A Report on Square's Betrayal and FF7

by Mike Sheldon

Many of you remember when you first played Final Fantasy 2 and 3. There were intriguing characters, a nice central plot with little sub-plots woven in, and lots of stuff to explore. Many people eagerly awaited the next Final Fantasy masterpiece from Square after finishing FF3. However, Square decided to take the road of the corporate sell-out and abandon Nintendo to work for the graphics-orientened Playstation. I do not know how many people besides me were hurt by this, but I was shocked. But, still being the RPG fan, I bought a PSX and waited for FF7. I was sorely disappointed. The game was horrible. Instead of an empire, there was the ShinRa Corporation. But, this corporation does nothing except work for its won goals, to keep getting more and more money and to put President Shinra on top of the world. The previous Empire wanted to control the world directly, a globally unified Empire. They seek to use magical powers which could destroy the world to do so. Which do you think poses more of a threat? Instead of Kefka, we get a no-brained Sephiroth. Kefka was a general working for Gestahl. He was the first to be infused with magitek powers. This is what caused him to go slightly bonkers. However, he still had some saneness left in him. Celes's stab knocked all sense out of him. He couldn't believe he was that weak. He needed power, and he hated everyone. However, Sephiroth is insane because his mom is JENOVA. Hmm...The ShinRa Corporation reminds me of Square.

Character development. I don't need to remind you of this as it was seen in FF2 and 3. However, lets look at 7. Vincent. What is with him? All we get is he loved this person, and he used to be a Turk. Before some experiment (new idea, folks) changed him. Tifa gets almost nothing as well, except that she knows Cloud and is possibly in love with him. The only big development is with Cloud and Aeris, but Aeris gets killed. So that ends that. I guess Aeris was symbolic of the good RPGs Square used to make...

Square seemed to think all people wanted was graphics and more graphics. Wrong. People, as well as Square, seem to claim that PSX is a better console for RPGs. Wrong. With the 64, you can build huge worlds. Imagine the two worlds of FF3, only enlarged x2. And with the new Expansion Pak, you'd get graphics a lot better than those pixelly characters that run around in FF7. And then we can add a better than half-wit plot. Oh, how I long for the olden days of RPGs, where the plot ruled the land and character development was common...