And The Fandom Rejoiced / Final Fantasy

• Four and a half years after the Wii's Virtual Console service launches, we finally get...Final Fantasy VI. Please and thank you.
• Just after E3 2014, Square Enix wasn't going to show off anything new other than some small-time projects. Not to mention, a smartphone minigame based off of the bike chase scene from Final Fantasy VII, titled Final Fantasy VII G-Bike. And Square Enix milks the franchise agai-wait, updated graphics!? We can jump and slide!? Did we just see Limit Break attacks!? IT'S FREE!? Time to get Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer.
• Another Square-Enix project they showed off was a trailer for Final Fantasy Agito, a mobile phone game that serves as a Prequel to Final Fantasy Type-0. Type-0 was originally announced for a localization, and became one of the most hotly anticipated PSP games to be released on Western shores, but then years went by with no word on the project, causing many fans to start losing hope in it. SUDDENLY at the end of the Agito trailer, there was a brief text announcement that Type-0 is undergoing an HD remastered release for the PS4 and Xbox One, and the localization effort is on full speed ahead! It was thanks to the massive waves of fan support that the game has enjoyed.
  • And a bit of pressure of a Fan Translation almost being complete, but yeah.
• Are you seriously telling me that Tetsuya Nomura is directing a game written by Kazushige Nojima and scored by Yoko Shimomura, with the Disney taken out of Kingdom Hearts and the Darker and Edgier cranked up? YES! (Final Fantasy Versus XIII, by the way.)
  • Versus XIII? Oh! You mean Final Fantasy XV. That's right, Nomura's long-awaited contribution to the Final Fantasy franchise has joined the prior 14 titles as a main title. And like how XIII got the "Lightning Saga", the FNC introduces "the story of Versus" (as referred to in the E3 2013 trailer) through its fifteenth main title.
    • So most of the gameplay involving Final Fantasy XV has been standard open-world RPG fare. Not like that hasn't been tried before, right Squa—wait a minute, when did Ramuh get so huge?! And he's nuking wildlife for 9999 damage apiece! And you get to see the aftermath on the environment! And your party members comment on it!
    • IT'S COMING OUT IN 2016. Aw hell yeah!
• Many mocked Final Fantasy XIII for the character names and huge lack of gameplay information at the time. Then Square Enix revealed Sazh Katzroy—a savvy Dual Wielding black man with an afro (used as a nest by tiny baby chocobos) who calls himself "Daddy"—and the mocking turned into frothing demand.
  • Just as the Sazh afterglow faded and gamers began to constantly mock Hope Estheim for being a kiddy girlie character, Square finally revealed that his summon is Alexander, who hasn't been usable since Final Fantasy VIII and was last seen as the final boss of the Treasures of Aht Urghan storyline in Final Fantasy XI. Suddenly everyone wanted to play Hope.
    • As of recent updates to Final Fantasy XI, Alexander is finally summonable, though you still have to defeat him in the Treasures of Aht Urgan storyline first. Also, including Odin in that same update qualifies for this trope on its own.
  • Then you played the game, and then...What. The. Eff!? That's the END!? This is the WORST Cliffhanger EVER, and God DAMN You, Square, making such cruel decision. Final Fantasy is now de—Lightning Returns - Final Fantasy XIII!? All right, this is your next chance, Square. Don't blow it...
    • Many Versus XIII fans rejoiced at this being named the last "Lightning" game.
  • While not a remaster to modern consoles, the trilogy is now playable on the Xbox One via backwards compatibility, and its one of the games that'll get a graphical boost when played on the Xbox One X. They's even replaced the badly compressed CGI cutscenes for the first game with higher quality ones.
• Final Fantasy XIV: Yawn, another Final Fantasy title. It's probably just anoth-wait, Nobuo Uematsu is composing the entire soundtrack for the first time since FFIX? WIN.
  • Oh man, not another MMO—Akihiko Yoshida you say!?
  • Patch 2.2 lets you fight Leviathan? That's pretty sweet, but...HOLY SHIT, GILGAMESH!?! And you can fight him on a bridge with the Battle on the Big Bridge theme playing!?! Nostalgia to the max!
  • The announcement of the second expansion, Stormblood, had hype levels through the roof. Expanding player inventories? Reworking the combat to tweak some of the less useful skills? Red Mage and Samurai being new classes?! And they're dropping PS3 support, and letting PS3 players transfer to PS4 for free! ^note Having to make sure the game works on the ten-year-old PS3, and with its very small pool of RAM, has been a severe limiting factor for many parts of the game. This includes how much info the UI could have at a time, letting the player do multiple things at a time (I.E. switching their gear while talking to a shopkeeper), how large each zone could be, and how complex raid bosses could be.
