In a 2016 interview with the director of the first game in the series Masahide Miyata, he was asked how development on Lufia & the Fortress of Doom began. He responded:

"Four or five of us got together and started talking about making our own RPG. We developed a prototype version of “Esuto” for the PC-98, and shopped it around to different companies for distribution. This was before the era of things like powerpoint presentations, so we lugged a PC-98 and CRT monitor around with us to give our pitch. Taito was one of those companies we presented to. Then once the development was officially underway, the idea came up that, since we were gonna do this after all, we might as well make it for the Super Famicom."