Do you think you're better off alone?
More random trivia that no one will read. This time, I'm focussing on the Final Fantasy series.
The series' title comes from a reflection of Sakaguchi Hironobu's feelings at the time. Back then, his company (then known as Square Company, Limited or simply Square) was on the verge of bankruptcy, and if the company went under as was predicted, Hironobu would have to go back to college and repeat a year of study, where he would be surrounded by strangers. Before the company died, he decided that he would make one final game, and that it would be a fantasy game, so naturally, he titled it "Final Fantasy".
Cloud Strife, protagonist of Final Fantasy VII, is known for his iconic spiky blond hair (among other things), but initial designs were quite the opposite. Early designs of Cloud depicted him with slicked-back black hair, in contrast with main villain Sephiroth, whose hair was white/silver and free-flowing. This hair design was later used for the design of Zack Fair in Crisis Core and Advent Children.
In Final Fantasy VII, an altered version of Kefka's infamous laugh from Final Fantasy VI can be heard in two separate parts of the game. In the Ghost Square at the Gold Saucer, examining the green pumpkin in the guest room will cause a clip of the laugh to play. The laugh can also be heard in the background of the scene in which Tifa and Cloud fall into the Lifestream at Mideel.
Similar to Cloud, Final Fantasy X's Tidus also had black hair in his early design, with beta footage of the game showing him with black hair as opposed to the blond hair he sports in his final design. It's thought his hair was changed to blond to emphasise his connection to the sun, as Tidus and Yuna were named after the sun and moon respectively (Tidus is named Tida in Japanese, which is the Okinawan dialect word for "sun", and Yuna is the Okinawan word for "moon").
Final Fantasy IX's protagonist Zidane actually had his name mistranslated for the English release. His name, which is written in katakana as Jitan, was intended to be Gitan, a French word meaning "gypsy", which fits nicely with his last name being Tribal (pronounced in the English way). Since the katakana "ji" is often used to represent "zi" in Japanese, the translators mistook his name for the name of a French football (soccer) player.
Zidane (or Gitan) actually shares a lot of similarities to Son Goku, the main character of the long-running manga Dragon Ball. Both are aliens from another planet who were sent to this planet as a child with the mission of wiping out all life on said planet. Both were found and raised by an inhabitant of this planet and ended up forgetting their mission and growing up unaware of their origins until their brother came to this planet to inform them and finish the job. Also, both characters have a monkey-like tail.
At the time Final Fantasy VII was being developed, Sakaguchi Hironobu's mother tragically passed away. Hironobu wanted to write a story about characters coping with death and loss and moving on as a reflection of his feelings at the time, and wanted to create a more realistic death scene as opposed to a Hollywood-style sacrificial end. These factors led to the creation of Aerith's iconic death scene and its impact on the overall plot of the game.
Despite popular belief that Kingdom Hearts (it has Final Fantasy characters in it, so it counts) is a joint-owned franchise between Square Enix and Disney, the truth is that the franchise is entirely owned by Disney, with Square Enix being hired by Disney to develop the games. This can be seen in the copyright statement, which reads "Copyright Disney. Developed by Square Enix". As well, all original properties of the series are also owned by Disney (which means that, yes, Sora is a Disney character). The Final Fantasy characters are used as cameos in the game with permission from Square Enix, though anything that happens to the Final Fantasy characters in those games is still owned by Square Enix, which is why Cloud and Squall can have their Kingdom Hearts costumes in Dissidia: Final Fantasy.
Speaking of Dissidia, it was originally envisioned as a Kingdom Hearts fighting game, but Disney didn't approve of its characters fighting one another, so it was reworked as a Final Fantasy game.
The Kingdom Hearts games featured quite a bit of content that never made it into the final versions of the game. A world based on The Lion King was planned to be included in the FIRST game, but the producers couldn't figure out how to make Sora running and fighting as a four-legged animal work yet (this would have required extra programming). The iconic Bahamut summon from the Final Fantasy games was initially planned to be available for Sora to use. Using a hacking device, it is possible to add a "Bahamut" option to the Summon menu, but selecting it just causes the game to crash. Woody and Buzz from Toy Story were planned to be an exclusive summon for the Japan-only Final Mix version of Kingdom Hearts II - untextured models of them can still be found in the game's data, but they were removed from the final build for unknown reasons. Lastly, a world based on The Jungle Book was originally going to appear in Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep. Remnants of the world's data (including a complete King Louie's temple area) can still be found in the game's code, and again it's not known why the world wasn't included in the final version of the game. There was also going to be a world based on The Jungle Book in the first game, but it was left out because there was already a world based on Tarzan and it would have felt redundant to have two jungle levels in the game.
