216-526: Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII is an action role-playing video game developed by Square Enix and originally released for the FOMA mobile service on September 24, 2004. It was later released for SoftBank Mobile and EZweb in 2007. Before Crisis is a prequel to the 1997 video game Final Fantasy VII and forms part of the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII , a metaseries expanding on and continuing
432-404: A 2D game for Nintendo 's Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Super NES). After creating an early 2D prototype of it, the team postponed development to help finish Chrono Trigger . Once Chrono Trigger was completed, the team resumed discussions for Final Fantasy VII in 1995. The team discussed continuing the 2D strategy, which would have been the safe and immediate path just prior to
648-420: A fixed-width font and having to insert kanji through language input keys to add special characters (for example, vowels with diacritics ) to keep the code working. Consequently, the text was still read as Japanese by the word processor; the computer's spellcheck could not be used, and mistakes had to be caught manually. The code used obscure kanji to refer to main character's names, which made unintuitive for
864-446: A "role-playing shooter" due to the heavy RPG elements within the game, such as quest-based gameplay and also its character traits and leveling system. Half-Minute Hero (2009) is an RPG shooter featuring self-referential humour and a 30-second time limit for each level and boss encounter. Other action role-playing games with shooter elements include the 2010 titles Alpha Protocol by Obsidian Entertainment and The 3rd Birthday ,
1080-593: A 1991 issue of Computer Gaming World criticized several computer role-playing games for using "arcade" or "Nintendo-style" action combat, including Ys , Sorcerian, Times of Lore, and Prophecy . In 1991, Square released Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden , also known as Final Fantasy Adventure or Mystic Quest in the West, for the Game Boy . Like Crystalis , the action in Seiken Densetsu bore
1296-576: A 9.5 out of 10 and their "Game of the Month" award, lauding its rendered backgrounds, use of FMV, battles, and especially the story line, though they expressed disappointment that the ending didn't resolve all of the loose ends. They also considered the North American localization a dramatic improvement over the original Japanese version. GamePro gave it a perfect 5.0 out of 5 in all four categories (graphics, sound, control, and fun factor), calling
1512-594: A Western company to assist with releasing the PC version. Eidos Interactive , whose release of Tomb Raider had turned them into a publishing giant, agreed to market and publish the port. The port was announced in December 1997, along with Eidos' exclusivity deal for North America and Europe at the time, though the port was rumored to happen as early as December 1996, prior to the PlayStation version's release. To help
1728-531: A bit to get going, as in every entry in the series, moments of high melodrama are blended with scenes of sheer poetry and vision". Edge noted that Final Fantasy VII had come close to being an interactive movie in playable form, praising its combination of a complex story that went against Western graphic adventures trends and "excellently orchestrated chip music". RPGamer praised the game's soundtrack, both in variety and sheer volume, stating that "Uematsu has done his work exceptionally well" and saying that it
1944-507: A botched Shinra operation, and resigns from the Turks. With Elfé continuing to weaken, Fuhito takes over the command of AVALANCHE. It is revealed that a Materia owned by Elfé is Zirconiade, an ancient and powerful summoned monster that Fuhito intends to use to destroy humanity and stop them harming the planet. However, the Materia is broken, and is slowly draining Elfé's life energy. To save her,
2160-448: A carefree flower merchant and one of the last surviving Cetra; Red XIII , an intelligent feline from a tribe that protects the planet; Cait Sith , a fortune-telling robotic cat controlled by repentant Shinra staff member Reeve ; and Cid Highwind , a pilot whose dream of being the first human in outer space was unrealized. The group can also recruit Yuffie Kisaragi , a young ninja and skilled Materia thief; and Vincent Valentine ,
2376-623: A deliberate nod to the Shinra Company and that he envisioned the events of Final Fantasy X-2 as a prequel to those in VII . The advances in technology used to create the FMV sequences and computer graphics for Final Fantasy VII allowed Sakaguchi to begin production on the first Final Fantasy film, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within . The game introduced a particular aesthetic to the series—fantasy suffused with modern-to-advanced technology—which
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#17327766696792592-599: A false persona based around Zack's stories and his own fantasies. Cloud accepts his past and reunites with the party, who learn that Aerith's prayer to the Planet had been successful: the Planet had attempted to summon Holy to prevent Meteor's impact, but Sephiroth prevented it from having any effect. Shinra fails to destroy Meteor, but manages to defeat a Weapon and puncture the Northern Crater, seemingly killing Rufus and several other personnel. After killing Hojo, who
2808-600: A former Turk and victim of Shinra's experiments. The game's main antagonists are Rufus Shinra , the son of President Shinra and the later leader of the Shinra Corporation; Sephiroth , a former SOLDIER who reappears several years after being presumed dead; and Jenova, a hostile extraterrestrial life-form who the Cetra imprisoned 2,000 years ago and who Sephiroth was created from. A key character in Cloud's backstory
3024-470: A gameplay and multiplayer experience unique to the platform. It is the first major project directed by Hajime Tabata, who created the initial concept at the request of Tetsuya Nomura for a game that had the Turks as protagonists. The music was composed by Takeharu Ishimoto , originally a sound arranger at Square Enix. It was highly successful upon release, registering 200,000 users and being accessed over one million times. Western critics have generally praised
3240-552: A god. Throughout their journey, Cloud bonds with his party members, including Aerith Gainsborough , who holds the secret to saving their world. Development began in 1994, originally for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System . After delays and technical difficulties from experimenting with several platforms, most notably the Nintendo 64 , Square moved production to the PlayStation, largely due to
3456-650: A heart monitor to represent the player's Attack Power and Armor Class statistics. Another controversial aspect of the game involved taking drugs (instead of potions) that increase/decrease attributes, but with side effects such as heart-rate increase/decrease or death. Origin Systems , the developer of the Ultima series, also released an action RPG in 1988, titled Times of Lore , which was inspired by various NES titles, particularly The Legend of Zelda . Times of Lore inspired several later titles by Origin Systems, such as
3672-640: A lot of popularity on the 2010s with titles such as Warframe (2013), Destiny (2014) and Destiny 2 (2017), The Division (2016) and The Division 2 (2019). Final Fantasy VII Final Fantasy VII is a 1997 role-playing video game developed by Square for the PlayStation . The seventh main installment in the Final Fantasy series, it was released in Japan by Square and internationally by Sony Computer Entertainment , becoming
3888-640: A lower polygon count than field areas, which made creating distinctive features more difficult. The summon sequences benefited strongly from the switch to the cinematic style, as the team had struggled to portray their scale using 2D graphics. In his role as producer, Sakaguchi placed much of his effort into developing the battle system. He proposed the Materia system as a way to provide more character customization than previous Final Fantasy games: battles no longer revolved around characters with innate skills and roles in battle, as Materia could be reconfigured between battles. Artist Tetsuya Nomura also contributed to
4104-538: A mission system and role-playing game mechanics, as well as MMORPGs with real-time combat systems. Allgame listed the following games released prior to 1984 as action RPGs: Temple of Apshai (1979) and its sequel Gateway to Apshai (1983), Beneath the Pyramids for the Apple II (1980), Bokosuka Wars (1983), and Sword of Fargoal (1983). Jeremy Parish of USgamer claimed that Adventure (1980)
4320-979: A more dialogue-heavy experience akin to the Baldurs Gate games and even older series like Falcom's Dragon Slayer/Xanadu series had its outing Xanadu Next with similar Diablo influences. The influences also come full circle when the first Diablo game was inspired by rogue-likes Umoria and Angband and in more recent years many games in the rogue-like genre are inspired by more classic dungeon crawler ARPGs that Diablo helped spawn. In this sub genre there are such recent titles as Path of Exile (2013), Grim Dawn (2016), Zenonia S: Rifts In Time (2015), Book of Demons (2018), Shadows: Awakening (2018), Snack World: The Dungeon Crawl Gold (2017), Titan Quest: Anniversary Edition (2016) and its expansions Titan Quest: Ragnarök (2017) and Titan Quest: Atlantis (2019), Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem (2020) and Minecraft Dungeons (2020). The prominence of Diablo 2 in
