It’s So Weird to Play the Latest Final Fantasy on a Nintendo System
It’s So Weird to Play the Latest Final Fantasy on a Nintendo System
Aerith’s prayers have been answered: it’s Reunion time.
It seem safe to say that the majority of Final Fantasy fans got into the series when Final Fantasy VII hit the PlayStation back in 1997, or have jumped in since then. Final Fantasy VII kinda changed the world, sold millions of copies, and defined Final Fantasy as one of PlayStation’s premier brands.
However, those who belong to the “Men (Or Women) Of A Certain Age” cohort may remember the before times, when they cut their role-playing teeth on the earlier Final Fantasy games. Maybe they loved the original Final Fantasy on NES, or the sequels (Final Fantasy II and III) for Super NES. Those players may recall the shock that accompanied Square’s announcement that, despite that one very cool Final Fantasy 3D SIGGRAPH graphics demo that everyone assumed was teasing a new chapter for Nintendo 64, the series would jump track to PlayStation—forever, as it turns out! For many people at the time, Final Fantasy was one of the defining series for Nintendo consoles—maybe even the reason they bought a Super NES. How could this happen?!
Just a demo, not an N64 announcement teaser. Sorry, ’90s kids!
© Square Enix
But happen it did, and Square (now Square Enix) has treated PlayStation as the Final Fantasy series’ primary platform for nearly 30 years. Eventually, Square Enix and Nintendo mended fences, but any time you’ve seen the name “Final Fantasy” on a Nintendo console this millennium, it’s always been attached to a spin-off or remake like Crystal Chronicles, the Tactics sequels, and totally-off-the-wall projects like Revenant Wings or The 4 Heroes of Light. When it comes to the latest cutting-edge releases that push the limits of both game and visual design, those have been exclusive to PlayStation. And, uh, Xbox. Oh, and Steam. OK... maybe not “exclusive to PlayStation” so much as “exclusive of Nintendo.”
Well, wonders never cease, because today the latest Final Fantasy game shows up on a Nintendo console. Yes, sure, it’s a port of a two-year-old PlayStation 5 release, and it’s also hitting Xbox Series today, but nevertheless: this is the first time the franchise’s lead title has put in an appearance on a Nintendo platform since 1994’s Final Fantasy III. (Final Fantasy VI. Whatever.)
You can argue that, technically, Final Fantasy XVI is the “newest” Final Fantasy title, but not only did Rebirth debut more recently, it also feels more like the franchise’s true center of gravity. Final Fantasy VII Remake hit Switch 2 a few months back, and today that story continues with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Which means that, when the presumed Remake trilogy comes to its presumed end with what will presumably be called Final Fantasy VII Reunion, that third entry will presumably show up on Switch 2 as well. That’s something we haven’t seen in more than 30 years!
Cloud invokes his Renew Nintendo Power Subscription materia.
© Square Enix
For those in the Of A Certain Age demographic, it’s a sweet little homecoming. The Nintendo/Final Fantasy schism happened for a few different reasons in the 1990s, but it mostly came down to tech and manufacturing costs. Square really wanted to push the limits of narrative presentation, and Nintendo’s decision to stick with cartridges (a low-capacity storage format) for N64 made that difficult to reconcile. By the time the two companies made up, the GameCube—Nintendo’s last real effort to compete in the console space on the strength of raw hardware power—was on the outs, and its successor, the Wii, lacked high-definition graphics... one of the main selling points for the next entry in the series, Final Fantasy XIII. Now that console tech evolution has kind of stalled out, Switch 2 has brought Nintendo’s hardware capabilities within striking distance of Sony and Microsoft’s current machines. So, heck, why not put the latest Final Fantasy on there? Why not put ’em all there?
Our ironic denouement? Switch 2 also uses cartridges, like Nintendo 64 did. So Final Fantasy VII Rebirth isn’t really a cartridge game; it’s a download tied to a game key card. Well, it’s a start.