Final Fantasy VII
North American box art
Developer(s)	Square
Publisher(s)	PlayStation JP Square NA SCE America PAL SCE Europe INT Square Windows Eidos Interactive
Designer(s)	Hironobu Sakaguchi Yoshinori Kitase
Writer(s)	Yoshinori Kitase Kazushige Nojima
Artist(s)	Tetsuya Nomura Yusuke Naora
Composer(s)	Nobuo Uematsu
Series	Final Fantasy
Platform(s)	PlayStation, Windows
Release date(s)	January 31, 1997 PlayStation JP January 31, 1997 NA September 7, 1997 EU November 17, 1997 AUS November 1997 INT October 2, 1997 Windows NA June 24, 1998 PAL 1998
Genre(s)	Console role-playing game
Mode(s)	Single-player
Rating(s)	ELSPA: 11+ ESRB: T OFLC: G8+ PEGI: 12+ USK: 12+
Media	3 CD-ROMs (PS) 4 CD-ROMs (Windows)
System requirements	Windows 166 MHz Pentium CPU, 32 MB RAM, 4X CD-ROM drive, DirectX 5.1 compatible sound and video card, 260 MB available hard disk space, Windows 95 or above (officially not compatible with 2000)
Input methods	PlayStation controller (PS) Keyboard or joystick (Windows)

Final Fantasy VII (ファイナルファンタジーVII, Fainaru Fantajī Sebun^?) is a console role-playing game developed by Square (now Square Enix) and published by Sony Computer Entertainment as the seventh installment in the Final Fantasy series. It was released in 1997 for Sony's PlayStation and in 1998 for Microsoft's Windows-based personal computers. The game is the first in the series to use 3D computer graphics, featuring fully rendered characters on pre-rendered backgrounds.

Set in a dystopian world, Final Fantasy VII's story centers on the powerful megacorporation Shinra, which is draining the life of the planet to use as an energy source. Players follow a young mercenary called Cloud Strife, who joins with several others to stop Shinra. As the story evolves, the main antagonist, Sephiroth, develops a plan to summon a meteor with the intention of injuring the planet to a point where it would gather massive amounts of its life force in one spot, allowing Sephiroth to collect all the life force and gain control of all living beings.

Development of Final Fantasy VII began in 1994 and was originally intended as another 2D project for the SNES with a New York setting. However, the development team decided to use 3D computer graphics instead and moved onto the Nintendo 64. After deciding to implement the features of the tech demo "Final Fantasy SGI" the game would not be able to fit into Nintendo 64's cartridges, prompting Square to move onto Sony's PlayStation system, which used CD-ROMs.

The game was a major critical and commercial success, and remains arguably the most popular title in the series.^[1][2][3][4] The ongoing popularity of the title led Square Enix to produce a series of sequels and prequels under the collective title Compilation of Final Fantasy VII. As of December 2005, Final Fantasy VII has sold more than 9.8 million copies worldwide, earning it the position of the best-selling Final Fantasy title, and the second-best-selling PlayStation game (behind Gran Turismo).

Gameplay

Like previous installments of the Final Fantasy series, Final Fantasy VII consists of three basic gameplay modes: an overworld map, town and dungeon field maps, and a battle screen. The overworld map is a 3D model, featuring a scaled-down simplified version of the game's fictional world,^[5] which the player navigates to travel between the game's locations. It is the first Final Fantasy game to have character models with fully-rendered polygons, rather than flat two-dimensional sprites. As with the preceding games in the series, the world map can be traversed by foot or by Chocobos, an airship, a submarine, etc.^[5] On field maps, the game's 3D playable characters are directed across realistically scaled environments, consisting of 2D pre-rendered backgrounds, which represent locations such as towns or forests.^[6][7] The battle screen is a 3D representation of an area, such as a building's interior or open grassland, in which the player commands the game's characters in battles against CPU-controlled enemies through a menu-driven interface.^[8] While characters are miniaturized on maps, in combat the character models are more realistic and normal-scaled.

Initially, the player is restricted to a more linear travel within the city of Midgar, but as the game continues, the entire world becomes accessible, giving the player more freedom to explore.^[5] Progression through the game's storyline is largely developed by way of scripted sequences and require frequent player interaction to proceed. At other times, pre-rendered cinematic cut scenes advance the story.