Many of the original voice actors from the Disney movies reprised their roles for the Kingdom Hearts games, with the exception of the voice actors from The Lion King. Adult Simba, who is portrayed by Matthew Broderick in the movie, is voiced by Cam Clarke in the game, who provided the singing voice for Simba in The Lion King II: Simba's Pride. Timon is voiced by Nathan Lane in the movie, but by Bruce Lanoil in the game, who is Disney's official voice double for Timon. Nala, voiced by Moira Kelly in the movie, is voiced in the game by Vanessa Marshall, who voiced Mary Jane Watson in the animated series The Spectacular Spider-Man, among other roles. While Banzai and Ed retain their original voice actors, Shenzi is voiced by Moni Mon in the game, instead of Whoopi Goldberg like in the movie.
In the world based on Pirates of the Caribbean, Captain Jack Sparrow is voiced by James Arnold Taylor, who voices Tidus in Final Fantasy X - reportedly, Johnny Depp, who portrays Captain Jack Sparrow in the movies, was unavailable to provide the voice for the character at the time. William Turner, played by Orlando Bloom in the movie, was voiced by Crispin Freeman, a well-known voice actor with plenty of English dub anime roles (such as Alucard in Hellsing and Kyon in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya). Elizabeth Swann, played by Keira Knightley in the movie, was voiced by Eliza Schneider, who also voiced the character in the video game Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow, as well as being the voice of several characters in South Park (including Wendy Testaburger and Sharon Marsh). Captain Barbossa was voiced by Brian George in the game, again due to original actor Geoffrey Rush being unavailable. Brian George also plays Raj's father in the sitcom The Big Bang Theory. All these replacements were due to the two sequels to the Pirates of the Caribbean movie being filmed back-to-back, meaning the original actors were busy working on the movie and did not have time to reprise their roles for the game.
In the world based on The Hunchback of Notre-Dame in Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance, Claude Frollo is voiced by Corey Burton, due to his original voice actor, Tony Jay, passing away before the game was developed. Corey Burton is also the current official voice of Captain Hook.
When asked about the rather strange subtitle for Kingdom Hearts 3D, Nomura Tetsuya admitted that the English was a little off, but explained that the words were chosen for their aesthetic quality rather than their meaning. He clarified it was supposed to mean something like "the distance you drop into your dreams", or to put it more idiomatically, "how deeply you fall into your dreams".
Originally, Rikku from Final Fantasy X was intended to appear in Kingdom Hearts, but she was replaced with Final Fantasy VII's Yuffie Kisaragi after the developers thought her name was too similar to original character Riku. Rikku does appear along with the other two Gullwings (Yuna and Paine) in Final Fantasy X-2, but her name is never spoken in dialogue and she has a fairly minor role. Rikku was originally named Ryukku in Japanese, her name presumably being changed to make it easier for the English voice actors to pronounce.
Since Tidus's name is never spoken in dialogue in either Final Fantasy X or Final Fantasy X-2, fans often argue on how it's supposed to be pronounced, either "Tee-dus" or "Tide-us". Most go with "tide-us" as an allusion to "tides", since the character is frequently associated with water, but this is a misconception. In Japanese, the character's name is written Tīda in katakana, and as stated earlier was named after the Okinawan word for "sun". Publications prior to the release of the game actually called him Tida, and in the game itself his name can be seen written (in the fictional Spiran script) as Tidu on a name plate in the Luca stadium. James Arnold Taylor, the voice actor for Tidus, has decreed that "Tee-dus" is an acceptable English pronunciation, this being how the character's name is pronounced in Dissidia: Final Fantasy and its prequel. In the first Kingdom Hearts game, Wakka (who is actually voiced by James Arnold Taylor in that game) pronounced it "Tee-dus", while in the second game, Selphie pronounces it "Tide-us".
Tidus was initially going to be undead, but this idea was scrapped after scenario writer Nojima Kazushige watched The Sixth Sense, in which the main character is revealed to be a ghost, and decided it would have been seen as a ripoff of the movie in question.
