Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival Frankfurt 2017 part one coverage is found here.
Above is a shot by RA:N Editor and comrade Onyx Goggles where you can see several of the developers present, with Square Enix President Yosuke Matsuda on the right next to Garuda where he's cooly pressing up his glasses, and FFXIV Producer Naoki Yoshida on the left, just to the right of the Fat Chocobo in the Samurai job cosplay.
Standing together with winners and entrees in the cosplay contest, the devs along with Matsuda took the stage for some announcements and photos, and gave Yoshida the chance to show off his own expertly crafted Samurai cosplay- a featured new upcoming job for the Stormblood expansion coming out later this month.
Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival Frankfurt 2017 took place back in February, with part one posted some time ago.
More pics from the Fan Festival cosplay event just below.
From left to right is a Lalafell, Nashu, a White Mage, a Bard, Shiva, an Elezen, Lyse, and the final two I'm not sure, but one's a Miqo'te sporting a Yukata. Let me know if you know in the comments at the end of this post.
Amazing Garuda cosplay. Garuda used to be one of the most difficult bosses or trials back in the early days of FFXIV: A Realm Reborn.
The twins Alphinaud and Alisae, two of the several main characters of FFXIV's main story.
King Thordan seen on the left, also seen previously doing the Manderville dance in Part 1, and a Paladin on the right, very awesome to see and wearing the game's Creed armor set.
A shot of Thordan during the cosplay contest.
The event host sticks the mic into the Fat Chocobo's beak for a word from the bird.
This guy was a Dark Knight class, wearing the game's Chaos armor.
The event host spoke to the entrees, asking them about their work on their costumes.
From left to right is one of the Ascians, Lord Haurchefant, Edda, an Astrologian, and the Lalafell cosplayer we saw a few photos above.
And there she is again! Striking a Lalafell pose.
Taken at the start of the event. Really love how they decorated the stage with classic designs for some of the FFXIV characters, the lighting, it was magical!
On the far left you can see one of the fancy cameras that filmed for the Live-Stream, the crowd that was present, and Square Enix records.
You can see what the camera is seeing up on the screen there.
How many of you watched the Frankfurt Live Stream?
One of the panels with Michael-Christopher Koji Fox on the left, and Naoki Yoshida on the right.
What's Yoshi got on his feet?
Yoshi came wearing Moogle Slippers! These slippers started as a joke and became an in-game item you can get from the game's special Moogle Beast Tribe Quests. First debuting and sold at Tokyo Game Show 2015, they've become wildly popular with FFXIV players. Got mine back at TGS 2015!
At the end of the panel, Guiness World Records appeared to present Producer Naoki Yoshida, Sound Editor and Composer Masayoshi Soken, and Square Enix President Matsuda Yosuke not one, but several Guiness World Record awards for Final Fantasy XIV and the Final Fantasy franchise.
One award was for Most Prolific Franchise for Final Fantasy's 80+ entries (there really is that much when you count them all individually), and another for FFXIV having several hundred pieces of original compositions.
I'm happy that RA:N was able to be front and center to closely capture this historic event.
Yoshida accepting the award for "Longest Credits In Any Video Game".
Soken accepting the World Record for original compositions. Soken's done so much hard work over the past 5 or so years since the 'A Realm Reborn' project began.
FFXIV has a lot of amazing music, Soken and FFXIV really deserves the award.
Square Enix Pres Yosuke Matsuda accepting the award for "Most Prolific RPG Franchise" which awards on the count of all the achievements and entries in the Final Fantasy Franchise.
This year marks the 30th Anniversary of the Final Fantasy Franchise so this was definitely a destined moment that couldn't have come at a better time!
Group shot for the camera, they were very honored to receive the awards!
Gilgamesh on the left is a recurring gag character in the Final Fantasy Franchise, his adventures in FFXIV line up with Hildibrand on the right there.
The green chicken represents Gilgamesh's partner and friend, Enkidu, who is missing in the story until they are somewhat reunited.
The green chicken is a point of comedy relief in the Hildibrand story questline when Gilgamesh comes in.
Here the stage was being slowly set up for the concert performance of "The Primals", a band made of Soken and friends that play a list of songs that are featured in Final Fantasy XIV.
The performances are rock and roll editions of boss themes (primal fights in the game) and this time Susan Calloway joined them live on stage, who sings the title songs or themesongs of A Realm Reborn and the game's expansions, Heavensward and the coming Stormblood.
You'll see a couple shots of the concert a little further down.
This was a short event some time before the concert began, featuring one of the game's artists as he spoke a bit about his job and his art while answering questions.
During the segment with the artist they went over some art that he had done in just 2 days, showing the creative process and some slides of how the art comes together.
Due to the equipment being set up around the main stage, this is the best angle we could get at during the event. The art pictured is the start of an original piece featuring Nidhogg and a Dragoon from the Heavensward expansion.
Here's a closer look.
Starting to come together now.
Getting there.
More detail added.
The Dragoon and Nidhogg wasn't the only one, there was also a picture of a Monk class fighter throwing a punch!
Here's a better look.
Then it was time for The Primals concert!
The Primals rocked new songs featuring songs from Heavensward, like Thordan's boss theme, music from the Alexander raid series, and even Sephirot, one of the Warring Triad gods from Final Fantasy VI who is also in Final Fantasy XIV.
You can see Soken to the far left. Michael-Christopher Koji Fox is also part of the band, seen in the center there. Koji Fox is the game's co-lore creator and helps write a plethora of dialogue and english text, an integral part of the FFXIV development team. Koji started years ago as a Final Fantasy XI writer who was scouted in the forums and has come a very very long way, even singing in this awesome band where the developers themselves are also rock stars!
Videos and lights corresponding to the songs they played shown overhead and all around. This one was for the Alexander Raid's final trial, also known as A12 in the game.
Please excuse the blurry bit, but you can see Susan Calloway here when she joined the Primals for this very special occasion. Susan is a really wonderful lady who posts a lot of motivational and inspiring posts and encouragement on Facebook, she's the voice of the goddess Hydaelyn in the title songs as Nobuo Uematsu mentioned at Fan Festival, and she has her own music on the side too. Susan just got a lot of her music up on Spotify, which also includes a remix of the FFXIV song, "Answers" which is pretty nifty if I do say so myself.
They were really rocking out! I believe this was during Shiva's theme, "Oblivion".
More music from the Alexander raid series.
Design is based on the Fat Chocobo mount from the game.
Can you guess what this actually is? (answer below the next photo)
Its a PC! Amazing right? It was on exhibit along with other crafts and art.
A close up of the front of the Magitek Armor that was available for attendees to mount for photo ops.
Uematsu and Yoshida along with the other guests and developers begin lining up on stage for farewells and final words.
Good times.
One big group bow just before confetti rained from the above.
If you notice, the confetti is red and gold, key colors of the upcoming Stormblood expansion.
Developers and Community team applause the final of the three big Fan Festivals, and the last before the Stormblood saga begins! It has become tradition now that Fan Festivals take place every other year now, with a trio of a Japanese, American, and European Fan Festival. Stormblood represents Final Fantasy XIV 4.0, so when the days come around for 5.0 you can bet there will be 3 more Fan Festivals.
As the confetti rained down, slowly eclipsing the successful staff on stage, really feels like a victorious moment shared by all.
What an amazing show!
Few companies celebrate their fans and their games the way Square Enix and the FFXIV team does, with what is practically a convention. Incredible!
And we end this second part of the tour through Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival Frankfurt 2017. Remember if you haven't seen part one yet, check it out!
Stay tuned for one more special post from the event featuring all the cosplay we saw!
And don't forget to keep running around with us!
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