A battle in Final Fantasy VII

Combat

During its turn-based battle sequences, the game uses the same Active Time Battle (ATB) system designed by Hiroyuki Ito and first featured in Final Fantasy IV. Unlike previous games in the series, which allow 4-5 playable characters to participate in battle, Final Fantasy VII allows only three characters to be in the party at any time.^[6]

Final Fantasy VII's skill system is built around the use of materia, magical orbs that are placed in special slots on weapons and armor, allowing players to customize their characters' access to magic spells, summons, and special abilities. The use of materia is a double-edged sword, however, as the more materia a character has equipped the physically weaker he or she becomes. In addition to their individual attributes, materia can be used together in a fixed number of ways to enhance their effects or produce other abilities.^[9]

A modified form of Final Fantasy VI's "Desperation Attacks" appears in Final Fantasy VII as the "Limit Break". Every playable character has a bar that gradually fills up when they suffer damage in battle. When the bar is completely filled, the character is able to unleash his or her Limit Break, a special attack which generally inflicts significantly more damage on enemies than normal attacks, or otherwise aids the party in battle. Unlike materia, which any character could use, each character has his/her own unique Limit Breaks. Character designer and battle director Tetsuya Nomura implemented this advanced form of Desperation Attacks in response to the low probability of their occurrence in Final Fantasy VI, where they would randomly become available as an attack substitution only when a character's hit points were low.

Nomura decided to incorporate elaborately animated summon spells in the game, one of which lasts more than a minute. This idea became popular with Final Fantasy fans, and they were incorporated into the development of future games in the series. A summon consists of a name for each summon materia (Odin, Bahamut, Titan, etc.), the name of the attack used by each summon, a short animation clip in which the summon makes its attack, and the end of the attack, during which the number of damage points inflicted appears. However, critics have described these animations as tedious.^[10]

Plot

Setting

Main article: Gaia (Final Fantasy VII)

The game's setting follows in the footsteps of Final Fantasy VI by presenting a world with considerably more advanced technology than the first five games in the series. Overall, the game's technology and society approximates that of modern or near-future science fiction.^[11][12] The world of Final Fantasy VII, retroactively named "Gaia" but referred to in the game as "The Planet", is composed of three main land masses. The eastern continent features the city of Midgar, an industrial metropolis that serves as the headquarters of the Shinra Electric Power Company, a ruthless mega corporation that operates as the de facto world government. Shinra's major military base, Junon, a reactor that has a condor perched on top of it (aptly named Fort Condor) along with a chocobo ranch and a small town called Kalm.

The western continent features most of the playable areas, which include the Gold Saucer, an amusement park; Costa Del Sol, a seaside resort; the town of Nibelheim, which resides at the base of Mt. Nibel; Rocket Town, which is Cid's home and the location of Shinra's failed space program (which succeeds in-game); the village Wutai (on an island to the west); and a settlement constructed on a plateau called "Cosmo Canyon". The tribe inhabiting the canyon emphasize living in harmony with nature and dedicating causes to the planet's well-being.^[13] Their settlement features an observatory and serves as a research facility for those who wish to participate in a philosophy known as "the Study of Planet Life", an environmentally conscious lifestyle that encourages utmost deference for nature and teaches that the planet has a life of its own.^[13] The northernmost continent is a heavily glaciated wasteland, and its few settlements include an excavation site; a ski resort (Icicle Inn in English versions); the mythical "City of the Ancients"; and the Northern Crater, where the game's climax takes place. There are also underwater locations accessible via submarine, such as the downed Gelnika, which was commissioned by Shinra to transport state-of-the-art weapons and materia to be used against the Weapons deployed by the planet itself when Meteor was summoned by Sephiroth, and the cave where a key needed for use in the City of the Ancients lies.

Characters

Tetsuya Nomura's designs of the main playable characters in Final Fantasy VII

Main article: Characters of Final Fantasy VII

The nine main playable characters in Final Fantasy VII are Cloud Strife, an unsociable mercenary who serves as the game's protagonist and claims to be a former 1st Class member of Shinra's SOLDIER unit;^[14] Aeris Gainsborough (named "Aerith" in the Japanese promotional materials, later Final Fantasy VII titles and the Kingdom Hearts series), a flower merchant living in the slums of Midgar who has been pursued by Shinra operatives known as the Turks since she was a child;^[15] Tifa Lockhart, a martial artist and childhood friend of Cloud's; Barret Wallace, the impatient leader of the second incarnation of the anti-Shinra eco-terrorist group AVALANCHE, who bears a grudge against the corporation for razing his hometown, and causing the deaths of his friends and family;^[16] Red XIII (born Nanaki), a wise feline-like creature capable of speech who was experimented on by Shinra scientists; Yuffie Kisaragi, a young materia thief and a bitter resident of Wutai, a nation descended from ninjas which was defeated by Shinra in a war several years before the events of Final Fantasy VII began;^[17] Cid Highwind, a pilot whose dreams of being the first man in outer space were crushed when he canceled his rocket's launch to save the life of one of his assistants, leading to the withdrawing of the Shinra Company's funding of a space program;^[18] Cait Sith, a fortune-telling semi-autonomous robotic cat who rides a magically animated stuffed moogle doll;^[19] and Vincent Valentine, a former member of Shinra's Turks unit who was killed and brought back to life as an immortal through experimental anatomic reconstruction. Living in his past he is seen as a cold person and the experiments done on him in the past allows him to transform into numerous forms of monsters including the mighty Chaos.^[20]

