10 Little-Known Decisions That Changed The Course Of Gaming History

5. The 'Final' Fantasy Was Anything But

Once upon a time, a fledgling Japanese company by the name of Square was on the verge of bankruptcy just a year after becoming independent. Director of Planning & Strategy Hironobu Sakaguchi was all set to quit the industry and return to university, which he had dropped out of to join the company. Deciding however, that if he was to go down, he would go down in style, Sakaguchi put together a skilled team of designers, programmers and artists, both those employed by Square and those brought in from inside. His vision was an RPG game, Final Fantasy, with a title indicative of his company's expectation that it would fail. Determined to prove his doubters wrong, he fought a number of battles to ensure that the game had the best possible content and was distributed to the widest possible audience, securing magazine coverage and doubling the production order from 200,000 units to 400,000. The game was a success in both Japan and North America (it was never released in Europe until 2003), but without Sakaguchi's decision to go above and beyond his job description, 'Final Fantasy' would most likely be just a footnote in gaming history today. Instead, it is undoubtedly the most definitive RPG franchise of all time, having captivated the hearts and minds of audiences across the world with its engaging gameplay and wonderfully-crafted stories many times over. The series has struggled to an extent in recent years as a result of a string of questionable releases, but the enduring legacy of earlier titles, particularly Final Fantasies IV through X (barring perhaps V), means that the name will long be held in high regard.