4536-458: A more realistic presentation. The combined development and marketing budget amounted to approximately US$ 80 million. Final Fantasy VII received widespread commercial and critical success. It remains widely regarded as a landmark title and one of the greatest and most influential video games ever made . The title won numerous Game of the Year awards and was acknowledged for boosting the sales of
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#17327766696794752-483: A more traditional RPG-esque system, including experience points and levels with action game elements. Unlike its predecessor, Zelda II more closely fits the definition of an action RPG. Another Metroidvania -style action RPG released that year was System Sacom 's Sharp X1 computer game Euphory , which was possibly the only Metroidvania -style multiplayer action RPG produced, allowing two-player cooperative gameplay. The fifth Dragon Slayer title, Sorcerian ,
4968-408: A motion specialist for such animations, the designers taught themselves motion work, resulting in each character's movements differing depending on their creators—some designers liked exaggerated movements, while others went for subtlety. Much of the time was spent on each character's day-to-day, routine animations. Motion specialists were brought in for the game's battle animations. The first characters
5184-505: A port. Having never released a title for PC, Square decided to treat the port as a sales experiment. The port was handled by a team of 15 to 20 people, mostly from Costa Mesa but with help from Tokyo. Square did not begin the port until the console version was finished. The team needed to rewrite an estimated 80% of the game's code, due to the need to unify what had been a custom build for a console written by multiple staff members. Consequently, programmers faced problems such as having to unify
5400-574: A rational and analytical manner. Square eventually used the New York setting in Parasite Eve (1998). While the planned concept was dropped, Final Fantasy VII still marked a drastic shift in setting from previous entries, dropping the Medieval fantasy elements in favor of a world that was "ambiguously futuristic". When Kitase was put in charge of Final Fantasy VII , he and Nomura reworked
5616-454: A relative amount of creative freedom, including creating an early, more violent incarnation of rebel group AVALANCHE. Although Before Crisis is the second title created for the series, it was the first to be released because Advent Children was delayed during post-production. Before Crisis was the first original video game developed by Square Enix exclusively for mobile phones, originally released on NTT DoCoMo 's FOMA mobile devices, and
5832-457: A scientist who acts as the planner for the group; and Shears, AVALANCHE's second-in-command. Multiple characters from Final Fantasy VII make appearances either as cameos or supporting characters, such as protagonists Cloud Strife , Tifa Lockhart , Aerith Gainsborough and supporting character Zack Fair , as well as antagonists Rufus Shinra , son of the company president, and Sephiroth , a SOLDIER who would go rogue. Before Crisis opens with
6048-593: A scientist working for AVALANCHE, is able to corrupt Rayleigh's data when the Turks disobey orders and save Rayleigh instead of protecting the information. Using the SOLDIER data, Fuhito develops an elite unit known as the Ravens, using them to capture two SOLDIERs, Essai and Sebastian. The Turks succeed in rescuing the pair, and are then sent to destroy AVALANCHE, accompanied by Zack. Essai and Sebastian, however, are captured once again, and turned into Ravens. Even though Zack
6264-629: A section of the final battle of the game. The track has been called Uematsu's "most recognizable contribution" to the music of the Final Fantasy series, which Uematsu agrees with. Inspired by The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky to make a more "classical" track, and by rock and roll music from the late 1960s and early 1970s to make an orchestral track with a "destructive impact", he spent two weeks composing short unconnected musical phrases, and then arranged them together into "One-Winged Angel", an approach he had never used before. Music from
6480-429: A separate sheet of paper". Something that could not be carried over from earlier titles was the chibi sprite art, as that would not fit with the new graphical direction. Naora, in his role as an assistant character designer and art director, helped adjust each character's appearance so the actions they performed were believable. When designing Cloud and Sephiroth, Nomura was influenced by his view of their rivalry mirroring
6696-400: A shock of spiky, bright blond hair. Vincent's occupation changed from researcher to detective to chemist, and finally to a former Turk with a tragic past. Sakaguchi was responsible for writing the initial plot, which was quite different from the final version. In this draft for the planned SNES version, the game's setting was envisioned as New York City in 1999. Similar to the final story,
Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII - Misplaced Pages Continue
6912-422: A significant weakness in the game, and IGN regarded the ability to use only three characters at a time as "the game's only shortcoming". Reviewers gave similar praise to the PC version but criticized its various technical faults. Computer Games Magazine said that no other recent game had the same "tendency to fail to work in any capacity on multiple [computers]". Computer Gaming World complained that
7128-408: A small group managed to seal away Jenova in a tomb, which Shinra later unearthed. At Nibelheim, Jenova's cells were used in experiments which led to the creation of Sephiroth. Five years before the game's events, Sephiroth and Cloud visited Nibelheim, where Sephiroth learned of his origins and was driven insane as a result. He murdered the townspeople, and then vanished after Cloud confronted him. At
7344-401: A special gauge is charged by taking enemy attacks. After being attacked, characters can be afflicted by one or more abnormal " statuses ", such as poison or paralysis. These statuses and their adverse effects can be removed by special items or abilities or by resting at an inn. Once all enemies are defeated, the battle ends, and the player is rewarded with money, items, and experience points . If
7560-580: A strong resemblance to that of Legend of Zelda , but added more RPG elements. It was one of the first action RPGs to allow players to kill townspeople, though later Mana games removed this feature. Arcus Odyssey by Wolf Team (now Namco Tales Studio ) was an action RPG that featured an isometric perspective and co-operative multiplayer gameplay. In 1993, the second Seiken Densetsu game, Secret of Mana , received considerable acclaim, for its innovative pausable real-time action battle system , and its innovative cooperative multiplayer gameplay, where
7776-647: A then-new subsidiary of Square that specialized in computer graphics and FMVs creation. Visual Works had created the initial movie concept for a 3D game project. The FMVs were created by an international team, covering both Japan and North America and involving talent from the gaming and film industry; Western contributors included artists and staff who had worked on the Star Wars film series, Jurassic Park , Terminator 2: Judgment Day , and True Lies . The team tried to create additional optional CGI content which would bring optional characters Vincent and Yuffie into
7992-459: A world referred to in-game as the "Planet" and retroactively named "Gaia". The planet's lifeforce, called the Lifestream, is a flow of spiritual energy that gives life to everything on the Planet; its processed form is known as "Mako". On a societal and technological level, the game has been defined as an industrial or post-industrial science fiction setting. During Final Fantasy VII ,
8208-432: Is AVALANCHE , a rebel group who rightly believe that Shinra's energy extraction is slowly killing the planet. The playable characters and main protagonists are the Turks, a group of covert operatives working for Shinra. The playable characters in-game are eleven new Turks: ten of them are designated by their weapon or fighting style and their gender, while the eleventh is known as Legend (Male). Their name can be selected by
8424-609: Is Zack Fair , a member of SOLDIER and Aerith's first love. AVALANCHE destroys a Shinra Mako reactor in Midgar, but an attack on another reactor goes wrong and Cloud falls into the city's slums. There, he meets Aerith and protects her from Shinra. Meanwhile, Shinra finds AVALANCHE's base of operations and intentionally collapses part of the upper city level in retaliation for the Mako reactor being destroyed, killing many AVALANCHE members and innocent bystanders as collateral damage . Aerith
