So it was that the view of developers became the idea that the Western audience just wasn’t able to handle the complexities of the RPG genre. So, Square decided to make an RPG just for Americans; Final Fantasy Mystic Quest.

It removed the free-roam aspects of the genre, as well as taking away control of all characters except for the main protagonist. In essence, it cut out all of the tactical elements and grinding, but kept the standard slow pacing. You can find out how well it turned out in my review of Final Fantasy Mystic Quest here.

In the end, it was a really bad decision. Even when Mystic Quest was released in Japan (amusingly named Final Fantasy USA), it didn’t sell very well at all. This was a learning experience for Square, who decided that they wouldn’t dumb down any future releases outside of Japan (thankfully).

The Fifth Fantasy

Final Fantasy V, having been developed whilst the world was experiencing Mystic Quest, finally released in Japan in December of 1992. It had been designed to give the deepest experience of a Final Fantasy game to date – that’s the reason why the West didn’t get the game.

With an updated version of the Job system, as well as an Ability System that connected to it, character depth was greatly improved. If you were to level up one class high enough, you could then unlock the ability to cross-equip some of that class’ skills onto another one (this idea would later be used as a key feature in Final Fantasy XIV).

Despite this, Square remained vigilant with their storytelling, creating unique characters rather than relying on nameless protagonists. The storyline was littered with memorable moments, grand villains and emotion. It was a really strong entry in the franchise – one that we didn’t get to experience outside of Japan, at first.

Goodbye To The 16-Bit

And so we come to the end of the SNES’ life cycle as well, and with it, the last in the second trilogy of Final Fantasy games. Final Fantasy VI released on the 2nd of April, 1994. It marked a huge change for the series in terms of setting style, as it moved away from medieval fantasy and dove straight into steampunk.

The world mixed swords and magic with a society of industry and machinery. This was introduced to players immediately in the opening scene through the use of Magitek Armor right at the beginning of the game.

In the West, the game was hyped up through previews and ads across all sorts of gaming magazines. There was even an animated TV advert as well.

On top of this, Square had learnt their lesson; the game was not going to be made easier for the West. Instead, the game itself scrapped the Job system once again, focusing on the characters themselves (like Final Fantasy IV). Square also decided to buck the trend of J-RPGs of the time by expanding the game’s world, rather than narrowing storylines.

This meant that a whole host of sub-plots and backstory events were included. Considering the fact that gamers at the time weren’t used to open-world games or massive narratives at the time, this helped to make Final Fantasy VI really stand out from the crowd.

The game received glowing reviews across the board and, to this day, is very as one of the best games in the series as a whole.

All Lucky Sevens

First years, Square had been partnered with Nintendo. In fact, they even put together a tech demo for the Nintendo 64 that uses characters from Final Fantasy VI. This lead to many believing that the next Final Fantasy was an imminent N64 release.

However, since Nintendo was determined to stick with cartridges for the N64 whilst Sony had just released the PlayStation using CDs as a medium, the time for change had come. Square jumped ship to the new console. Many fans were outraged at first, viewing the company as traitors.

However, it turned out to be the right decision, as fans would soon come to realise.

Sakaguchi moved away from being the director of the next Final Fantasy game, instead acting as Producer due to the larger team needed to produce the seventh game. In fact, the team had grown four times as large compared to that of Final Fantasy VI! With Sakaguchi no longer in the director’s chair, Square put Yoshinori Kitase in the role instead – he was the director of the huge success that was Chrono Trigger.

Whilst the team had very limited experience with CGI graphics, through hard work they managed to start bringing everything together. It was at that point that they knew the Western audiences would be sold on the game, because of how amazing it looked. However, he was concerned about the Japanese audience and how they would react to the new Final Fantasy game being on Sony’s console and not Nintendo’s.

On the 31st of January 1997, Final Fantasy VII was released into the wild. Nervousness was certainly the feeling of the day in Square’s offices. However, within the first three days of release, Final Fantasy VII sold 2 million copies! Once it hit Western shores, that number jumped up to 10 million, sealing the deal and letting Square and its fans know that the jump had been the right move.

