A Rebuttal to Final Fantasy VII's Grandeur

by Mike Duran

Original Editorial: Final Fantasy VII's Grandeur

His argument boils down to one basic, and very logically flawed, idea: that because Final Fantasy 7 did better than Final Fantasy 6 in the market, then that means it was the better game. In terms of philosophy and reasoning, this is the fallacy of "ad populum", which basically means that it is illogical to say something is right or good just because many people think it is. But to explain it better, there are many aspects to take into consideration.

First of all, I am in no way denying that Final Fantasy 7 is a great game, it is among my favorites of all time. It is just that this is a bad argument to base your opinion on. First of all, while Final Fantasy 6 did not do that well here, it did extremely well in Japan, so from the start the argument that it is better because of sales really only applies on this side of the Pacific. Japan is the main audience, so shouldn't you be looking at the sales over there if you really consider sales that important? But sales mean nothing. Games like Mortal Kombat sold tons; does that mean that Mortal Kombat was a better game than Final Fantasy 6, just because it sold better? Or does it mean that a ton of hyperactive pre-teens wanted the cheap thrill of seeing guts and blood?

You don't seem to realize how bad the rpg industry was. Most people wouldn't even look twice if they heard about a new rpg. A new rpg, no matter how good it was, never really had a chance. The breakthrough did not magically happen with Final Fantasy 7. Squaresoft had been working for years, building up their reputation, slowly but surely winning more fans with each new title they released, until their fan base got large enough with the release of Chrono Trigger so that these same fans were able to build up the hype for the next major Squaresoft game to new levels. It was Square continually turning out quality rpgs for many years that eventually built up enough supporters to make Final Fantasy 7 such a huge success in sales.

I agree fully that Final Fantasy 7 was worthy of its hype. But the other Final Fantasy games were worthy of the same hype, but the problem was that the hype was not there, because people didn't give the games even the slightest chance. People are not going to magically know a game exists and that it is good. I am sure everyone has a favorite title that most gamers, if told that particular games name, would simply give you a weird look. Does that make it less of a game? Or does it just mean that it got overlooked in a sea of games, flooded by big names and more popular genres?

The video game industry would be quite a sad place if every game that was outsold by Twisted Metal 3 was worse than it...