Final Fantasy VII

Perhaps one of the most beloved games of all time, it’s a bit surprising that such an average game could elicit such response. The game itself has been discussed at such length and so often that discussing the game itself is a waste of time, but discussing the way in which it affected the industry is more relevant. Final Fantasy VII is a strange phenomenon, not just a holy grail to videogame designers, but for some reason an idol amongst those who consume the product. Somehow the game became untouchable for a long period, a pinnacle of phobic interactivity with adolescence.

The game is a monument to the freezing effect videogames seem to have though, their inability to move past a singular success has continued to be somewhat baffling. The endless sequels of various franchises is indicative of what players now have a strange fondness for, even if the writing is on the wall in relation to any qualitative reason to relate to the media. Thus, Final Fantasy VII is not a product of its time, but has become a titular guiding principle, one which refuses to stray from the path, assigned by a never theoretically defined idea of what works.

In a sense, the goal of videogames now is to become an object of worship, rather than of examination, one that exemplifies a certain faith in what is ultimately a product, rather than an idea or tradition. The danger here lies in the infallibility, the lack of necessity to question, and the inability, even, to understand that there is a critical distance. The game shattered barriers largely relating to how videogames treated their audience, ones which now largely expect an almost trance-like, uncritical posture towards the media being consumed.

Many of the modern videogame characters too were formed here, and the unfortunate lack of depth is disconcerting. The dimensionality of characters relates more to their role, rather than to their complexity, each an exemplar of some particular interest that needs to be fulfilled. The characters are thus unable to project an array of possibilities, interactions are expected in a certain manner, as is befitting their token role. Characters described in a sentence with videogames are common, and this has become a distinct goal of the industry, making them easy to make, but flat as pancakes, unable to carry any dimension of storytelling.

The failing of Final Fantasy VII is thus not just its influence, but also the unique industrial interest. In order to make characters, the industry has seen fit to map much of what this game has done to characters, via role assignment, via simple evils, and then applied them to virtually everything, from sequels to first-person shooters. Yet all of this keeps the industry, and Final Fantasy VII, extraordinarily average.

Recommended: No