A Defense of Final Fantasy VII in General

by Dan Wright 

I have now read countless editorials and complaints attacking everything from the plot to the difficulty to the ending. People claim that Square "missed the target" with the game, and that the game's ending "was an injustice to every Final Fantasy fan around the world." It has become so common to "FFVII-bash" that the praises for Square's latest masterpiece are being dwarfed by the nitpicking complaints over what might as well be technicalities! And the predominant question is: "Why did Square do [please enter gripe here]." I intend to answer that question based on my observations of the trends in Square's game making. The following is all in my humble opinion.

I see this situation in a different light than many others. It occurred to me, one day, to compare Square's first RPG on a Nintendo console to their first on a Sony system. At first, the similarities are all but non-existent. One is an eight-bit, sprite-based game on a cartridge with little to no sustained plot besides to "illuminate four orbs." The other, however, is a 32-bit, polygonal game on three CD-ROMs with arguably the deepest and most developed plot found in any game.

But then the similarities do appear. There is, of course, the obvious similarity: both games are Square's first attempts on their respective systems. Then, once the gameplay is observed, one sees that the gameplay in both is flawed. For example, in Final Fantasy, the difficulty was the major gripe with players. There were serious problems with a constantly fluctuating difficulty level; one section would be extremely difficult, and the next, extremely easy. I'm sure most people who played Final Fantasy remember the Marsh Cave, easily the most difficult portion of the game, after which comes a long stretch of excessively simple events. In the same way, but on the other end of the spectrum, many people claimed that Final Fantasy VII was "too easy." People claimed that the Materia system made the characters too powerful; they were right (Knights of the Round, anyone?). Finally, one sees the way that the console producer's stance on censorship affected the game. The dialogue in Final Fantasy was laughable. I don't recall Garland's exact words in the Temple of Fiends, but his threats were polite! Then we have the spectrum shift to Final Fantasy VII, where Square has inserted an Ice-T clone spouting expletives (Sh*'t!)

But why does this comparison explain the mishaps occurring in Final Fantasy VII? Well, if one looks very closely to my above arguments, one sees one common factor: the change of consoles. Why did I choose Final Fantasy to compare to the seventh installment in the series? Because Final Fantasy was the first Square RPG on the Nintendo system and Final Fantasy VII was the first Square RPG on the Sony system. Here's the point: Square encountered the inescapable problems inherent with a console change, and that, in my opinion, explains their failure to deliver the flawless masterpiece we all expected to come after Final Fantasy III.

The two major aspects that changed were the media size, and the creativity control given to Square. The capacity of the CD-ROM overshadows the N64 and even the DD! Chrono Trigger, Square's largest game, was a whopping 3 mega-bytes; one of Cloud's forays into the Mako Reactors is larger than that! One CD-ROM alone could hold all of Square's games and more! But how did this affect the gameplay, plot, difficulty? In a few words, Square probably didn't know what to do with all that space. The result was that they planned to do FMVs, which marked a new high-water mark in RPG gaming. They certainly added significantly to the game. The only problem was that soon they realized that with all these FMVs, they'd need more CD-ROMs! Then they moved on to gameplay, and they developed an amazing, deep, adult-oriented plot the likes of which Hollywood has seldom seen. But, again, they bit off more than they could chew, and thus left some holes. How does this compare to Final Fantasy? Well, it wsa their first attempt at an RPG. They hadn't figured out how to come up with good gameplay; in essence, they hadn't the experience. Which is why the game had little to no story throughout.

The other aspect to change was the publisher's stance on censorship. Nintendo was loath to allow blood of any sort in games, much less a truckload of expletives and adult subject matter. Please, can anyone see Nintendo allowing a brothel in a game? Yet that was exactly what Sony did. They gave Square complete creative control, something that Square wasn't prepared for. They were very used to being constricted by Nintendo's oppressive censorship policies. Given complete creative freedom, they were somewhat at a loss. The result is the "overkill" which seems to prey on Final Fantasy VII. I have heard countless complaints about the unfair and prejudiced portrayal of the African American in Barret. They wanted to introduce adult subject matter into their latest RPG, but they ended up bludgeoning the gamer with their hookers, transvestites, and profanity. To some extent, it was refreshing and for the better. But in other ways, Square took it to extremes. And how does this compare to Final Fantasy? Well, at the time, Square was totally new to the RPG business, and to Nintendo's censorship policy. Being totally unfamiliar with said policy, Square decided to play it safe, and so they watered down all the dialogue, made it totally inoffensive in the extreme.

And so the question comes down: What is the cause of all the purported "problems" in Final Fantasy VII? I'd say that Square, unused to making CD-ROM based games, didn't get the formula right. All they had known at Nintendo had to be thrown out the window, and they were left, naked and uncertain. Considering that Square was, in essence, a child while making Final Fantasy VII, it makes Final Fantasy VII look much more impressive, don't you think?