"One day I woke up and I went to wash my face, and I thought about a character in that story, and I suddenly started to cry," Jenova Chen told Edge Magazine. "It's so beautiful and it's so melancholy."
That character was from Final Fantasy X. And that moment of unexpected grief, replaying in Chen's head on an ordinary morning, helped set him on a path toward creating some of the most emotionally resonant games of the PS3 era. If you've ever felt the quiet devastation of walking through the world in Journey or felt something shift in your chest during Flower, you can trace part of that back to Tidus, Yuna, and a love story with no clean ending.
FFX's ending hits different
The moment that changed everything
Chen, the founder and CEO of thatgamecompany, drew a direct line between emotional experiences as a player and his decision to pursue game development. The Final Fantasy X moment wasn't just about enjoying a good story. It was about being genuinely changed by one. He woke up days after finishing the game, thought about a character's sacrifice, and started crying at a bathroom sink. That's not a small thing.
His framing of the experience is telling. Chen compared it to director Peter Jackson watching King Kong as a child, that singular moment of being "shocked to the core" by something emotionally impactful. "Many artists decide to become artists because they were really shocked to their core when they saw something emotionally impactful," Chen explained.
He went further, using a film school analogy to describe what separates good art from great art. A mediocre film, he said, leaves audiences chatting and smiling as they exit the theatre. A truly impactful one leaves everyone quiet, minds still processing. Final Fantasy X did the latter for him.
Japanese gamers have voted Final Fantasy X the most tear-jerking JRPG of all time, a sentiment Chen's story makes feel entirely earned.
Why Final Fantasy X specifically
Final Fantasy X has always occupied a specific emotional register that other entries in the series don't quite replicate. The Tidus and Yuna relationship builds across the entire game toward a conclusion that asks players to sit with loss rather than celebrate victory. There's no triumphant final cutscene that resolves everything neatly. The sacrifice at the centre of the ending lingers.
For Chen, that lingering quality was the whole point. It gave him a new perspective on life, he said, which is the standard he holds great art to. That's a high bar, and Final Fantasy X clears it for a lot of players. The fact that it cleared it for someone who went on to build Journey, a game that has made millions of players cry in its own right, feels like a complete circle.
Journey carried FFX's emotional DNA
From player to creator
Chen's studio thatgamecompany built its reputation on games that prioritise emotional experience over mechanical complexity. Flower, Journey, and Sky: Children of the Light all share a design philosophy rooted in making players feel something specific and lasting. Knowing that Final Fantasy X was part of the fuel for that approach reframes those games slightly.
Here's the thing: Chen didn't say Final Fantasy X taught him how to design games. He said it made him realise he wanted to become an artist. The distinction matters. The game didn't give him a blueprint. It gave him a reason.
The Final Fantasy series has been having a cultural moment lately, with Final Fantasy XIV Online continuing to pull players into the franchise and newer entries expanding its reach. But stories like Chen's are a reminder that the series' emotional legacy runs deep, extending well beyond its own player base and into the creative decisions of developers working in entirely different genres.
What most players miss is how often the games that inspire developers aren't the technically impressive ones or the ones with the most systems. They're the ones that made someone feel something they couldn't shake. For Chen, that was a PS2 JRPG about a blitzball player and a summoner trying to save a world that couldn't be saved without cost.
If you're looking to explore more of the Final Fantasy universe, the FFXIV Patch 7.4 Into the Mist complete content guide breaks down everything currently available in the MMO, from new raids to job changes, for players who want to see what the series is doing right now alongside what it's always done well.
