Hackneyed plots and paradoxical[1] titles may be what the series is famous for now, but you never forget your first.
And my first was the seventh.
The game itself was an RPG (or JRPG seeing as the genre has split so much) which meant it was not likely to sell that well outside of Japan. But, and this is a big but, it got a shedload of coverage in 96/97 in the gaming press and I anticipated it pretty hard. At a time when CDs seemed to hold enough data for anything you could even imagine, a game that spanned 3 discs must have been impossibly massive. I had heard there was 100 hours of gameplay and a friend of mine said that it was not "so much". I thought about it and said, think about playing the game for an hour a day... Three months. I guess that length now puts me off a bit, but at the time I felt that was amazing value.
The game starts off with a cinematic intro (of, at the time, mind boggling fidelity) and thrusts you into gameplay quite seamlessly as you control a 3D character over static, beautiful, 2D backdrops. And thrust, is the right word as there is little explanation of what is happening but you seem to be some kind of terrorist/freedom fighter that must follow the gang in order to pull off a raid[2] in the massive city of Midgar.
The thing that struck me about it was the scale, the ambition, the coherence and just how compelling a set of story arcs and characters had been created. Yeah, basically everything. The game itself, made up of random battles and exploration, was an acquired taste and I had heard that it was the most returned game in the UK's history but you can never be sure of those rumours and stats. But as the game moved on, eventually this living, breathing city called Midgar was not the gameworld. The game world was the world and Midgar was just a small part of it. That first moment when you leave Midgar and are on the world map was wonderfully open and promised so much. And I think it delivered, the world was full of interesting towns, little nooks and crannies. The game encouraged exploration within this world map although the random battles (as a player unused to them at all) did not and so it was a balance. Save points were also quite far apart so there was always the judgement of whether to go on or not from a save point - I usually did go on even though there could be an hour's play between saves. I was not used to much of it at all and found it all exciting to play through, from the number of characters to manage to the battle system. The battles were handled with the ATB system which was basically a turn based system with some elements that made it a little less strict with turn. To the uninitiated, me, it was turn based. And turn based battles are an acquired taste but I enjoyed learning the intricacies of the materia system.
Within the game, energy was condensed into materia which could be slotted into your weapons (and armour) to either affect the weapon's qualities or give you access to magic - sometimes both. As the materia is in your weapons, it will also gain experience giving access to better magic until it is "full" and splits into two. On top of that, some of the materia could be linked to others and multiply the effects. it was a great system to play around with and was pretty adaptable to allow different formations and could also be adapted to each of the characters. Actually, the characters were very adaptable which I thought was great but was not always well-received as this meant the characters were not so different in terms of gameplay. The best materia, or magic, available, were the "summons" whereby, effectively, a god would be called to your assistance and bring down a terrible judgement on your enemies.
Within the game, energy was condensed into materia which could be slotted into your weapons (and armour) to either affect the weapon's qualities or give you access to magic - sometimes both. As the materia is in your weapons, it will also gain experience giving access to better magic until it is "full" and splits into two. On top of that, some of the materia could be linked to others and multiply the effects. it was a great system to play around with and was pretty adaptable to allow different formations and could also be adapted to each of the characters. Actually, the characters were very adaptable which I thought was great but was not always well-received as this meant the characters were not so different in terms of gameplay. The best materia, or magic, available, were the "summons" whereby, effectively, a god would be called to your assistance and bring down a terrible judgement on your enemies.
The best of these, an almost entirely optional task to retrieve, was the Knights of the Round. Based on the legend of King Arthur and the knights of the round table, this summon brought forth 13 separate attacks from each of the knights and then finished them off with Arthur. It was truly a sight to behold although it did take ages to do and was a bit impractical to do all the time. The fact that it was then possible to combine the summon materia with other materia meant that you could repeat your actions, or attempt to steal or many other things at the same time. A great battle and tactical game system.
The art direction and music was also wonderful throughout and drove the story on brilliantly. The music, especially, had to be excellent as it was to be heard repeatedly for hours and hours as you played. I bought the CD soundtrack actually and it instantly transports you to a world of destruction and beauty. It felt like the first time that there was world with multiple characters with different attributes not just within the game engine but also in the way they acted - the characters were great including, arguably, the best villain in all of gaming in Sephiroth. I felt a connection or bond with all of the characters in some way (apart from that annoying Cat costume guy, and maybe the crooked little girl - though maybe the annoyance proves a point) and this particular game is famous for bringing emotion to the table.
It almost feels a shame to say that I have never rediscovered that sense of wonder within a game world again. As they say, you never forget your first.
Buy it. Play it.
http://uk.playstation.com/finalfantasy7/http://store.steampowered.com/agecheck/app/39140/
3 other F titles that might be interesting:
Flashback - Rotoscoped animation made this stand out after the shorter Another World.
Fantavision - Fireworks, colours and combos for a PS2 launch title.
FIFA - Footballing, and gaming, behemoth.
1. There is an interesting story to the "final" nomenclature of the series. The very first Final Fantasy was seen as the last chance for the makers, Square, to stay within the games industry and so it was either their last game or their last chance. It did not, clearly, end up being their last game. But Final Fantasy would, eventually lead to their downfall later.↩
2. Yep, you are a terrorist setting a massive explosion off in a built up area. What a different time we lived in then. There were no terrorists then, and so it was kind of acceptable to play as one without the outcry. By no terrorists, I mean except the "gentleman bombers" of the IRA, Aum Shinrikyo with Tokyo sarin attack, Basque separatists ETA, Timothy McVeigh etc etc. But they don't really count.↩
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