Squaresoft

Square officially became it's own company, started by Masafumi Miyamoto in 1986. They have released a variety of titles, from the popular Final Fantasy series, to Chrono Trigger, to more real time games like Secret of Mana, and a variety of titles in between. Generally however, the commonly released games are in the RPG genre. Squaresoft, which changed it's name to Square Co., Ltd upon breaking away from it's original company, has by now merged with the also popular company Enix, known for it's Dragon Quest series.


 * Final Fantasy**

Final Fantasy was developed by Square in 1987, created in a need of a hit after a string of failed games for the Famicom. One of the largest points to the game's success, was the simple fact that it integrated a story to the game, which made all the difference once they sold 400,000 copies of the game. As the result, the series had a sequel, and continued onwards as such. Of note, the Final Fantasy series is one of the major titles that is credited to popularizing the RPG genre of games. Many popular titles continued to come from the series, popularly acclaimed Final Fantasy 7, winner of numerous awards, including Best Game Ever, awarded by GameFAQs.


 * Kingdom Hearts**

In 2002, Square Enix released Kingdom Hearts, a surprising game mixing characters of Final Fantasy with Disney's characters. The game in itself was a departure from the generally expected RPG system, in place for a hack and slash type of game. The series was received with great praise, from the storyline, to the gameplay having an unexpected mix of hack and slash and RPG, to it's character cast and adaptation to each others type of universe. Also of popular acclaim, was the musicals to the game itself, by singer Hikaru Utada, becoming popularly known in America through her singing parts of Kingdom Hearts. The game had sold over 5.6 million copies world wide, 1.5 million in Japan, 3 million in America, and 1.1 million to PAL reigions. media type="youtube" key="7OQ9c7wHuIE?fs=1" height="344" width="425"


 * Merging into Square Enix**

On April 1, 2003, Square Co., Ltd merged with Enix Corporation, forming Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. Upon merging, the company had turned to more 3D series of games, from Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, to Enix's popular series, Dragon Quest. In addition to 3D gaming, Square Enix brought about the ideas of Online Multiplayer gaming, starting with Final Fantasy 11's online capabilities.

Refrences

[] Square Enix history [] Interview discussing final Fantasy's creation. [] Best Game Ever awarded by GameFAQs.