Final Fantasy 64 - Beta

[Neverin]

I remember hearing a while ago that Square was making a Final Fantasy for the N64 then they just gave up on the project. Did a rom of the beta ever get released?

[DJ Stenny]

It was originally FFVII. Unfortunatly, they learned that the N64 couldn't handle it so the moved production over to PS. After this move, Squaresoft and Nintendo got into a load of arguments and they never worked together again until they decided to resolve things using FF: CC.

[Josh]

Vanit. Why don't you check the Goodlist for the N64. See if it is on there.

[Cyberxion]

No, there's no FF N64 Beta available. There was never anything playable put together. What you're thinking about was that demo Square threw together back in the day that had some polygonal FF VI characters doing pretty much nothing of any real importance. It wasn't playable, and it wasn't reprisentative of any projects in the works. It was only put together to show that Square was interested in supporting Nintendo back with the N64 was still the Ultra 64, way back when the system was initially announced.

[Neverin]

Ohhhh, yeh. I remember seeing a 3D Sabin or something... Thanks for clearing that up, Cyber.

[Cyberxion]

Not a problem man. Had it actually existed, it'd be a hot commodity indeed. It's unfortunate that it never developed into anything more then what it was, but that's the price Nintendo payed when they decided to stick with cartridges on the N64.

[Del_Boy]

I still think something could have been done on the N64, it just would have had to be a FF without oodles of FMV.

At the end of the day though, it's for the best that it went to the PS1 with the better storage medium. As a castrated version of FF wouldn't be half as good I guess :/

[Neverin]

Squaresoft still did stuff on the N64 though, didn't they? Weren't they the ones behind Paper Mario (Mario RPG sequal)?

[Cyberxion]

I don't know. I mean, all the other FF games were top-notch, and they were on cartridges. I guess Square just had grander visions then could be realised within the limitations of the cartridge format, though I'm sure the game could've been just as great had it been on the N64 sans-FMV. It's not as if FMV is entirely integral to the gaming experience. Great stories were found in games long before FMV ever reared it's head.

EDIT: No Vanit, Square had nothing to do with Paper Mario at all.

[Del_Boy]

Intelligent Systems (or something like that did Paper Mario). Just check the intro for confirmation.

[Neverin]

Silly me

[Stranger]

in August 1995 a demo was shown at the Siggraph CG convention. the demo and plan was focussed on battle scenes, 100% real time and polygonal based. this demo was the seed of FF7. then the production team decided to eliminate the connection between the movies and the fields. they wanted to make transitions as smooth as possible, trying to maintain a high quality throughout the game, no obvious transition from battle scenes to cut scenes to field scenes etc- once they decided that they wanted to do this, they found that they needed a lot of storage- obviously the N64 could not handle this compared to the new beefy CD-ROM media of the PSX.

Yishinori Kitase the Director of FF7, and many other Final Fantasy games from the past and present, actually commented that he had trouble being able to produce enough data to actually fill the CD-ROMs at first thus giving him total freedom and allowing him to add in every single idea he wanted. this is, IMO, the reason FF7 turned out so fantastically, it gave the production team no limits compared to their previous efforts, and allowed a lot of experiementation, the ability to implement every idea they could come up with. FF8 which was still a good game was perhaps more polished that 7 but was much less impressive to me because it did not have the "freshness" of FF7, it was perhaps too polished (plus the story sucked compared to FF7 )

looking back i can only say i am happy that it was produced on CD-ROM and not a cartridge, it gave the production team so much more freedom.

most of this info was taken from an old computer magazine of an interview with the FF7 production team just before the game came out in its English language form.

btw (this is fairly well known i know okay) in one of the screenshots of the demo that accompanied the interview Aeris was named Aerith. which one do you prefer?

also in the original demo the beta version that was displayed at Siggraph, there is a girl with a blond pigtail holding a sword, looks to be fighting a big robot, she reminds me (because they both seem to have a similar fashion sense and is in that same pose with her leaning back with her hand over her head) of that S&M type woman character in FF7 *spoiler alert* that slaps Tifa on that big gun after Tifa escapes from the gas chamber, can't bloody remember her name. it's weird how game producer's ideas develop huh- we could have been using her as a main character rather than tifa for instance.
she is accompanied by a guy who seems to be wearing a turks type outfit- he sort of reminds me of vincent actually- he has a headband but isn't vampiric in this screen shot, no he looks very healthy indeed. maybe Vincent before the transformation?

[Nima D'Graven]

Originally posted by Stranger
she reminds me (because they both seem to have a similar fashion sense and is in that same pose with her leaning back with her hand over her head) of that S&M type woman character in FF7 *spoiler alert* that slaps Tifa on that big gun after Tifa escapes from the gas chamber, can't bloody remember her name.

Her name was Scarlett. If I remember correctly.

Very informative post though. .

[Stranger]

Ahh Scarlett! that does sound familiar- I was trying to remember her name by adding ray after it wasn't that gun called a Scarlett ray or something? I am so bad at remembering names- I can remember plot lines, scenery, which cup out of the three has that ball under it afer they mix them all up but, somehow, sadly names just do not register with me usually. I really like FF7 too so I feel a little disappointed in myself thanks for the feedback, uhh what was your name again?
Thanks The Niminator- that's the sort of name i might remember (especially when it is written down in front of me and everything)

[Neverin]

It was called the Sister Ray if I remember correctly.