(Well, Aerith isn't.)
According to Kotaku's This Day in Gaming feature (and they've never steered me wrong before), today is the ten-year anniversary of the Japanese release of Final Fantasy VII.
In honor of the day, I'd like to share an anecdote about Final Fantasy VII.
My good friend Ryan is a big fan of this game. Huge. He's the one who first turned me on to it. We were in high school at the time, and one day he asked me: "Hey, Cat, do you have a PlayStation at your house?" We did have a PlayStation, Killa's, so I told him I did. He eagerly pressed the three-disc set into my hands. "Take this home and play it," he said. "Seriously. Just play it until it's over. This is the best game there's ever been."
He was right. At the time, there was just nothing like it. It was the first Japanese RPG to make it big in the United States. The graphics were revolutionary for the time. The CGI cutscenes were a whole new thing. And that part with Aerith was completely mind blowing. There have been better-looking games since, and maybe even games with tighter, better stories (I can never choose between VII and X), but I don't believe that any game since---except, perhaps, for LoZ: The Ocarina of Time---has had such a major, paradigm-shifting influence on gaming and the video game industry. Final Fantasy VII was for the 1990s what Super Mario Bros. was for the 1980s and PacMan was for the 1970s---and that is no small thing.
As for my friend Ryan, FFVII has ruined him for all other games. Whenever I talk to him about a new game, he asks me to compare it to Final Fantasy VII. All new games are judged, not on how they stack up to Final Fantasy VII, but on how much they are exactly like Final Fantasy VII. For example: I called Ryan to tell him that FFXII was out and I had gotten a copy of it. He said to me, "Cool. Is it like Final Fantasy VII?" I replied, "Well, it's a Final Fantasy game; it's in the same genre. What do you mean?" There was a pause. Finally, he asked: "Does it have materia?" I had to admit that, no, it doesn't have materia.
"Have fun with that," he said. "I think I'll just play Final Fantasy VII again."
In honor of the day, I'd like to share an anecdote about Final Fantasy VII.
My good friend Ryan is a big fan of this game. Huge. He's the one who first turned me on to it. We were in high school at the time, and one day he asked me: "Hey, Cat, do you have a PlayStation at your house?" We did have a PlayStation, Killa's, so I told him I did. He eagerly pressed the three-disc set into my hands. "Take this home and play it," he said. "Seriously. Just play it until it's over. This is the best game there's ever been."
He was right. At the time, there was just nothing like it. It was the first Japanese RPG to make it big in the United States. The graphics were revolutionary for the time. The CGI cutscenes were a whole new thing. And that part with Aerith was completely mind blowing. There have been better-looking games since, and maybe even games with tighter, better stories (I can never choose between VII and X), but I don't believe that any game since---except, perhaps, for LoZ: The Ocarina of Time---has had such a major, paradigm-shifting influence on gaming and the video game industry. Final Fantasy VII was for the 1990s what Super Mario Bros. was for the 1980s and PacMan was for the 1970s---and that is no small thing.
As for my friend Ryan, FFVII has ruined him for all other games. Whenever I talk to him about a new game, he asks me to compare it to Final Fantasy VII. All new games are judged, not on how they stack up to Final Fantasy VII, but on how much they are exactly like Final Fantasy VII. For example: I called Ryan to tell him that FFXII was out and I had gotten a copy of it. He said to me, "Cool. Is it like Final Fantasy VII?" I replied, "Well, it's a Final Fantasy game; it's in the same genre. What do you mean?" There was a pause. Finally, he asked: "Does it have materia?" I had to admit that, no, it doesn't have materia.
"Have fun with that," he said. "I think I'll just play Final Fantasy VII again."
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