This Week In Retro: Final Fantasy VII (Patreon)

January 31, 1997: Square hits the PlayStation with a meteor

by Diamond Feit

I was always a science-fiction fan. It might be in my blood. My birth preceded the Star Wars phenomenon, but by the time I was old enough to understand movies or television, I loved lightsabers, light cycles, and Reese's Pieces. Viewed in this light, I suppose my fascination with video games makes perfect sense. What could be more captivating to a young mind than new, unproven technology that invites interaction?

After the initial wave of plotless arcade sensations got their hooks into me, my favorite genre of gaming became the RPG. Creating characters, exploring dungeons, discovering hidden treasure, it all clicked with my sensibilities. The genre's popularity on home computers was no doubt a bonus, a device that every child at the time was eager to play with. The primitive graphics of these early programs were irrelevant as I would soon discover Dungeons & Dragons, a game with no graphics, held just as much appeal.

By the end of the 1980s the NES had supplanted the personal computer as my go-to gaming machine, even as I recognized that there were some things the NES could never do as well, particularly RPGs. With no keyboard, the NES simply lacked the breadth and variety of input options computers could offer. This tainted my first impression of JRPGs as they seemed woefully behind the times compared to the RPGs I played years earlier.

Despite this perceived handicap, Final Fantasy caught my eye. The ability to customize my party with different classes of characters appealed to me, even though the game has fewer classes to choose from overall. More importantly, Final Fantasy embraces science-fiction in a way few other RPGs did. Yes, there are plenty of swords, armor, and magic spells, but there are also airships, floating fortresses, and giant robots. If I had access to a Sega Master System, Phantasy Star might have wowed me instead, but I had an NES so I ended up leading the Warriors of Light to destroy Chaos.

Despite Final Fantasy's success, I saw very few JRPGs in its wake adopting science-fiction themes. Perhaps it was due to Dragon Quest's runaway sales in Japan, or perhaps RPG makers just preferred to stick with D&D & Tolkien for their inspiration, but the trends never swung in the direction I had hoped they might. Even Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest, a totally kick-ass JRPG that I played many times over, scaled back the sci-fi in favor of more magical concepts and mythical beasts. This didn't turn me off the genre, but I was disappointed that few JRPGs appeared willing to stray from the formula's bread and butter setting.

Everything changed in 1997 when I first caught wind that Final Fantasy VII would be arriving on the PlayStation. Before I learned anything else, the title alone shocked me; I hadn't played them at the time, but I knew Final Fantasy II and III had been released in the United States on the Super Nintendo, leaving me to wonder whatever happened to IV through VI. In my ignorance, I thought perhaps one of them became Mystic Quest, but game magazines soon taught me the truth: We had only gotten half of the Final Fantasy games that Japanese fans did, so the English releases had been renumbered to avoid confusion. With VII, Square sought to reset the count and unite the world (though it would be years before we eventually saw localizations of the games we missed).

As surprising as all this information was, it was nothing compared to the moment I actually got a glimpse of what Final Fantasy VII looked like. Gone were the stubby cartoon characters standing idly on the side of the screen, wagging their weapons in the air while static creatures on the other side somehow took damage. Final Fantasy VII took advantage of the latest 3D graphics to remove the cute, abstract veil that once shrouded its heroes (and monsters) to at last offer the gaming audience realism. Every attack now included its own animation, as characters dashed and leapt across the screen to strike their target. Better still, the series' signature Summons spells became miniature movies, utilizing thousands of polygons to fully showcase legendary creatures in all their magical might.

My fascination was not merely kindled by the new-fangled graphics, however, for Final Fantasy VII promised to deliver the science-fiction adventure I had spent years waiting for. In 1990 I had been elated to see even a sliver of advanced technology amongst the usual JRPG trimmings in the original Final Fantasy. In trailers for VII (which ran not just on television but in movie theaters), I could see a massive urban environment, trains roaring through tunnels, and a dude racing a motorcycle along the highway. This was no fantasy with sci-fi elements, it looked like a straight urban dystopia with a couple swords tossed into the mix.

Even if I hadn't developed an infatuation with Final Fantasy VII, 1997 happened to be the year I began working in a Software Etc in White Plains, New York, selling video games and Dragonball Z VHS tapes to the masses. All summer long I fielded questions about Final Fantasy VII's arrival, and on launch day I remember the phone nearly ringing off the hook with eager consumers looking for a copy. The non-stop inquiries convinced me to start answering every call with "Thank you for calling Software Etc, yes we have Final Fantasy VII in stock."

After months of anticipation and deep workplace conditioning to be excited about Final Fantasy VII, taking the game home proved to be vindicating. From the very start, VII was unlike any video game I had played in my life. I could hardly believe I had an entire city to explore, not to mention all the characters I could swap into and out of my party. These were not generic mages or paladins, either, but people (well, mostly people) with personalities that I cared about. The story even made it clear that protagonist Cloud Strife could fall in love with one of the two heroines, and the game let me choose which woman I wanted to spend more time with. Yes, I picked the flower girl and yes, the end of Disc One left me devastated. The Forbidden City background music alone is enough to trigger my grief even 25 years after the fact.

I couldn't tell you how long I spent playing Final Fantasy VII, and not just because I saw the credits roll sometime back in 1998. As I recall, the in-game timer on save files only counted as high as 99 hours and 59 minutes, a figure I easily surpassed. I played the game daily for months as I sought to set foot on every corner of the world map, obtain every Materia, and even topple the two extra-hard optional bosses that roamed the wild (I did destroy the Emerald Weapon, but never figured out how to beat Ruby because he cheats).

What I can tell you is that once I deemed Final Fantasy VII "finished," it felt as if I had turned a corner in my life as a video game fan. I had devoted so much of myself to figuring out its every system and discovering all its secrets, that once it was over I wanted no more. Despite my history as an RPG fan and my ongoing passion for science-fiction, when Square announced the inevitable Final Fantasy VIII, I had no interest in going back to the genre. I think a part of me took the game's title literally: After all that time and energy, I had decided this must be my final fantasy.

My decision did not stand the test of time, as my curiosity about Final Fantasy eventually convinced me to play through IV last summer, an experience I enjoyed. If those new Pixel Remasters ever come to Switch, I would love to try VI which I've heard extremely good things about. Yet there is one aspect of my quarter-century-old position that remains strong: No matter its reputation or newly augmented graphics, I simply cannot bring myself to play the Final Fantasy VII Remake. My memories of Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, and all their friends do not need revisiting, nor do I wish to overwrite them. Final Fantasy VII was not my final fantasy, but I must insist that it remains my final Final Fantasy VII.

Diamond Feit lives in Osaka, Japan but is forever online, sharing idle thoughts on Twitter and playing games on Twitch.