How FF7 Became a Masterpiece | 25th Anniversary Documentary

[Music] if you're familiar with the gaming industry you've likely heard of square or at least some of their games after its founder masafumi miyamoto held a development studio inside his father's office space in 1983. who could have guessed that such an informally designated company where people simply came and went would have fostered into the giant conglomerate we know as square enix today thanks in no small part has to go to now prominent figure hironobu sakaguchi who at first simply wanted to make an rpg square initially refused his proposals for one as they were unsure of the game's sales potential then in 1986 turn-based rpg dragon warrior released to initial poor sales the more that articles would praise the game however the more these sales would grow eventually selling over a million copies during its introductory half year showing the industry as a whole that rpgs were still in demand in light of its success square greenlit sakaguchi's rpg a project that would allow square to explore its own epic via the rpg genre this final fantasy quickly became a hit selling over a million copies as a consequence of its compelling gameplay through its class system and its approach in leveling battles and taking players through a grandiose story this release alone however wouldn't be enough for square it was time to capitalize on the momentum and create more games as a franchise final fantasy became a runaway success setting a high bar for rpgs as a whole a total of six games released between 1987 and 1994 each one achieving at least modest sales and reception with one in particular final fantasy 6 being particularly well regarded as it became the best selling game of 1994 it seemed that through experience square was attaining a stranglehold on the rpg genre as their stories graphics and innovative gameplay systems seem to improve game after game amassing high expectations however setting such high expectations would demand even greater standards between these expectations staff switching between projects and 3d capable console releases just around the corner square would struggle on deciding how best to approach their next release final fantasy vii 25 years after its release we now know that final fantasy vii garnered critical acclaim popularized console rpgs worldwide and is still a consistent top contender for best game of all time what most don't know is how the game set this gold standard or if you're new to the franchise what's made 7 a masterpiece to all kinds of players where its contemporaries failed to provide these insights and celebrate one of gaming's all-time greatest successes you don't want to miss this retrospective on final fantasy 7. [Music] actually we're talking about you know what would seven be like if it weren't in 3d cg and it was actually in like you know 1816. they've got a lot of fun talking about these things with um my original number so has already said that he wants to see a down rezzed uh final fantasy 7 alongside square's growing experience with final fantasy came larger offices more employees and an ever expanding portfolio after square went public management needed to focus more on reaching financial goals so when their games met excellent sales development for final fantasy vii became a clear next step however final fantasy 6 is success and rapidly approaching console hardware made a new problem clear the team could try to play it safe and continue developing their 2d games or risk an entirely new art style in the 3d space and develop for a new console generation with its own player base who may not even be aware of final fantasy each decision undergoing its own pros and cons square would approach development on three occasions it's uncertain what role final fantasy 6's popularity played in their first approach but it's difficult to imagine it having none as the playstation released months after six did and despite that square chose to look towards the super nintendo or the super famicom as it's known in japan to be fair it was unclear whether jrpgs would become 3d later on as this was still the early days of polygonal graphics sakaguchi who plays a heavy role in the series development was also especially fond of their distinctively 2d pixel art style as the team put forth ideas for characters and game systems sakaguchi's first premise sounds familiar a hot-blooded detective joe investigates an organization intent on blowing up maca reactors in the city where said's story takes place despite sounding similar to aspects of what ended up in the final game tatsuya nomura who also worked on the original story speculates that sakaguchi wanted to make a detective story this similar to the game's final version he and seven's director yoshinori kitase also recall it in new york city 1999 as the rainy city with its giant skyscrapers would be a notable visual concept that stuck with the team influencing the creation of midgar in the final game and becoming more visually steampunk as a result upon reflection of these plot elements many years later sakaguchi would question whether these details were truly part of seven's original plot or if others were mixing up the details with their other entries like parasite eve which actually takes place in new york city it could also be a case of coming up with an idea then shelving it until coming across a project later on an example of this that wouldn't fully make it into seven was probably the inclusion of a sorceress or witch to play a prominent role in the story which was likely expanded on through final fantasy viii's adaya at some point sakaguchi also suggested to make it a modern drama with a strong sci-fi feel despite this nebulous period numura who also designed the game's characters had already begun working on the prototype for who would become cloud he was simply one of the organization members attempting to destroy said mako reactors as for visual evidence of this early 2d final fantasy vii the 25th anniversary ultimania books contain a single concept image showing an environment with final fantasy vi characters as placeholders overall development and pre-production was slow this early on as nothing major was decided on for months sakaguchi would also participate in numerous projects disconnected from final fantasy for a while the most notable being chrono trigger it also had an impact on final fantasy vii's development as its own was found in dire straits and needed all team members to switch over to finish the game the now popular square deceptively containing a triangle in their logo revisited final fantasy 7 later on now to discover whether it would be suitable for 3d it became difficult for sakaguchi to picture what battles would look like as the step from 2d to 3d wasn't yet well established in the gaming industry he would meet a 3d graphics artist he would eventually become long time friends with kazuyuki hashimoto then i trained the people then maybe a year after that they contacted me they're asking me to join to the square this was still early enough in development that the next gen nintendo hardware had no development kits and technical specs kept changing so hashimoto suggested using powerful hardware to see what the team could do then optimize for console later on as the team was familiar with 2d this hardware would allow them to freely figure out what they could do in 3d their high-end workstations had 256 megabytes of memory for reference the playstation only had two megabytes replete with competent hardware and hashimoto finding a talented crew to head the visuals square would create a tech demo [Music] dubbed final fantasy vi the interactive cg game it had