The Final Fantasy Legend - Development

Development

The Final Fantasy Legend was conceived by Nobuyuki Hoshino and developed under director Akitoshi Kawazu two years after Final Fantasy was released. It was the first installment of the SaGa series in Japan and the first Game Boy game produced by Square. Square president Masafumi Miyamoto requested developers create a Game Boy game after he noticed the success of Tetris and the popularity of handheld system. Kawazu and partner Koichi Ishii decided that instead of creating a game similar to Tetris, they would produce what they felt customers desired most: a role-playing game.

Square's concept for the game was a title that could be completed in six to eight hours, based on the duration of an airplane flight between Narita, Japan and Honolulu, Hawaii. Developers sought to optimize the game for short bursts of gameplay, as if played by a train passenger between stations. Square raised random battle encounter rate relative to its other role playing games, ensuring players would have at least one enemy encounter during short playtime to maintain an interesting experience. The Final Fantasy Legend was designed to be difficult and feature advanced gameplay, described by Kawazu as the main difference between the SaGa and Final Fantasy series. Square implemented several other ideas to distance the games, notably the "meat" system to allow players to collect enemy abilities, though these proved difficult to portray at first.

Kawazu took a direct hand in shaping the game's scenario development, working alongside Ishii, Takashi Tokita, and Hiroyuki Ito, who were involved in other Square projects at the time. Ishii and Ito developed the game's world layout and geography as well; Ryōko Tanaka designed the background graphics. Tokita developed character concept art and handled the in-game sprites. The monochrome screen of the Game Boy proved an obstacle, as some graphics such as fire were more difficult to portray without color. As a result, they had to develop a world that "works in black and white". Tanaka later revealed that the 2-megabit capacity of contemporary Game Boy cartridges severely limited their designs; the team removed some elements from the finished game to ensure peak performance.