Square had dared to fight against two prevailing theories;

Americans and Europeans would never play RPGs

Americans and Europeans cared more about action than story

They took a stand to prove these ideas wrong, and they were successful. Final Fantasy VII was a runaway success that, to this day, is still beloved by millions. It has even lead to sequels and prequels called Crisis Core (PSP), Dirge of Cerberus (PS2) and Advent Children (movie). Sadly, Square has yet to reach quite that level of success again.

Divided We Stand

Moving on from Final Fantasy VII, Square had another lesson to learn. Final Fantasy VII had seen many delays during development due to poor planning. As such, Square decided to split their development team in two in order to plan and work on two new games at the same time.

Whilst this had been tried before when working on the original Final Fantasy IV and V, things had moved on considerably since then.

Thus, work on Final Fantasy VIII and IX began almost simultaneously. VIII would stick with the more modern style setting of VI and VII, whilst IX would return to the medieval world, filled with nostalgia. It was a bold decision.

Final Fantasy VIII was set in a world inspired by modern-day Europe and threw away much of the traditional leveling system. Whilst you still grew stronger through gaining experience points, you could actually improve your characters’ stats further by “junctioning” (equipping magic onto your individual stats). This also lead to the removal of MP (magic points), as Magic was “drawn” out of monsters or Draw Point, giving you limited numbers of each spell until you found another place or monster to draw it out of.

Despite the fact that the game received critical praise, earning scores of 9 or higher across the board, it split fans considerably. Some loved the game’s new style of gameplay and epic tale of romance, whilst others found the Junction system to be overly complicated and the Draw system tedious.

As for Final Fantasy IX, development was marred by confusion. To begin with, Square wasn’t sure whether they wanted it to even be a numbered sequel. This is because numbered sequels were considered the “bread and butter” of the franchise and the game was very much a nostalgic throwback to the older games. To be a numbered sequel, the game had to be worthy of it. In the end, it was.

Returning to the deformed character styles of Yoshitaka Amano, Square took Final Fantasy IX’s design back to the style of the older games, which adding in new gameplay features and a massive plot that spanned four discs.

It was largely considered a work of art upon release, actually being the highest rated game of the series so far. However, it ended up being the worst selling of the PlayStation era games, possibly due to the end of the 32-bit era coming ever closer.

The 32-Bit Swan Song

As we reached the end of the 20th century, the 32-bit era of the PlayStation, Sega Saturn and N64 was coming to an end as well. So, in order to get as much out of the 32-bit consoles as possible, Square began to release a bunch of spin-off and cash in titles.

These included Chocobo Racing, which was a Mario Kart inspired game with the main character being a chocobo with rocket-propelled shoes. There were also a few small RPGs featuring said chocobo as the main character.

However, amongst all of these cash in titles was one spin-off game that was truly worthy of the Final Fantasy name; Final Fantasy Tactics.

It was actually developed around the same time as Final Fantasy VII, but focused more on the traditional 2D graphical style of RPGs, except for the 3D world. The standard turn-based RPG battle system was replaced with a tactical RPG system, which resembled chess. On top of this, the Job system made a comeback, but in far more depth.

Despite the game featuring a brilliant and rich storyline, the hardcore tactical gameplay proved to be its downfall, at least at the time of launch. Sales were very poor, partly because everyone had recently fallen in love with the gameplay style of Final Fantasy VII. In fact, the game sold so badly that it wasn’t even released in Europe!

However, in 2001, Square decided to re-release it in the “Greatest Hits” line of games. This is the American version of Europe’s Platinum range of games. It was then that the game suddenly shot up in popularity. Sure, it may not have come close to the main numbered series in sales, but it sold well enough to spawn two sequels on the GameBoy Advance (which were nowhere near as good) and a port to the PSP with improved dialogue.

The New Millenium

The move into the 21st century marked yet another change in the Final Fantasy franchise. Having seen what CGI storytelling could do through Final Fantasy VII, VIII and IX, Sakaguchi began work on Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.

This was not the next game in the series, nor another spin-off title. Instead, it was completely CGI movie, similar to that of Dreamworks and Pixar. However, instead of creating cartoon graphics for kids, Sakaguchi and his team created a photo-realistic movie to show what they could do. It took three years to create and, to this day, is still one of the best reviewed videogame to movie adaptations.

