In an exclusive interview with IGN, six members of the Final Fantasy XVI development team shared their favorite games from the legendary franchise.
Dating back to 1987, the Final Fantasy franchise has inspired hundreds, if not thousands, of creators. For many, the idea of going on to play a part in creating a new entry in the series would be a dream, and that is true for many of the staff currently excited for players to get their hands on Final Fantasy 16. The current team isn’t shy about sharing which games were most inspiring to them.
Producer Naoki Yoshida has been a fan since the very first entry, stating “the original Final Fantasy was a huge deal. Partly because of (Yoshitaka) Amano’s illustrations, I was mesmerized by the game’s strong sense of fantasy.” He goes on to list Final Fantasy III and VII as having a big impact on him.
Director Hiroshi Takai listed his favorites from third to first as Final Fantasy X for its quality, VI for the impressive sprites, and V as his absolute favorite. His reasoning for picking V is somewhat funny as he picked it due to it being the first game in the series he worked on.
Creative Director Kazutoyo Maehiro agrees with Takai on V being his favorite based on his time playing it as a student. In a twist, his second favorite is Final Fantasy Tactics, even claiming that he hopes to bring it back someday. For his top slot, Maehiro chose Final Fantasy XII for similar reasons to Takai picking V — it was the first title he acted as Combat Director on.
Other interesting picks were Combat Director Ryota Suzuki and Art Director Hiroshi Minagawa putting Final Fantasy III at the top, and Localization Director Michael-Christopher Koji Fox also selecting V as his favorite.
While all of the staff’s favorites are older entries in the franchise, Yoshida did admit this was most likely due to them being the entries they played growing up. Who knows, when Final Fantasy XXV is on the way, we may have developers citing XVI as their favorites.
