Final Fantasy creator says the original JRPG's programmer was "like a god" to him: "I still strongly feel that the core program itself is the ‘life’ of a game"

Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi says one legendary programmer behind the first three JRPGs "was like a god" to him.

While Sakaguchi is most synonymous with the beloved series, programmer Nasir Gebelli's own reputation has aged like fine wine. Your favorite programmer's favorite programmer, Gebelli was behind several early PC games that proved legendary at the time, so much so that Doom guy John Romero called him "my number one programming god, my idol."

His subsequent work on the first three Final Fantasy games has aged just as well. Just last year, in fact, we reported that some people believe it took 13 years to bring Final Fantasy 3 back because no one could replicate his code.

Despite all of that, Gebelli is seemingly humble, too. After years of silence, he reappeared to feature in a Final Fantasy documentary to say his legendary code "was pretty simple," and it could even be better.

Now, Sakaguchi himself has joined the chorus of praise, saying Gebelli was "like a god to me."

"I was introduced to computers and games on the Apple II, so Nasir was like a god to me," he tells JPGames. "It was a miracle and a great honor to meet him, and even more so to work with him on Final Fantasy.

"I think that respect for Nasir helped to make the first Final Fantasy an amazing game. I still strongly feel that the core program itself is the 'life' of a game. All of my memories of him are fuzzy (laughs), but they always contain his enveloping kindness and politeness, which makes the happy memories come back even brighter. Nasir truly is a wonderful person."

A wonderful person and a dang good coder, it would seem.

After 3 years of playing Final Fantasy 14 "almost every single day," series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi reckons the MMO "might be the game that I've played the most in my life."