However, it had almost nothing to do with Final Fantasy, except for the idea of the planet’s “spirit” being called Gaia. The Spirits Within was actually just a relatively standard science fiction film. Because of this, and the fact that it was far too deep and philosophical for a standard action movie, it failed miserably.

In fact, it was one of the biggest commercial failures and financial losses in movie history, nearly bringing Square back to the position they had been in before Sakaguchi first released Final Fantasy all those years ago.

The Tenth Release

Luckily for Square, the next game in the Final Fantasy series released very soon after. Sakaguchi, due to his involvement with The Spirits Within, had only acted as Executive Producer on this new game, but you could still feel his influence.

Having been in development for over two years, Final Fantasy X was the first game in the series to appear on the newly released PlayStation 2. Once again, the team behind it had ditched traditional RPG design in favour of experimentation.

This lead to a battle system known as the Conditional Turn Battle system, where using certain actions meant that a character would have his or her next turn pushed further down the queue. On top of this, you could swap characters in and out of battle as long as they were still standing.

The other major point of experimentation worth mentioning, apart from the inclusion of voice acting for the first time in the series, was the Sphere Grid. In another effort to step away from traditional leveling, Final Fantasy X saw characters gain Sphere Levels which could then be spent to move around the Sphere Grid.

The Sphere Grid was a huge board full of nodes that contained skills and stat increases, as well as special lock nodes that need key spheres to unlock. In essence, it was a giant puzzle that you had to move the characters around in order to grow their stats and abilities. This added an insane amount of customisation to the characters, as you could choose how they developed depending on how you moved around the grid.

Finally, the developers ditched the World Map idea (except when you’re in an airship), favouring a “connected world” style of gameplay. This meant that there were no immersion-breaking changes in the size of the world. No longer would you step out of a town and suddenly be a giant character towering above the rest of the world as you moved to the next location. Instead, every single road, forest and town were part of one single world connected by loading zones.

Final Fantasy X marked the moment in time that the series turned around again, becoming the king RPGs once more. The gameplay and storyline where sheer brilliance and are remembered very fondly to this day.

The First True Sequel

Square was so elated with how well received Final Fantasy X was that they decide to do something they had never done before; make a new game with the same world and characters. For the very first time, Squaresoft made a direct sequel to a Final Fantasy game!

Because development and release of Final Fantasy XI were already looming, they had to choose a different naming convention. Thus, they named this new game Final Fantasy X-2, starting a new naming convention that would stick when they eventually made more direct sequels in the future.

Final Fantasy X-2 was very much a game about fan-service. It focused on being more light-hearted than the rather dark and depressing story of Final Fantasy X. A good example of this is when you first start up the game and are greeted with a pop concert.

Also, due to the fact that the game only featured 3 playable characters, the developers opted to bring back the Job system in order to give more variety to the characters. However, this was done through a “dress up” system, where you had to get different outfits to unlock the different classes.

Despite the fact that it doesn’t hold very fond memories with many Final Fantasy fans, it sold rather well.

A Historic Merger

For years, Square’s Final Fantasy series and Enix’s Dragon Quest franchise had been bitter rivals in the gaming industry. All of that changed shortly after the release of Final Fantasy X-2.

It was, at this time in Final Fantasy’s history, that Square merged with Enix to create a brand new entity that is still known as Square Enix today.

However, it also marked the end of Sakaguchi’s reign as the king of Final Fantasy. Following the merger, his new bosses took one look at the stain on his record caused by The Spirits Within and that was all there was to it. So, after working at Square for 21 years, Sakaguchi left the company he had helped to build and moved on to start a new business.

Multiplayer Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy XI was a game that caused a lot of controversy with fans when it was first announced. It was going to be a massively-multiplayer RPG (MMORPG) similar to World of Warcraft or EverQuest. This angered many longtime fans, similar to how Final Fantasy VII had done the same before release.

This was especially true in Japan, as online gaming hadn’t really been a success compared to the West.