All of the game's main characters have had significant ties to the Shinra Company in their past, and all harbor disapproval or outright hatred for the corporation and its activities. Although the antagonists for the first portion of the game are the Shinra executives, a mysterious man named Sephiroth—once hailed as the greatest SOLDIER—reappears several years after disappearing in a battle in which he was concluded to have died.^[21] He is soon revealed to be the most immediate threat to the planet, prompting both AVALANCHE and the Shinra Company to take up the position of defending it, though their methods differ significantly.^[22]

The game's character designer, Tetsuya Nomura, has expressed feelings that Final Fantasy VII was hindered by graphical limitations, and that his designs were, consequently, very plain in comparison to his "true" style. However, he was able to find other means of expressing some of his ideas. Cloud's original character design called for slicked back black hair with no spikes, intended to serve as a contrast to Sephiroth's long, flowing silver hair. However, Nomura feared that such masculinity could prove to be unpopular with fans, and decided to give Cloud a unique feature that would emphasize his role in the game as the main character. He changed the design to feature Cloud's now trademark shock of spiky, bright blond hair. For Tifa's design, Nomura has admitted to facing a difficult decision in choosing to give her a miniskirt or pants. With input from other members of the game's development staff, he eventually selected a dark miniskirt, contrasted by Aeris' long, pink dress.

Vincent's character developed from horror researcher to detective, then to chemist, and finally to the figure of a former Turk with a tragic past. It has been explained that his crimson mantle was added to symbolize the idea of carrying a heavy weight on his shoulders associated with death. Nomura has indicated that Cid Highwind's fighting style resembles that of a Dragon Knight, a character class so chosen because his last name is the same as that of two previous dragon knights featured in the Final Fantasy series, Ricard Highwind of Final Fantasy II and Kain Highwind of Final Fantasy IV.

Due to their popularity, several characters from the game have made cameo appearances in other Square Enix titles, most notably the fighting game Ehrgeiz and the popular Final Fantasy-Disney crossover series Kingdom Hearts. Sephiroth remains one of the most popular villains in video game history, unanimously voted #1 by the staff of gaming publication Electronic Gaming Monthly in their "Top 10 Video Game Bosses" list in October 2005.^[23] During spring of the same year, Sephiroth won GameFAQs' best villain contest.^[24] In Game Informer's top ten Video Game Bosses list, Sephiroth received number three, behind Mother Brain of Super Metroid and Psycho Mantis of Metal Gear Solid.

Story

Final Fantasy VII begins with Cloud joining a group called AVALANCHE in a series of raids against the Mako reactors surrounding the city of Midgar. Although the first mission is a success, AVALANCHE is trapped at another reactor during a subsequent raid. The reactor explodes, launching Cloud from the upper levels of Midgar into the slums below. He lands on a flower bed, where he is formally introduced to Aeris.^[25] Prompted by the arrival of Shinra's Turks operatives sent to capture Aeris, Cloud agrees to be Aeris' bodyguard.^[26] After Cloud defends Aeris from the Turks, she offers to show him the way back to Sector 7. They meet up with Tifa, and infiltrate the mansion of crime boss Don Corneo. The party learns that Shinra has discovered the location of AVALANCHE's hideout and plans to collapse the upper plate of Sector 7 onto the slums below.^[27] Shinra successfully destroys Sector 7, killing its population and three members of AVALANCHE. The Turks capture Aeris, who is revealed to be the last surviving "Cetra",^[28] a race closely attuned with the planet, and previously thought extinct. President Shinra believes Aeris can lead him to the "Promised Land", a mythical land of fertility, where he expects to find Mako energy.^[29]

The remaining members of AVALANCHE infiltrate Shinra's headquarters to rescue Aeris. After freeing her and Red XIII, they escape when most of the personnel in the building——including President Shinra——are killed. Finding the body of the president skewered by a long sword, Cloud suspects a man called Sephiroth has returned from his presumed death. Palmer, an executive spared during the massacre, claims to have witnessed Sephiroth murder the president and state that he would never allow Shinra to claim the Promised Land.^[30] The party learns that during Sephiroth's attack on Shinra, the headless body of a creature named "Jenova" disappeared from the building's research facility.^[31] While the president's son, Rufus Shinra, assumes control of the company, AVALANCHE pursues Sephiroth across the planet, fearing his intentions for the Promised Land may be more destructive than Shinra's. The party is joined by Yuffie, Cait Sith, Vincent, and Cid. Each member of the group must come to terms with personal conflicts from their past. The full scope of Sephiroth's plan is eventually revealed: if the planet is significantly damaged, the Lifestream within will gather at the point of injury, attempting to heal the wound. Sephiroth intends to use a powerful spell called "Meteor" to fatally injure the planet, inciting a reaction in the Lifestream to heal the wound before it can cause the planet's destruction. Sephiroth would then merge with all the energy of the planet, granting him god-like power over it.^[32]