one battle and of course utilized characters from final fantasy vi described as fun to play with interesting visuals players could draw symbols on screen to cast spells or summon dragons this did end up confusing players though as they often wanted multiple tries to figure out the commands this feedback was likely important as the demo was also used to understand how battles could be done in final fantasy vii the demo received much attention at the time but due to the hardware required it became clear to square that it was impossible to achieve this with console hardware despite the hard road ahead transitioning to 3d was absolutely essential to them so they needed hardware with more memory and larger polygon counts looking back sakaguchi thinks the final fantasy 6 demo was the seed for seven as it's effectively a 3d game using cgi albeit a small one getting back to seven's development many staff at square presumed they would continue developing for nintendo's consoles as they had for years and nintendo even had a partnership with the workstation manufacturer square used for their high-end machines that said there would be compelling reasons for both square and sony to make the decisions they were about to make after the super nintendo released nintendo partnered with sony to develop a super nintendo cd rom adapter that would allow the system to play cartridges and cds sony also planned to release a hybrid console called the playstation nintendo's president of the time found a more favorable partner in phillips one of sony's rivals nintendo revealed this partnership at the same show where sony announced the hybrid console playstation while prototypes of this console were made they numbered in the low hundreds nintendo would retain control and profit while sony would refocus to develop its own console the playstation we now popularly recognize with the hybrid nicknamed the nintendo playstation back to most likely 1995 sony approached square about developing 3d games for playstation by this point square had nintendo 64 emulation kits they responded hesitantly after further discussion programmers made a benchmark to test the two platforms prototypes that ran on the playstation and nintendo 64. with a handful of people working on it they would further make cloud barrett and red 13 would also be made who would also end up in the final game ideas for them would be made in secret as they gradually added more people in comparing nintendo 64 and playstation one early test model would use a 2000 polygon behemoth and when rendered and animated on the nintendo console the frame rate went far too low for the team there would be some back and forth on 3d rendering but stark differences would emerge in favor of playstation overall optimizing code was attempted to get more polygons out of the nintendo 64 without hampering performance yet these efforts rarely bore fruit simply lacking the performance needed and achieving nothing like their final fantasy 6 demo advantages started to become apparent for sony's console when imagining a 3d final fantasy 7 on the nintendo 64 square's concepts would end up exclusively keeping in mind of the then planned disk drive add-on they wanted lengthy cutscenes and large amounts of content for the game which would be difficult to fit on cartridges that maxed out at 64 megabytes much less than the 660 megabytes that could be had on each playstation disk yet another disadvantage would be found in the financial woes that came with manufacturing games for cartridges when compared with the much cheaper playstation discs while the nintendo 64 had advantages like its faster loading cartridges saka gucci ultimately favored the playstation with disk capacity being the largest factor despite lacking experience in the gaming industry sony's hardware and developer outreach would convince square to be one of many third-party developers to start making games for playstation director and writer yoshinori kitase had always been able to visualize the game he was working on picturing what the final game would look like he thinks that no one on the team knew how to visualize final fantasy vii using 3d graphics to fix this problem naturally they would look towards other 3d games to see what was doable there was some resistance from the team at first pixel graphics designers in particular understandably felt their jobs were at risk one such designer was aforementioned tetsuya nomura who ended up in other design work and direction instead of working as a modeler in studying early 3d games oddly named sports game 4d sports boxing was one of the first polygonal games kitase had become fascinated by alone in the dark was another influence which also influenced the likes of resident evil kitase showed the game off to staff with zeal for final fantasy he thought the pre-rendered backgrounds and real-time models moving in tandem with a changing camera angle would be different and new if applied to an rpg with vast field maps his experience as a film student would also benefit the team when moving to 3d as he could apply his knowledge and experience from the film industry more effectively there in discussing story events and sequences the team decided on what could be shown in cg or 2d versus 3d they thought to blend fmv sequences with real-time fields while maintaining quality this would allow the characters to move around during playback then cut scenes would stop by cutting to a different scene instead of fading out there was still much to be done in the game's development as even sakaguchi's involvement was still infrequent but the team was starting to understand how to bring this large-scale epic to console in early 1996 square had under a year to complete the game this massive undertaking required a similarly massive workforce but ultimately allowed square to outpace their competitors in 3d development spending exorbitant amounts for final fantasy vii square would buy machines seven times the cost of sega's and where others had tens of employees square had around 150 and even more outsourced a short development cycle would ensure up-to-date graphics though it also meant staff needed to learn to program efficiently for new hardware this alongside creative choices would cause seven's development to diverge from its predecessors where final fantasy vi had many characters any of whom could be called the protagonist square knew early on that for seven cloud would be the centerpiece being 3d detailed designs were also drawn early much event scripting and story was handled by kitase though seven's narrative ideas often came from a unique exercise scenario writers would ask staff to submit character backstories then put them together into the overarching story the entire team would thoroughly discuss this confluence to create in-game events where writers freely filled in sub-events the script became locked in early into development as square was getting familiar with their new tech they needed to figure out final fantasy vii's art style responsible for his overall appearance art director yusuke naora hired a variety of designers to create an art division as he figured the importance for art would be elevated due to 3d allowing for greater levels of expression for previous entries much of the most distinguishable art was crafted by now renowned freelance artist yoshitaka amano with his ethereal designs and he played a prominent role in pixel art designs for this 3d entry amano's involvement would be abated though he still worked on some art for final fantasy vii by visualizing the already made characters in his paintings and using them as a jumping off point he would also create the game's logo drawing numerous