8640-509: Is a failed clone of Sephiroth. Sephiroth summons Meteor and seals the Crater as Cloud falls into the Lifestream and Rufus captures the party. After escaping Shinra, the party discovers Cloud at an island hospital in a catatonic state from Mako poisoning, and Tifa decides to stay as his caretaker. When a planetary defense force called Weapon attacks the island, the two fall into the Lifestream, where Tifa helps Cloud reconstruct his memories. Cloud
8856-567: Is a subgenre of video games that combines core elements from both the action game and role-playing genre. Action role-playing games emphasize real-time combat where the player has direct control over the characters as opposed to turn or menu -based combat while still having a focus on character's stats in order to determine relative strength and abilities. These games often use action game combat systems similar to hack and slash or shooter games . The term "action role-playing game" may also describe action-adventure games , which include
Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII - Misplaced Pages Continue
9072-427: Is able to bring them back to their senses, he is unable to save them. Meanwhile, President Shinra becomes suspicious of the Turks' activities, believing that someone within the organization is leaking sensitive information. He concludes that it must be Veld, and removes him from command, instead placing the company's security leader Heidegger in charge. In his first operation however, Heidegger nearly destroys Junon, and
9288-476: Is activated if the player is defeated during "Episode Mode", at which point they have the option to restart and lose points, or allow themselves to be imprisoned and wait for other players to rescue them. The player can be rescued while their phone is powered down. Additions were made after the initial release. In 2006, a fighting arena dubbed "Battle Square" was added. In the "Battle Square", players can either fight other players or AI-controlled enemy units. Victory
9504-467: Is also captured since Shinra believes that as a Cetra, she can potentially reveal the "Promised Land", which they believe is overflowing with Lifestream energy they can exploit. Cloud, Barret, and Tifa rescue Aerith, and during their escape from Midgar, discover that Sephiroth murdered President Shinra despite being presumed dead five years earlier. The party pursues Sephiroth across the Planet, with now-President Rufus on their trail; they are soon joined by
9720-414: Is also given a rank, based upon how long they have been playing the game. The higher their rank, the better the bonuses the player gets. The game uses an ad hoc online multiplayer feature that enables various actions between players, including trading Materia via email. Players can summon a friend to cast magic by filling the "Materia aid" meter. Up to three players can team up at any one time. "Rescue Mode"
9936-544: Is considered the first example of an immersive sim , a genre that combines elements from other genres to create a game with strong player agency and emergent gameplay, and has influenced many games since its release. The engine was re-used and enhanced for Ultima Underworld ' s 1993 sequel, Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds . Looking Glass Studios planned to create a third Ultima Underworld , but Origin rejected their pitches. After Electronic Arts (EA) rejected Arkane Studios ' pitch for Ultima Underworld III ,
10152-571: Is credited as having the largest impact of the Final Fantasy series, and with allowing console role-playing games to gain mass-market appeal outside of Japan. Aerith's death in the game has often been referred to as one of the most significant moments from any video game. In addition, Final Fantasy VII is also noted for its use of the unreliable narrator literary concept, drawing comparisons to films such as Fight Club (1999), The Sixth Sense (1999), American Psycho (2000) and Memento (2000). Patrick Holleman and Jeremy Parish argue that
10368-451: Is defeated. The damage or healing dealt by either side is quantified on screen. Characters have several statistics that determine their effectiveness in battle; for example, hit points determine how much damage they can take, and magic determines how much damage they can inflict with spells. Each character on the screen has a time gauge; when a character's gauge is full, the player can input a command for them to perform. The commands change as
10584-520: Is determined by which side defeated the other and damage taken during combat. In "Battle Tournament" mode, players can choose to use a handicap: the handicap is determined randomly by a materia slot. Two extra difficulty settings were also added, with players able to switch between these and the normal difficulty in the game menu. "Easy Mode" was released in 2006 and allows the player to auto-evade incoming attacks and reduce damage taken, while "Hard Mode", released in 2007 and meant for advanced users, increases
10800-422: Is endangering the Planet and its people. The events of Before Crisis frequently overlap with those of Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII . The exact setting is shortly after the end of a war between Shinra and the people of Wutai. With Wutai defeated, and the people of the world now dependent on Shinra's energy, the company becomes the dominant economic, military, and political power in the world. Rising against them
11016-415: Is revealed to be Sephiroth's biological father, the party descends to the Planet's core through the opening in the Northern Crater and defeats both Jenova and Sephiroth. The party escapes and Holy is summoned once again, destroying Meteor with help from the Lifestream. Five hundred years later, Red XIII is seen with two cubs looking out over the ruins of Midgar, which are now covered in greenery, showing that
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#173277666967911232-483: Is similar to earlier Final Fantasy titles and Japanese role-playing games . The game features three modes of play: the world map, the field, and the battle screen. At its grandest scale, players explore the world of Final Fantasy VII on a 3D world map. The world map contains representations of areas for the player to enter, including towns, environments, and ruins. Natural barriers—such as mountains, deserts, and bodies of water—block access by foot to some areas; as
11448-860: The Princess Crown series, including Odin Sphere and Muramasa: The Demon Blade . Princess Crown had a more cartoon-like visual appeal. It still had quality visuals due to the George Kamitani style. LandStalker's 1997 spiritual successor Alundra is considered "one of the finest examples of action/RPG gaming", combining platforming elements and challenging puzzles with an innovative storyline revolving around entering people's dreams and dealing with mature themes. Ultima Underworld ' s influence has been found in BioShock (2007), and that game's designer, Ken Levine , has stated that "all
11664-609: The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences ' inaugural Interactive Achievement Awards , Final Fantasy VII won in the categories of " Console Adventure Game of the Year " and " Console Role-Playing Game of the Year "; it also received nominations for " Interactive Title of the Year ", "Console Game of the Year", " Outstanding Achievement in Art/Graphics ", and " Outstanding Achievement in Interactive Design ". In
11880-616: The Dragon's Crown Artworks foreword: "The motif within Dragon's Crown is all the fantasy works that has affected me until now: the PC RPG Wizardry that I first came into contact with as a student; Ian Livingstone 's gamebooks; games like Tower of Druaga , Golden Axe and The King of Dragons ." He also cites his early 20s work on Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom as "truly something that I had aspired for". Dragon's Crown
12096-520: The Final Fantasy 25th Anniversary Ultimate Box Japanese package on December 18, 2012. While its success in Japan had been taken for granted by Square executives, North America and Europe were another matter, as up to that time the Japanese role-playing genre was still a niche market in Western territories. Sony, due to the PlayStation's struggles against Nintendo and Sega's home consoles, lobbied for
12312-511: The Final Fantasy VII game scaled back to 2D, with some of the side quests removed. The game's popularity and open-ended nature also led director Kitase and scenario writer Nojima to establish a plot-related connection between Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy X-2 . The character Shinra from X-2 proposes the concept of extracting the life energy from within the planet Spira . Nojima has stated that Shinra and his proposal are
12528-790: The MMO vehicular combat game Auto Assault (2006) by NetDevil and NCsoft . Other action RPGs featured both hack and slash and shooting elements, with the use of both guns (or in some cases, bow and arrow or aerial combat ) and melee weapons, including Cavia 's flight-based Drakengard series (2003 to 2005), and Level-5 's Rogue Galaxy (2005). Other RPS games include the Mass Effect series (2007 onwards), Fallout 3 and subsequent Fallout titles (2008 onwards), White Gold: War in Paradise (2008), and Borderlands (2009). Borderlands developer Gearbox Software has dubbed it as