Sephiroth kills Aeris in a scene referred to as "the most shocking moment in video games".^[33]

At an ancient temple created by the Cetra, AVALANCHE attempts to undermine Sephiroth's plot by claiming the Black Materia needed to activate Meteor, but Sephiroth displays a mysterious power over Cloud, forcing him to relinquish it. Fearing Sephiroth may cast Meteor, Aeris sets off to stop him on her own. AVALANCHE follows her to the northern continent, where the they enter an ancient Cetra city. After finding Aeris praying to the planet for aid, Sephiroth begins affecting Cloud's behavior, and attempts to force him to kill her. Cloud resists Sephiroth's command, but Sephiroth appears and kills Aeris.^[34] After laying her body to rest, the party resolves to defeat Sephiroth.

Cloud, however, is beginning to doubt his ability to control his own actions. Influenced by Sephiroth, Cloud begins to suspect his memories and insists he is not a real human, but rather a specimen created from Jenova's genetic material by Professor Hojo. Jenova was an interstellar creature who crash landed on the planet about 2,000 years earlier on a meteor. This collision formed a large impact crater, grievously harming the planet.^[35] Jenova emerged from the crater, intending to infect all living organisms on the planet with a virus inducing insanity and monstrous transformations.^[36] Among its victims were most of the Cetra. Attempting to defend itself, the planet created giant monsters called "WEAPONs". The majority of humans fled rather than fight Jenova, however, a small group of Cetra survivors managed to defeat Jenova, confining it within the fissure created by its landing.^[37] Eventually, the remains of Jenova would be unearthed by Professor Gast, a researcher for the Shinra Company. Mistaking the creature for a Cetra, Gast was given authorization to conduct an experiment to artificially produce a Cetra by combining cells from Jenova with the fetus of an unborn child.^[36] Five years earlier, Sephiroth learned that he was the product of this experiment while on a Shinra mission in Cloud and Tifa's hometown, Nibelheim. He concluded that he was a Cetra who had been produced solely from Jenova's genetic material. He burned down Nibelheim, intending to kill all descendants of those he believed had abandoned his ancestors in the defense of the planet. Cloud confronted Sephiroth during this massacre, after which Sephiroth vanished under unknown circumstances and was presumed dead until his reappearance in the Shinra building. When AVALANCHE travels to the Northern Crater to confront Sephiroth, he tells Cloud that he was not in Nibelheim, showing him images of a 1st Class SOLDIER with dark hair who occupies Cloud's place in his memories.^[38] With Tifa unable to refute Sephiroth's claims, Cloud gives the Black Materia to Sephiroth's real body, encased in crystallized Mako, who casts Meteor, resulting in the WEAPONs' awakening. During the earthquake that follows, Cloud is separated from his companions and falls into the Lifestream.

As the meteor summoned by Sephiroth slowly approaches the planet, the Shinra Company focuses its efforts on protecting humanity from the WEAPONs.^[22] The members of AVALANCHE are interrogated and nearly executed. They escape from captivity in Junon and obtain Cid's airship, the "Highwind". They begin searching for Cloud, and discover Shinra's plan to take Huge Materia from the major spots of the world. They eventually find Cloud in a catatonic state on a tropical resort called Mideel where he washed up following the casting of Meteor. Tifa resolves that she will not leave Mideel until Cloud has fully recovered. The WEAPONs' destructive activity causes the island to split open, depositing Cloud and Tifa into the Lifestream, where she reconstructs Cloud's memories and learns the truth about his past. It is revealed that Cloud never succeeded in joining SOLDIER and only managed to attain the rank of private in Shinra's military. The dark-haired SOLDIER from the images is called "Zack" and was Aeris' first boyfriend. During Sephiroth's destruction of Nibelheim, Zack, Tifa, and Cloud fought him in the Mako reactor. Although Tifa and Zack were defeated, Cloud and Sephiroth severely wounded one another. After decapitating Jenova, Sephiroth is thrown into the Lifestream by Cloud, taking the creature's head with him. Rather than dying, his body and consciousness were crystallized in Mako inside Jenova's crater.

