The Story Behind How EGM Spawned That Iconic Final Fantasy Art

The 2000s was a new dawn for console gaming. The PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube and even Dreamcast were expanding the horizons of what dreams could unfurl on the living room TV. It was a heyday for print publications as well, the specialty press being the best window between players and this unwritten future. Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) was one of the biggest on the shelves, and in 2001 they’d flex those bonafides with a gorgeous, original cover from Final Fantasy artist Yoshitaka Amano. It turns out landing on those shelves was kind of an accident.

After Final Fantasy VII stunned PlayStation owners, the signature SquareSoft series finally found a level of popularity abroad that had previously been elusive outside of Japan. Its first outing on next-generation consoles was going to be a hot affair, with new fidelity and processing power able to render these adventures, exploits and intimacies better than ever before. Cover material for sure. 

At EGM, then editor-in-chief Dan “Shoe” Hsu wanted something special for Final Fantasy X. “Shoe wanted to see if we could commission an Amano painting for the cover and it got [complicated] because we needed Square’s permission,” posted James Mielke, famed EGM alumni. “Plus, it cost us $10,000 when the average art budget for a cover was essentially zero.”

Surprisingly, publisher ZiffDavis gave them the green light. Mielke personally oversaw the cover’s creation, with Amano’s turnaround being much faster than expected. Amano used gold leaf for the painting, which EGM’s printer struggled to do justice. The interesting complexion of the finished cover remained alluring all the same.

That wasn’t the only complication. According to Hsu’s follow-up thread, the Amano cover was intended to go to all EGM subscribers, with only 25 percent shipping to retail, taking a page from the ‘90s superhero comics boom. “I wanted it to be very exclusive and rare. And I thought the non-Amano cover would be more mainstream anyways,” posted Hsu. “Something got miscommunicated along the way.”

Instead, the publisher thought they wanted Amano to occupy 25 percent of all covers overall. Meaning some subscribers ended up with the standard issue, featuring pretty decent key art of Yuna, and retail shelves found themselves with way more of the painterly approach.

While some of those subscribers felt burned, overall it proved a happy mistake. Readers seemed chuffed by the gorgeous surprise and it boosted sales considerably, making it one of EGM’s best selling-issues. Even nascent digital rival IGN wrote about it. ZiffDavis allowed another commission from Amano two years later for a Final Fantasy Everything cover. Mielke is just happy to see the art make its way into Zippo culture.

Sadly, the new millennium wasn’t too friendly to printed specialty press. EGM’s print run ended in 2009, its beloved digital counterpart 1UP.com being closed not long after in 2013. However, its legacy still lives on. A crowdfunded EGM anthology raised $1.7 million, the tomes heading to press in the short future. Mielke recently announced he’s releasing a biography of Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu through Viz. Amano, meanwhile, still seems to like the taste of variant covers, having done numerous for DC comics in recent years.

Still, the printed page for games press is sorely missed. On top of gorgeous art and ink, they offered a level of discoverability to new games more elegant than the current law of the jungle.