  • At E3 2018, they announced what looks to be a new 8-man trial. Not particularly amazing in itself, except for the fact that this is a fight against a Rathalos.
• Final Fantasy Type-0 has kingdoms named Suzaku, Byakko, Genbu, and Seiryu!, and oh, hey there, Gilgamesh! Taking lessons from◊ Garland, I see...
• When the PC re-release of Final Fantasy VII came out in late 2012 on Square's online store as a digital download (and then mid-2013 for Steam), fans were initially not pleased that it still used the MIDI quality soundtrack from the 1990s PC release. Come September of 2013, and all digital releases of VII have been updated to include the PS1 quality soundtrack! Only time will tell if the same will happen with the PC re-release of Final Fantasy VIII that came out in December 2013.
• Full remake of Final Fantasy VII on PlayStation 4. They did it...the sons of bitches did it!
  • Nomura has hinted that he is interested in remaking other Final Fantasy games as well, specifically Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI.
• Six months after the reveal of Final Fantasy VII Remake, came four words that no one ever expected to see: CLOUD STORMS INTO BATTLE!
  Cloud: Never thought I'd see the day...
• Well, World of Final Fantasy looks like a fun little romp, with cute chibi designs and a Mons-like gameplay style that turns classic Final Fantasy enemies and summons into mirages, plus all of the cameos are ni-WAIT A SEC, IS THAT EINHANDER?!
• For a long while, the only console platforms one could play PlayStation and PlayStation 2 era Final Fantasy games are Sony's. But that will change in 2019, when Final Fantasy VII, IX, X, X-2, and XII will be making their way to the Xbox One and... NINTENDO SWITCH!? Yes! So nice to see mainline Final Fantasy games returning to Nintendo in a big way!
• Speaking of old Final Fantasy games, Final Fantasy VIII is coming back at long last, and to all console platforms as well! The playable cast even have upgraded models!
• Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles finally got a remaster of its Gamecube-exclusive debut entry after 15 years, complete with online multiplayer and crossplay. The probably five people who played it back in 2003 had a moment over that one.
• It's been a long time coming, but the series is finally returning to its medieval fantasy roots in Final Fantasy XVI! Wait, hold up... "Creative Business Unit III"? That's Yoshi-P's division! The producer that saved Final Fantasy XIV is at the helm!
  • Upon seeing that Naoki Yoshida was producing the game and that the game was being directed by Hiroshi Takai (who previously worked under Yoshida on the Heavensward expansion for Final Fantasy XIV) and that the combat was being overseen by Ryota Suzuki, the reaction was positive, to say the least.
• Final Fantasy had a great year in 2020 between VII Remake being released and the announcement of XVI, but there was one final announcement to make before the year ended...SEPHIROTH DESCENDS INTO BATTLE.
• 2021 brings the Final Fantasy VII love hard. Including an updated port of the remake to PlayStation 5 (Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade) that along with all the usual PS5 bells and whistles, comes with an all new DLC episode with Yuffie! Over on mobile, there's Final Fantasy VII The First Soldier, the franchise's first foray into Battle Royale, as well as Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis, a stripped-down remake that not only includes the original game, but will also include all the other episodes for the FFVII Compilation (Advent Children, Before Crisis, Crisis Core and Dirge of Cerberus). Also marking the first time that Advent Children is playable in some form.
• At E3 2021, we got the announcement of Pixel Remasters of the first six Final Fantasy titles.
  • All the games are Truer to the Text, in that they're based on the original games with none of the re-release content. In the case of Final Fantasy III, it's not only the first time the original Famicom title would see a form of re-release, but it would be the first time people outside of Japan would get to officially play the non 3D remake version.
  • For people who thought Square-Enix was just putting it on Steam, fret not, because it's getting released on Playstation 4 and Nintendo Switch in Spring 2023, with a UI font change for those who weren't happy about it before.
  • For Final Fantasy VI, Square-Enix recorded vocal tracks for the Opera Scene, and rendered it in 2D-HD.
• June 2022 had plenty for Final Fantasy fans. Final Fantasy XVI gets confirmed for 2023. There's a remake of Crisis Core coming to multiple platforms. And the second part of the FF7 Remake, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, is slated for Late 2023!