The series' title comes from a reflection of Sakaguchi Hironobu's feelings at the time. Back then, his company (then known as Square Company, Limited or simply Square) was on the verge of bankruptcy, and if the company went under as was predicted, Hironobu would have to go back to college and repeat a year of study, where he would be surrounded by strangers. Before the company died, he decided that he would make one final game, and that it would be a fantasy game, so naturally, he titled it "Final Fantasy".
Cloud Strife, protagonist of Final Fantasy VII, is known for his iconic spiky blond hair (among other things), but initial designs were quite the opposite. Early designs of Cloud depicted him with slicked-back black hair, in contrast with main villain Sephiroth, whose hair was white/silver and free-flowing. This hair design was later used for the design of Zack Fair in Crisis Core and Advent Children.
In Final Fantasy VII, an altered version of Kefka's infamous laugh from Final Fantasy VI can be heard in two separate parts of the game. In the Ghost Square at the Gold Saucer, examining the green pumpkin in the guest room will cause a clip of the laugh to play. The laugh can also be heard in the background of the scene in which Tifa and Cloud fall into the Lifestream at Mideel.
Similar to Cloud, Final Fantasy X's Tidus also had black hair in his early design, with beta footage of the game showing him with black hair as opposed to the blond hair he sports in his final design. It's thought his hair was changed to blond to emphasise his connection to the sun, as Tidus and Yuna were named after the sun and moon respectively (Tidus is named Tida in Japanese, which is the Okinawan dialect word for "sun", and Yuna is the Okinawan word for "moon").
Final Fantasy IX's protagonist Zidane actually had his name mistranslated for the English release. His name, which is written in katakana as Jitan, was intended to be Gitan, a French word meaning "gypsy", which fits nicely with his last name being Tribal (pronounced in the English way). Since the katakana "ji" is often used to represent "zi" in Japanese, the translators mistook his name for the name of a French football (soccer) player.
Zidane (or Gitan) actually shares a lot of similarities to Son Goku, the main character of the long-running manga Dragon Ball. Both are aliens from another planet who were sent to this planet as a child with the mission of wiping out all life on said planet. Both were found and raised by an inhabitant of this planet and ended up forgetting their mission and growing up unaware of their origins until their brother came to this planet to inform them and finish the job. Also, both characters have a monkey-like tail.
At the time Final Fantasy VII was being developed, Sakaguchi Hironobu's mother tragically passed away. Hironobu wanted to write a story about characters coping with death and loss and moving on as a reflection of his feelings at the time, and wanted to create a more realistic death scene as opposed to a Hollywood-style sacrificial end. These factors led to the creation of Aerith's iconic death scene and its impact on the overall plot of the game.
Despite popular belief that Kingdom Hearts (it has Final Fantasy characters in it, so it counts) is a joint-owned franchise between Square Enix and Disney, the truth is that the franchise is entirely owned by Disney, with Square Enix being hired by Disney to develop the games. This can be seen in the copyright statement, which reads "Copyright Disney. Developed by Square Enix". As well, all original properties of the series are also owned by Disney (which means that, yes, Sora is a Disney character). The Final Fantasy characters are used as cameos in the game with permission from Square Enix, though anything that happens to the Final Fantasy characters in those games is still owned by Square Enix, which is why Cloud and Squall can have their Kingdom Hearts costumes in Dissidia: Final Fantasy.
Speaking of Dissidia, it was originally envisioned as a Kingdom Hearts fighting game, but Disney didn't approve of its characters fighting one another, so it was reworked as a Final Fantasy game.
The Kingdom Hearts games featured quite a bit of content that never made it into the final versions of the game. A world based on The Lion King was planned to be included in the FIRST game, but the producers couldn't figure out how to make Sora running and fighting as a four-legged animal work yet (this would have required extra programming). The iconic Bahamut summon from the Final Fantasy games was initially planned to be available for Sora to use. Using a hacking device, it is possible to add a "Bahamut" option to the Summon menu, but selecting it just causes the game to crash. Woody and Buzz from Toy Story were planned to be an exclusive summon for the Japan-only Final Mix version of Kingdom Hearts II - untextured models of them can still be found in the game's data, but they were removed from the final build for unknown reasons. Lastly, a world based on The Jungle Book was originally going to appear in Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep. Remnants of the world's data (including a complete King Louie's temple area) can still be found in the game's code, and again it's not known why the world wasn't included in the final version of the game. There was also going to be a world based on The Jungle Book in the first game, but it was left out because there was already a world based on Tarzan and it would have felt redundant to have two jungle levels in the game.