12744-549: The Origins Awards , it won in the category "Best Roleplaying Computer Game of 1997". Final Fantasy VII was awarded Game of the Year by magazines including Game Informer , GamePro , and Hyper . It was also awarded the "Readers' Choice All Systems Game of the Year", "Readers' Choice PlayStation Game of the Year" and "Readers' Choice Role-Playing Game of the Year" by Electronic Gaming Monthly ( EGM ), which gave it Editors' Choice Awards for "Role-Playing Game of
12960-525: The Tokyo Game Show in 2006, the game was released for two additional Japanese mobile carriers. It was respectively released for SoftBank Mobile and EZweb on January 30 and April 5, 2007. New logos were created for each release. In 2010, Tabata voiced an interest in fully remaking Before Crisis for the Nintendo 3DS , revamping the narrative delivery and incorporating the ability for a substantial number of players to enter missions. This suggestion
13176-485: The console's audio capabilities but found that it resulted in the game having much longer loading times for each area. Uematsu then decided that the higher-quality audio was not worth the trade-off with performance, and opted instead to use MIDI -like sounds produced by the console's internal sound sequencer , similar to how his soundtracks for the previous games in the series on the Super NES were implemented. While
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#173277666967913392-447: The first installment of its Ys series in 1987. While not very popular in the West, the long-running Ys series has performed strongly in the Japanese market, with many sequels, remakes and ports in the decades that followed its release. Besides Falcom's own Dragon Slayer series, Ys was also influenced by Hydlide , from which it borrowed certain mechanics such as health-regeneration. The Faery Tale Adventure offered one of
13608-432: The hit points and mana points of characters who rest at them and cure abnormalities contracted during battles. At random intervals on the world map and in field mode, and at specific moments in the story, the game will enter the battle screen, which places the player characters on one side and the enemies on the other. It employs an "Active Time Battle" (ATB) system, in which the characters exchange moves until one side
13824-414: The 1990 games Bad Blood (another action RPG based on the same engine) and Ultima VI: The False Prophet , based on the same interface. Also in 1989, the enhanced remake Ys I & II was one of the first video games to use CD-ROM , which was utilized to provide enhanced graphics, animated cut scenes, a Red Book CD soundtrack, and voice acting. Its English localization was also one of
14040-412: The 1996 Tokyo Game Show , dubbed Square's Preview Extra: Final Fantasy VII & Siggraph '95 Works . The disc also included the early test footage Square created using characters from Final Fantasy VI . The initial release date was at some point in 1996, but to properly realize their vision, Square postponed the release date almost a full year. Final Fantasy VII was released on January 31, 1997. It
14256-498: The CD-ROM had a slower access speed, delaying some actions during the game, so the team needed to overcome this issue. Certain tricks were used to conceal load times, such as offering animations to keep players from getting bored. When it was decided to use 3D graphics, there was a discussion among the staff whether to use sprite-based characters on 3D backgrounds or fully rendered polygonal models. While sprites proved more popular with
14472-451: The Cetra, a near-extinct human tribe which maintains a strong connection to the Planet and the Lifestream. The main protagonist is Cloud Strife , an aloof mercenary who claims to be a former 1st Class SOLDIER. Early on, he works with two members of AVALANCHE: Barret Wallace , its brazen but fatherly leader; and Tifa Lockhart , a shy yet nurturing martial artist and his childhood friend. During their journey, they meet Aerith Gainsborough ,
14688-471: The Japanese language is very different from English", making it difficult for the translation to read like native English without distorting the meaning. Michael Basket was the sole translator for the project, though he received the help of native Japanese speakers from the Tokyo office. The localization was taxing for the team due to their inexperience, lack of professional editors, and poor communication between
14904-458: The North American and Japanese offices. A result of this disconnect was the original localization of Aerith's name—which was intended as a conflation of "air" and "earth"—as "Aeris" due to a lack of communication between localization staff and the QA team. The team also faced several technical issues due to programming practices which took little account of subsequent localization, such as dealing with
15120-480: The Northern Crater, the party learns that the "Sephiroths" they have encountered are Jenova clones who the insane Shinra scientist Hojo created. Cloud confronts the real Sephiroth as he is killing his clones to reunite Jenova's cells, but is again manipulated into giving him the Black Materia. Sephiroth then taunts Cloud by showing another SOLDIER in his place in his memories of Nibelheim, suggesting that Cloud
15336-421: The PC port, Square attempted to fix translation and grammar mistakes for the North American and European versions but did not have the time and budget to retranslate all the text. According to Honeywood, the success of Final Fantasy VII in the West encouraged Square to focus more on localization quality; on future games, Square hired additional translators and editors, while also streamlining communication between
15552-949: The PC version and adjusted for mobile devices by D4 Enterprise , was released on August 19, 2015, with an auto-save feature. The PC version was released for PlayStation 4 on December 5, 2015. DotEmu developed the PS4 version. The game was also released for Android on July 7, 2016, for the PlayStation Classic on December 3, 2018, and for the Nintendo Switch and Xbox One worldwide on March 26, 2019. Within three days of its release in Japan, Final Fantasy VII sold over two million copies. This popularity inspired thousands of retailers in North America to break street dates in September to meet public demand for
15768-543: The PC-8801 computer in September 1984, it abandoned the command-based battles of earlier role-playing games in favor of real-time hack-and-slash combat that required direct input from the player, alongside puzzle-solving elements. In contrast to earlier turn-based roguelikes , Dragon Slayer was a dungeon-crawl role-playing game using real-time, action-oriented combat, combined with traditional role-playing mechanics. Dragon Slayer's overhead action role-playing formula
15984-466: The Planet for help, Sephiroth attempts to force Cloud to kill her; after this fails, he kills her himself before fleeing, leaving the White Materia behind. The party then learns of Jenova, a hostile alien lifeform who landed on the Planet two thousand years prior to the game's events. Upon arrival on the Planet, Jenova began infecting the Cetra with a virus, and they were nearly wiped out. However,
16200-517: The PlayStation and PC versions had sold over 11 million units worldwide. Steam Spy estimated the game to have sold over 1.2 million downloads on Steam as of April 2018, with a later Steam leak estimating it had 1.14 million players on the platform as of July 2018. As of June 2020, the game has sold more than 13.3 million units worldwide. As of September 2023, the original version of the game has sold over 14.4 million units worldwide. The game received widespread acclaim from critics upon release. It
16416-519: The PlayStation and popularizing Japanese role-playing games worldwide. Critics praised its graphics, gameplay, music, and story, although some criticism was directed towards the original English localization . Its success has led to enhanced ports on various platforms, a multimedia subseries called the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII , and a high definition remake trilogy currently comprising Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020), and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (2024). The gameplay of Final Fantasy VII
16632-499: The President reinstates Veld. In his first mission back in command, Veld plans to defeat AVALANCHE. An assault is launched at a Mako Reactor, during which Rufus Shinra is revealed to be the traitor supporting AVALANCHE. He is captured by the Turks and placed under house arrest. At the same time, Shears defects to the Turks in an effort to save the gravely ill Elfé. Veld discovers that Elfé is his daughter Felicia, whom he thought dead in
16848-633: The Shinra Electric Power Company, a world-dominating megacorporation headquartered in the city of Midgar, is draining the Planet's Lifestream for energy, weakening the Planet and threatening its existence and all life. Significant factions within the game include AVALANCHE , an eco-terrorist group seeking Shinra's downfall so the Planet can recover; the Turks , a covert branch of Shinra's security forces; SOLDIER, an elite Shinra fighting force created by enhancing humans with Mako; and
