Short answers, pulled from the story.
Final Fantasy was created by Hironobu Sakaguchi, a designer at Square, who released the first game in 1987. Sakaguchi named it Final Fantasy because it represented his personal last-ditch effort in the game industry; had it failed, he planned to quit and return to college. The team also wanted a title that would abbreviate to "FF", which sounded good in Japanese, and the English word "Final" was already well known in Japan.
By March 2025, the Final Fantasy series surpassed cumulative global physical and digital sales of 200 million units. The series sold 25 million units by 2000 and reached 100 million in 2011.
As of 2023, there are 16 numbered main entries in the Final Fantasy series, from the original Final Fantasy through Final Fantasy XVI. The first game was released in Japan on the 18th of December 1987, and Final Fantasy XVI was released in 2023 for PlayStation 5.
Nobuo Uematsu was the primary composer for the Final Fantasy series until his resignation from Square Enix in November 2004. Other notable composers who have worked on main entries include Masashi Hamauzu, Hitoshi Sakimoto, and Yoko Shimomura.
Final Fantasy VII moved to the Sony PlayStation in 1997 following a dispute with Nintendo over its use of expensive cartridge media. Compact discs were slower to access but less costly and offered higher storage capacity, making them better suited for the larger, more complex games Square wanted to produce.
The Final Fantasy series holds seven Guinness World Records documented in the Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition 2008. These include the most games in an RPG series, the longest development period (Final Fantasy XII took five years to produce), and the fastest-selling console RPG in a single day (Final Fantasy X). Final Fantasy XI is also recognized as the first RPG to prompt a change in state law, in the US state of Illinois.