51| Final Fantasy VII

Released: September 7th, 1997

Definitive Version: PC; Also on: PSN for PS4, PSVita, PS3, and PSP, PS, iOS

It is impossible to understate just how dominate JRPGs were to the Japanese marketplace during the 1990s. They were a phenomenon in which huge swathes of the population would rush to the stores to purchase the latest entry in their favorite series. It is sort of similar to how first person shooters were all the rage, and arguably still are, in North America during late 2000s and early 2010s, where seemingly every child and adult rushed out to purchase the latest Call of Duty, Battlefield, and Halo. The appeal of the genre was very clear, they were essentially playable anime. They took the complicated role playing genre, and crafted it for the mast market, while putting in an engaging story and characters. It was the mix of the right amount of depth and simplicity to please audiences. Despite the genre being an seemingly unstoppable force in Japan, in the rest of the world the genre was very niche. JRPGs were very rarely released in the west, and even if they were released there tended to be very few copies available. On top of all that they were terribly translated to the point where Google Translator would do a better job than the "professionals" these companies hired. To sum up how JRPGs were treated in the western marketplace, I recall hearing a story from someone who stated that when they were young they went shopping for Sega Master System games. He saw Phantasy Star for over $120 a price that he was surprised by. When he asked the clerk about the game, the clerk responded "oh that game, it's priced so high because it is a RPG and these games never sell. I just mark it up until a collector comes by and buys it...eventually."

In 1997, the genre was the hotter than it ever would be in Japan. Final Fantasy VII was released and used the CD capabilities of the new Playstation console to their fullest extent. Sony saw the immense success of the game in Japan, and was determined to replicate that success in the West. So they devised a ingenious idea. Rather than marketing the game as role playing game or as an "anime comes to life", they instead decided to market it as a blockbuster film. Pumping in $100 million for the U.S.. marketing budget alone, on top of its original $45 million development costs, Final Fantasy VII was truly the first AAA game that would be AAA by today's standards. Today this seems like standard fare, but back then it was insane. Well until Final Fantasy VII became one of the best selling games on the system. Final Fantasy VII not only became one of the Playstation's most prominent system sellers world-wide, but it also brought JRPGs into the main stream. Not only were JRPGs started regularly being released in the west in available quantities, but they were also reasonably translated.

Final Fantasy VII clearly has a strong legacy, but what of the actual game itself? Despite the game receiving a lot criticism over the years, it has actually aged extremely well, outside of its chunky and blocky characters.Despite being copied to hell and back, the game's world still feel very original and dark, while characters are likable and stand out. Despite being hailed as the first big "3D JRPG" the game is actually two dimensional for the most part. It uses painted backgrounds and puts 3D models over them to give an illusion of a 3D world. At times it works very well, however during close up shots, the characters really stick out like sore thumb. At times it makes one wish that the character's were pre-rendered in the same style of the backgrounds to keep consistency. What's impressive is that at times throughout the game the backgrounds will actually animate while the player walks around, some of these animations are actually really complex such as one scene requiring the player hop onto helicopter.

The game's graphics shine during the battle segments of the game. The Playstation's sweet processing power goes toward rending three characters and a few monsters. Character's look much more detailed and alive, and just makes one wish that this is how the game looked throughout the entire playthrough. One thing that has aged quite a bit are the cutscenes. Seen as cutting edge at the time, today they aren't too impressive. This is particularly with the characters as they are textureless and use basic lighting and shading. It leaves a lot more to be desired, however to be fair Squaresoft really brought their A game when it came to artstyle, graphics, and CG with their next Final Fantasy entry.

The story of the game is pretty complex. The best way I can describe it without going too much into detail is that it focuses on terrorism, environmentalism, clones, and classism. Sure, today it seems like the typical JRPG and anime "deep for the sake of deep" trope, but at the time it was extremely unique when most RPGs had Medieval settings and plot points. To its credit, the plot is still very good today and despite being a bit full of itself, is still very engaging. As said before though, the characters stand out at least as much as the story. There's Cloud the dickish hero, Barret the stereotypical angry black man, Tifa the badass female fighter, Aeris the kind hearted love interest, Red XIII the experimented creature, and many others. Again this sounds typical, but just like with the story, this was very unique at the time and even today the characters do well to stand out. I mean think about it, a black main character...in a JRPG!? Truly a radical idea if I've ever heard of one.

The battle system is your typical Final Fantasy battle system. It's active turn based where characters can attack, use a skill, an item, or possibly magic. It's all very standard, and while it isn't particularly bad, it isn't particularly good either. It merely gets the job done. There is also the materia system in which players can equip special crystal orbs to gain ability and up stats. It was pretty interesting at its time and has since become staple of The Legend of Heroes series. It brings much needed variety and strategy to the battle system.

What I feel makes Final Fantasy VII standout even more so than its setting and characters, is how smooth and quick plays. It's truly a game where you can go through a lot and make significant progress in a single sitting. While most RPGs, even today, take a significant amount of time for the player to achieve anything, in just an hour or two of playertime a significant chunk of Final Fantasy VII's world and characterization will be finished. The game is very well paced and does its best not to drag on. Part of this is due to the game often changing locations as you are never in one place for too long of a time. Another part of it is that the game always throws in various situations toward the player, whether they be serious or humorous, to keep things interesting. It's something that I feel that RPGs, both Japanese and Western, tend to lack and what often has me put them down after a few hours of playthrough. Building up a story and world is important, but it doesn't mean that things have to move along so slowly. This also lends Final Fantasy VII to be a very replayable game, especially since the game has a lot of hidden treasures and secrets, there are even party characters integral to the plot that the player may not have gotten during their first playthrough.

Final Fantasy VII is underrated. That's right underrated.While I do agree that back in the day the game was overblown in its quality of being "the undisputed greatest RPG of all-time", today things are a bit different. It seems that people just criticize this game solely because it is the most popular Final Fantasy game. While I can see others liking Final Fantasy VI, IX, and XII more, I think that VII gets too much hate. The game has aged extremely well over the years, and is still very fun to play. The characters are interesting, the world is engaging, its fun exploring the towns, and the game is paced very well. This may be controversial to say today, but in my opinion Final Fantasy VII is the best Final Fantasy game. Despite the game easily making this spot on its own merits, it also had a huge ripple effect on the industry. If it wasn't for Final Fantasy VII, we would have gotten so many Japanese developers to put their games out in the West. No Shin Megami Tensei, no Tales games, no Legend of Heroes, no Xenoseries, etc. Any fan of the genre should know the game's legacy and its effects on the industry.