Final Fantasy 15 director "adopted the spirit" that Hironobu Sakaguchi had when he created the franchise

Final Fantasy's creator has nothing but praise for his latest successor.

Final Fantasy 15 director Hajime Tabata has had a heck of a time with it. Tasked with returning the series to its blockbuster status after a rough few years, hurdling platform and engine changes, and working with somebody else's development-hell project is not as easy as Square Enix makes it look.

Did he succeed? Well, Final Fantasy 15 reviews are pretty positive, but perhaps more impressively, Tabata's been praised by Hironobu Sakaguchi, usually called the father of Final Fantasy, to

"Recently I have been looking at Final Fantasy 15, and although I’ve never known or worked with Tabata-san, by looking at his production I feel that he has adopted the spirit that I had when I first created the series," Sakaguchi told Glixel in a recent interview.

"I feel that, in the hands of talented people, the original feel of the series is being brought back."

That's after a few years in which Sakaguchi did not feel as friendly towards Square Enix, by the way.

"When I first left the company, I did feel that Squaresoft was taking the games in a direction that I didn’t want them to, specifically with Final Fantasy 13. I wasn’t particularly happy with it," he said.

Sakaguschi said Tabata approached him asking to talk about the origins of Final Fantasy back when he took the reins on the franchise.

"We had dinner several times and through talking with him, I told him that I liked where his head was at," Sakaguchi said.

"He was doing his best to make Final Fantasy 15 something impactful."

Asked about the Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Sakaguchi said he'd rather see new creations like Final Fantasy 15.

"[Tabata] has recently created Final Fantasy 15 and created an entirely new story, world, and characters. I think that’s great," he said.