One of the reasons that gamers love celebrating the anniversaries of video game franchises is that they love to show appreciation for the titles that have been made. Furthermore, they appreciate the teams that sometimes took big risks to make these now classic games. An excellent example comes from the realm of Square Enix. Their beloved franchise, Final Fantasy, came out in Japan 35 years ago today, starting an RPG revolution that continues today. But if you think that the franchise was always a sure thing, it wasn’t. There were many hurdles in the road, including with the very first title.

Hironobu Sakaguchi was the man behind the series, and he wanted to make an RPG for his bosses at Square. Yes, Square, not Square Enix. That was a merger that came years later. The company was hesitant to let him do that until the original Dragon Quest games were released in Japan and were big hits. The problem was that even with their blessing, Sakaguchi only had a small team and not much funding.

The series is called Final Fantasy because Sakaguchi felt this would be his “final chance” to make a successful video game. He even said he would return to a university job if he failed. Furthermore, Square wasn’t doing well financially at the time, so if the game failed, it might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.

But it didn’t fail, and it sold over a million copies within a few years. Back then, that was a big deal. It was praised by critics and gamers and got Square enough money to make sequels which did equally as well.

Another big hurdle was the transition away from Nintendo systems. The team had made games for the NES and SNES but felt that the N64 wouldn’t be able to contend with what they wanted for the series going forward. So they jumped ship and took a chance on Sony with its PlayStation. The result of that was Final Fantasy VII, one of the most beloved games of all time.

The explosion of that game led to the series growing in more ways over time, including setting the tone for other series and inspiring other franchises. Fast forward to today, and fans are eager to get the next mainline game in Final Fantasy XVI.

The series is now a staple of the gaming world, and it’ll continue to stay that way as long as they make quality titles.