When Final Fantasy VII launched on PlayStation in 1997, it revolutionized the RPG style and gaming as a complete. The transition from pixel artwork to completely animated laptop graphics was an enormous sufficient leap forward, however the great thing about this traditional title was way more than pores and skin deep. Final Fantasy VII options an unimaginable solid of characters, an impressive battle system, and a narrative that evokes pleasure, awe, anger, and grief. Final Fantasy VII is well-established as one of the crucial iconic and beloved video video games of all time, however for Square Enix, the legacy is considerably extra vital.
For the crew behind the Final Fantasy franchise, Final Fantasy VII was the entry that made the builders notice they wanted to adapt to the instances. “Even within the mainline Final Fantasy titles as a series, we can consider Final Fantasy VII to be this sort of midpoint title that’s in the middle of it all,” Tetsuya Nomura, who was a personality designer and visible director on Final Fantasy VII, says. “Up to Final Fantasy VI, it was created in a certain way, and then from VIII, there was a brand new way of approaching development, whereas VII sort of sits between those two titles as a sort of mixed-element title.”
The manner Nomura and the crew describe it, the event of Final Fantasy VII sounds chaotic, generally in a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants manner. “[Final Fantasy] VI included a lot of elements that each department on their own, just on a whim, wanted to include, so they just included it, while VIII is much more calculated and strategized,” Nomura says. “VII is a mix of that, where it’s both calculated and kind of an at-a-whim type of development. If we made games like this the way we did when we were creating the original VII, we would be in a lot of trouble right now. Times have really changed. Beyond VII is the point where I’d say times have changed. It’s the last of the titles where we were able to do things that way.”
Nomura remembers coming into the workplace, generally not realizing what to anticipate. “There were scripts and then suddenly things that are not even in the script that the character is now saying in the game that we’ve never even heard of,” he says. “Some departments just wanted to include the character saying these things. It was that kind of world then.”
Thankfully, director Yoshinori Kitase labored intently with author Kazushige Nojima to make sure all the pieces made sense within the story, even with the myriad adjustments applied by the sometimes-disparate departments. “There were teams working on each character and the things that they say in the storyline, but then overall, Nojima-san was the final reviewer,” Kitase says. “That’s bringing the whole storyline together. That practice was carried on for future titles to have that cohesion. But besides that, it was sort of an ‘anything goes’ type of world then.”
After a protracted growth cycle of generally being shocked by their very own recreation, the members of Square Enix knew it needed to make a change. “After we had finished working on VII, we thought to ourselves, ‘We can’t go on making games in this way,'” Nomura remembers.
Beginning with Final Fantasy VIII, the crew moved towards that extra calculated growth Nomura and the crew determined it wanted. No longer might separate departments sneak in content material they wished to see with out first getting approval from the broader group. The crew continued utilizing the approach Kitase and Nojima applied in Final Fantasy VII’s growth to make sure narrative and thematic cohesiveness. Square Enix even carried ahead the method it used to create Final Fantasy VII’s minigames, the place particular person growth crew members are assigned to particular minigames as “representatives” to work with an engineer to implement the minigame.
Even Naoki Hamaguchi, who joined Square Enix in 2003, notices the distinction between how Final Fantasy growth has labored throughout his time on the firm in distinction to what Kitase and Nomura describe. “Nowadays, we have localized voice check and stuff like that,” Hamaguchi says. “You can’t just get away with doing those things today.”
But even past the best way the sport affected growth, Final Fantasy VII has lots to say. Its story’s themes regarding company greed, environmentalism, and psychological well being are all maybe extra related as we speak than in 1997. Though the builders did not deliberately reference particular real-world social points, they acknowledge how related these themes are as we speak.
“In Final Fantasy VII, we were able to depict these types of issues, like the cycle of life, through the concept of Lifestream,” Final Fantasy VII director Yoshinori Kitase says. “If we were to depict it exactly as we experience it in the real world, it would not be very interesting. With Nojima-san’s ideas, we were able to have this centered on Lifestream and the planet within the worldview of Final Fantasy VII. In this way, I believe the game and its themes remain relevant and withstand the test of time.”
Though he feels the themes of Final Fantasy VII are nonetheless vital as we speak, he does have some regrets relating to the crew’s strategy to these points in 1997. “Considering the way to depict social problems, social issues, and cultural depictions, in some ways, I am a bit embarrassed by the original title,” Kitase says. “In its expression, in some ways, it was very young and naive in itself. That is a learning for us, but at the same time, I do believe that perhaps that is one of the reasons why it was so widely accepted. It’s not perfect, and it’s kind of uneven and jagged in its young and naive nature of its depiction. Of course, after [more than] 25 years, there is a lot of personal learning, changes, and growth. But looking back on it, some parts of it, I am a bit embarrassed.”
But from the attitude of Motomu Toriyama, who was an occasion planner on Final Fantasy VII, the crew did all the pieces it might in its strategy to the unique recreation, and due to this fact, he does not have any regrets. “At any given era or time, we always strive to put our best foot forward, and we had utilized the best game specs at any given time, whether it had to be the original or today,” he says. “So, even with the original Final Fantasy VII title, there were no regrets or feelings that there was more that we wanted to do or something I had regretted not doing; we truly put in our best efforts.”
Announced in 2015, Final Fantasy VII is now the topic of a trilogy of remakes. The first entry, Final Fantasy VII Remake, launched in 2020 to vital acclaim. The subsequent entry, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the quilt star of Game Informer‘s most up-to-date subject, arrives on PlayStation 5 on February 29. Head to our unique protection hub by way of the banner under for extra on Rebirth.
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