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In a 2020 interview, designer Koichi Ishii revealed that despite the NES hardware only being able to display three colors per sprite, he felt that he could not make a believable design for the game's jobs unless he "dug deep into the job's background story and what kind of character it will be." He was surprised when some of these design limitations stuck around for future games he did not work on like Final Fantasy Tactics, and elaborated on what he imagined the White Mage and Dark Knight jobs looked like as he originally designed them:
"The image I had is that the red part of a white mage's robe is embroidered from red threads imbued with magic when spun together, increasing the wearer's magical power. The reasoning for the red threads being on the sleeves is that magic leaves the body through the hands and wrists, so that area is most effective. I was very particular about the lore that equipment like wands and amulets are used as a catalyst to turn natural power into magic, stimulating the user's magic strength. That's why I was adamant about never giving magic users iron equipment; if they use normal metals, their magic power will disperse so at least go with mythril ore...stuff like that.
[...] when [the dark knight is] KO'd in battle only their armor is left, as if the body inside has disappeared. The reason for that, in my imagining, is that they have a dark pact where their body is engraved with dark magic runes, and when they're KO'd the dark magic runes take their soul and body so only the empty armor remains. I had that kind of unique image for each job as I was creating it."
[...] when [the dark knight is] KO'd in battle only their armor is left, as if the body inside has disappeared. The reason for that, in my imagining, is that they have a dark pact where their body is engraved with dark magic runes, and when they're KO'd the dark magic runes take their soul and body so only the empty armor remains. I had that kind of unique image for each job as I was creating it."
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According to the game's artist Yoshitaka Amano from a 1987 Beep Magazine interview, Square told him to make an illustrated cover of a character (Onion Knight) wielding 2 blades. Originally, Amano wanted to draw a landscape-style drawing with no human characters, but he changed it since it was an illustration for a video game, and was later glad he did as he felt the game's final cover had more impact.
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