Today, with mammoth projects like Final Fantasy XVI with hundreds of people working in unison, sometimes spread all over the globe, for a single programmer to be able to move an entire studio from one country to another sounds most surreal. .
However things change if we jump to the late 80s and that programmer turns out to be Nasir Gebelli. If to Sakaguchi, Uematsu and Amano we owe the creation of the saga, to Gebelli We must thank him for managing to convert that idea into a functional code.
A gaming genius
From the hand of one of those prodigious minds that cemented the programming of video games even before the consoles reached our homes, the Iranian Nasir Gebelli he was one of those geniuses capable of imagining a game in his head, mentally writing the code and then running to a computer to vomit everything his imagination had created so as not to forget any detail of his creation.
A genius capable of writing more than 10 games in a year and getting them onto the best-seller lists, thereby becoming one of the most prolific and acclaimed programmers and game designers of the early 80s.
However, as sometimes happens among great titles, the name of their creations ended up engulfing the person, which added to the Japanese culture that has made us exalt Which ones without knowing practically anyone on his team, he managed to get the name of Gebelli faded over time.
Working for Apple II and crashing with the videogame crack of 1983 when his own developer was beginning to stand out, years after that Gebelli traveled to Japan with the intention of delving into the development of the NES and ended up in the ranks of Square.
Returning to the world of videogames was great news for Gebelliwho entered Japanese development as an expert in 3D programming, but almost as important to him as it was to Hironobu Sakaguchiwho overnight had the opportunity to work with what at that time was one of his biggest idols.
Gebelli, a code name for Final Fantasy
Despite the language barrier, the work of Gebelli was important enough that, when Square caught the bug Final Fantasy, he was in charge of converting that idea into a functional code. His work was important to such an extent that, when he decided to put in that puzzle of moving numbers from one side to the other, no one stopped him and he managed to turn the idea into the first minigame in the history of RPGs.
they launched Final Fantasy with great success and automatically they went to work on its sequel, but when they were about to finish development, his work visa to reside in Japan expired and he had to return to the United States after being expelled from Japan.
Gebelli He returned to California and, aware of the importance of his role in the development of the saga, Square decided that he was not going to leave alone. The rest of the team, along with the computers and his previous work, would travel with him to Sacramento to finish the game.
Final Fantasy II It started in Japan and ended in the United States, all while, in addition, work began on the changes that would later reach the third installment in the form of its system of jobs and classes.
After closing that project and reaching the zenith of his career with the development of Secret of Mana, the royalties accumulated from the games he had worked on allowed him to retire with his pockets well loaded to go around the world first, and return to Sacramento later. There he continues to live, aware of his importance in the creation of Final Fantasy and also how it inspired a whole generation of developers who would later give us gems like Prince of Persia or Doom.
