Original Final Fantasy programmer looks back on his work, praises Sakaguchi’s vision

The game industry is filled with names that gamers will instantly recognized. Shigeru Miyamoto, Hideko Kojima, Warren Spector, Shinji Mikami…the list goes on and on. Those names are definitely worthy of praise, but there are so many others who helped make the games we love possible, and Nasir Gebelli is one of them.

Nasir Gebelli is a programmer responsible for building out the first three Final Fantasy games, and he did so in incredible fashion. John Romero of DOOM fame even referred to Gebelli as his “gaming idol” based on the amazing things he accomplished, and decades after his unbelievable programming projects, Gebelli has returned to reminisce about his work.

Gebelli appeared as part of a new Japanese documentary on game development, which is where he spoke about his work on Final Fantasy. While many were blown away by what Gebelli pulled off, the man himself remains quite humble about his efforts

Instead of leaning into praise directed at him, Gebelli instead turned the spotlight around on huge name in the game industry, Hironobu Sakaguchi. According to Gebelli, it was Sakaguchi’s involvement in Final Fantasy that really is worth the attention.