How The Chaotic Development Of Final Fantasy VII Changed The Course Of The Franchise
When Final Fantasy VII launched on PlayStation in 1997, it revolutionized the RPG genre and gaming as a whole. The transition from pixel art to fully animated computer graphics was a massive enough leap ahead, but the beauty of this classic title was much more than skin deep. Final Fantasy VII features an incredible cast of characters, an outstanding battle system, and a story that evokes joy, awe, anger, and grief. Final Fantasy VII is well-established as one of the most iconic and beloved video games of all time, but for Square Enix, the legacy is somewhat more important.
For the team behind the Final Fantasy franchise, Final Fantasy VII was the entry that made the developers realize they needed to adapt to the times. «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 character designer and visual 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 way Nomura and the team describe it, the development of Final Fantasy VII sounds chaotic, sometimes in a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants way. "[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
Read more on gameinformer.com
