Final Fantasy 14 encouraged series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi to return to Square Enix after 20 years for help freeing his JRPG throwback from Apple Arcade jail

gamesradar.com:

Final Fantasy 14 played a prominent role in series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi's decision to team up with Square Enix once more to port his JRPG gem Fantasian to PC and consoles.

Speaking to Inverse, Sakaguchi explains that playing the critically acclaimed MMO made him realize just how much director and producer Naoki 'Yoshi-P' Yoshida and the team understood the series and, in turn, would understand Fantasian. Also the head of Square Enix's Creative Business Unit 3, working with Yoshida on a port made perfect sense.

"What I realized is Yoshida, and FF14, paid a lot of respect to what I felt was the history and legacy of Final Fantasy," Sakaguchi says. "So I felt a very strong sense of trust for whatever we end up doing together. Yoshida understands the essence of what Final Fantasy, and in this case, Fantasian, represents."

Sakaguchi played the MMO as a courtesy before joining Yoshida for a talk a few years back, and the rest is history. Sakaguchi has been hooked since, going to appear at Final Fantasy 14 Fan Fests and even missing the odd work meeting because of the game.

While Final Fantasy 14 is very much its own thing regarding story and content, it's also built as a Final Fantasy theme park with heaps of callbacks, from characters to locations. It's certainly something Sakaguchi has noted, having called out plenty of them on Twitter during his initial playthrough of the MMO.

It makes for some wholesome reading, given that Sakaguchi didn't leave Square Enix on the best terms around 20 years ago. It's almost as wholesome as what Sakaguchi says about returning to the Square Enix building many years later.

"20 years is a very, very long time. I recall the first time going back to the office, I got into the elevator, and all the other staff kind of froze, like, 'Oh my god, is that him?' I wasn't sure how I'd be received," Sakaguchi recalls. "But lo and behold everyone had a warm welcome for me. 

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