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Final Fantasy leaves Nintendo and goes 3D

Final Fantasy VII: The Power of Sony

Final Fantasy VI had come and gone, and it was time for the staff to once again look ahead to the future of the video games industry. This wouldn’t be a simple transition like the move from the Famicom to Super Famicom however; 3D polygonal graphics had moved beyond an expensive novelty and was now a reality for game developers. This would change everything, but before Final Fantasy could move into the third dimension the team at Square would need to get a grasp on this amazing new technology.

Thus began the prototyping for what would become known as the SIGGRAPH Demo. This gameplay demonstration featured the first polygonal graphics designed within Square, and used the familiar characters of Locke, Terra, and Shadow from Final Fantasy VI, modeled fully in 3D. The characters retained a cartoony, “super-deformed” (SD) style, and certainly looked like a 3D translation of the Final Fantasy VI character sprites. The demo was created on Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) Onyx workstations. Nintendo had gone to SGI to help develop the graphics engine for the Nintendo 64 (still called the Ultra 64 at that time), which led to wild speculation that the next Final Fantasy game was coming to Nintendo’s new console powerhouse.

This rumor mill was led by Diehard GameFan magazine, which ran screen shots of the SGI demo in the October 1995 issue. Along with the impressive screens came hyperbolic writings by Nick Rox, who stated that the images were believed to be "actual screen shots of a game currently in development for Nintendo's Ultra 64." The magazine article even went so far as to say that the game would be called Final Fantasy VII and would release for the system in December of 1996. Fans and other magazines went wild over the story, and when Nintendo Power ran the screens with different information than the GameFan piece, more credibility was given to Final Fantasy VII being an Ultra 64 exclusive.

The reality, of course, was far different.

Square—and most importantly Hironobu Sakaguchi—was extremely interested in the ability to tell a story through CG full motion video (FMV), something that would be very difficult and expensive to produce on the Nintendo cartridges.

“As a result of using a lot of motion data + CG effects and in still images, it turned out to be a mega capacity game, and therefore we had to choose CD-ROM as our media,” Sakaguchi said in a 1997 interview. “I have always emphasized visual and sound effects because rather than making my games equivalent to films, I want my games to surpass films. That is my goal.”

With Sony throwing their hat into the console gaming ring, Square saw the upcoming PlayStation as a system that had the capability to handle the type of ambitious graphics and animation that the team had in mind for Final Fantasy VII. So for the first time since the series began in 1987, Final Fantasy VII would not be appearing on a Nintendo platform. In fact, Sony systems would become the lead platform for the series all the way up to Final Fantasy XIII in 2010. Loyal fans were angry and felt that Square had “betrayed” Nintendo, especially with the confusion that the game began development for the Ultra 64. This was not the case, of course, and the team at Square went into full production on the game in late 1995. 

With a rough outline of the story provided by producer Sakaguchi and the director’s seat occupied by Yoshinori Kitase, Final Fantasy VII was in familiar hands. Nobuo Uematsu once again crafted the music for the game, which would go on to fill four audio CDs when the soundtrack was released, and the track “One Winged Angel” would take on a life of its own. However, series mainstay Yoshitaka Amano did not provide the character designs this time. Even though he did plenty of promotional art and again supplied the title logo for the game, designs came from Tetsuya Nomura. This was Nomura’s first time doing complete character designs for a game, and he also had input on the story.

Long gone were the days of a team of 14 cranking out a Final Fantasy game in less than a year. The staff working on Final Fantasy VII was over 100 strong, and the game had a budget of $45 million dollars—the largest budget for a video game to date. All of these programmers, designers, and artists toiled in the trenches to produce the pre-rendered town and dungeon backdrops, the polygonal characters for the overworld and battle screens, and over 40 minutes of detailed CG animation. Some of this animation integrated almost seamlessly with the pre-rendered backgrounds. This not only disguised the loading screens for pivotal moments but also added to the cinematic quality of the game. Final Fantasy VII would end up filling three CD-ROMS on the PlayStation, the largest game on the platform up to that point.

Final Fantasy VII was released in Japan at the end of January 1997. The game was an instant hit, garnering a 38 from Famitsu magazine—the highest score for the series to date. It sold over two million copies in its first three days on store shelves in Japan. The 3D era had arrived, and Japanese gamers were ready and willing to accept it.

Sony was hoping that American gamers were equally ready. Sony Computer Entertainment America published the game in the U.S. and backed it up with a massive $100 million dollar marketing campaign, double what the game cost to create originally. The marketing blitz focused solely on the CG cutscenes and story elements, likening the game to a movie. It was a bold move that worked extremely well; the game sold almost a million units in America between its September 1997 release and the end of the year. Many of these avid players had never heard of Final Fantasy before, so when Sony decided to keep the game’s original numbering, the new fans didn’t realize that the series had seemingly jumped from III to VII in three years. Instead, they simply saw an impressive game and didn’t stop to ask about the six titles that came before it.

Another important decision made by SCEA was the English translation. In the past, many names, locations, and spells were changed, either to save on space or to satisfy the conservative content needs of Nintendo. Not so with the PlayStation; for the first time in America, the currency of the game was gil instead of gold, the spell 'Holy' was kept intact, and most of the character names stayed the same. The notable exception was Aeris, who was called Aerith in the Japanese version. This would be corrected in later games where she appeared. Certain spells retained some ties with the Ted Woolsey translations; the game still had Bolt 1, 2, and 3 instead of Thunder, Thundara, and Thundaga, for example. This was also the first game in the series to feature expletives—usually uttered by the gun arm-wielding Barrett.

Final Fantasy VII was a graphical powerhouse, sporting detailed environments, large and expressive character models, and lengthy spell and summoning animations. All of this power came at the expense of the gameplay however; for the first time the party was restricted to three members due to the limitation of the amount of polygons that could be displayed on screen at once. Other elements were streamlined as well—characters could only equip one type of weapon, a single piece of armor, and one accessory.

The game retained its classic menu-driven ATB combat system with a few enhancements. While the characters were blank slates when it came to having individual roles in battle or unique abilities, everyone had the ability to equip their gear with Materia. These mystical orbs could teach new abilities, spells, and summons to the person holding them. Summon spells took a front seat this time, and were responsible for some of the most impressive battle moments in the game. Adding to this new element of cinematic gameplay was the inclusion of Limit Breaks. These super powered attacks became available when a character had taken enough damage and could turn the tide of battle. Each character could learn multiple Limit Breaks but only one could be equipped at a time.

The cast of characters was tiny compared to the previous two games to make it to the West, as well. Six main party members could be found by following the story, with the bonus characters of Yuffie and Vincent easily missed by less thorough players. The character of Aeris would be lost to gamers in the course of the story, which meant that it was possible to reach the end battle with a paltry five people in tow.

In the end, this streamlined approach to Final Fantasy helped to catapult the series—and Square—to superstar status. The game was easily approachable by new players, and people who had played the games on Nintendo and Super Nintendo were excited to see the game in shiny 3D. Final Fantasy VII ushered in a new era of success for the franchise. The series was no longer the equivalent of an indie film; for better or worse, Final Fantasy had gone Hollywood, and nothing would be the same.