Final Fantasy

Classes

As of 2002, Final Fantasy is the only single-player entry of the series where you can choose four characters from six different classes before starting the game.

King of the dragons

The most popular (and usually the most powerful) "summonable" monster of the Final Fantasy games makes his appearance already in the very first Final Fantasy. In this game you still can not summon the king of the dragons, but he talks to you.

Music

It is rumored that composer Nobou Uematsu composed the theme song in just five minutes.

References

In Elfland, there are three tombstones next to the White Magic shop the furthest to the left says

"Here lies Erdrick" "837 - 866" "R.I.P."

This is a reference to a character in Dragon Warrior but in the Japanese version, the tomb says "Here lies Link" instead. Link, of course, is the hero of the Legend of Zelda series.

Title

The first Final Fantasy game was called "Final Fantasy" because its creator, Hironobu Sakaguchi, wanted to retire from the gaming business and by calling the game "Final Fantasy" wanted to say precisely that this game would be his final fantasy. The game's composer, Nobuo Uematsu, has deliberately contradicted this claim, however, and claims that the "the bigger reason, the real reason, was that Square was going to go bankrupt and the designers believed that it would be the company's swan song."

Who could have known that within fifteen years there would be ten direct sequels and many side-games under the very same title?

Awards

• Retro Gamer
  • September 2004 (Issue #8) – #93 Best Game Of All Time (Readers' Vote)

Information also contributed by FinalGMR, J. Michael Bottorff and Unicorn Lynx