35 Years Ago, A Struggling Creator Invented Final Fantasy, And Changed Everything

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The success of Nintendo’s Famicom and NES helped popularize console gaming to a whole new audience of players, so maybe it’s not surprising that many of the series that started there continue to be foundational parts of the gaming landscape. Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda of course grew into some of the biggest series in gaming, but it wasn’t just Nintendo’s own first-party games that made an impression and stuck around. In this month in 1990, a game from a struggling developer hit the NES in North America, kicking off what would become one of the most storied gaming franchises running today.

By the time Final Fantasy landed in North America on July 12, 1990, it had already been out in Japan for three years. The initial release was already a hit, but it was the English language NES version where it really took off. These days, you’d probably struggle to find someone who plays games but doesn’t know Final Fantasy, but at the time of the first game’s release, the situation could hardly have been more dire for developer Square.

Final Fantasy set the template for what console RPGs would become.

Square Enix

Square today is known as Square Enix, having merged with competing developer Enix. And in one way, Enix is partly to thank for the creation of Final Fantasy as well. The idea for the game started with director Hironobu Sakaguchi, who wanted to try making an RPG, but Square wasn’t convinced that it would sell, as long-time Square Enix designer Akitoshi Kawazu told 1Up.com in 2012. That changed when Enix released Dragon Quest, which was a hit in Japan. That was evidently enough to prove to Square that an RPG could actually perform well, though Sakaguchi wasn’t exactly trying to copy that game’s formula.

Both Sakaguchi and Kawazu were instead inspired by western computer RPGs like Ultima and Wizardry, as well as Dungeons and Dragons. Concepts like monsters having weaknesses to certain elements were pulled directly from tabletop RPGs, according to Kawazu. The ability to select each character’s class has its origins in the same games, as a way to get players more invested in the party. Even parts of the game that some players may feel are dated today come from the influence of Dungeons and Dragons, such as the hard limits on how often a character can use each of their spells in a single day.

“To be sure, we had our backs to the wall when we were developing Final Fantasy,” Sakaguchi said. “But really, anything that started with an F would have been fine for the title.”

At the time, Final Fantasy was a step forward for console RPGs, if not a revolution, and it offered an enthralling, often difficult adventure. But compared to what the Final Fantasy series would become, it feels almost more like a blueprint. Very little of the series’ now complex stories appears in the original Final Fantasy, which instead opts for a simple fantasy tale about heroic knights defeating an evil wizard. As a mechanical exploration of what RPGs would become, though, Final Fantasy is a crucial stepping stone.

Final Fantasy was an epic quest like nothing else on the NES.

Square Enix

That’s all despite the fact that Square didn’t particularly want to make it in the first place, and was in some danger during its development. At the time, Square was in danger of bankruptcy, and there was a real fear that if Final Fantasy didn’t find an audience, it could be the studio’s last game. That’s led to the common understanding that the “final” in Final Fantasy is a reference to it being a last-minute attempt to save the company, which turns out to be half-true at best. While composer Nobuo Uematsu once confirmed that origin to Wired, Sakaguchi himself gave Famitsu a much simpler explanation. According to a translation from SoraNews24, the development team wanted a title that would have a simple abbreviation in the Roman alphabet (FF) that would also be easily pronounceable in Japanese.

“To be sure, we had our backs to the wall when we were developing Final Fantasy,” Sakaguchi said. “But really, anything that started with an F would have been fine for the title.”

Square’s gamble paid off, and Final Fantasy is a household name among anyone who has even a passing interest in video games. While the original game is obviously much simpler than what would come later by modern sensibilities, it’s clear why the series became such a hit if you play it today.

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