Cloud and Zack were among the wounded survivors who were apprehended by Shinra as part of a cover-up of Sephiroth's massacre. Professor Hojo subjected these survivors to an experiment, performing the same enhancements given to SOLDIER members. However, all but Zack entered a comatose state, and nearly five years later, Zack broke free from his confinement and took Cloud with him. The procedure for enhancing SOLDIER members involved Mako showers and the injection of Jenova cells. The alien cells inhabiting Cloud's body allowed his mind to construct a false persona, built around Zack's behavior, but they also allowed Sephiroth to modulate his behavior. The cells' ability to duplicate information, led Cloud to believe he had been the 1st Class SOLDIER in Nibelheim. Zack was killed outside Midgar by Shinra soldiers after saving Cloud's life. During Zack's final moments, he tells Cloud to live both of their lives. Afterward, Tifa discovered Cloud, who was wearing a 1st Class uniform which Zack gave him, and offered him a job with AVALANCHE.^[36]

Before Cloud awakens, AVALANCHE stops Shinra from taking the Huge Materia. It is revealed that Aeris, in her final moments, was casting the spell "Holy" with the White Materia, the only means of opposing Meteor. Although she succeeded, Sephiroth prevented the spell from taking effect and has been restrained since. Deciding to protect humanity from the WEAPONs before approaching Sephiroth, Shinra and AVALANCHE destroy the WEAPONs, killing nearly all of Shinra's executives in the process. Among the few survivors are Reeve Tuesti, who is revealed to be the repentant controller of Cait Sith,^[39] and Professor Hojo, who is revealed to be Sephiroth's biological father. He explains that he and his wife were assistants to Professor Gast, and offered up their unborn child as a test subject to research involving Jenova.^[40] After finding out that Hojo is trying to help Sephiroth gain mastery over the Lifestream, AVALANCHE kill him. Cloud tells his team to go find what they are fighting for, before they begin a final assault against Sephiroth. With each member of Cloud's group at peace with his or her past, the group travels through the Northern Crater to the planet's core. They defeat Sephiroth and free Holy, but the spell is unable to destroy Meteor alone. Selected as Meteor's target, Midgar is almost completely destroyed. However, the Lifestream rises from the planet to aid Holy and destroys it.^[41] During the following epilogue, Red XIII runs through a canyon with two cubs at his side. He proceeds up a cliff-face, which reveals a lush land of greenery where Shinra's destroyed Midgar had once been.

Development and release

SNES project and early development

Planning sessions for Final Fantasy VII began in 1994 after the release of Final Fantasy VI. At the time, the game was planned to be another 2D project for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.^[42] Series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi intended the story to take place in modern New York City in the year 1999. Several of the staff members were working in parallel on Chrono Trigger, and development for Final Fantasy VII was interrupted when the other project became important enough to require the help of Yoshinori Kitase and other designers. Some of the ideas originally considered for Final Fantasy VII ended up in Chrono Trigger instead. Other ideas, such as the New York setting and the sorceress character Edea, were kept unused until the later projects Parasite Eve and Final Fantasy VIII respectively.^[43]

Nintendo 64 project and Final Fantasy SGI

See also: Final Fantasy VI#Interactive CG Game

At its conception, the original script of Final Fantasy VII, written by Hironobu Sakaguchi, was completely different from the finished product. Tetsuya Nomura recalled how Sakaguchi "wanted to do something like a detective story." The first part of the story involved a character named "Hot Blooded Detective Joe" who was in pursuit of the main characters. The main characters managed to blow up the city of Midgar, which had already been developed for the story.^[44]

Development of Final Fantasy VII resumed in late 1995,^[34] and required the efforts of more than one hundred artists and programmers^[45] using such software as PowerAnimator and Softimage|3D,^[34] and a budget of approximately US$45 million. Final Fantasy VI's co-director and scenario writer, Yoshinori Kitase, returned to direct and co-write Final Fantasy VII and was concerned the franchise might be left behind if it did not catch up to the 3D computer graphics used in other games at the time.^[46]

Development began after the production of a short, experimental tech demo called "Final Fantasy SGI" for Silicon Graphics, Inc. Onyx workstations. The demo featured polygon-based 3D renderings of characters from Final Fantasy VI in a real time battle and incorporated interactive elements.^[47][48] This experiment led the development team to integrate these design mechanics into Final Fantasy VII. However, as a result of the high quantity of memory storage required to implement the motion data, 3D models, and computer graphics effects involved, only the CD-ROM format would be able to suit the project's needs.^[34][47] Nintendo, for which Square had developed all previous titles in the Final Fantasy series, had decided to continue to use cartridges for its upcoming Nintendo 64 console. This eventually led to a dispute that resulted in Square ending its long, often tumultuous, relationship with Nintendo, and Square announced on January 12, 1996 it would be developing Final Fantasy VII for Sony's PlayStation platform.^[34][47]

In early August 1996, a demonstration disc called Square's Preview Extra was released in Japan as a bonus pack-in with the Playstation video game Tobal #1. The disc contained the earliest playable demo of Final Fantasy VII and video previews of other upcoming games such as Bushido Blade and Saga Frontier. The demo allowed players to play through the first part of Midgar. However, there were some noticeable differences from the final version, namely the presence of Aeris in the initial party and the ability to use Summons.^[49] Tobal #1 and the Square Preview Extra disc were released in North America in late September of the same year. Later, a slightly different version of the demo was released which replaced Aeris with Tifa and included a different Summon.