illustrations of meteor and having the team choose which to keep they decided to use the prominently green one as it would have a connection with the game's life stream or mako energy as for much of the art and character design nomura's more angular style lent well to 3d his standards are described as extremely high concerned about granular details and spending extensive time on a single curve if needed he would contribute more in the creative side of development than previous entries becoming more involved in the story and overall design likely due to taking more of a leadership role by speaking up coming up with and clearly expressing his ideas for seven his dedication became so apparent that a character programmer describes him as being similarly untouchable to sakaguchi nomura believes that despite his change in position his role is to look at things from the player's perspective and thinks he hasn't changed much in that regard nomura found frustration in final fantasy 4's character's popularity after five and six released wondering why people would bring up older characters he made a goal for seven he would create characters to be remembered and cherished in making a hero and heroine numero would draw designs whilst thinking up the details these would end up cloud and aerith nomura first designed cloud with slicked back hair to reduce polygons then changed it to spiky similar to what we see now after cloud and aerith nomura drew barrett as he wanted an interesting character and itched to incorporate him for a long time like kate she and finally found the opportunity here wanting a four-legged character red 13 was made and a stalled character creation as the team needed to figure out how to animate him to climb ladders and ensure his tail and body wouldn't clip into objects new characters would be thought of as the team worked out ideas and they created them before the game was in serious development there's no one method nomura uses to create characters instead he attempts to make characters using varied designs with an orthodox balance he was often unreasonably demanding for the 3d designs believing it necessary to portray elements no one's portrayed prior aerith's dress as one example the team had difficulty including it due to its polygon count similarly including sephiroth's hair was arduous as well nomura believed that making elements like these move naturally would lead to improvement in skills and rendering from a story standpoint cloud and sephiroth were designed to contrast each other short blonde hair versus long silver hair aerith and sephiroth were first designed brother and sister so numura gave them similar hair designs before the sibling relationship was dropped a benefit to utilizing playstation discs for capacity would be found in creating model variations rather than needing to create a model then modify it to give the illusion of different models often required for previous games they could simply create new ones even so being a 3d game came with even more entanglements getting characters to walk on a simple 3d surface was suddenly a struggle so much so that hashimoto describes accomplishing this as an unforgettable event with everyone elated movements animations for events would now be handled by designers who normally convey what to animate to a motion specialist with more people involved this time around character movements vary in game dependence on who created them in their style battle animations however were still done with motion specialists for each character as for managing environments battles and fields would use different rendering techniques causing character proportions to become different on the fields versus battles while they wish they could have made these proportions homogeneous kitase states that it encapsulates square's desire to prioritize what they want to make over consistency environment details would be made to convey daily life and the team was challenged to put together convincing environments with otherwise mundane details one of the most notable places for these kinds of backdrops would be the game's large city midgar in its creation process narrow would initially hand over designs with the feeling that something wasn't quite right an epiphany would arrive when eating pizza with a friend on new year's as he thought to use a pizza as the design motif for midgar despite cd's advantages its largest drawback would be in slow loading via access times to address this quagmire sakaguchi made a ground rule for the team from the start if players noticed loading squares failed the team would heavily preload content and implement as many tricks as feasible to circumvent loading times the programming team would separate into groups so seven's engine would be split into modules which would entail the kernel field menu world map battle and mini-games this allowed for individual entry points into and out of each part of the engine caching data efficiently reprising his role since final fantasy iii sakaguchi would lead the battle team though stepped back into a producer role since the team was comprised of veterans they first figured to change camera angles and created the materia system originally calling them spheres thinking it sounded cool sakaguchi wanted it to resonate more with younger players and be embraced across a wide audience so material would be its final name to encourage using materia this system would enable equipping characters with various capabilities conscious of balancing this system sakaguchi emphasized non-attack power properties and to have materia affect armor differently than weapons for even greater variety and depth in final fantasy 6 characters had desperation attacks when close to death and nemura searched to build on this for seven wanting to bring character personalities out more in battle and players barely taking notice of six's near-death system he went to implement a more useful system for seven these would make up the limit break system where each character has their respective animated spectacles to showcase their personality and be useful in battle kitase had cinematic aspirations for final fantasy vii to become visually unified using a single style from beginning to end he wanted cutscenes fields battles and fmvs to seamlessly transition from one to another without large graphical gaps for 7 he avoided focusing fmvs too much on the opening ending and story highlights for previous entries there would be large differences between ordinary scenes and ones using special effects players got used to this pattern so for seven they would focus on breaking that mold by spreading their effects more evenly throughout one way he would seek to achieve this cohesive experience would be in combining fmvs with gameplay linking gameplay and cinematics to the point where players don't know where their control ends and when movies begin he thinks combines the interesting aspects of both to create an unprecedented entertainment experience making fmvs and in-game scenes smoothly transition into one another would be the most difficult challenge for the cg team to overcome to make fmvs stick out less the team did a variety of tests that would result in the opening of the game where the camera zooms out of midgar and back in to see cloud jump off the train this was considered a huge moment for the team as the playstation to achieve this performance was inherently imprecise relative to their workstations hashimoto found his fmvs being played back smoothly on a game console to be amazing even sakaguchi described seven's opening as perfection thankfully this melding of 2d and 3d worked well and would become a franchise staple for years onward [Music] [Music] has