Final Fantasy VI: How The Rivalry With Dragon Quest Influenced The Game’s Development

In celebration of the 25th Anniversary of Final Fantasy VI, Famitsu sat down with several of the game’s developers to talk about its creation.

During the interview, the devs revealed that Final Fantasy franchise’s rivalry with fellow JRPG giant Dragon Quest was a critical factor in the development of VI. Apparently, surpassing Dragon Quest was a key goal for the Final Fantasy VI, even more so than just making an amazing game in and of itself.

Hironobu Sakaguchi, Producer: “A lot of it was influenced by Dragon Quest. Dragon Quest just had this unique vibe about it, along with a spectacular scenario from Yuji Horii-san. We were mostly fired up with a rival mentality, thinking ‘We must surpass them!’ rather than thinking ‘We’ll make something top-class!’”

Yoshinori Kitase, Director: “Back in the days of Final Fantasy V, Sakaguchi-san, I remember you saying ‘We’ll at least beat ‘em (Dragon Quest) in the amount of main-numbered titles!’”

When comparing the two franchises strengths and weaknesses, Producer Sakaguchi said that he always felt that Final Fantasy beat Dragon Quest out when it came to the graphics department. They also discussed some cut content from Final Fantasy VI intended to reference their rival’s games.

Hironobu Sakaguchi: “I figured we couldn’t beat them head on when it came to the games themselves, so yeah [laughs]. However, ever since the very first Final Fantasy, I always felt that we wouldn’t lose when it came down to graphics. Of course we did put in effort into systems and scenarios, but that was one part I used to be confident we could beat Dragon Quest in. Oh, speaking of Dragon Quest, wasn’t there some event that Kitase rejected?”

Yoshinori Kitase: “Huh? What was that again?”

Hironobu Sakaguchi: “No matter how many party members you have in Final Fantasy, you can only move one lead character on the map, right? So when you get members, they kind of fuse into the one representative party member. So the event that was rejected involved a part where four party members attempt to “fuse” into one lead, but then it was like ‘Huh!? We can’t fuse!?’ and had four of them line up instead, kind of a reference to Dragon Quest [laughs].”

Yoshinori Kitase: “Ahh, as expected, I remember saying ‘Okay, now you’re messing around too much!’ and rejected it [laughs].”

While its debatable whether or not Final Fantasy VI managed to achieve its goal of surpassing Dragon Quest, the game still ended up being one of the all-time classics in the JRPG genre. It just goes to show how a little bit of healthy competition between game developers can spur them to on to greater heights.

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