With the hype over FFVII, FFVIII, FFIX and the barley teased FFX. Hironobu used the Gaia theme, as in FFVII and a bit in FFX, since his mother passed. There is a referance to her in TSW, and it motivated him when he developed the Lifestream and the Pire Fly concepts.

He put too much effort into 'his baby' and kept it under the Final Fantasy name. With the generated PS final Fantasy hype, keeping the FInal Fantasy name was the big mistake. Had it been named soley TSW it would have been much better.