They have been completely separated for over five years
Square Enix is now one of the most represented third parties in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate with Cloud, Sephiroth and Dragon Quest’s Hero as playable characters, but that would once have been thought impossible when the crossover series was created.
It almost feels like a miracle that Final Fantasy 7 could get two fighter slots in Smash as well, given that it was probably the game that led to the biggest breakup in video game history that left some in Square. feeling that Nintendo closed the door for them and did not want to see / work with them again.
Hiroshi Kawai, the character programmer for Final Fantasy 7, also remembered the impression he received from former Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi after it was decided that the new entry would be exclusive to PlayStation.
This revelation came through Polygon’s oral history piece for FF7, although not all Kawai colleagues saw the meeting end bitterly.
“I will say this. I’m impressed with what Nintendo [was] able to do with the 64 hardware, “Kawai said through Polygon.” Mario, Zelda – their developers need to be top notch in order to do that. But this is essentially the extent to which you can deal with the hardware. And you wouldn’t get anywhere near like a Final Fantasy running on it. “
Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi went on to say that Yamauchi was very gracious in their meeting about their new partnership with Sony, offering everyone expensive beers and food before stroking them on the back as they left.
“What I heard was Nintendo said, ‘If you leave us, you’ll never come back’ – Hiroshi Kawai
Although Sakaguchi says there were no bad feelings between them, Kawai responds that the game maker “is just trying to be politically correct with that one.”
“What I heard was Nintendo said, ‘If you leave us, you’ll never come back,'” Kawai said.
That meeting was the culmination of months of prototyping work on the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation, where Sakaguchi called for moving Final Fantasy 7 to the Sony console.
It was the age of every Final Fantasy before it was released on Nintendo systems and ended with the first games in the series leading Square from barely surviving to one of the biggest developers in the industry.
Nintendo even gave Square a crack at its own Mario game with Super Mario RPG, but the N64 created too much rupture between them on several levels.
Much of this pause was attributed to the choice to keep the cartridges on CDs, which provided a drastically larger storage space, although Kawai also notes that the general difference in horsepower and communication problems also influenced the division.
Super Mario RPG was one of the last Square games released with Nintendo at the time in 1996. However, it was not until 2002 that the two companies began working together again.
Flash forward over a decade later, and Cloud is announced as one of the latest DLC characters for Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U and 3DS, which is quite ironic, given the split and the fact that the FF7 was not yet available on a Nintendo console then.
Smash’s creator, Masahiro Sakurai, said that Final Fantasy was one of the most requested additions from fans, Cloud’s popularity surpassing those of the previous protagonists of the 8 and 16 bit eras.
A little over a month ago, I received a double dose of Mako with the surprise announcement and the release of Sephiroth for Smash Ultimate.
Some fans were disturbed by the fact that the companies again participated in FF7 over the other 14 main entrances and countless spin-offs, but it is difficult to deny a place to one of the most emblematic villains in video games.
Sure, Nintendo may not have gotten Final Fantasy 7 Remake either, but the developers have a very close working relationship again, especially when it comes to their other franchises, such as Dragon Quest.
Your Polygon, Nintendo Life.