17064-514: The Super NES only had eight sound channels to work with, the PlayStation had twenty-four. Eight were reserved for sound effects, leaving sixteen available for the music. Uematsu's approach to composing the game's music was to treat it like a film soundtrack and compose music that reflected the mood of the scenes, rather than trying to make strong melodies to "define the game", as he felt that approach would come across too strong when placed alongside
17280-429: The Turks protagonists, and AVALANCHE antagonists. Cara Lee Haslam of RPGamer previewed the game at E3 2006 and was impressed with the graphics for a cell phone game, but was critical to its animation. GameSpot 's Bethany Massimilla also previewed the game at E3, calling it "perfectly digestible in delivery", with its use of episodic storytelling that comes in "small bursts in between action periods". She also wrote that
17496-568: The Year" and "Best Graphics" (plus a runner-up slot for "Game of the Year"), and also gave it awards for "Hottest Video Game Babe" (for Tifa Lockhart), "Most Hype for a Game", "Best Ending", and "Best Print Ad". Since 1997, it has been selected by many game magazines as one of the top video games of all time, listed as 91st in EGM ' s 2001 "100 Best Games of All Time", and as fourth in Retro Gamer ' s "Top 100 Games" in 2004. In 2018, it
17712-534: The added difficulty of ensuring that the inferiority of the in-game graphics in comparison to the FMV sequences was not too obvious. Kitase has described the process of making the in-game environments as detailed as possible to be "a daunting task". The musical score of Final Fantasy VII was composed, arranged, and produced by Nobuo Uematsu , who had served as the sole composer for the six previous Final Fantasy games. Originally, Uematsu had planned to use CD quality music with vocal performances to take advantage of
17928-571: The advantages of the CD-ROM format. Veteran Final Fantasy staff returned, including series creator and producer Hironobu Sakaguchi , director Yoshinori Kitase , and composer Nobuo Uematsu . The title was the first in the series to use full motion video and 3D computer graphics , featuring 3D character models superimposed over 2D pre-rendered backgrounds. Although the gameplay remained mostly unchanged from previous entries, Final Fantasy VII introduced more widespread science fiction elements and
18144-496: The album had sold nearly 150,000 copies by January 2010. A single-disc album of selected tracks from the original soundtrack, along with three arranged pieces, titled Final Fantasy VII Reunion Tracks , was also released by DigiCube in 1997, reaching #20 on the Japan Oricon charts. A third album, Piano Collections Final Fantasy VII , was released by DigiCube in 2003, and contains one disc of piano arrangements of tracks from
18360-517: The amount of data while preserving the desired effects. This was aided with reluctant help from Sony, who had hoped to keep Square's direct involvement limited to a standard API package, but they eventually relented and allowed the team direct access to the hardware specifications. Final Fantasy VII features two types of cutscenes: real-time cutscenes featuring polygon models on pre-rendered backgrounds, and FMV cutscenes. The game's computer-generated imagery (CGI) FMVs were produced by Visual Works ,
18576-408: The bargain for their survival. The original Turks find new lives for themselves in hiding, and are later seen helping in the evacuation of Midgar during the events of Final Fantasy VII . Before Crisis was created as part of the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII , a multimedia series based in and on the world and characters of Final Fantasy VII . While the film Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
18792-418: The camera and network capacity. The camera function used to generate Materia was based on a simple image recognition that specifies the Materia generated based on the picture's general color. One of the challenges during development was to keep the framerate smooth during moments of high action, especially as no two mobiles would have identical components. In addition to these problems were issues with integrating
19008-535: The camera to some degree. As such, these are often grouped with other "isometric RPGs". The popularity of the Diablo series spawned such franchises like Divinity , Torchlight , Dungeon Siege and Sacred . Commonly, these games used a fixed-camera isometric view of the game world, a necessity of the limitations of 2D graphics of early computers; The Diablo series spawned many terms like being referred to as "dungeon crawler" "slasher RPG" "hack and slasher",
19224-593: The campaign included numerous articles in both gaming and general interest magazines, advertisements in comics from publishers such as DC Comics and Marvel Comics , a special collaboration with Pepsi , media events, sample discs, and merchandise. According to estimations by Takechi, the total worldwide marketing budget came to US$ 40 million; $ 10 million had been spent in Japan, $ 10 million in Europe, and $ 20 million in North America. Unlike its predecessors, Final Fantasy VII did not have its numeral adjusted to account for
19440-456: The characters, setting the standard for first-person computer RPGs for several years. It inspired many other developers to make real-time dungeon crawlers, such as Eye of the Beholder and Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos . Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss , released in 1992, has been cited as the first RPG to feature first-person action in a 3D environment. Ultima Underworld
19656-414: The company as a music arranger, he was one of many staff who participated in a competition set up by the game developers to find a composer for Before Crisis . His task was to create a piece of music that was related to the world of Final Fantasy VII , but still distinctive. It was one of Ishimoto's first jobs as the main composer for a title. The music of Before Crisis was commercially released along with
19872-407: The damage dealt by enemy attacks. Before Crisis is set six years prior to the events of Final Fantasy VII . The world on which Before Crisis is set, called "the Planet" in-game and "Gaia" by game staff, is divided into multiple regions run by a megacorporation called the Shinra Electric Power Company. Shinra uses the energy of the Planet, known as the Lifestream, to power the world, and as such
20088-468: The development and localization teams. Some months prior to the game's North American release, Sony publicly stated that it was considering cutting the scene at the Honey Bee Inn due to the salacious content, prompting numerous online petitions and letters of protest from RPG fans. Square subsequently stated that it would never allow Sony to localize the game in any way. In addition to translating
20304-456: The end of 2006, The Best , the bargain reissue of the game, had sold over 158,000 copies in Japan. By May 2010, it had sold over 10 million copies worldwide, making it the most popular title in the series in terms of units sold. The original PC version surpassed Eidos' expectations: while initially forecast to sell 100,000 units, it quickly exceeded sales of one million units, garnering royalties of over $ 2 million for Square. By August 2015,
20520-481: The ending. As this would have further increased the number of discs the game needed, the idea was discarded. Kazuyuki Ikumori, a future key figure at Visual Works, helped with the creation of the CGI cutscenes, in addition to general background design. The CGI FMV sequences total around 40 minutes of footage, something only possible with the PlayStation's extra memory space and graphical power. This innovation brought with it
20736-484: The entire experience over as quickly as possible, with plans for one to three chapters released each month, and fine-tuning to be done using the planned two-year gap between the original and western releases. It formed part of a push by the company into the western mobile game market. Despite these announcements, no further progress has been made and Before Crisis was never released in the west. The official reason for this, as stated by head of mobile operations Keiji Fujita,
20952-426: The entire initial plot. Scenario writer Kazushige Nojima joined the team after finishing work on Bahamut Lagoon . While Final Fantasy VI featured an ensemble cast of numerous playable characters that were equally important, the team soon decided to develop a central protagonist for FFVII . The pursuit of Sephiroth that formed most of the main narrative was suggested by Nomura, as nothing similar had been done in
21168-454: The environment and their distance from the camera, giving a sense of scale. The choice of this highly cinematic style of storytelling, contrasting directly with Square's previous games, was attributed to Kitase, who was a fan of films and had an interest in the parallels between film and video game narrative. Character movement during in-game events was done by the character designers in the planning group. While designers normally cooperate with
