The story behind EGM’s iconic Yoshitaka Amano Final Fantasy X cover

The early 2000s reshaped console gaming and the magazines that covered it. In 2001 Electronic Gaming Monthly commissioned Yoshitaka Amano to paint an original cover for Final Fantasy X — a risky, costly gamble that ran about $10,000 and required Square’s permission before publisher ZiffDavis would sign off.

James Mielke oversaw the painting, and Amano delivered faster than expected. He worked with gold leaf, a finish the magazine’s printer struggled to reproduce perfectly, yet the end result retained a striking, otherworldly look. The cover was intended as a limited newsstand exclusive, with subscribers supposed to receive a different Yuna cover, but a distribution miscommunication broadened the Amano print run and surprised many readers.

Correction: the Amano cover was only intended to go to newsstands. Readers responded well, sales rose and even early digital rivals took notice.

egm, yoshitaka amano, final fantasy, yuna, ziffdavis, square, james mielke, gold leaf, magazine cover, newsstand exclusive