User:G-Zay/sandbox

Development
Final Fantasy XII evolved from an unannounced game project that Yasumi Matsuno was developing for PlayOnline, Square's online gaming service, with Hideo Minaba as character designer and Akihiko Yoshida as background artist. This early concept, a small-scale project expected to be completed in half a year's time, eventually grew into a full-scale project. Final Fantasy XII proper was first mentioned in the January 2001 issue of the Swedish video game magazine Super PLAY, in which the series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi mentioned that Final Fantasy XI ' s nature as an MMORPG would not mark the end of the series and that the next installment "might just as well be completely traditional, just like FFIX turned out after VII and VIII". On January 22, 2001, Final Fantasy XII was officially announced by Square at a business strategy meeting in Japan, with Yasumi Matsuno and Hiroyuki Ito as game directors. It was unveiled at a press event in Tokyo on November 19, 2003.

Matsuno noted that the game would surprise fans of Final Fantasy as it was to be "unlike any other game in the series".

Visual design
Design inspiration came from a mix of medieval Mediterranean countries, as demonstrated by the architectural styles found throughout the game's world along with the coexistence of many races.

The team began development using the same polygon and texture count as Final Fantasy X. However, the requirements of the new gameplay systems were such that the team had to half the polygon count of the game's engine while trying to preserve its graphical quality.

Themes
The various races populating the game's world were designed to have their own language specificities and sets of prejudices. As an example of the game's theme of social classes, Matsuno considered putting leg irons on lower-class Moogles, an idea he had been contemplating since joining Square in 1995.

Delays
In March 2002, Matsuno stated in the Japanese video game magazine Famitsu that "development [had] not progressed too far" yet, as he and his staff were still working on PlayOnline, Square's online service, until Fall 2001. Final Fantasy XII was initially expected to be released in the fiscal year 2003 (ending March 2004); however, it was later pushed back to the "next business year or later" after a review of the company's "product launch plan". Square Enix's president Yoichi Wada commented that the shift was due to both delays during development and to avoid competing with concurrent Square Enix releases. As a result of this decision, the company lowered its profit estimates for the fiscal year 2003 by almost 20%, from 10.5 to 8.1 billion yen.