In a 1997 interview with the game's producer Hironobu Sakaguchi, found within the Famicon Tsuushin magazine, he was asked how the development of the game started. He responded:

"The title “Final Fantasy Tactics” was actually something I thought up four years ago. We even took out a trademark on the name. I’m a strategy game fan myself, and I had been thinking about what Final Fantasy would look like as a strategy game. I’m the type of person who comes up with a name first, so nothing much else had been concretely set down, but there was a “Final Fantasy Tactics” design document that I had made then. Unfortunately I was caught up in the development of the main FF series—which were coming out at a quick pace, one every 12-18 months—so my plans for FFT remained unrealized. But it is true that the kernel of the development goes back 4 years, to 1993."