The Reason Why the Fantasy was Called 'Final'
Love, hate it, or think it's overrated, there's no denying that Final Fantasy is one of the biggest video game franchises in the world. Equally undeniably is that with every installment the series the name becomes increasingly ironic.
Why did Square pick such a title that would make the sequels seem a little silly? Hard to say really. Getting concrete information about the Japanese video game industry is difficult at best, and almost impossible at worse. For all anyone knows it could have come from someone flipping through a Japanese-English dictionary and picking two words that sounded interesting and happened to create an alliteration. It's not uncommon for the Japanese to use English simply because "it sounds cool," regardless of how arbitrary the resulting name might seem. However, most people belive that the real reason the series is called Final Fantasy, is that the first one may have almost been the last game in the series, if the not the last game Square ever made.
The theory states that Square was in dire financial straits after a string of flops, and this game was quite possibly the last one they would ever make. As a result series creator, Hironobu Sakaguchi, choose the name an ironic tribute to the company. Of course, the theory also states that the game sold like crazy and reversed the company's financial fortunes.
I can see your eyebrows raising out there in the Internet. The story does seem a bit too good to be true. When asked about the titles' origin in interviews, Sakaguchi himself has said that game was intended to be his last game, not Square's. You see, Sakaguchi had dropped out of college to work at Square and wanted to go back. However, he wanted to make one more game before he went back, and thus the resulting title.
So for a long time it seemed like the first story was just a story. After all, there was nothing to back it up other then rumors and hearsay. That changed about a month ago as a result of an interview with long-time series composer, Nobuo Uematsu. After the interview proper had taken place, the interviewer was making small talk and asked if the game was originally named for Sakaguchi returning for college? Uematsu replied that while Sakaguchi was going to quit, but the bigger reason was that Square was facing bankruptcy.
Looks the good story might actually be the true one. Maybe someone should ask Shougo Sakai why Nintendo won't release Mother 3 outside of Japan? Couldn't hurt really.
From Wired.com Game|Life