I've never played Final Fantasy VII. Why? Simply put, I've never owned a PlayStation. Considering that countless players say it is the best Final Fantasy game, if not the dubious claim that it's the best video game ever made, I have to try it. Since both FF VII and FF VIII were released on Steam (though Windows-only), they are now finally easily (and legally) accessible to me without having to own a PlayStation console.
I'm skipping too much context. FF VII was a highly influential game. Not only was it the first 3D Final Fantasy, but also one of the first (Japanese) RPG played by a new generation of video game players. It was one of the highest sold video game and was hugely popular outside of Japan. So how come I avoided it for all those years?
Back then, I played pretty much all Final Fantasy games available in North America up to Final Fantasy VI, and since then I played the previously unreleased ones (FF II, III and V). I even played many of the side-franchises of Final Fantasy (Legend, Mystic Quest, and so on), and pretty much all RPGs made by Square available on Nintendo consoles.
But then, in a shrewd move, Square became Sony-exclusive. In exchange, Sony would create a huge marketing campaign to promote FF VII across all of its product lines (movies, music, publications, electronics, DVDs...). At the same time, it heralded a generation of early 3D games that were mixed with pre-rendered backdrops (akin to classical animation) and FMV cut scenes, making video games more accessible, movie-like and appealing to non-gamers. Basically, it became the forbearer of everything I hated about high-budgeted video games that were more movies "for the masses" than games.
Over the years, I couldn't escape its influence, even in other media. I had the misfortune of seeing the overly pretentious Final Fantasy movies (Spirits Within and that FF VII sequel/thing), and the effect it had on Square porting their Nintendo-based RPGs to the PlayStation by replacing important cut scenes with ill-conceived FMVs. Not playing anything else from the Final Fantasy series was my own kind of "rebellion".
What made it infuriating to me was that so many people considered FF VII the "best video game ever", but without having played any previous game in the series, summarily dismissed because they don't contain FMVs or because they aren't in 3D. Those that would defend FF VI as being objectively the better game would also be dismissed using the dubious argument that people prefer the first Final Fantasy they played. I'm fortunate enough that the first Final Fantasy game I played was the original game in the series (the one released in the NES in North America), and I clearly don't consider it the best, far from it. At the same time, I do hold Final Fantasy VI as the best Final Fantasy game up to that point in the series, the best RPG that I've ever played and a masterpiece. I'd be pleasantly surprised if FF VII was better than VI and lived up to its hype and marketing.
Now, 15 years later, I'm emotionally distanced enough from that teen rebellion to attempt to play this game more objectively and on its own merit, apart from the Sony hype (and my hate of Sony) and the opinion of other uneducated players. I already played a few hours of the game and I already have lots to say, but I reserve judgment until I complete the game. For now, I'll follow up on how I'm able to play that game on my Mac in the first place.
Published on July 12, 2014 at 13:23 EDT
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