However, Square Enix had a trick up their sleeve – one that they would use again later in the franchise’s life. You see, Final Fantasy XI was a cross-platform MMORPG, which meant that PC and PS2 players were able to play together on the same servers. This was a first in the industry. On top of this, the Job system returned, which meant that one character could play all of the classes in the game.

This was a huge selling point compared to other MMORPGs, as traditionally, you would have to “role”, or play as, multiple characters to try out and enjoy the different classes. Having all of them available on one character made life far more simple for gamers.

However, to this day, Final Fantasy XI is widely regarded as one of the most challenging MMORPGs. In fact, the game has one boss fight that became legendary when elite end-game players fought it for 20 hours straight, in a huge group, only to eventually give up before they could kill it.

Despite this, the game continued to run on a Pay to Play monthly subscription model for 14 years! The servers were eventually shut down and the game closed in 2016.

The Return of Nintendo

It wasn’t long after the release of Final Fantasy XI that Square Enix announced that they would be bringing a new game in the franchise to Nintendo’s GameCube console. It wouldn’t be a main numbered entry, but rather a spin-off series of its own known as Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles.

The game featured multiplayer and returned to the more child-friendly graphical style of the original Nintendo Final Fantasy games. It sold relatively well, especially since the development team featured less than 20 people. As such, it has since gone on to create its own series on the DS and Wii consoles.

The Twelfth Battle

By the time Final Fantasy XII came out, the cards were already stacked against it. The next generation of consoles was already beginning as the Xbox 360 had been released and the PS2 was losing traction.

However, Square Enix was undeterred and created their most ambitious game to date. Utilising the idea of a connected world that they had perfected with Final Fantasy X, the team created a huge game world suitable for an MMORPG. However, the game wasn’t an online one, instead sticking true to the single-player RPG style.

The turn-based battle system was heavily altered again, with battle scenes removed from the game. Instead of running around and then being pulled out of the game map and into a separate battle scene randomly, enemies now appeared on the game map and battles took place in the game world. The active time battle system made a comeback, but with an MMORPG style twist as well.

The storyline was also set in the same world as Final Fantasy Tactics and another PSX game, Vagrant Story. This helped to capture the interest of fans of both of these games. It was very well received by critics, but due to the PS2 reaching the end of its lifecycle, sales were low.

It did, however, get a small sequel on the Nintendo DS a year later.

Lightning Strikes In Threes

With the PS3 coming out, fans of Final Fantasy waited eagerly for the next game in the series; Final Fantasy XIII. Originally slated to be the flagship game in a new collective series known as Fabula Nova Crystallis, it featured a strong, female lead character called Lightning who was dubbed as a mix between Terra from Final Fantasy VI and Cloud from Final Fantasy VII.

Final Fantasy XIII was an absolutely beautiful game, really showing what the PlayStation 3 was capable of. However, it was ultimately frowned upon by fans due to the simplistic combat system (you could let the game fight for you if you wanted to) and extremely linear first half of the game. It was even nicknamed as a corridor simulator by fans of the series.

Nevertheless, Square Enix developed a direct sequel, utilising the naming convention started with Final Fantasy X-2.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 focused on Sarah, Lightning’s sister, and featured the ability to travel through time. This was designed to remedy to feeling of XIII being too linear. However, the fact that you only had two playable characters (plus monsters that you could tame) meant that the battle system felt just as simplistic as the original game.

Despite the multitude of endings adding to the replayability of the game, fans were waiting for the other games in the Fabula Nova Crystallis instead. However, they were to be disappointed when one of them was taken away to be its own game (we’ll get to that) and the other just seemed to fade away (we’ll get to that too).

It wasn’t long after XIII-2 that we were then given Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, the third game in this mini-series within a series. Taking place 500 years after the events of XIII-2, the game features a clock that was constantly ticking down to the end of the world.

With a Job system in the style of Final Fantasy X-2’s dress up game coming into play again, plus the fact that Lighting was the only real playable character, it was a very different Final Fantasy game. This was in keep with the idea of experimentation that permeates the franchise. However, by this point, fans were ready to move on from Lightning.

Refocused

As mentioned earlier, one of the planned games for the Fabula Nova Crystallis mythos was taken out of the collective to become its own game. This became known as Final Fantasy Type-0 and was released for the PSP originally, before eventually getting an HD remake for the PS4.

