The original creator of the Final Fantasy franchise, Hironobu Sakaguchi, discussed how it felt to be working with Square Enix again after more than 20 years. He also had comments regarding some of his old titles, as well as potential new ones.

Sakaguchi's latest game is Fantasian, an independent JRPG title that was previously only available through the Apple Arcade. Now, an enhanced port of the game will be available on modern consoles and PC, published by Square Enix, as revealed by Bloomberg. Sakaguchi left Square in 2003 after some ambitious and costly projects failed to flourish. While initially demoralized, Sakaguchi would go on to establish his own studio -- Mistwalker -- just a year later.

In the time between then and now, Sakaguchi still felt compelled to create new games. Some, like Fantasian, were mobile games that saw a wide range of both disappointment and success. Others, such as Blue Dragon -- a collaboration with Akira Toriyama -- were JRPG titles exclusively created for the Xbox 360. The 360 was a console that was seen as more niche in his native Japan. It proved that not only was Sakaguchi still passionate about making games, but that any and all platforms were viable opportunities. With that in mind, Sakaguchi focused on working with his small team, with Fantasian possibly being his last work due to getting older.

Recently becoming a grandfather, Sakaguchi has reevaluated his work and is known to take great inspiration from his own life when creating his stories. Between his own projects, Square Enix approached Sakaguchi occasionally to offer perspective on past titles with former co-workers, and to even play Final Fantasy XIV. Before he knew it, Sakaguchi was swept into the MMORPG and still continues to enjoy it with its latest expansion -- sometimes to the point of forgetting to attend work meetings with his team at Mistwalker. These events seem to have mended the tension between Sakaguchi and Square. Now he says that working with his old company again feels similar to a "high school reunion."

In these talks about the past and the potential future, Sakaguchi has renewed interest in creating another title. Highly suspected to be a sequel to Fantasian, he also mentioned not having any plans to re-release some of his older works, like Blue Dragon or Last Odyssey. Rumors surrounding those titles and potential have been floating around for years now, but Sakaguchi has proved to always be looking forward.

The enhanced port of Fantasian, Fantasian Neo Dimension, is set to be released in late 2024.