Final Fantasy's Unlikely Origin: From Last Hope to Legendary Legacy

So picture this - it's 1987, and the gaming world is in rough shape. This guy Hironobu Sakaguchi is seriously thinking about quitting game design altogether. His company Square is basically broke, and everyone figures their next game will probably be their last. Pretty heavy stuff, right? That's actually how they came up with the name "Final Fantasy" - it was meant to be their goodbye to gaming.

But here's where it gets interesting. Since they figured they were done for anyway, Square basically told the team "do whatever you want with this one." They took inspiration from games like Wizardry and Dragon Quest, but really just went wild with their own ideas.

Sakaguchi's team really shook things up with Final Fantasy's design. They came up with this cool system where you could swap character jobs on the fly - kind of like changing outfits for different situations. The battle system was pretty clever too, making you actually think about your moves instead of just button-mashing. And get this - while most games back then were pretty light and goofy, these folks decided to tell a serious story that didn't talk down to players. They brought in Yoshitaka Amano, who gave the characters this unique look that nobody had really seen in games before. Then there was Nobuo Uematsu's music - I mean, this guy turned video game tunes into something you'd actually want to listen to outside of playing. His stuff was so good, they still perform it in concerts today! Working on a tiny budget, the team poured everything they had into it, thinking it might be their last shot.

Talk about a plot twist though - Final Fantasy ended up being HUGE. They sold over 400,000 copies, which saved Square from going under. What was supposed to be their final game turned into one of gaming's biggest franchises ever. Pretty ironic given the name, right?

The game really clicked with people because it did something different - it mixed Western fantasy with Japanese storytelling in a way nobody had really seen before. Fast forward to today, and Final Fantasy has sold more than 150 million copies worldwide. Not bad for a last-ditch effort!

It's wild to think how much Final Fantasy changed gaming as we know it. Before FF came along, games weren't really known for their epic storytelling and dramatic cutscenes - but this series made it the gold standard. The way characters grew and developed throughout the game became the blueprint for pretty much every RPG that followed. And let's talk about the music - FF totally raised the bar, making other companies realize they couldn't just slap some basic tunes together anymore. All of this success turned Square, which is now Square Enix, from a company on the brink of bankruptcy into this gaming powerhouse. Pretty impressive for a game that was supposed to be their last hurrah!