Many of the original voice actors from the Disney movies reprised their roles for the Kingdom Hearts games, with the exception of the voice actors from The Lion King. Adult Simba, who is portrayed by Matthew Broderick in the movie, is voiced by Cam Clarke in the game, who provided the singing voice for Simba in The Lion King II: Simba's Pride. Timon is voiced by Nathan Lane in the movie, but by Bruce Lanoil in the game, who is Disney's official voice double for Timon. Nala, voiced by Moira Kelly in the movie, is voiced in the game by Vanessa Marshall, who voiced Mary Jane Watson in the animated series The Spectacular Spider-Man, among other roles. While Banzai and Ed retain their original voice actors, Shenzi is voiced by Moni Mon in the game, instead of Whoopi Goldberg like in the movie.
In the world based on Pirates of the Caribbean, Captain Jack Sparrow is voiced by James Arnold Taylor, who voices Tidus in Final Fantasy X - reportedly, Johnny Depp, who portrays Captain Jack Sparrow in the movies, was unavailable to provide the voice for the character at the time. William Turner, played by Orlando Bloom in the movie, was voiced by Crispin Freeman, a well-known voice actor with plenty of English dub anime roles (such as Alucard in Hellsing and Kyon in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya). Elizabeth Swann, played by Keira Knightley in the movie, was voiced by Eliza Schneider, who also voiced the character in the video game Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow, as well as being the voice of several characters in South Park (including Wendy Testaburger and Sharon Marsh). Captain Barbossa was voiced by Brian George in the game, again due to original actor Geoffrey Rush being unavailable. Brian George also plays Raj's father in the sitcom The Big Bang Theory. All these replacements were due to the two sequels to the Pirates of the Caribbean movie being filmed back-to-back, meaning the original actors were busy working on the movie and did not have time to reprise their roles for the game.
In the world based on The Hunchback of Notre-Dame in Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance, Claude Frollo is voiced by Corey Burton, due to his original voice actor, Tony Jay, passing away before the game was developed. Corey Burton is also the current official voice of Captain Hook.
When asked about the rather strange subtitle for Kingdom Hearts 3D, Nomura Tetsuya admitted that the English was a little off, but explained that the words were chosen for their aesthetic quality rather than their meaning. He clarified it was supposed to mean something like "the distance you drop into your dreams", or to put it more idiomatically, "how deeply you fall into your dreams".
Originally, Rikku from Final Fantasy X was intended to appear in Kingdom Hearts, but she was replaced with Final Fantasy VII's Yuffie Kisaragi after the developers thought her name was too similar to original character Riku. Rikku does appear along with the other two Gullwings (Yuna and Paine) in Final Fantasy X-2, but her name is never spoken in dialogue and she has a fairly minor role. Rikku was originally named Ryukku in Japanese, her name presumably being changed to make it easier for the English voice actors to pronounce.
Since Tidus's name is never spoken in dialogue in either Final Fantasy X or Final Fantasy X-2, fans often argue on how it's supposed to be pronounced, either "Tee-dus" or "Tide-us". Most go with "tide-us" as an allusion to "tides", since the character is frequently associated with water, but this is a misconception. In Japanese, the character's name is written Tīda in katakana, and as stated earlier was named after the Okinawan word for "sun". Publications prior to the release of the game actually called him Tida, and in the game itself his name can be seen written (in the fictional Spiran script) as Tidu on a name plate in the Luca stadium. James Arnold Taylor, the voice actor for Tidus, has decreed that "Tee-dus" is an acceptable English pronunciation, this being how the character's name is pronounced in Dissidia: Final Fantasy and its prequel. In the first Kingdom Hearts game, Wakka (who is actually voiced by James Arnold Taylor in that game) pronounced it "Tee-dus", while in the second game, Selphie pronounces it "Tide-us".
Tidus was initially going to be undead, but this idea was scrapped after scenario writer Nojima Kazushige watched The Sixth Sense, in which the main character is revealed to be a ghost, and decided it would have been seen as a ripoff of the movie in question.
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