Details

Release year: 1987

Storyline

The four "Light Warriors" must fulfill a 2000 year old prophecy, traversing the land in order to restore light to the four elemental orbs and defeat an ancient evil to save their world.

Top credits

Directors

Hironobu Sakaguchi

Writers

See all 3 credits →

Did you know

• It's often been reported that Hironobu Sakaguchi called his game "Final Fantasy" because he intended it to be his last game before leaving the industry. It's also been reported the name was chosen due to financial difficulties faced by Square at the time that this could be the last game they could produce. However in truth the developers were looking for a word to compliment the fantasy theme of the game. The criteria was that the title needed to be easily abbreviated using the Roman alphabet and that abbreviation needed to be four-syllables. Using the word "Fantasy" was an obvious choice, given the game's genre. After initially considering Fighting Fantasy but finding out the name was already in use, they chose "Final." The abbreviation "FF" (efu efu in Japanese) fit the four syllable requirement. According to Sakaguchi, "Really, anything that started with an F would have been fine for the title."

• One of few games in the series in which the player is able to create their entire party from scratch from a list of character classes. Almost every game that followed featured a set cast of protagonists, with the exception of Final Fantasy III

• In the original US release, in the elven village, there are a trio of tombstones north of the Inn. If one reads the second tombstone, it says "R.I.P. Erdrick". Erdrick is the name of a legendary hero in one of Final Fantasy's contemporaries, Dragon Quest (USA: Dragon Warrior). This was placed as a joke, mentioning its competition. In all Japanese releases as well as the US Playstation release, the headstone reads "Here lies Link", a reference to the hero of Nintendo's Zelda Densetsu / Legend of Zelda games.