Final Fantasy 14 director cries as series creator thanks him for making it ‘even better’

Final Fantasy 14 lead Naoki Yoshida has been reduced to tears after being complimented by the series’ original creator.

As reported by Push Square, Yoshida – who tends to be known as Yoshi-P by the Final Fantasy fanbase – was present at the Final Fantasy 14 Fan Festival, which took place at London this past weekend.

Yoshida took part in various events on stage during the course of the weekend, as did original Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi.

As the event came to a close, Yoshida thanked Sakaguchi for his influence.

Sakaguchi then shook Yoshida’s hand, saying: “I’m going to thank you back, for making Final Fantasy even better moving forward.”

Yoshida, appearing visibly moved by the gesture, turned away from the crowd to wipe his eyes. He then composed himself and joked: “I never expected that Sakaguchi-san would be making me cry.”

The incident was captured on camera by Twitter user Mother Claw, who shared it online:

Final Fantasy 14 was originally released in 2010 to a widely negative reception. The game was shut down in 2012 and returned a year later as Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn, with Yoshida taking on the director, producer and co-designer roles.

Yoshida has since been credited with completely turning round the MMO’s fortunes, to the extent that it now continues to be successful more than a decade later.

Because of his success with Final Fantasy 14, Yoshida was asked by then Square Enix CEO Yosuke Matsuda to lead development on Final Fantasy 16. Because of his ongoing commitments to Final Fantasy 14, however, Yoshida opted for a producer role instead.

Final Fantasy’s original creator Hironobu Sakaguchi’s most recent game was Fantasian, an RPG exclusive to Apple Arcade. An apparent Steam database listing spotted in August suggests the game may be coming to PC.