BGE S1: Final Fantasy VII & X (Reviews)

During the 16-Bit era of console gaming I was firmly embedded in the Sega camp (with occasional forays into Nintendo territory whenever going around a friend's house who had "chosen the wrong side"), so when the Sega Saturn was released at the birth of 32-Bit I picked one up, and shunned Sony's PlayStation nonsense despite its popularity. I managed to keep this up for quite a while too until one day when I purchased a copy of CVG magazine and feasted my eyes upon screenshots of Final Fantasy VII for the first time. I was blown away by how awesome this game looked and sounded, especially when the accompanying article had made such a fuss about it. When the game finally hit UK shores and was released in shops nationwide... I picked up a Sony PlayStation and felt dirty. I'd betrayed my beloved Sega. But by the time I got to the end of Final Fantasy VII's three discs and over forty hours later, I didn't care anymore.

For myself and many others, Final Fantasy VII was our first real experience of a huge sprawling JRPG, sure there had been many similar games before, especially on the Super Nintendo, but this game was the breakthrough event. My previously short childlike attention span was completely destroyed by this game, I can't remember ever being so absorbed within a video game story before or putting in so many hours to leveling up and perfecting my characters for their final battle. The presentation of Final Fantasy VII was simply groundbreaking, not only regarding it's highly detailed pre-rendered environments, but also the CGI cutscenes lavishly produced in real cinematic quality (for the time). Previous entries in the series had used two-dimensional battle scenes, often with very little animation aside from some special effects such as fire, thunder, etc. Final Fantasy VII has fully three-dimensional and dynamic battle scenes, with highly detailed character models and some awesome special effects, which was only magnified during the epic-scale boss fights and magical "summons" that characters could call upon. As I'm writing this blog post I'm listening to orchestral versions of the game's soundtrack, which was also just amazing, and still is! Many tracks such as 'Aerith's Theme' and 'One Winged Angel' are classics, still loved and performed live all these years later.

Now that I've gushed about how this game blew me (any everyone else at the time) away with it's production values and technical merit, lets get on to the real reason why this is one of the best video games of all time and it's not a reason you often hear in the world of gaming: the story. The story told in Final Fantasy VII is still one of the best ever written for a video game, and was unique for the way that it told a grand tale of heroes saving the world while also fitting in themes of environmentalism, genetic engineering, post-industrialisation, and many other adult content that just wasn't done in this medium at the time. The characters, both your playable characters as well as NPCs and antagonists, were so well developed in terms of their backstory and psychology that it really made you invest in their personal journey. Also, this was the first video game that ever reduced me to tears. I don't feel an ounce of shame in typing that, as anyone who played Final Fantasy VII will understand. Before the first disc, out of three, is even complete you will have had your heart strings tugged on and then torn from you, and I'm a sucker for tragedy.

Final Fantasy VII starts off at a good pace, and slowly introduces you to it's core characters and gets the plot underway before throwing you into some fairly lengthy and difficult fights. After what seems like a decent amount of playing time by itself you are eventually expunged from the opening city of Midgar and given free reign to explore the world. Not only do you have the sprawling narrative to tend to but there are also lots of side quests, activities and hidden easter eggs to find that the volume of content is through the roof; people have been known to put in around one hundred hours just breeding 'Chocobo' (giant flightless birds).

I popped in my PlayStation discs into my PS3 a couple of years ago and had another blast on Final Fantasy VII. While the battle system doesn't hold up compared to modern entries in the series (after Final Fantasy XIII's hectic fast-paced affair the original PlayStation games feel like they're in slow motion!) and the graphics have obviously aged an awful lot, the story and characters remain. I was still gripped and enthralled, because despite the aging of the medium, some stories are timeless. I was not to feel this strongly about a video game story again (personally VIII and IX weren't anywhere near as good) until much later when I picked up a PS2 for a similarly named game, for a familiar reason...

When Final Fantasy X was released, I'd been out of the video gaming loop for a while and it was yet again another release in this series that sucked me right back in; largely for the same reasons as before. I picked up a PS2 console largely just for this game, as I couldn't resist after seeing screenshots and reading the glowing reviews. What I didn't expect was another complete classic in the making, and another unforgettable experience that I'll always remember. Final Fantasy X is even more special to me because I played it while attending university and will always cherish that escape when stress was getting to me; the world and story completely hooked me and I spent many hours absorbed in their splendour.

Again, it's easy to espouse the technical merits of this game, especially in the context of it's release. The graphics are a massive step up from those of the previous console generation: lost are the pre-rendered backgrounds, instead three-dimensional environments allowed you to move through them and the camera to follow. The battle scenes were still loaded separate from this of course, but they were now even more dynamic and action packed, the special effects even more explosive, and the bosses truly monstrous. My personal favourite being the summonable boss 'Anima', which I had a statue of in my student house. The characters were now ultra-high detail and completely voice acted, and the musical score was a fully orchestrated affair replete with vocal tracks and pop-songs to boot. Animated CGI cutscenes were now so lavish and well produced that they literally put Hollywood to shame (something they realised and tried to address when they gave the game creators money to make 'Spirits Within' - which unfortunately sucked in every area except the visuals).

I will always have a fond space in my heart for the gameplay of Final Fantasy X, especially the battle system, which to this day remains unique within the series. Rather than the filling of time bars to dictate when certain characters could take their actions, this installment had a turn-based system similar to a board/card game. The layer of deep strategy that this added, as you could play with the sequence by casting certain spells or using abilities, completely absorbed me. Some of the boss fights in particular were very lengthy as a result of this, and the sense of achievement when you finally realised the sequence of events needed to emerge victorious with your team alive was outstanding. However, and similar to Final Fantasy VII, the real beauty of this game, despite the overwhelming levels of polish in all areas (the music is one of my favourite video game scores of all time!), was again the story.

The tale told in Final Fantasy X is once again almost unrivaled in video games, both in terms of the main narrative and (again) in relation to the themes and ideas that it explores; this time there is lots of lamenting over the devastating effects of war, something close to the Japanese psyche and often explored in anime and movies from that country. Some truly memorable characters emerge from this game too, and again they are so well realised that its hard not to completely invest yourself in them - despite some occasional slip-ups in the quality of voice acting; or perhaps because of it, after all this is before the series started to take itself a bit too seriously. The relationship between the two protagonists Tidus and Yuna is one of my favourites, and the tragedy of their story touched me very deeply, especially sitting in my room late at light, lights off completely transfixed on those final closing hours.

About a year ago, they announced that a special HD version of Final Fantasy X was coming out for PS3. At the time of this blog post, it still hasn't emerged, but if/when it does, I will be picking up and playing this most classic of tales once again. I'm very much looking forward to it, and will rejoice to live these characters stories all over again. Final Fantasy X is fondly remembered as a highlight of the series, so much so that it is one of the rare cases where a genuine sequel was created in X-2, and along with Final Fantasy VII these are some of the best examples of video game narratives ever created.