21384-400: The first action role-playing game exclusive to the platform. The company's first major mobile title, also in collaboration with NTT DoCoMo, was a remake of the original Final Fantasy . Using lessons learned from the development of the Final Fantasy port, the team worked hard to make Before Crisis a uniquely mobile experience, with gameplay features built to exploit mobile functions such as
21600-423: The first game in the main series to have a PAL release. The game's story follows Cloud Strife , a mercenary who joins an eco-terrorist organization to stop a world-controlling megacorporation from using the planet's life essence as an energy source. Ensuing events send Cloud and his allies in pursuit of Sephiroth , a superhuman who seeks to wound the planet and harness its healing power in order to be reborn as
21816-487: The first to use voice dubbing . The game received the Game of the Year award from OMNI Magazine in 1990, as well as other prizes. Another 1989 release, Activision 's Prophecy: The Fall of Trinadon , attempted to introduce "Nintendo-style" action combat to North American computer role-playing games. Action RPGs were far more common on consoles than computers, due to gamepads being better suited to real-time action than
22032-405: The form of summoned monsters , recurring figures in the Final Fantasy series, can be called in via the Materia system to deal damage to multiple enemies. Rank Points are awarded during the completion of objectives in all three modes of play. After a certain number of Rank Points have been acquired, special bonuses are unlocked, such as stronger armor and weapons, and extra Materia slots. The player
22248-412: The four Support Materia must be found. Fuhito holds one, and the Turks and Shears hold another. Meanwhile, not wanting Rufus' betrayal become known, the President orders the Turks' destruction. Despite this imminent threat, the Turks manage to find two more Support Materia. Under Fuhito's control, the remainder of AVALANCHE is turned into a vicious army of uncontrollable Ravens, and he manages to steal all
22464-485: The game "a subversion that deconstructs and comments meaningfully on how we think about heroism, masculinity and identity in videogame storytelling". Ric Manning of The Courier-Journal noted elements of psychoanalysis in the game. The game is also noted for its cyberpunk themes; GamesRadar+ called it one of the best games of the genre, and Paste Magazine compared its cyberpunk city of Midgar to Akira and Blade Runner . According to Comic Book Resources ,
22680-459: The game despite its technical flaws, and PC Gamer summarized that, while "Square apparently did only what was required to get its PlayStation game running under Windows", Final Fantasy VII is "still a winner on the PC". Final Fantasy VII was given numerous Game of the Year awards in 1997. At the second CESA Awards , it won the Grand Prize, Scenario Award and Sound Award. During
22896-408: The game had "well-defined and detailed character portraits and lean, lanky character models running around the city and mako reactor, which had a simple layout but still looked nice". Massimilla praised the smooth animations, and felt that the controls were easy to learn and were responsive. Additionally, she thought the demo phone's vibrating function, set off when the player receives a call from Tseng,
23112-466: The game has been released in several albums. Square released the main soundtrack album, Final Fantasy VII Original Soundtrack , on four Compact Discs through its DigiCube subsidiary in 1997. A limited edition release was also produced, containing illustrated liner notes. The regular edition of the album reached third on the Japan Oricon charts, while the limited edition reached #19. Overall,
23328-448: The game is played from a third-person perspective. Players can customize their player character , which learns to cast spells, brew potions, and master combat abilities, eventually developing their own special combat style. In late 1987, FTL Games released Dungeon Master , a dungeon crawler that had a real-time game world and some real-time combat elements (akin to Active Time Battle ), requiring players to quickly issue orders to
23544-444: The game progresses, and are dependent on the characters in the player's party and on the abilities, spells, etc., the player has added to their equipment. Commands include attacking with a weapon, casting magic, using items, summoning monsters, and other actions that either damage the enemy or aid the player characters. Final Fantasy VII also features powerful, character-specific commands called Limit Breaks, which can be used only after
23760-425: The game registered 200,000 users, making it the best-selling mobile game up until that time, and was accessed 1.6 million times. According to Ito, by 2006, the game was still highly popular in Japan. Previews and features concerning the game have generally been positive. AnimeFringe commented that the visuals seemed "remarkable good" and praised the game for choosing to reverse the good and bad guy roles, by making
23976-405: The game takes the unreliable narrator concept a step further, with its interactivity establishing a connection between the player and the protagonist Cloud, setting Final Fantasy VII apart from films as well as other video games. According to Holleman, "no RPG has ever deliberately betrayed the connection between protagonist and player like FFVII does". Harry Mackin writing for Paste called
24192-405: The game was the opening theme; game director Yoshinori Kitase showed him the opening cinematic and asked him to begin the project there. The track was well received in the company, which gave Uematsu "a sense that it was going to be a really good project". Final Fantasy VII was the first game in the series to include a track with high-quality digitized vocals, "One-Winged Angel", which accompanies
24408-399: The game's graphics were "light years beyond anything ever seen on the PlayStation", and regarded its battle system as its strongest point. Computer and Video Games ' s Alex C praised the dramatic story and well-developed characters. In addition to calling the graphics "bar none the best the PlayStation has ever seen", Next Generation said of the story that "while FFVII may take
24624-458: The game's magic system, by taking a picture with their camera phone . The game synthesizes the picture down to its base color. Depending upon the dominant color, lighting, and other factors, the game produces a Materia of a certain type. For example, a dark green picture results in a Bio Materia, while a blue picture results in a Cure Materia. Once acquired, Materia can be leveled up as in Final Fantasy VII . Under certain circumstances, assistance in
24840-409: The game's mouse-based combat were mixed. In 1997 Blizzard's Diablo was released and became massively successful. It was an action RPG that used a mouse oriented point-and-click interface and offered gamers a free online service to play with others that maintained the same rules and gameplay. Diablo ' s effect on the market was significant, inspiring many imitators. Its impact was such that
25056-433: The game's new 3D visuals. As an example, he composed the track intended for the scene in the game where Aerith Gainsborough is killed to be "sad but beautiful", rather than more overtly emotional, creating what he felt was a more understated feeling. Uematsu additionally said that the soundtrack had a feel of "realism", which also prevented him from using "exorbitant, crazy music". The first piece that Uematsu composed for
25272-513: The game. It was arranged by Shirō Hamaguchi and performed by Seiji Honda, and reached #228 on the Oricon charts. Final Fantasy VII was announced in February 1996. Square president and chief executive officer Tomoyuki Takechi were fairly confident about Japanese players making the game a commercial success despite it being on a new platform. A playable demo was included on a disc giveaway at
25488-800: The gameplay; he designed the Limit Break system as an evolution of the Desperation Attacks used in Final Fantasy VI . The Limit Breaks served a purpose in gameplay while also evoking each character's personality in battle. Square retained the passion-based game development approach from their earlier projects, but now had the resources and ambition to create the game they wanted. This was because they had extensive capital from their earlier commercial successes, which meant they could focus on quality and scale rather than obsessing over and working around their budget. Final Fantasy VII
25704-585: The gaming market and its influence on the MMORPG genre later popularized the strongly used mouse-oriented point and click combat. While in the Diablo series this type of combat does not have a lock-on key, World of Warcraft and most MMO games uses some kind of key to target an enemy, usually TAB, to lock into it, usually referred to as "tab-target". In tab-target combat the player's character automatic do attack animations with some kind of regular attack, while
25920-540: The imminent industry shift toward 3D gaming ; such a change would require radical new development models. The team decided to take the riskier option and make a 3D game on new generation hardware but had yet to choose between the cartridge -based Nintendo 64 or the CD-ROM -based PlayStation from Sony Computer Entertainment . The team also considered the Sega Saturn console and Microsoft Windows . Their decision
