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Final Fantasy & Metal Gear Bentō, Lightning Returns Design Revealed on 25th Anniversaries
posted on by Sarah Nelkin
Sony Computer Entertainment unveiled their Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid "Ultimate Character Bentō" (Kyūkyoku no Chara Ben) lunch boxes for the 25th anniversary of both the Final Fantasy and Metal Gear video game franchises.
Their most recent video game in the series, Final Fantasy XIII-2, was released in December 2011 in Japan, and in January 2012 in North America. Another sequel to Final Fantasy XIII, titled Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, is in the works. 2013's combined 4th/5th issue of Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine is revealing Lightning's new design on Saturday. Lightning will return as the main character for the third game, though her sister Serah held that position in the second game.
Sony will reveal more details of Final Fantasy and Metal Gear series' 25th anniversary projects on Wednesday.
The original Final Fantasy was released on December 18, 1987 by Square Soft on the Nintendo Entertainment System, also known as the Nintendo Family Computer or Famicom in Japan. The game sold 500,000 copies in total. Final Fantasy III (1990) was the first in the series to sell over a million, and Final Fantasy V (1992) sold over two million.
Final Fantasy VII (1997) far outsold VI, with the 3D CG game selling an estimated 9.9 million copies worldwide. Final Fantasy VIII (1999) and Final Fantasy IX (2000) also used the 3D CG techniques of VII, and Final Fantasy IX sold around 2.79 million in Japan alone, with 5.30 copies sold worldwide. Final Fantasy X (2001), the first game in the series for the PlayStation 2, sold at least 6.6 million copies worldwide.
Square went on to prooducing an American/Japanese CG movie, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, which cost the company US$137 million to make. It ended up as a box office bomb, and Square recorded a loss of 13.9 billion yen (about US$165,674,100). Square Soft then went on to merge with Enix, and the company is now known as Square Enix.
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Source: Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web via Otakomu, Hachima Kikō
Update: The Japanese side of Square also participated in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Punctuation corrected. Thanks, ChibiGoku and Nephtis.
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