Update []:
A clip from the episode of NHK's Legendary Games Chronicle featuring the legendary Nasir Gebelli has been published on social media (thanks, Games Radar).
Speaking about his work on the first three Final Fantasy games, Gebelli—who cut his teeth on the Apple II—says:
I thought it was pretty similar to what I was doing for Apple in the same processor. I already knew just about every machine code for that processor. So as far as coding, it was pretty simple. There was no learning curve. But I'd never seen any role-playing games until Final Fantasy.
He then points out some of the more challenging aspects of developing the games:
For example, you're playing this level, and this level has this many messages. While you're playing the game, if the computer can create this background and messages and store them in the temporary memory, and if needed display them, it's gonna take much less memory. It was a challenge, but at the same time it was exciting to be able to do something different. And it was also fun to work with the team, especially with [Hironobu Sakaguchi-san]. When he had a vision for something, whether it's a simple message playing on the screen or something, and you do the work, display it on a monitor, and you look at people that have this vision and see their eyes light up, that's satisfaction.
The legendary coder then looks at an airship in motion—a feature which, for many years, was assumed to be one of the reasons why the early Final Fantasy games hadn't been ported to modern systems. People assumed that Gebelli's code was so good, it couldn't be replicated without his input.
Amusingly, Gebelli's comments that the section in question could actually have done with being slower:
Actually looking at it, it could, visually, look better if it was at least, like, 10% slower.
Original Story: It's fair to say that without Final Fantasy, Square (and later, Square Enix) wouldn't be the same company it is today.
Hironobu Sakaguchi's creation has become a million-selling behemoth that straddles the world of games, movies, music and more, but it arguably wouldn't have gotten off the ground were it not for the exceptional programming talents of Nasir Gebelli.
The Iranian-American programmer worked on the first three Final Fantasy titles, joining Sakaguchi's team after developing Tobidase Daisakusen / 3-D WorldRunner and Highway Star / Rad Racer.
He would later work on Secret of Mana / Seiken Densetsu II, earning him even more respect and admiration. Then, with the gaming world at his feet, Gebelli retired. The royalties earned from the titles he'd worked on at Square were apparently enough for him to travel the globe, and he hasn't worked on a video game since.
In 1998, Gebelli attended an Apple II Reunion and was interviewed by John Romero, giving fans their only insight into the mind of a programming genius – until now, that is.
Gebelli has recently been interviewed for NHK's Legendary Games Chronicle. The episode devoted to Final Fantasy was originally broadcast on NHK World Japan in October, but an extended version will be shown on NHK's BS4K on December 30th.
This version will include 20 additional minutes of footage, in which Gebelli appears alongside Hironobu Sakaguchi, Koichi Ishii, Yoshitaka Amano, Nobuo Uematsu and Shibuya Kazuko.