Similar to the spin-off prequel to Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core, Type-0 uses an action-battle system as the basis for combat. The game itself is a huge departure from the standard gameplay of the franchise, with 14 playable characters and (on the PSP version) multiplayer with a 3-minute time limit.

The game is structured using a mission-based format as well, similar to Crisis Core, and also features an arena mode as well.

An Era Reborn

The next game in the Final Fantasy series was Final Fantasy XIV, a second attempt to create an MMORPG after the success of FFXI. However, the original version of XIV was a disaster.

The game itself needed top of the range PCs to be able to even run the game. From there, it was full of bugs at launch and felt incredibly empty due to the size of the world and lack of NPC and monster population. Despite this, it did gain dedicated players who stuck with it.

However, Square Enix could see how badly the game was doing and, rather than risk tarnishing the Final Fantasy name again (like they did with The Spirits Within) they decided to take action. A new development team took over the game, adding in various patches to fix the most broken bugs whilst creating a storyline that led to the End of an Era event.

This involved one of the moons coming down to the planet, summoned by one of the antagonists. That moon subsequently exploded to reveal Bahamut, the king of dragons within it. Bahamut proceeded to obliterate the world whilst a powerful mage sent players’ characters into the future.

This was the end of the original Final Fantasy XIV and marked the day the servers were turned off.

The new team then went to work to rebuild the game from the ground up. This lead to new graphics and systems being used to make the game work better on all types of PCs, but also on the PS3 as well (plus the PS4 at a later date). Thanks to this, cross-platform gameplay was added successfully to the game as well.

The gameplay was altered and improved immensely as well, and a new storyline was written. This led to the game being relaunched as Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn.

In this new version, players of the original could continue with the characters that they already had, as the developers had written the plotline of these characters being sent forward in time. The new game took place 2 years after Bahamut’s attack and reintroduced previous players through one starting storyline and new players through a different one.

From here, the game became a resounding success and is currently one of the most popular MMORPGs available, with two expansion packs and additional content being added to the game for free every 3 months. There have also been a number of Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festivals around the world as well.

Final Fantasy XIV is the story of how Square Enix was able to salvage a completely failing game and turn it into a true success story.

Brotherhood And The Future

Finally, we’re going to talk about the third game from the Fabula Nova Crystallis; the one that just seemed to vanish. For years, no news was heard about this game, originally titled as Final Fantasy Versus XIII. Because of this, everyone had come to the assumption that this awesome looking game had been quietly cancelled.

Then, at E3 2013, everyone was focused on the PS4 and Xbox One, not really expecting anything of note to come from Square. However, when Sony’s press conference started, we got something no one was expecting. Tetsuya Nomura appeared on the screen to announce that he had a surprise for us all.

A trailer appeared, showcasing an utterly beautiful looking game from Square Enix. Part way through the trailer, Noctis, the main character of Versus XIII came into view, followed by some of the most amazing looking gameplay ever. Then, the Versus XIII logo finally appeared on the screen, only the shatter into pieces and be replaced with the title Final Fantasy XV.

The long lost game was back, and was now a main numbered title! The crowd erupted, and the game was alive.

It eventually released on the PS2 on the 29th of November 2016. With a massive open world, exciting and frantic gameplay and a story about brotherhood and friendship, it was a return to form for the series. Since then, it has seen numerous DLC added to it, including one that fixed one of the less popular sections of the games. This shows Square Enix’s continued desire to improve and make Final Fantasy games as good as they can be, first seen in how they handled Final Fantasy XIV.

With more DLC coming in 2019, set the end the story of Noctis and his friends, we can now start to look towards the future of Final Fantasy and the 16th numbered title in the series. Considering the success of both Final Fantasy XIV and XV, I think the future is a bright one.

And That’s All Folks

Final Fantasy has a storied history of twist and turns, successes and failures. It is one of the longest running video game series to date and looks set to keep going for a long time to come. It helped save a company from the brink of collapse, popularise the RPG genre in the West and create a devoted fan base.

Have you played a Final Fantasy game? Which is your favourite? What do you think the future holds for the franchise? Let me know in the comments below!

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