26136-482: The impact of Aerith's death. Several character relations and statuses underwent changes during development. Aerith was to be Sephiroth's sister, which influenced the design of her hair. The team then made Sephiroth a previous love interest of hers to deepen her backstory, but later swapped him with Zack. Vincent and Yuffie were to be part of the main narrative, but due to time constraints, they were nearly cut and eventually relegated to being optional characters. Nojima
26352-507: The increased storage capacity of CD-ROM when compared to the Nintendo 64 cartridge, Square shifted development of Final Fantasy VII , and all other planned projects, onto the PlayStation. In contrast to the visuals and audio, the overall gameplay system remained mostly unchanged from Final Fantasy V and VI , but with an emphasis on player control. The initial decision was for battles to feature shifting camera angles. Battle arenas had
26568-521: The keyboard and mouse. Though there were attempts at creating action-oriented computer RPGs during the late 1980s and early 1990s, very few saw any success. Times of Lore was one of the more successful attempts in the American computer market, where there was a generally negative attitude towards combining genres in this way and more of an emphasis on preserving the purity of the RPG genre. For example,
26784-432: The lack of a Western release for Final Fantasy II , III , and V — while only the fourth Final Fantasy released outside Japan, its Japanese title was retained. It was released in North America on September 7, 1997. The game was released in Europe on November 17, becoming the first Final Fantasy game to be released in Europe. The Western version included additional elements and alterations, such as streamlining of
27000-448: The largest worlds at the time, with over 17,000 computer screens without loading times. In 1988, Telenet Japan 's Exile series debuted, and was controversial due to its plot, which revolves around a time-traveling Crusades-era Syrian assassin who assassinates various religious/historical figures as well as 20th-century political leaders, The gameplay of Exile included both overhead exploration and side-scrolling combat, and featured
27216-568: The legendary animosity between Miyamoto Musashi and Sasaki Kojirō , with Cloud and Sephiroth being Musashi and Kojirō respectively. Sephiroth's look was defined as " kakkoii ", a Japanese term combining good looks with coolness. Several of Nomura's designs evolved substantially during development. Cloud's original design of slicked-back black hair with no spikes was intended to save polygons and contrast with Sephiroth's long, flowing silver hair. However, Nomura feared that such masculinity could prove unpopular with fans, so he redesigned Cloud to feature
27432-427: The main characters were part of an organization trying to destroy Mako reactors, but they were pursued by a hot-blooded detective named Joe. The main characters would eventually blow up the city. An early version of the Lifestream concept was present at this stage. According to Sakaguchi, his mother had died while Final Fantasy III was being developed, and choosing life as a theme helped him cope with her passing in
27648-410: The major events in development was when the real-time graphics were synchronized to computer-generated full motion video (FMV) cutscenes for some story sequences, notably an early sequence where a real-time model of Cloud jumps onto an FMV-rendered moving train. The backgrounds were created by overlaying two 2D graphic layers and changing the motion speed of each to simulate depth perception. While this
27864-475: The materia needed. In the final battle, Fuhito summons Zirconiade, fusing the summon with his own body, and Shears sacrifices himself to save Elfé. Fuhito transforms into a monster, but he is defeated by the Turks. After the battle, Tseng falsely claims that both Veld and Elfé are dead, so as to protect them from being hunted by Shinra. The Turks are then reorganized, with Tseng reinstated as their immediate leader, but they are now sworn to loyalty to Shinra as part of
28080-416: The menu and Materia system, reducing the health of enemies, new visual cues to help with navigation across the world map, and additional cutscenes relating to Cloud's past. A version for PC was developed by Square's Costa Mesa offices. Square invested in a PC version to reach as wide a player base as possible; many Western consumers did not own a PlayStation, and Square's deal with Sony did not prohibit such
28296-404: The most devastating and consequential. Kitase wanted to depict it as very sudden and unexpected, leaving "not a dramatic feeling but great emptiness", "feelings of reality and not Hollywood ". The script for the scene was written by Nojima. Kitase and Nojima then planned that most of the main cast would die shortly before the final battle; Nomura vetoed the idea because he felt it would undermine
28512-504: The multiplayer functions, balancing the gameplay for different playstyles, creating a comfortable button layout, and adjusting the amount of content they could include for mobiles while maintaining the desired product quality. To promote the game, Madhouse created a promotional animation featuring some of the main characters. The original version's beta test started in August 2004. It was released on September 24. Following an announcement at
28728-416: The music from the original video animation Last Order: Final Fantasy VII in an album titled Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII & Last Order: Final Fantasy VII Original Soundtrack . The majority of the tracks of the album were composed by Ishimoto, apart from a few reorchestrated themes from VII , the music of which was written by regular Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu . The game's release in
28944-417: The music quality suffered on PC sound cards , and Next Generation found the game's pre-rendered backgrounds significantly less impressive than those of the PlayStation version. However, the latter magazine found the higher-resolution battle visuals "absolutely stunning", and Computer Games Magazine said that they showed off the potential graphical power of PCs. All three magazines concluded by praising
29160-443: The original PlayStation version's five different game engines, leading to delays. The PC version came with a license for Yamaha Corporation 's software synthesizer S-YXG70, allowing high-quality sequenced music despite varying sound hardware setups on different user computers. The conversion of the nearly 100 original musical pieces to XG format files was done by Yamaha. To maximize their chances of success, Square searched for
29376-423: The overall theme of the game, Sakaguchi said it was "not enough to make 'life' the theme, you need to depict living and dying. In any event, you need to portray death". Consequently, Nomura proposed killing off the heroine. Aerith had been the only heroine, but the death of a female protagonist would necessitate a second; this led to the creation of Tifa. The developers decided to kill Aerith, as her death would be
29592-444: The pace of the story, it added depth to the characters. The graphical improvements allowed even relatively bland lines of dialogue to be enhanced with reactions and poses from the 3D character models. Voice acting would have led to significant load times, so it was omitted. Masato Kato wrote several late-game scenes, including the Lifestream sequence and Cloud and Tifa's conversation before the final battle. Initially unaffiliated with
29808-410: The planet has healed. Initial concept talks for Final Fantasy VII began in 1994 at Square studio, following the completion of Final Fantasy VI . As with the previous installment, series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi reduced his role to producer and granted others a more active role in development: these included Yoshinori Kitase , one of the directors of FFVI . The next installment was planned as
30024-746: The player can focus on activating other skills and items by pressing other keys. Usually this type of combat is not heavily based on aiming or hit boxes thus the player can hit enemies from different distances and even from a far. Some tab-target MMOs have other targeting options such as an "Action mode". Shooter-based action RPGs include Strife (1996), System Shock 2 (1999), the Deus Ex series (2000 onwards) by Ion Storm , Bungie 's Destiny (2014), Irem 's Steambot Chronicles (2005), Square Enix's third-person shooter RPG Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII (2006), which introduced an over-the-shoulder perspective similar to Resident Evil 4 , and
30240-721: The player is defeated, it is game over and the game must be loaded from the last save point. When not in battle, the player can use the menu screen, where they can review each character's status and statistics, use items and abilities, change equipment, save the game when on the world map or at a save point, and manage orbs called Materia. Materia are the main method of customizing characters in Final Fantasy VII , and can be added to equipment to provide characters with new magic spells, monsters to summon, commands, statistical upgrades, and other benefits. Materia level up through their own experience point system and can be combined to create different effects. Final Fantasy VII takes place on
