Square began as a computer game division of Den-Yu-Sha, a powerline construction company, in 1983. The founder, Masashi Miyamoto, believed that – despite how other companies relied on single programmers to get a game finished – a team of people would be more efficient. The first two titles released by the company were The Death Trap in 1984, and the sequel Will: The Death Trap II in 1985, both developed by Hironobu Sakaguchi. As text-adventure titles went, they weren’t particularly popular, though they proved to be successful enough for Square as a company to continue to develop games.

By 1986, Square was an independent company, and Sakaguchi was named the Director of Planning and Development. However, around this time, Square was releasing a number of unsuccessful video games. Sakaguchi was inspired by Enix’s Dragon Quest as well as other titles such as Ultima and Wizardry and sought to make a similar RPG title. The original title of the game he went to work on was Fighting Fantasy, but mid-development, it was changed to Final Fantasy. It’s been said that the game was retitled as such because Square itself was dealing with the threat of bankruptcy if it wasn’t successful; Sakaguchi has also said himself that if the game failed, he’d quit the industry and go back to school.

Fortunately for all involved, Final Fantasy was a big hit when it arrived at the tail end of 1987. The original release moved 400,000 copies in Japan – and many more hundreds of thousands when an English version released in America – and along with the critically positive reviews, gave Square renewed life.