If you are a fan of Japanese Role Playing Games, then you have heard his name plenty of times in the past. Hironobu Sakaguchi is one of the most influential game directors of all time. His work and legacy have heavily impacted the industry with the iconicFinal Fantasyseries and even the collaboration with Akira Toriyama in the Xbox 360 exclusive, Blue Dragon.
As the founder of theMistwalkerdevelopment studio, Sakaguchi has been successful in the post-Final Fantasy era, mostly focusing on propelling new and interesting IPs into the limelight, while taking a backseat from directing himself.
Even though Sakaguchi has plenty of credits in other games, we will only focus on those with directorial credit.
8Party Wave
Even though he is known for making compelling characters and storylines set in grand and jaw-dropping worlds, his studio Mistwalker began focusing on smaller mobile games back in 2012. They started this foray into the mobile space with a simple score-based surfing game called Party Wave.
While the character design is super fun and interesting, far removed from Sakaguchi’s previous work, the gameplay loop was extremely surface-level and repetitive. Sadly, the game has now been delisted from online app stores, so you will not be able to play this fun time killer on your fifth-generation iPod Touch.
7Blue Dragon: Awakened Shadow
Even though he is the creator of theoriginal Xbox 360 game, he was not the director on the super team project, but he was able to step up and direct the third game in the series, Awakened Shadow.
Returning to the Blue Dragon universe was interesting enough, but this game did something quite different. Instead of playing as Shu, you were able to create your own character and build your own adventure. Not only that, but the combat strayed from its classic turn-based combat for a more action-oriented gameplay. This was divisive for a lot of players, as most just wanted to continue to immerse themselves in Sakaguchi’s creative and colorful world.
6The Last Story
After his time spent on Final Fantasy, Sakaguchi was able to explore different worlds and share his eye for excellent JRPG stories with his Mistwalker studio. Towards the end of the lifespan of the Nintendo Wii, Mistwalker released an exclusive game on the console that was a little of bit of old mixed with a little bit of new.
The Last Story’s aesthetic was reminiscent of games like Final Fantasy 12, but its combat was far more involved than the one in the world of Ivalice. The Last Story’s combat had action elements combined with cover shooting, and even wall running. The game had ambition, but sadly, the execution wasn’t all there.
5Final Fantasy 2
Depending on who you ask, you’ll receive different opinions about the follow-up to the 1987 classic. Even though the game features most of the same gameplay loop as the original, this time, your party members all have predetermined canon names and are part of an overarching story.
Not to say that the original Final Fantasy didn’t have a story, but Final Fantasy 2 was a bit more compelling as it made you care for the characters and their goals, rather than a simple self-insert four characters have to defeat the big bad guy and collect the crystals.
4Final Fantasy 3
The third installment in the series suffered from the same criticism as the second one. While the game featuredthe job system, where you could reclass your characters as you saw fit for the situation, for the first time, the game felt like more of the same. The story, while keeping its motif of crystals and magic, was far more involved and had an aura of mystery surrounding it, making players far more interested in the story rather than the already-seen game mechanics.
The game was still incredible, and it set a precedent for many JRPGs to follow. Customization almost feels like a synonym to JRPGs nowadays.
3Final Fantasy
There’s a reason why Final Fantasy is such a familiar name amongst every gamer. The release of the game was a last-ditch effort to save the company, known as Square at the time, from going bankrupt. Not only a commercial success, Final Fantasy cemented itself as the one of the reasons for RPGs popularity as we know of today.
One of the biggest complaints about the original game was its random encounters. If you grew up playing this game, or at least one similar, random encounters might not seem as egregious, but the slow pace of the game and lack of substantial story didn’t sit well with many players.
2Final Fantasy 5
Final Fantasy 5 is most definitely the forgotten middle child. When speaking about the best Final Fantasy games, most people remember the most popular ones: 4, 6, 7, and even 9, but 5 was an excellent game that many did not even give it the time of day. It had a much more involved story, exceptional characters, and even better designs, and it was the return to form with a much more expanded job system.
These things are the baseline of what most Final Fantasy players look for in the newest entries, and without Bartz’ story, we would probably not even have the masterpieces that are 11 and 14.
1Final Fantasy 4
Anyone who has ever played Final Fantasy, knows that Final Fantasy 4 is the best thing that Sakaguchi has directed. Every Final Fantasy game under his belt is an incredible and unique experience that every JRPG fan needs to experience, but Final Fantasy 4 is a different beast.
Its gripping story, its iconic characters, and soundtrack are all jam-packed in a story with twists and turns that even on a replay feel fresh and unlike any other out there.
