Development
Eighteen years after its initial release, Final Fantasy VII remains one of the most beloved games in the long-running Japanese franchise. Now, the news of the Final Fantasy VII Remake promises to bring this PlayStation powerhouse to the current generation of consoles. Some wept with joy at the announcement; others sneered with contempt – and all of this hubbub demands some sort of retrospection.
This blockbuster made the gaming industry capable of producing blockbusters in the first place. Games were elevated from playthings to entertainment. An ad for the game teased audiences with this extremely 90s line: “Now, the most anticipated, epic adventure of the year will never come to a theater near you.” It wasn’t sold as a game, it was sold as an experience that you’d be stupid to miss out on (ah, 90s advertising).
Japanese Role-Playing Games (JRPGs) began long before the PlayStation was even a glimmer in Sony executive Ken Kutaragi‘s eye. They enjoyed success as delivering memorable stories and characters to players willing to invest countless hours diving into the worlds of Mother, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, and many more. But they weren’t exactly the kind of games most people sought after when they bought their first console. So, the JRPG was relegated to a niche corner of your local Toys R’Us.
Speaking of PlayStation, this flagship title for Sony’s square grey box was almost a Super Nintendo game, and then a Nintendo 64 game! In fact, Final Fantasy VII was nearly a different game from the final product.
It all started back in 1994. Fresh off the release of Final Fantasy VI, Squaresoft began developing the next entry in the Final Fantasy franchise as a 2D game. Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the franchise, originally wanted the game to star a hardened detective aptly named “Detective Joe” who would stalk the streets of modern New York to track down a terrorist group responsible for destroying a portion of the city – a story beat that found its way in the final game.
Only problem was, most of the team members tasked with working on the game were also involved in another Squaresoft project: Chrono Trigger. Some ideas from this primitive build of Final Fantasy VII made their way into Chrono Trigger, and the whole modern New York detective story found its home in another Squaresoft game: Parasite Eve.
Resuming development a year later, Yoshinori Kitase, director of Final Fantasy VII, grew concerned that the Final Fantasy franchise would be left in the dust compared to the fancy new 3D games. But as demand for more game memory grew, the lack of suitable hardware to actually house the game became harder to find. Up to this point, Squaresoft released Final Fantasy games on cartridges that would play exclusively on Nintendo’s Famicom and Super Famicom (NES and Super NES). Because of this, Squaresoft and Nintendo enjoyed a long, fruitful partnership.
The advent of 3D gaming demanded Nintendo join in on the 3D revolution with the Nintendo 64. Ultimately, Nintendo’s choice to continue with a cartridge-based gaming console led to a dispute with Squaresoft. Final Fantasy VII simply didn’t fit on a cartridge. So, in 1996 Squaresoft announced that they would be releasing Final Fantasy VII exclusively on the Sony PlayStation.
Upon its release, Final Fantasy VII enjoyed critical and commercial success, selling 2.3 million copies in Japan within its first three days on the market. Success of the game reached US shores and helped fuel the hype that let sales soar in North America. The game sold 500,000 copies within its first three weeks (insane numbers for a JRPG in the late 90s).
But why was Final Fantasy VII so successful?
The Game
The game’s “life-like” graphics certainly played a huge role in the number of sales, but as many gamers point out today, it struggles to deliver the life-like fidelity that was promised in ’97. So what was it?
Story, Gameplay, and Music.
The beauty of Final Fantasy VII’s story, while simple, is its ability to expand from a small, intimate conflict to a global catastrophe that threatens the fate of the planet. While not exactly Shakespeare, the game manages to elevate the traditional melodrama present in most JRPGs up to that point to bearable levels. The shining jewel of the game’s plot is Cloud’s identity crisis that brings forth earth-shattering realizations that forces players to reevaluate their interactions throughout the entirety of the game. This identity crisis serves as a solid through-line against the backdrop of the story.
However, story alone is not enough to carry a game’s weight. A game must be fun to play. Each entry in the Final Fantasy franchise shakes things up by introducing a new battle system. Final Fantasy VII’s combat revolved around the materia system.
In the world of the game, materia is the essence of life that manifests itself as spherical crystals that allow the user to cast magic. The more materia you give someone, the stronger they grow spiritually; which off-sets their weakened physical states, making them more susceptible to damage and death. The amount of materia you can load onto your party of three is determined by their weapons and armor, each with individual slots for the materia. But a nice twist to this formula is the addition of linked slots which allow players to pair two different materia.
Finally, what’s a lovely gift without a bow? Nobuo Uematsu, series composer, fashions the bow himself and places it with unmatched mastery. Final Fantasy VII’s score is easily the most recognizable among the entirety of the franchise, with its somber piano pieces and sweeping orchestrated trumpets that mark the arrival of the game’s villain. Say what you will about the game, but Uematsu masterful command of song allows Final Fantasy VII to transcend the digital realm.
The Future of Final Fantasy VII
However, time moves on. Years after the initial release of Final Fantasy VII, fans clamored for more. Squaresoft, now known as Square Enix, released the CGI film Final Fantasy VII Advent Children at the end of 2005. Advent Children picked up two years after the end of the original game and with it, brought a fresh paint job to an aging classic. This new interpretation of classic characters further fueled fan fervor for more Final Fantasy VII.
The release of Advent Children sparked the beginning of the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, a collection of games that took place around the original game. At the same time of Advent Children’s launch, Square Enix released Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII, a mobile game prequel.Then came Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII which took place a year after the events of Advent Children and followed the popular character Vincent Valentine. While the game was met with lukewarm reception, Square Enix kept the hype train full-speed with the PSP release of Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
This call to action from fans was forced upon Square Enix when they released a Final Fantasy VII PlayStation 3 tech demo that showcased the classic game running on modern hardware sporting a fancy new coat of paint. But alas, the remake never came. Once again, years passed, Square Enix built fans up with teases of an HD version of Final Fantasy VII only to tease fans with a high-resolution of the original game. Circumstances were grim for fans of Final Fantasy VII.
Then, like a calamity from the sky, Square Enix partnered up with Sony to drop a huge bomb at their E3 press conference.
Fans all over the world leapt with joy and tears in their eyes. The Final Fantasy VII Remake was real, and in development. Once again, speculation surrounded the game. Would it simply be the original game with better graphics? Yoshinori Kinase and Tetsuya Nomura, character artist on original game and director of the remake, gave a surprising response. The game was to be a complete reimagining of the original game, for they felt there was no merit in rereleasing the same exact game.
Fast forward to Sony PlayStation Experience in 2015, and Sony dropped another bomb. Actual footage of the Remake in action.
The game shifted from the Active Time Battle system to a more action-orientatined role-playing game battle system, something newer Square Enix games feature, like Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy XV. Fan apprehension towards this fundamental change split the fandom. Square Enix continued to build apprehension with fans when they announced the game would be a multi-part series and worked on in conjunction with third party studios, like CyberConnect2, a studio responsible for the popular Naruto games.
Regardless, as the original announcement trailer states: “The reunion at hand may bring joy. It may bring fear. But let us embrace whatever it brings. For they, are coming back. At last, the promise has been made.”
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