Square / Final Fantasy — Battle System Lineage & Talent Exodus

TL;DR: Square / Final Fantasy — Battle System Lineage & Talent Exodus Status: Investigating. Thesis: The Ayatollah revolution and changes in Iran contributed to Nasir Gebelli’s removal from the franchise; thereafter the battle system’s fate was split across FF5 (never released in US), FF Tactics (evolved traditional system), and FF12 (lost main architect to departure). Square has a history of losing core talent, repackaging engines, and being accused of betraying traditions with each release.

Nasir Gebelli (“Samir” — Phonetic)

Identity: Nasir Gebelli, Iranian-American programmer (b. 1957). “Samir” may be phonetic/memory variant.

Iran / Revolution Connection

Left Iran before the 1979 Iranian Revolution due to royal (Pahlavi) descent.
Moved to US; studied computer science. The revolution made return impossible and shaped his circumstances.
Interpretation: “Removed from the franchise” by the revolution = his life trajectory (exile, US career) and eventual departure from Square were conditioned by Iranian politics. When he retired after Secret of Mana (1993), the franchise lost its original battle-system architect.

Role at Square

Programmed Final Fantasy I, II, III — battle systems and core code.
Also: Rad Racer, 3-D WorldRunner, Secret of Mana.
Colleagues: “Genius programmer”; “ingenuity was amazing”; achieved things others “would never have conceived of.”
Techniques: CRT scanline gaps for calculations; FFIII airship at 1/60th-second processing; NES optimization.
Retired after Secret of Mana; returned to California.

Fate of the Battle System After Gebelli

FF5 — Never Released in US (Initially)

Released Japan 1992; job system (22 classes, ability mixing) = evolution of traditional turn-based.
Square skipped US localization: “too complex,” “too hard”; prioritized FF6; continued pattern of skipping FF2, FF3.
Effect: Western audiences missed the job-system evolution. FF5’s battle design was orphaned in the West until Anthology (PS1) and later releases.

FF Tactics — Evolved Traditional System

Yasumi Matsuno — director; tactical grid, job system, mature tone.
Evolved the traditional ATB/turn-based lineage into real-time-tactical. Successor to the Gebelli/Ito tradition in spirit.

FF12 — Lost Main Battle Architect

Yasumi Matsuno — original director/producer; stepped down mid-production.
Official reason: Health issues.
Speculation: Creative disagreements; Sakaguchi reportedly declined to play beyond the intro.
Succession: Hiroyuki Ito (ATB creator, FF9 director) and Hiroshi Minagawa (Vagrant Story, FFT) took over as co-directors. Matsuno remained “Original Scenario/Plot Supervisor.”
Gambit system — now regarded as “elegant”; but the loss of Matsuno mid-stream meant the game was finished by a different creative hand.

Square’s Pattern: Losing Core Talent

Figure	Role	Departure
Nasir Gebelli	Battle system programmer (FF1–3, SoM)	Retired 1993
Hironobu Sakaguchi	Franchise creator	Left 2003 (Spirits Within fallout)
Nobuo Uematsu	Primary composer	Freelance 2004; reduced role
Yasumi Matsuno	FF12/Tactics director	Stepped down 2005 (health)

Uematsu (Eurogamer): Square “suddenly collapsed” after Sakaguchi left; he was the “big boss” holding it together; company operated “like a university club.”

Repackaged Engines & Non-Traditional Devs

Crystal Tools (White Engine) — unified engine; caused major FF13 delays.
Luminous Engine — FF15; then limited reuse.
Unreal Engine — FF7 Remake; shift to third-party.
Pattern: New engines, new teams, “proving” on each title; constant reinvention rather than iterating on established pipelines.

“Betraying Traditions” Accusations

Fans and critics routinely accuse Square of abandoning series conventions with each release (battle system changes, tone shifts, MMO pivot, action-RPG direction).
Each numbered FF since the golden era has been debated as a “departure” from what made the series great.
Interpretation: Loss of institutional memory (Gebelli, Sakaguchi, Matsuno) + engine/team churn = no stable tradition to maintain.

Open Questions

Causal link: revolution → Gebelli’s exile → Square career → retirement → battle system lineage fractured?
Matsuno: health vs. creative disagreement — any primary sources?
Square’s internal policy on retaining vs. replacing core staff?

Cross-reference: nintendo-sony-breakup.md — Full Nintendo–Sony breakup, SNES CD collapse, Square defection, FF7 platform context. yasunori-mitsuda.md — Chrono Trigger; Mitsuda left 1998; same institutional-decline pattern.

Sources

Keywords: #Square #Battle #System #Lineage #Final #Fantasy #Talent #Exodus