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The Final Fantasy franchise is one of the best known in the industry, and over the course of nearly three decades has evolved in numerous ways. It's also the source of one of the most interesting stories in gaming, as its very name is testament to its status as a last-ditch attempt at survival for Square, the company that would occasionally be referred to as Squaresoft and would merge with Enix to become Square Enix in 2003. It was an attempt to reverse the fortunes of the company and indeed Hironobu Sakaguchi, who was at the point of walking away from the industry.

If you're interested in a fairly succinct, to-the-point summary of how the game came to be, you could do far worse than the video documentary below from YouTuber Joshua Drew. He outlines how the Square company came to be, summarises its early releases and then moves onto the genesis of Final Fantasy.

Grab a snack and a comfy chair and check it out below, while you can see the preceding part focused on the company's earliest days here.

[source youtube.com, via kotaku.com]