been a part of square since before final fantasy's earliest days when he first heard about utilizing cds he hoped to hire singers for vocal tracks this didn't pan out for seven though since it made the game take longer to load between scenes this technologically restrained approach worked well though he would approach differently for eight even so he faced far fewer limitations with cds being able to create larger files and using more sound simultaneously in making the music team members would show uematsu the story and character designs to familiarize him with the overall themes and ideas for the game conscious and allowing the graphical presentation to shine he wanted to ensure the music wouldn't take center stage so he approached the soundtrack like a films worrying less about melodies to define the game as he gained a good reputation from final fantasy 6's bus tracks he wanted to one up his previous work but knew that his typical approach wouldn't cut it he decided to listen to the rite of spring by russian composer igor stravinsky and thought to make a destructive possibly rock sound he would then record musical phrases that popped into his mind in the office after two weeks he accumulated many random phrases and thought of them as puzzle pieces he then lined them up in order to make sense as a track this would be a completely new approach for him which he's only done once and thinks of as a gamble that could have turned out horribly or great yuffie and vincent two optional characters in seven would be nearly cut from the game but were left in after the team vetoed the cut becoming secret characters instead the event planner in charge of yuffie's cutscenes had a strong attachment to her character he initially thought to have her appear as a random battle then escalated her character's role by having staff make numerous cutscenes with her as for vincent his and lucrezia's backstory was around from the start then it was later linked to shinra vincent's events were crammed in at the last minute final fantasy 7 would show quick progress as the team kept motivated with high energy key factors in the game's fast development some also believe that square prioritized quality as part of how sakaguchi operated rather than obsessing over costs he always asked a lot from the team and gave us tight schedules but he backed up those requests with big teams and the best hardware that was a very rare situation he was always looking at the big vision but at the same time how to make it a reality says seven's movie director progress came fast and soon the entire world would get to enjoy final fantasy vii there would be no guarantee however that it would become popular outside of japan as rpgs didn't typically sell well in the west so now the main question would be how do they effectively sell an rpg outside of japan prior to seven final fantasy was typically self-published with more than 95 revenue from japan to see if they could penetrate the western market square would close its existing sales and marketing office in washington and open one in california with two industry newcomers the plan was to pursue a fresh start and promote the game where jrpgs hadn't become widespread despite their predicament sony needed stronger exclusivity for playstation so they would make a deal with square sony would publish and co-promote final fantasy vii in north america and europe on top of that square would earn nearly as much money as if they published it themselves a very favorable deal to square sony with their marketing experience combined with square's new investments would turn into a huge marketing campaign these new investments would include sakaguchi giving the vice president of marketing in the us a mission to sell over a million copies while made more realistic by the game's grandiose scale in sony's marketing push it would still be an unprecedented feat for both sony and square sony hadn't yet sold a million copies of a game in the us and square's highest selling game in north america up to this point would be final fantasy 6 with 400 thousand still financial risk would be mitigated with these new deals into efforts and the game would likely sell around 3 million copies in japan square would announce final fantasy vii being developed for the playstation in early 1996. pressure was on for both sony and square's new us division who now needed to figure out how to show jrpgs in the west commonly selling fewer than 50 000 units as big triple a sellers square would ask sony to not mention seven as an rpg as people would think it long and repetitive with too much waiting sony's project manager in europe commonly heard players complaining about its turn-based nature being slow so their team would tell them it gets fast and more stressful later as a real-time combat game sakaguchi tells that people commonly call jrpgs one-way rpgs a reference to gameplay that doesn't allow players the feeling of controlling the game he also thinks the reason why jrpgs are so much more popular in japan has to do with anime and manga culture's prevalence as it sustains rpgs as magazines would preview in showcase 7 in its early months of development some strange information would arise egm's may issue would imply two playstation discs one mentioning final fantasy vii despite ending up with three it also claimed that exploring the game would be done in first person with enemies populating the terrain these reports may have been a result of ongoing changes in early development knowing the importance of showing the game's visuals commercials would use fmvs as a notable selling point seven would be showcased at an e3 presentation then it would have its first public playable demo on a different game square's first 32-bit offering towball number one would release in august whose success was primarily attributed to having final fantasy 7's demo on it though it would gain a cult following for final fantasy 7's packaging square would talk about removing the logo's lettering to show meteor and have players recognize the game solely from that which nomura thought to be a cool idea this didn't materialize the playstation would sell out in tokyo prior to seven's release and square would claim to have set up the largest development group in the world to quickly develop the game it was the most expensive game produced at the time with a development budget estimated at 45 million dollars worth over 80 million in 2022 after showcasing the game in stores magazines demos commercials and making as many technological feats as they could with their growing talent and hardware the only thing left would be for the game to release to see how receptive the western audience would be the impact of final fantasy vii releasing would be felt throughout the company as magazines would tell of how there aren't enough playstations to cope with demand and a variety of heavy praise would be levied towards the game more immediately the graphics stuck out both for its dedicated fmvs to enhance the plot and its cg rendered locations that said its praise wouldn't be limited to just graphics nearly all publications from or since its release would give near perfect review scores marketing teams saw significant sales soon after release on launch day lengthy cues commonly associated with major game releases were practically non-existent due to square's push to move its sales to convenience stores of which 95 percent of its copies were sold despite initial claims of high sales by april industry newspaper ctw reported sell-through figures meeting only 25 percent of expectations with target sales estimated at 4 million units square's early forecasts weren't positive this was still long before