When Sony Computer Entertainment released Legend of Dragoon for the PS1 in the West in the early 2000s, several publications couldn't help but compare it to Squaresoft's popular Final Fantasy series.
Gamespot's Peter Bartholow, for example, suggested the game was born from "the laws of economics", implying at the time that the project was motivated by an attempt to cash in on the renewed appetite for RPGs, following the success of Final Fantasy VII. Meanwhile, Next Generation's Eric Bratcher noted that several aspects of the title "highly suspect" writing that "Dart and Shana are dead ringers for FFVII's Cloud and Tifa, right down to their early relationship" and that the "long, unavoidable spell effects are especially reminiscent of FFVIII".
In a recent interview with Kyle Bosman — the writer, comedian, and content creator formerly of Gametrailers — Shuhei Yoshida, Legend of Dragoon's producer, denied the game was ever intended to be Sony's Final Fantasy clone, instead stating that it naturally evolved out of the hiring of the former Super Mario RPG battle designer Yasuyuki Hasebe from Square, who decided he wanted to make his very own RPG (h/t: GamesRadar).
Interestingly, the pair first got onto the topic due to an earlier exchange between the two individuals during a live stream over on Bosman's Twitch channel, where Bosman suggested the project was clearly Sony's attempt to create their own Final Fantasy. As Bosman recalls, Yoshida was in the chat that day, and quickly reached out to correct him, telling him, "No one told us to make any kind of game. We wanted to make this game."
In the interview, Yoshida was able to expand on this, talking about how the decision to hire Hasebe-san at Sony resulted in the origins of the project, as Hasebe wanted to build a new RPG that further developed the timed combat of Super Mario RPG. This is inevitably what led to the creation of Legend of Dragoon's "Addition" mechanic, which saw players chain together longer attacks with well-timed button presses:
"One of the hires in the year that I did was from Squaresoft. It was before the merger with Enix. This was Hasebe-san. He was one of the battle designers for Mario RPG. You remember Mario RPG on the Super Nintendo? That was a great game, right? He designed the combat, like timing inputs. Like time-based. So you see the origin of Legend of Dragoon, right? It’s a time-based game but with the input, and I really liked the game. So when he joined us, I asked him what do you want to do? [He said] I want to make a new RPG. That’s how I started gathering even more people to start making Legend of Dragoon."
As Yoshida went on to state, he ended up helping to build a team of over 100 people - mostly comprised of new graduates — to fulfill Hasebe's vision, with this team working for three years to bring the project to the market.
Yoshida states that the budget for the game ended up being around $50 million, though in other interviews in the past, the budget was reported as being $16 million instead.