Changes from past installments

The transition from 2D computer graphics to 3D environments overlaid on pre-rendered backgrounds^[6][7] was accompanied by a focus on a more realistic presentation, which challenged the development team. According to Kitase, "Right from the time the decision to go with CD was made he producer Hironobu Sakaguchi set down a ground rule for the team saying, 'If the player becomes aware of the access times, we have failed'", demanding that an engrossing atmosphere be upheld, which led to the programming of various animations to activate while the game loaded data.^[34] While the extra storage capacity and computer graphics, to which the team now had access, gave them the means to implement more than 40 minutes of full motion video movies^[34]—an unprecedented undertaking in the genre at the time^[34]—this innovation brought with it the added difficulty of ensuring that the inferiority of the in-game graphics in comparison to the full motion video sequences was not too obvious. Kitase has described the process of making the in-game environments as detailed as possible to be "a daunting task".^[34]

Among the difficulties faced was the potential inability to render 3D polygon models based on the designs of Yoshitaka Amano, the series' long-time character designer. As his style was considered too exquisite to be compatible with the visual format of the project, this issue was addressed by bringing Tetsuya Nomura on board as the project's main artist, while Amano aided in the design of the game's world map. Previously a monster designer for Final Fantasy V, Nomura's style was more reminiscent of manga and was considered easier to adapt. Another development problem was a rushed production schedule. Veteran series composer Nobuo Uematsu commented in the liner notes of the game's soundtrack: "There is one thing common in all the Final Fantasy games. None of them are complete". Despite delaying the game's release from December 1996 to January 1997, several additions to gameplay and story needed to be made for the game's North American release,^[7] prompting a re-release in Japan under the title "Final Fantasy VII International".

Design and inspirations

Art director Yusuke Naora refers to the game's atmosphere as "strong [and] dark", achieved through lighting effects he considers "the darkest of darkest", and a story that emphasised realism while drawing on a variety of myths, legends, and religious and philosophical systems to "[use] as a framework for loftier ethical aspirations and ecologically conscious evangelism".^[46][34] These concepts were reflected in names, such as "Sephiroth",^[50] Cloud's personal conflicts, the permanence of Aeris' death and the plot element of the Lifestream.^[34][46] Tetsuya Nomura has explained that, during the early stages of development, the game's original design featured only Cloud, Barret and Aeris, with the intention that one of the three would die.^[46] Feeling Cloud could not die, due to his leading role, and the death of characters such as Barret was already too great a cliché in the Final Fantasy series and fiction in general, he expressed frustration with the frequent presentation of death in fiction as an awe-inspiring, often romantic idea centered around sacrifice and resurrection. As a result, Nomura suggested Aeris die and not return, believing the audience would not expect such a development, and it would emphasise the sudden, harsh, and irreversible nature of death.^[46][34] Alternatively, Sakaguchi based the philosophy of the Lifestream on ideas from cultures that believe in an invisible, inextinguishable energy that permeates planets and all life upon them, and was given its in-game representation by Kitase.^[34]

Members of the development team have revealed they intended some aspects of the game's story to be left open to the interpretation of individual players. Scenario writer Kazushige Nojima explained he intended players to feel encouraged to speculate about what Cloud might be thinking in certain situations rather than be provided with actual insight into what he felt.^[11][34] The game's ending left the fate of the characters ambiguous until the release of Final Fantasy VII Advent Children in 2005,^[51][52] but the ultimate fate of humanity remained unclear nonetheless. At the time of Advent Children's release, Kitase suggested the game's epilogue may signify the extinction of human beings.^[46] However, Nomura has since stated the game's final scene symbolizes humans living in harmony with nature,^[53] and Square has provided explanations for other details of the game's plot with the publication of the Final Fantasy VII Ultimania Ω guidebook.

North American release

The game's release in North America was preceded by a massive three-month marketing campaign, for which Sony allocated a US$100 million budget. The high-profile campaign consisted of three 30-second television commercials on major networks, a holiday promotion with Pepsi, and printed ads in publications such as Rolling Stone, Details, Spin, Playboy and comic books published by Marvel and DC.^[54] In 1998, Final Fantasy VII was ported to Windows-based PCs. This re-release featured smoother graphics and fixed certain translation and spelling errors, as well as various gameplay-related glitches. However, the PC version also suffered from its own bugs, including errors in the display of some full motion videos when rendering in hardware mode on certain graphics chipsets.^[55][56]

Audio

Main article: Music of Final Fantasy VII

The soundtrack for Final Fantasy VII was composed by Nobuo Uematsu. Instead of recorded music and sound effects for the game, Uematsu opted for MIDIs, using the PlayStation's own internal sound chip. He has explained he chose this method because it allowed the console's CPU to process audio data quicker, which in turn allowed it to focus more on processing the game's 3D engine and to prevent noticeable load times. The game was originally intended to feature a vocal piece, but this was cut due to the limitations imposed by recorded audio. However, a song with synthesized choral backing is heard in "One-Winged Angel".

