Nintendo's Super Mario is used to some friendly competition when it comes to video games, but not so much in the plumbing business. This might have been different though, had Square Enix gone ahead with its initial plans for Final Fantasy X.
Speaking to Famitsu, the game’s writer, Kazushige Nojima, mentioned how the original idea was to make the protagonist Tidus a plumber, just so the team had an excuse to get him into the water:
“To get the character in the water, for the initial plan, there was a time in which Tidus was to be an underwater plumber”
The character designer, Tetsuya Nomura, went as drawing illustrations Tidus as a plumber until he was changed to a "Blitzball" player (an aquatic sport in this particular entry). The only traces of his plumber origins that remained, in the end, were his overalls.
The decision to make Tidus an athelte also made him rather unique among other Final Fantasy protagonists.
If you would like to see just how different the final version of Tidus is, you can check out the Final Fantasy X | X-2 HD Remaster on the Nintendo Switch. We praised it as one remarkable collection.
[source famitsu.com, via kotaku.com]