Amano History: Final Fantasy Logos of the Future

After Final Fantasy XIV, Amano has not done much artwork for the series, as there haven’t been many releases in the past few months. So, for this post, we will conclude the Final Fantasy artworks with a collection of logo art and hardware art he’s done for upcoming titles. The picture for this post (at the top) is artwork for Final Fantasy Type Zero, due out for release sometime within the next year or so.

Below is system artwork Amano did for Dissidia 012, the followup of Dissidia Final Fantasy, which is due for release in March 2011 as well as the Logo for that game.

Finally, we have artwork that Amano has done in the past month for the newly announced sequel to Final Fantasy XIII, dubbed Final Fantasy XIII-2.

That’s all for Final Fantasy. I’ll be back soon with some other Amano work as well as how he got into this career.

Trent – L2K

Amano History: Final Fantasy 2007-2011

After Final Fantasy XII hit, Amano was working on the next title of the series, Final Fantasy XIII, but production was painfully slow, so he got to work on an interesting project for the series before then.

For the series’ 20th Anniversary, Square Enix constructed a game that combined Role Playing elements and Fighting elements that would involve characters from every Final Fantasy game up to that point, dubbed Dissidia, which was Latin for “Conflict”.

This game released on the 20th anniversary of the series, December 2007, and below is artwork Amano did, depicting the ten main characters, along with their leader, the goddess Cosmos.

Notice the combination in artistic styles in this. There are some characters that look dark and some light. These are all heroes of the game, but this one piece of artwork could represent 20 years of artwork by Yoshitaka Amano. Each individual character is derived from the initial designs he made for them in their original games.

Still awaiting Final Fantasy XIII development, Amano provided artwork for Square’s second sequel game, dubbed Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, which was a sequel to Final Fantasy IV, which debuted back in 1991.  The After Years released in 2008.  Below is artwork Amano provided for The After Years, re-used through the promotional art for Final Fantasy IV Complete Collection (due out in April 2011)

After a long wait, Final Fantasy XIII finished development and debuted in late 2010. Below is artwork Amano made for the game’s main characters.

Notice that, like the Dissidia artwork, the characters are a mixture of dark and light colors, perhaps symbolizing a period in which Amano is combining his artistic styles into one style, or a “combination style”.

The next Final Fantasy game, and the latest one as of late, as far as main series goes, is Final Fantasy XIV. This debuted in early 2011 and was a return to the online gaming scene. Below is artwork Amano contributed to the collector’s edition boxart for the game.

Like Final Fantasy XII, the character in this artwork is covered in black armor. This was not soley Amano’s doing, as the character in the game already has black armor. This is very different for a hero-like character (although there’s no real “main” character, since players use customized avatars throughout the game). The one thing that’s static was the thought that this was perhaps a premonition of fans’ dislike in the game, as it were in Final Fantasy XII (Which is very true. Many fans of the series dislike both XII and XIV).

I’ll be back in the next post with future artwork for the series and then I’ll go onto Amano’s other work.

I’ll be back with a new post soon!
Trent – L2K

Amano History: Final Fantasy 2001-2006

Once 2001 hit, Amano was back to doing promotional artwork and logo designs for the franchise. This marked the move of the Final Fantasy series from the PlayStation console to the PlayStation 2, which allowed a unique situation where Amano was allowed to make artwork for the same characters two games in a row.

In 2001, Final Fantasy X hit the market and the main characters, Tidus and Yuna, are shown below in this promotional art Amano drew

Notice that, while the artwork does seem to be dominated mostly by Amano’s wavy lines, there is a great variety of color in the artwork. This is a huge improvement from Amano’s earlier works, which mostly was just a character on a white background. Amano did some extensive detailing in this, not only to Tidus and Yuna, but also to the background environment they are in. This game would soon come back to Amano in the coming years.

In 2002, Square branched it’s franchise and entered the online gaming scene with Final Fantasy XI. Amano’s initial drawings for this game were fairly extensive. Below is a link to promotional artwork Amano did for Final Fantasy XI’s initial release (I say initial because there have been multiple expansions that have released over the years).

Amano FFXI Art

I am providing a link because it is too big to fit onto the article window and still be able to see all that’s going on. When you open it, it depicts a huge world with a variety of characters and creatures creating a border around the depiction of the world. The background is filled with yellow, almost as a montage to the artwork I showed of Final Fantasy X, with the characters all showing a combination of wavy lines and a great variety of colors, light and dark.

In 2003, Amano was returned to Final Fantasy X as Square announced their first sequel game (all main games have their own specific storylines and have nothing to do with one another), Final Fantasy X-2. Below is artwork Amano produced of the Gullwings, which is what the group of characters, led by Yuna, call themselves.

Note that the background of this is nonexistent. It is almost like a reference to the old Amano style (or it could just be that they are sitting on sand). There is a lack of color in this artwork, but Amano focused a lot on the wavy and curvy lines of the characters, perhaps to signify that X-2 has a very different tone and setting than X did.

The last of the PS2 Final Fantasies hit in 2006, dubbed Final Fantasy XII. This game took a huge turn, in terms of visual presentation and setting. Many consider XII to be the “black sheep” of the PS2 games, or the series in general. Amano could have shown a prediction of this in the following artwork of the game’s 4 main characters.

The four characters are shown in black, perhaps a reference to a lack of personal taste in the game’s new setting? Whatever it may be, it was definitely a different tone of artwork for Amano to be working with. There are still wavy, curvy lines here and there, but the dark colors was a huge turn away from what people had known him for.

After this game, Amano had some opportunities for some new art and nostalgic art, which is to come in the next post.

I’ll be back with a new post soon!
Trent – L2K