the game's western release in september uematsu states that final fantasy vii hit number three in japanese music charts for all types of music and sold over 200 000 copies while sakaguchi says he's happy with how 7 turned out he believes the team's made substantial improvements for the game's north american release surprised by six's reception he wanted seven to become more popular by making more substantial improvements to the worldwide releases rather than simply localizing it they added two more bosses towards the end of the game made the materia system more user-friendly adjusted the enemy encounter rate and further balanced combat when the north american version released it was met with far more success than previous entries selling over a million copies in under three months it would eventually cross 3 million sold in north america and 2 million in europe becoming a worldwide success there was some agreement on the game's english translation being a bit muddy but ultimately the west thought it an incredible release common praises were found in the game's graphics audio story and combat until the game's later pc port would release it was rare to find any negative criticisms though some appeared infrequently such as the plot being confusing it may have not been perfect though it was often considered one of the greatest games ever made to accompany this sentiment final fantasy 7 would be given numerous allocates including awards at game of the year japan game awards and a variety of other awards accomplishments for these would range from the best game of the year to best console release any specifics you could think of like achievements and graphics design or otherwise it probably attained it reflecting former ceo of sony's american subsidiary ken kuduragi believes square had a renewed vision for the franchise he thinks that 3d cg and the launch of final fantasy vii turned jrpg's popularity abroad kitasy described seven as a blowing wind of change that was felt inside the company with many new staff and only having to deal with 2d prior the team suddenly had new people working with new software he thinks what the team was trying to achieve was unbelievable though it may have been exactly this that was needed to push jrpgs out into the world and flourish where no other has before final fantasy vii tells a story about life being intrinsically linked with the universe from there it analyzes the topic of life itself and whether originally intending to or not it ended up a story about finding one's true identity particularly in cloud at first most aspects of his life appear to be fine at least mostly as the story progresses he finds strong enemies that appear to toy with him but more facets of his past become harder to explain by solely blaming them he remembers events in ways different from others has gaps in his own memory and even control over his own body gets put into question where others are fine then when finally attempting to find stable ground through a friend everything he thinks he knows crumbles before him only with the help of said friend does he find answers final fantasy vii is rich with intertwining stories like these where it tackles multiple themes that can appeal to the player to more effectively understand these and see where the team found success let's start from the beginning [Music] the city of midgar shown to us in scintillating cg uncommonly seen at the time houzz's eco-terrorist organization avalanche main character in mercenary cloud claiming to formerly be a part of elite special forces team soldier is hired by avalanche's leader barret barrett tells cloud that mako reactors owned by electric power company shinra will kill the planet as a result of draining its life via mako energy for the city to use cloud shows apathy towards their cause but interested in the money continues the mission before blowing up their first target cloud pauses and nebulous dialogue is shown which will recur throughout much of the game after a successful first mission avalanche hires cloud to blow up another reactor this time accompanied by his childhood friend tifa he gets separated during the mission falls into the slums and encounters a girl he had previously seen selling flowers near the previous maco reactor explosion the original english version of the game defaults her name to eris though it would be more accurately corrected to aerith in future media this was a consequence of most likely the localization team missing the fact that her name's intended to be a near anagram of the word earth and for the original japanese can represent either a s earth sound reno a member working for a spec ups division of shinra shows up and aerith makes a deal to have cloud protector they escape and eventually see tifa being taken to a brothel after gaining access to it they find that tifa was attempting to get information the team interrogates the mansion owner to find out shinra's plans to bury avalanche by breaking midgar's upper plate above sector 7 which would cause the upper city portion to crush the lower city the group attempts to stop this but arrives late and aerith is captured the upper plate falls killing most of avalanche and the people of sector seven [Music] the group finds barrett's daughter safe due to aerith making a deal with shinra then break into shinra's headquarters they eavesdrop to hear shinra planning to focus on seeking the promised land a legend believed to contain abundant mako energy regrouping with aerith alongside a creature red13 whose name will be known as nanaki later the team is captured and brought to shinra's president he wishes to use earth to find the promised land as she is the only known ancient or setra an ancient race that can supposedly find such legend the group wakes to their cells unlocked and guards dead they follow a blood trail that leads to the now dead president with a sword impaled that cloud antifa recognizes as sephiroth's someone they presumed dead the president's son rufus assumes presidency with the goal to control the world using fear then escapes the main group escapes midgar and pursues sephiroth each member with their own reason to push forward this premise alone shows us many characters glimpses of their motivations clear history between organizations and their members allows us to slowly understand the gameplay and posits a compelling mystery before us all while delivering some of the most vibrant visuals through the lively city of midgar it also serves the player a glimpse of one of its most important themes using the life stream or mako energy which is the result of exploring the idea that planets and people are intrinsically linked via energy early in this story it serves as the source of heavy conflict between the two main organizations we're aware of and remains an important plot point throughout the game when you consider these factors how many stories there already are in midgar what can be expanded and just how much could be added to the story by fleshing out many characters who met their tragic and so early it starts to become more clear how an entirely new game would be made using this introductory sequence alone through its use of visuals guiding gameplay and a proficiently crafted narrative these first few hours of midgar would captivate its worldwide audience like no other game before cloud informs the group about an incident that took place in his antiva's hometown nibelheim five years earlier remembering himself in sephiroth as soldier members cloud found sephiroth researching his past previously told his mother was genova who died during birth here he discovered that shinra believing genova in ancient had performed experiments using