Tabata’s very special message came to a surprise for many, but it probably shouldn’t have. Square Enix originally announced Final Fantasy XV’s release for September 30th, 2016. Yet, I think most people figured it was too good to be true.

And it was.

Final Fantasy XV’s Day One delay was to “allow the development teams time to further polish and conduct quality testing, so that the reality of the game can match the expectations of both the fans and the creative teams”.

Test players saw footage of the game before release, and it was buggy at best. Clitches were everywhere, and at the time it wasn’t up to industry standards.

Perhaps this was due to Square Enix and their work with a Triple A game. But it raises a question: was there ever a Final Fantasy game that wasn’t buggy? Take a look at this list, from the Final Fantasy Wikia. That’s right! Many of the more famous Final Fantasy games contained bugs and glitches.

Final Fantasy XV wasn’t able to break this unintentional habit.

But why?

Is it due to the fact that Final Fantasy XV was such a massive game? Well, even the 8-bit games contained glitches and bugs, including Final Fantasy I. If it were easier to fix problems in the early era, why did Final Fantasy even have bugs? Was it due to not being used to video programming in general? Well, Sakaguchi’s team was just as capable as Square’s programmers always been.

Back then, programmers had to make sure that the game was ready for the release date. Nowadays, a video game company can issue a day one patch to cover for any mistakes.

Games are far more detailed, so the opportunities to encounter more bugs and glitches are inevitable. One theory is deadline pressure. The tighter the schedule, the more opportunities for bugs and glitches. Thankfully, none of the Final Fantasy games were unplayable at launch. And Tabata’s made the good decision to delay the title by nearly two months. This avoids tarnishing Final Fantasy’s reputation.

But it only begs the question: why does Final Fantasy have bugs at all?