The game's soundtrack was commercially released on four compact discs;^[57][58] a single-disc album of selected tracks from the Original Soundtrack and three selected arranged tracks, entitled "Final Fantasy VII: Reunion Tracks", was released separately.^[59][60] A piano-only arrangement of selected tracks was also produced,^[61] and several remixed versions of tracks from the game have surfaced in subsequent Square productions, including Final Fantasy VII Advent Children^[62][63] and Kingdom Hearts.^[64]

On September 14, 2007, OverClocked ReMix, a website dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of video game music, released a community driven Final Fantasy VII tribute album, entitled Voices of the Lifestream.^[65] The compilation reinterprets many of the soundtrack's most memorable pieces in various genres, such as rock, jazz, classical, and electronica. The album has been met with mass approval from various video game music sites, notable performers, and professional composers.^[66]

Reception

Final Fantasy VII was both a critical and commercial success, and set several sales records. Within three days of its January 1997 release in Japan, the game had sold 2.3 million copies. This popularity inspired thousands of retailers in North America to break street dates in September to meet public demand for the title.^[67] In the game's debut weekend in North America, it sold 330,000 copies,^[68] and had reached sales of 500,000 units in less than three weeks.^[69] The momentum built in the game's opening weeks continued for several months; Sony announced the game had sold one million copies on the continent by early December,^[70] prompting one business analyst to comment, "Sony redefined the role-playing game (RPG) category and expanded the conventional audience with the launch of Final Fantasy VII".^[70] Final Fantasy VII has sold over 9.8 million copies worldwide as of December 2005,^[71] making it the highest-selling Final Fantasy title, and the second-best-selling PlayStation game (behind Gran Turismo).

Although Square's announcement that Final Fantasy VII would be produced for Sony rather than Nintendo and that it would not be based on the Final Fantasy SGI demo was initially met with discontent among gamers,^[47][48] the game continues to maintain a strong following. It placed second in the "Top 100 Favorite Games of All Time" poll by Japanese magazine Famitsu during March 2006,^[72] while users of the video game website GameFAQs voted Final Fantasy VII as the "Best Game Ever"^[73] in November 2005, a little more than one year after it won the site's "Best. Game. Ever." tournament in 2004.^[74]

Critical response

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The game received extremely favorable reviews from many well-known gaming publications. GameFan called it "quite possibly the greatest game ever made", while GameSpot commented "never before have technology, playability, and narrative combined as well as in Final Fantasy VII", expressing particular favor toward the game's graphics, audio and story. The UK-based publication Edge gave the game a 9/10, and Electronic Gaming Monthly granted a 9.5/10, claiming "No other RPG can pull off a cinematic experience like Final Fantasy VII".^{citation needed} At the time of release, multimedia website IGN insisted Final Fantasy VII's "graphics are light years beyond anything ever seen on the PlayStation", held its plot "is deep … and epic", and regarded its battle system as its strongest point.^[6] One RPGamer staff reviewer praised the game's soundtrack "both in variety and sheer volume", suggesting that "Uematsu has done his work exceptionally well" and "is perhaps at his best here".^[78]

Final Fantasy VII has received negative criticism as well. GameSpy rated it seventh on their "25 Most Overrated Games" list in September 2003, saying, "Most FF aficionados will tell you VII, while very good, is hardly the best game in the series", two of the reviewers placing both Final Fantasy VIII and Final Fantasy X above it.^[79] While giving the game an overall 5/5, Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine questioned the game's highly linear progression,^[75] as did GameSpot.^[7] OPM considered the game's translation "a bit muddy, causing unnecessary confusion and clouding the fine story", sentiments echoed by one member of RPGamer's staff who suggested "[the game] is far from perfect", citing its translation as "packed with typos and other errors which further obscure what is already a very confusing plot".^[52] GamePro also considered the Japanese-to-English translation a significant weakness in the game,^[56] and IGN regarded the option to use only three characters at a time as "the game's only shortcoming".^[6] Overall, the game has earned a 92% universal approval rating from critics on Metacritic and Game Rankings.^[76][77]

The game has also been the subject of criticism from parents concerned with violence in video games, particularly in the wake of the Columbine High School massacre in 1999. Following the event, several parents of children murdered in the massacre filed a US$5 billion lawsuit against companies that published and developed video and computer games. Among the co-defendants were Eidos Interactive, publisher of the PC version of the game, with Final Fantasy VII cited as their offending contribution.^[80]