both genova's cells and mako energy to create a hybrid this genova project led sephiroth to believe himself the last ancient in pursuit to find genova he set nibelheim ablaze and slaughtered many citizens including cloud and tifa's mother and father respectively back to the present the group hears of a man in a black cape pass through junon they follow rufus on their ship then nearly every crew member is killed seemingly by sephiroth in genova birth attacks after defeating said monster the crew travels to barrett in nanaki's homes where they confront their respective pasts and are given information on the life stream the path of spiritual energy and source of life which flows around the planet the planet too depends on this energy and the group learns that if this energy somehow disappeared the planet would perish after speaking with the elders aerith concludes herself the only ancient left in pursuit of sephiroth where they find a temple that houses black materia the group learns that he seeks to inflict a massive wound on the planet to absorb the life stream energy that would be focused on healing the wound understanding the black materia is important to sephiroth the group briefly obtains it before sephiroth appears to manipulate cloud into handing over the materia to him cloud then attacks aereth before being knocked out and dreaming of earth going to a ruined city called the forgotten city there the party finds earth praying before seeing sephiroth where cloud begins to lose control nearly killing aerith when cloud resists sephiroth appears and kills aerith after defeating yet another piece of genova cloud puts aerith to rest in the water and vows to take back the black materia before sephiroth can use it the group finds recordings detailing info on the past including genova's true nature as the being responsible for the cetra's moribund state they also learn of the existence of the planet's guardians called weapons after catching up to what appears to yet again be sephiroth it transforms into genova death where cloud figures out they had been pursuing genova's parts this whole time under sephiroth's control cloud reclaims the black materia and hands it to a companion cloud and tifa then stumble on an illusion of the nibelheim incident where they find cloud's role in the illusion taken by a black-haired soldier member sephiroth claims that hojo created cloud to be a clone of sephiroth after the incident using genova cells and mako cloud begins to doubt his memories and sephiroth further states that genova's abilities allow changing its form voice and mannerisms based on people's memories and implies the genova cells inside cloud are changing his memories and mannerisms based on tifa's memories back outside of the illusion sephiroth manipulates cloud into giving him the black materia this time not one of genova's parts sephiroth summons a giant meteor heading towards the planet and its guardians the weapons emerge [Music] as the crater floor crumbles cloud falls into the live stream while the rest of the party escape on their airship having been knocked unconscious on the escape tifa dreams and recalls cloud acting strange after arriving in midgar he also claimed it had been five years since last they met despite being longer she awakes to see meteor loom overhead where we're brought to light of shinra having captured tifa and barret about to be executed one of the planet's guardians sapphire weapon attacks junon and as shinra kills it with their mako cannon barrett tifa and most of the crew escape they eventually find the severely maka poisoned cloud who washed ashore by the live stream and tifa decides to look after him the rest of the group spies on shinra to uncover plans to destroy meteor by ramming highly dense materia known as huge materia into it with their technology after successfully intercepting shinra and obtaining most huge material ultimate weapon crashes into the town where cloud and tifa reside causing them to fall into the livestream below tifa now in cloud subconscious finds his memories in disarray she assures cloud that hojo couldn't have created him as she remembers him from her childhood though he's not the person he thought himself to be the two discover cloud's attempts at getting into soldier to become strong hoping tifa would take notice but was only ever a lower rank infantryman ashamed he covered his face and during the nibelheim incident he and the black-haired soldier zack fought to stop sephiroth though cloud heroically managed to throw sephiroth into the livestream below it was only a temporary setback for sephiroth cloud and zach were heavily wounded and hojo took them as test subjects while shinra rebuilt the town to cover up the incident after hojo attempts to turn them into sephiroth copies zack and an unstable cloud escape to midgar's outskirts where zac perishes from shinra guards cloud mixed zack's life with his own and created a false persona of himself as a consequence of these experiences given that the game was heavily worked on for little more than a year it's unbelievable that the writers were able to create such a believable mix of eclectic characters few of whom have i covered in any real detail in these stories cloud discovers the identity of genova through sephiroth's control only for that very information to turn against him as he struggles to realize who he is literally becoming catatonic soon after nomura in kitase found going back to cloud's mental realm afterwards as incredibly striking and it's easy to see why the entire story captures an incredible breadth of behaviors commonly associated with one struggling to find their identity thankfully in this instance being grounded back to the planet by a friend as mysteries surrounding cloud and zack are scattered throughout some events can be explained well enough to blame on the main enemies of the game as more of an understanding of individuals and events is gained however the more that one's identity becomes an essential component to on earth ultimately leading to despair if left unchecked though maybe what makes final fantasy 7's narrative so great aren't simple assumed parallels like these but rather that many stories contained can be interpreted as such if desired or if not simply becomes an entertaining and compelling narrative throughout in different ways than previous games after putting cloud's memories back together he and tifa flowed ashore and cloud returns to lead the party the group hunts down another huge materia and launched sid's rocket to destroy meteor ultimately failing they uncover that when aerith went to the forgotten city she used a materia the white materia to summon the counter to meteor holy while successful sephiroth is holding back holy's power diamond weapon rises from the sea charging towards midgar as shin removed the mako cannon to midgar they fire upon the weapon destroying it reaching past it and destroying sephiroth's barrier clouds crew and infiltrates midyard to fight hojo who wishes to relaunch the cannon to give sephiroth more power who is revealed to be hojo's son after defeating hojo and readying as best they can the group and subsequently cloud defeat sephiroth the life stream emerges to pull back meteor and holy destroys it 500 years later nanaki looks over a now ruined midgard [Music] kitase states that sakaguchi had a vision of the force behind the universe he developed this philosophy of everything sharing the same basic energy by drawing from other cultures which sold of invisible energy being released after a planet's disappearance he thinks the same energy drives people so no matter where it comes from it will concentrate to give life again the team