MY JOURNEY 自分の旅

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Growing up, my first console was a PlayStation 2, but since I didn't know English at the time (and the system was from USA) I didn't get to experience the PlayStation 2's vast library of story-oriented games. Plus, I was also 4 which naturally made me gravitate to Bratz games (I still love them, by the way). After that, I switched to owning a Wii and became a Nintendo kid. But there was this game I was fascinated with, I watched the cutscenes on YouTube in English, not understanding a thing; that game was Final Fantasy XIII. And I knew that I wanted to play it someday.

Fast forward to my 15th birthday (a big deal in Argentinian culture), I asked for a PlayStation 4 instead of having a big party. With it, I bought games such as NieR: Automata, Yakuza 0, and the newest (at the time) entry of that game series I was so fascianted by; Final Fantasy XV. I remember my first playthrough very well, it was my first Final Fantasy game, after all. Episode Gladiolus had already come out, and I was excited for Episode Prompto since he was my favorite character. I loved the story, the world, the characters, the music, all of it! I'd wake up an hour before I had to go to High School just to play it. I even got engaged with the fandom, something I had rarely done at the time. I reblogged fanart (including ship art), read fanfiction, the works.

I loved this game so much, I even showed it to my family; my mom, my father, and my grandmother. All separate playthroughs. I'd talk about it with my friends almost constantly even though none of them had played it. My love for this game was deep! I even wrote myself a hand-written guide on how to get all of the Royal Arms and the best weapons for all of the characters. And of course, I went on to buy the Royal Edition as well. Something I was awating very anxiously was the reveal of further information regarding Episodes Noctis, Lunafreya, Aranea, and Ardyn. Only to be met with, disappointment...? All that excitement I had completely vanished as it was revealed that said DLC was cancelled, and that the director of the title, Hajime Tabata, would be leaving Square Enix. I felt... robbed. So, I did some digging. There had to be a reason that this happened, right? So I went to look into the development history of Final Fantasy XV, only to discover a Pandora's Box of information that changed how I would view the Games Industry forever.

I found out about Final Fantasy Versus XIII. I found out that Hajime Tabata wasn't the original director, but it was actually Tetsuya Nomura, a character designer which I held (and still do) a lot of respect for. I found out about countless delays, a change in not only development staff but also creative staff, the rebranding, and so much more. I kept going, I kept gathering as much information as I could get my hands on. I found out about Stella Nox Fleuret! A character which, in her very short-lived and transitory appearances in trailers, interested me more than Lunafreya. And through those trailers, I saw a glimpse of a much more ambitious and interesting creative direction.

But what impacted me most, was the thought of Tetsuya Nomura, a long-time staff member for Square Enix, finally directing his own Final Fantasy game with his own characters, only to have them ripped away from him due to corporate mismanagement. The original staff for Final Fantasy Versus XIII was a pantheon of talent, with people such as Kazushige Nojima, Yoshinori Kitase, Hiroshi Hirata, Takeshi Endou, Jun Akiyama, Yoko Shimomura, and many others. Some of these staff members stayed after the project rebrand, but others, like Jun Akiyama, left Square Enix entirely after the rebrand. Something seemed really wrong, Square Enix as a corporation had really messed up this project. This created such discontent within me that I didn't even bother playing Episode Ardyn when it released, I dropped the game like a sack of bricks and moved on.

After all, did I really like Final Fantasy XV, or was it just my first Final Fantasy game? Was it even good?

I was really curious as to what a game directed by Tetsuya Nomura would be like, and, unknowingly, I would also be playing several games that most of the aforementioned staff members also worked on. I got into Kingdom hearts half as a joke, and half as honest curiousity. But what sealed the deal was the Kingdom Hearts secret ending, Another Side, Another Story. There was that same energy I saw in the Final Fantasy Versus XIII trailers! I became a full-fledged fan of Kingdom Hearts after playing Kingdom Hearts II, my passion for this series has easily surpassed what I felt for Final Fantasy XV when I was younger.

I quickly binged the series as I wanted to play Kingdom Hearts III, which was just about to release. So imagine my reaction when I saw the Verum Rex "trailer" in Toy Box! I was so confused, I even cried a little! And once I had gotten to the secret ending, "Yozora", I thought I was losing my mind! I connected as many dots as I could in the state I was in, and I started crying tears of joy. The essence of Final Fantasy Versus XIII was now living on through Kingdom Hearts, another game series I adored. I felt like a crazy person. I made PowerPoints explaining all of this to my friends, I told my mom about it, I just wouldn't shut up about it at all, I still can't! Look at all I've written and it's not even the end!

When Kingdom Hearts III Re:Mind came out, I stayed up all night playing it, but couldn't get past the secret boss gauntlet, so I ended up watching the latter half of it on YouTube. My heart started beating so fast I thought I was losing my mind, Yozora as the secret boss!? The endings being shot for shot recreations of one of the more famous Final Fantasy Versus XIII trailers!? It makes me honestly emotional to think of the Kingdom Hearts staff members finally getting to put in some of that energy they had for Final Fantasy Versus XIII into something like this.

This is a tale of corporate mismanagement that I thought had ended in tragedy, but somehow, it manages to live on, and I'm so, so happy about it.