Legacy

A battle against a dragon in the unofficial Famicom version of Final Fantasy VII

Final Fantasy VII is credited with allowing console RPGs to find a place in markets outside Japan, and remains arguably the most popular title in the Final Fantasy series.^[2][3] In January 2005, it was selected by Electronic Gaming Monthly as 6^th on their list of "the 10 most important games … that helped redefine the industry since … 1989". Citing its "beautiful cut-scenes and a deep, introspective narrative", they claimed that "Square’s game was … the first RPG to surpass, instead of copy, movie-like storytelling." In late 2007, Dengeki PlayStation named Final Fantasy VII as the best story, best RPG, and best overall game in their retrospective awards feature about the original PlayStation.^[81]

The game's popularity and open-ended nature also led the director and writer to establish a plot-related connection between Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy X, another popular Final Fantasy title.^[51] It has also inspired an unofficial version of Final Fantasy VII for the Nintendo Famicom by Chinese company Shenzhen Nanjing Technology.^[82] This port features the entire Final Fantasy VII game, sans a number of side quests, scaled back to 2D.^[82]

The game's legacy includes the acceptance and standard inclusion of full-motion video sequences in RPGs, as well as significant advancement in computer graphics. These developments would allow series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi to begin production of the first Final Fantasy film, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.^[83] The game also introduced settings dominantly suffused with modern-to-advanced technology into the Final Fantasy series, a theme continued by Final Fantasy VIII and The Spirits Within.^[11][84] Re-releases of Square games in Japan with bonus features would occur frequently after the release of Final Fantasy VII International. Later titles that would receive this treatment include Final Fantasy X,^[85] Final Fantasy X-2,^[86] Kingdom Hearts (as "Final Mix"),^[87] Kingdom Hearts II (as "Final Mix+"),^[88] and Final Fantasy XII International Zodiac Job System.

Related media and merchandise

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Compilation of Final Fantasy VII is the formal title for a series of games and animated features developed by Square Enix based in the world and continuity of Final Fantasy VII. Spearheaded by Tetsuya Nomura and Yoshinori Kitase,^[89][90][91] the series consists of several titles across various platforms, all of which are extensions of the Final Fantasy VII story.

Final Fantasy VII: Snowboarding: comparison of the PlayStation (left) and mobile versions

Though not under the Compilation label, two novellas set within Final Fantasy VII's continuity have been produced, while a third Final Fantasy VII mobile game has also been developed. The first of the two novellas is Maiden who Travels the Planet. It follows Aerith's journey in the Lifestream following her death at the hands of Sephiroth, taking place concurrently with the second half of Final Fantasy VII.^[92] The second novella, On the Way to a Smile, is a 3 part story based on the events that immediately followed the end of the game, with one part narrated from Tifa's perspective, one narrated from Barret's perspective, and the other narrated from that of a boy named "Denzel", orphaned after Shinra crushed Sector 7.^[93] These short stories have been released in North America in the "Limited Edition Collector's Set" of Final Fantasy VII Advent Children as "The Novel" under the names (in order) "Barret", "Denzel", and "Tifa". Finally, Final Fantasy VII Snowboarding, released in North America in 2005, is a mobile port of the snowboarding minigame featured in the original game.^[94] The game is playable on the LG VX8000, LG VX8100, Audiovox 8940 and Samsung A890 mobile phone and contains different tracks than the original minigame.

Some speculate that the Compilation will also include an enhanced remake of the original Final Fantasy VII for the PlayStation 3. This speculation was sparked at the 2005 Electronic Entertainment Expo by the release of a Final Fantasy VII tech demo featuring the opening sequence of Final Fantasy VII recreated using the PlayStation 3's graphical capabilities.^[95][96][97] The demo was created by Yoshinori Kitase's team with help from Koji Sugimoto, the main programmer for Final Fantasy X, as well as Motomu Toriyama, and was completed in one and a half months to Kitase's surprise and satisfaction, who nevertheless noted that it does not use the PlayStation 3's full capacities and could have been of even higher quality if more time had been given.^[98]

Although Yōichi Wada explained that the presentation was intended only for technological demonstration purposes^[97]—claims echoed by Kitase in an interview in Final Fantasy VII Ultimania Ω^[95]—the June 2006 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly stated that the video was actually a "sneak peak at a next-gen revival" of Final Fantasy VII.^[99] An official statement from Square Enix later debunked this claim, reiterating that the company had not announced such a project.^[100][101] Further fueling the rumors, Kaz Hirai said at the Final Fantasy VII 10th Anniversary Gallery in Tokyo: "Congratulations on 10 fantastic years! The best is yet to come".^[102] In an interview conducted with Square-Enix's Hajime Tabata, he states that the 'Compilation of Final Fantasy VII' series has not been completed with the release of the 'Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII' game for the Sony PSP and that "the Compilation's finale will take some other form".^[103]

At the Square Enix Party event of May 2007, Suntory unveiled a drink named "Final Fantasy VII Potion", produced to celebrate Final Fantasy VII's 10th anniversary. The drink was a limited edition product.^[104] Kotaku staff members have compared its taste to Dekavita C, a Suntory citrus drink, and much better than the "Final Fantasy XII Potion".^[105]

References