wanted to show civilization and environmental coexistence and we can see this play out cloud and his companions first appear and take down macro reactors and in the end we see them getting help from the source of that very same energy going forward into a future of coexistence with the planet kitase believes that living in harmony with the environment is a goal shared by us all final fantasy vii story is often looked at as one of the best not only in the series but for games as a whole whether it be the clear themes of identity or the life stream its narrative and characters or even its never-before-seen use of technology clearly much thought and care was put into many facets of its story that would impact players for decades yet as much thought and care was put into the game there is still one theme in two characters to further unearth [Music] [Music] when creating final fantasy vii's thematic elements sakaguchi stated he had been thinking of life as a theme dwelling in many things since his mother's passing and attempted to analyze life meticulously another scenario writer says that final fantasy vii was a story of life cycling through the planet and thus needed someone to partake in the cycle he says where the broader story is concerned maybe one of the team was destined to lose their life from the start though at first no one knew who that would be while thinking up character and story details nomura made aerith early on at some point he called kitase suggesting to kill aerith and introduce tifa though magazines only ran with a portion of this story at the time nomura would later clarify that the original conversation between he and kitase was lengthy they couldn't really kill cloud since he was the main character they figured barrett would be too obvious to kill off as in previous games it was common for the brave barrett-like character to sacrifice themselves that's when they decided to choose aerith nomura thinks that death should be sudden and unexpected her death seemed the most natural and realistic amusingly enough on top of aerith's death nomura states if he hadn't stopped kitase everyone would have been killed but the three final player chosen characters nomura thinks that would have diluted the meaning in aerith's death he wanted players to feel intense emotions but was frustrated with perennial cliches and games and movies of protagonists sacrificing themselves for the one they love as a motif seen through both aerith and sephiroth characters with fewer scenes need to leave a large impact kitase avoided dramatic preparations as in reality death comes without warning and people are often left dazed at the gravity of said loss he wanted to depict this sense of loss and bring that realism into the game upon reflection he thinks they were successful with her character as many fans wouldn't accept her death if they had nomura believes she wouldn't have been an effective character when asking uematsu whether killing her was the right decision he casually replied sure in his composing of the song that played during her death uematsu wasn't thinking of her death so much as he thought about her as a happy character innocent but tragic though he realized it was an important track he didn't think it was one to make players cry he might have made something different if he had more designs to make the player cry instead he went with a sad but beautiful track though recognizes maybe it's due to this difference from the norm that it worked so well when he played the game he was surprised just how early on she died and figures this sudden nature was likely one of the reasons why players remember it so much [Music] despite her prominent role tifa wasn't made early on in the story as there were originally just three playable characters in the entire game cloud barrett and aerith after tifa was thought of the notion of an uninterested hero as well as two heroines would be appealing to kitasy at the time he thought of that as new and the two heroines designs would contrast greatly while aerith was designed to transfer students with few yet powerful scenes tifa was intended to be the childhood friend who's been with the hero for years and is heavily present in the story where aerith had a long dress to appear ladylike with green eyes tifa was given more free form short attire with darker eyes their combat styles would greatly differ as well with aerith being more of a healing magic user antifa a hand-to-hand fighter putting contrast aside multiple aspects of tifa would intriguingly reference dolphins her hair was stylized resembling a dolphin's tail at the tip she has a limit break named dolphin blow and there would be more references to dolphins in future media while it's unknown why these references are made one possibility could be found in symbolism dolphins are said to mentor those out of touch with nature's rhythms and come to people who need to connect with their inner child again which sounds very familiar to her role in game there are also connections that could be had regarding communication and nomura does end up using an animal for cloud for symbolism later on as well though with tifa this is simply speculation similarly to aerith's role tifa as a character would be hugely impactful for the game's story and would also be a prominent figure in the gaming industry for decades aerith would primarily be praised for her impact on the game's narrative as a whole and be looked at as an excellent example of tragedy written well tifa's praise often centered around her personality she's super smart her capabilities at saving cloud funny and cool hot being a physically competent female fighter and yes of course because she's hot nice either way both arith and tifa serve as incredibly well-regarded characters and are still seen as exemplary characters in the gaming industry even today [Music] before final fantasy vii's release square would look into the possibility of releasing it on pc to reach western players who don't own playstations they discussed this with tomb raider publisher idos for this prospect seeing it as an experiment that could lead to extra sales after square's u.s vice president of the time more formally visited idos's offices to look at their operation and aware of their own inexperience with pc porting square believed they had found the right publisher on the other hand idos was initially on the fence about porting the game as they wondered if people would really play a jrpg on pc they also question if its timing was appropriate with the pc ports needing to release around a year after the game's original launch despite these concerns and square wanting a minimum 1.8 million dollar advance idos knew securing pc publishing rights could reward them greatly so they agreed to the deal and moved on despite their hesitation itis producers at the time were huge fans and supported the idea of porting final fantasy 7 to pc with experience importing tomb raider they thought they had their act together in some respects though were also described as making it up as they went and others though they wanted to make a good product and had greater flexibility that often comes with being a small company only about 15 to 20 employees at the time difficult decisions needed to be made regarding what hardware the game would need to run on they also had a huge amount of work needed to be done likely more than anticipated as approximately 80 of the game's code needed to be rewritten just so it would run on pc this was likely partly as a result of the aforementioned engine being split into modules despite its technical challenges development on the port would progress smoothly and when finally released sales were high according to itos's president at the time square into idos's philosophy on building games was similar as they were both focused on delivering high quality character-driven games apparently their dealings went so well from their experiences they nearly merged if they had maybe we would have square idos today instead of square enix final fantasy vii would re-release worldwide in various formats and is now available on modern platforms including the playstation 4 nintendo switch xbox one as well as android and ios for years after the original releases final fantasy vii would have a dedicated following far more prominently than other games in the series after square enix would unveil a playstation 3 tech demo recreating the game's opening in 2005 rumors of a remake of the game would come into question while likely not considered at the time based on interviews in the following years the idea of a remake started to become a myth within the community speculation and hopes of such an undertaking would circulate but the idea seemed unrealistic at last the promise myth would become reality at e3 2015. a trailer depicts the recognizable meteor without text like nomura wanted for the original followed by remake kitase wanted to expand a past game so final fantasy vii became the clear choice to him as it had many possibilities with its characters more so than other games this project would be put on hold for a while but when final fantasy as a franchise was reaching its 25th anniversary he revisited the idea of the remake to commemorate such a milestone the series 25th anniversary would arrive in 2012 but at some point nomura was brought in to discuss the details of the remake and got the project going while much experienced final fantasy staff was working on other projects they decided to do a major shift in staff positions to accommodate the project upon examining final fantasy 7's expansive plot two options presented themselves either the team would need to simplify and remove parts for a single digestible experience or start off with one game covering the plot in more detail and add on more later the latter would be chosen and the first game would cover midgar establishing the battle system alongside foundational tech to be used in the future since the game would only cover up to the escape of midgar it would need to be far more detailed this came with its own quandary however they needed new story scenarios but also wanted to ensure the characters wouldn't stray too far from how fans think of them they recognized that modern technology could help them in this regard as detailed expressions and voice acting would contribute to depicting more nuanced thoughts and emotions for each character that couldn't be done in the original as the technical scale became larger however depicting the city realistically and faithfully to the original would become a challenge the original's cg model lacked a sense of scale as it was more limited but for the remake simply expanding the city would disrupt the ratio between the plate's diameter and the center shinra building in the end kitase thinks they were able to create a good balance for how people envisioned midgar and the bird's eye view scene in game this first entry in the remake project would release in 2020 to very positive reception winning numerous awards and receiving major praise for its gameplay and most of its story there would be some common criticisms stating there being too many side missions and convoluted new plot points but overall is lauded as both a complete game in its own right and reimagining of the original's medgar arc [Music] in final fantasy's early days every game had a new cast of characters story and different systems this is because of sakaguchi's dislike for typical sequels he wanted to give it their all for each game and finish with nothing left on the checklist maybe ironically something that square enix could learn from today striving to release games complete wishing them to surpass films in both visual and narrative impacts and reflecting on life and death would be key to sakaguchi producing the critically acclaimed final fantasy vii it would be a masterpiece compared to its peers by writing captivating characters finally appealing to the west utilizing unique plot elements with a multitude of rich themes iterating on its already adequate combat and all while delivering never-before-seen 3d visuals in a world that opens up to the player final fantasy 7 success can't be measured solely through sales despite the original selling over 13 million copies alone the sheer breadth of media that seven would influence both within and out of square is too astounding to cover with brevity more immediately after final fantasy vii success sakaguchi's ideas pertaining to its life stream would manifest in square's first movie final fantasy the spirits within the movie would ultimately be financially damaging to the company becoming a flop and square would undergo struggles this in combination with other factors years later sakaguchi would leave square and the development process there would be far slower as a result after the company's finances were stabilized following final fantasy 10 and kingdom hearts's successes square and enix would merge on april 1st 2003 to forum square enix nomura would spearhead the kingdom hearts franchise as one of square's highest profile employees kitase would primarily produce kingdom hearts and final fantasy related titles and sakaguchi would form development studio mist walker and work on other rpgs for final fantasy vii specific media 7's success would lead to a collection of games films and stories typically referred to as the compilation of final fantasy vii as part of this sub-series the remake project currently has two more games in the works with the next installment slated for a late 2023 release as for content outside of seven's compilation final fantasy would have its latest main entry 15 released in 2016 and 16 is slated for a mid-2023 release final fantasy vii managed to enrich the players experiences not by excelling in one particular way or another but instead by being a jack of all trades it allured most not interested in jrpgs and completely enraptured those who could appreciate the depth that interactive storytelling has to offer yet all good things must come to an end now we can only hope that its live stream will give life in the future by continuing to serve as inspiration even if little comes from final fantasy vii anymore the game industry is lucky to have such a captivating game in its repository much of the rpg genre's enamoring characters engaging combat splendorous visuals and compelling narratives are in no small part thanks to final fantasy vii success in those same domains 25 years ago if you've enjoyed this you may appreciate my other documentaries if you'd like to support my work patreon contributions will encourage me to make more and i would personally love to thank you for donating in future outros thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: VG Docs

Views: 35,723

Keywords: ff7, ff7 Documentary, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Documentary, VG Docs, VGDocs, Video Game Documentary, Video Game Doc, VG Documentary, Final Fantasy Series, Documentary, Analysis, Anniversary, Gameplay, 25 years later, gaming, retrospective, final fantasy 7, Final Fantasy VII Documentary | 25th Anniversary Retrospective, 25th anniversary, square enix, squaresoft, How FF7 Became a Masterpiece | 25th Anniversary Documentary, ff7 remake, FFVII, story explained, story, explained, ff7r

Id: ycRc3TXBlJ8

Length: 63min 28sec (3808 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 07 2022