30456-418: The player moves along in a side-scrolling manner. The player begins the game by selecting their character, which can be a man or a woman, along with their name. Gameplay is divided up between several modes of play. "Episode Mode" involves the player playing through the game's main storyline, completing various objectives in order to continue on in the game. "Free Mode" allows players to roam towns and speak with
30672-426: The player's stats, or as a currency to purchase items, and penalizing player deaths without imposing an outright failure state. It also incorporated online features allowing players to leave messages in the overworld that can be read by other players, to temporarily join other players' sessions to assist them cooperatively, or "invade" another player's session to engage in player versus player combat. Especially after
30888-514: The player. One of the characters, Shuriken (Female), later appears in Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII under the name "Cissnei". The Turks are led by Veld, a veteran of the group, and later Tseng, a character who plays an important role in other Final Fantasy VII stories. Their primary antagonists all belong to AVALANCHE. The three important AVALANCHE characters are Elfé, the leader of AVALANCHE and Veld's daughter; Fuhito,
31104-559: The population. Players can also play extra missions to gain Experience points and items, some of which are exclusive to "Free Mode". Characters have hit points and magic points , and can level up upon acquisition of experience, at which point they can equip new weapons and armor. Players can choose to manually attack an enemy during combat or press the action key to automatically attack the nearest enemy. The "Materia Generation System" allows players to acquire Materia, objects tied to
31320-506: The positive reception of Madhouse's animated commercial, they were chosen by Square Enix to animate Last Order . The high popularity of Before Crisis in Japan led indirectly to the creation of Type-0 , part of the Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy subseries and then a title for mobiles. Action role-playing video game An action role-playing game (often abbreviated action RPG or ARPG )
31536-461: The predominant lighting in Midgar and the color of the Lifestream, while the blue reflected the ecological themes present in the story. Its coloring directly influenced the general coloring of the game's environments. Another prominent artist was Nomura. Having impressed Sakaguchi with his proposed ideas, which were handwritten and illustrated rather than simply typed on a PC, Nomura was brought on as main character designer. Nomura stated that when he
31752-425: The product stand out in stores, Eidos chose a trapezoidal shape for the cover and box. They agreed on a contract price of $ 1.8 million, making initial sales forecasts of 100,000 units based on that outlay. The PC version was released in North America and Europe on June 25, 1998; the port was not released in Japan. Within one month, sales of the port exceeded the initial forecasts. The PC version would end up providing
31968-518: The project, Kato was called on to help flesh out less important story scenes. He wrote his scenes to his own tastes without outside consultation, something he later regretted. With the shift from the SNES to the next generation consoles, Final Fantasy VII became the first project in the series to use 3D computer graphics . Aside from the story, Final Fantasy VI had many details undecided when development began; most design elements were hashed out along
32184-435: The project, Naora was granted a team devoted entirely to the game's visual design. The department's duties included illustration, modeling of 3D characters, texturing, the creation of environments, visual effects, and animation. The Shinra logo, which incorporated a kanji symbol, was drawn by Naora personally. Promotional artwork, in addition to the logo artwork, was created by Yoshitaka Amano , an artist whose association with
32400-502: The publishing rights in North America and Europe following Final Fantasy VII ' s transfer to PlayStation—to further persuade Square, Sony offered a lucrative royalties deal with profits potentially equaling those Square would get by self-publishing the game. Square accepted Sony's offer as Square itself lacked Western publishing experience. Square was uncertain about the game's success, as other JRPGs including Final Fantasy VI had met with poor sales outside Japan. To help with promoting
32616-514: The release of its spiritual successor Dark Souls (2011) and its sequels, other action RPGs emerged in the 2010s that incorporated mechanics influenced by those of Demon's Souls , which have been popularly referred to as " Soulslike " games. In 2013, Vanillaware released the fantasy beat 'em up ARPG Dragon's Crown , a spiritual successor to Princess Crown and a "deeply moving product" of Vanillaware director George Kamitani. Kamitani cites many classic RPGs as his inspiration, stating in
32832-568: The rest of the playable characters. At a Cetra temple, Sephiroth reveals he intends to use a powerful magical artifact known as "Black Materia" to cast the spell "Meteor", which would have a devastating impact on the Planet. Sephiroth claims he will absorb the Lifestream as it attempts to heal the wound caused by Meteor, and become a god-like being in the process. The party retrieves the Black Materia, but Sephiroth manipulates Cloud into surrendering it. Aerith departs alone to stop Sephiroth and follows him to an abandoned Cetra city. While Aerith prays to
33048-401: The role-playing game (RPG) category and expanded the conventional audience with the launch of Final Fantasy VII ". According to Weekly Famitsu , Final Fantasy VII sold 3.27 million units in Japan by the end of 1997. By the end of 2005, the PlayStation version had sold 9.8 million copies including 4 million sales in Japan, making it the highest-selling game in the Final Fantasy series. By
33264-558: The same year. Jeremy Parish of 1UP.com argues that Japanese developers created a new brand of action role-playing game; these new Japanese games combined the role-playing genre with arcade-style action and action-adventure elements. Shaun Musgrave of TouchArcade also traces the genre's roots to Japan, noting that the "Western game industry of the time had a tendency to treat action games and RPGs as separate things for separate demographics". Jeremy Parish argues that action RPGs were popularized in Japan by The Tower of Druaga . It
33480-462: The screen. Swear words were used frequently in the localization to help convey the original Japanese meaning, though most profanities were censored in a manner described by Square employee Richard Honeywood as the "old comic book '@#$ %!'-type replacement ". The European release was described as being in a worse condition, as the translations into multiple European languages were outsourced by Sony to another company, further hindering communication. For
33696-530: The second most influential game ever made in 2002; in 2007, GamePro ranked it 14th on the list of the most important games of all time, and in 2009 it finished in the same place on their list of the most innovative games of all time. In 2012, Time named it one of their "All-Time 100 Video Games". In March 2018, Game Informer ' s "Readers Choice Top 300 Games of All Time", Final Fantasy VII ranked in seventh place. In March 2018, GamesRadar+ rated "The 25 best PS1 games of all time", Final Fantasy VII
33912-459: The second or third players could drop in and out of the game at any time, rather than players having to join the game at the same time. The game has remained influential through to the present day, with its ring menu system still used in modern games and its cooperative multiplayer mentioned as an influence on games such as Dungeon Siege III (2011). Most other such games, however, used a side-scrolling perspective typical of beat 'em ups, such as
34128-448: The series before. Kitase and Nojima conceived AVALANCHE and Shinra as opposing organizations and created Cloud's backstory as well as his relationship to Sephiroth. Among Nojima's biggest contributions to the plot were Cloud's memories and split personality; this included the eventual conclusion involving his newly created character of Zack. The crew helped Kitase adjust the specifics of Sakaguchi's original Lifestream concept. Regarding
34344-500: The series that the mode is represented in a three-dimensional space . In this mode, the player can explore the environment, talk with characters, advance the story, and initiate event games. Event games are short minigames that use special control functions and are often tied to the story. While in field mode, the player can also make use of shops and inns. Shops allow the player to buy and sell items that can aid Cloud and his party, such as weapons, armor, and accessories. Inns restore
34560-411: The series was also heavily criticized by players and media for not being a proper RPG due to it being focused more on fighting enemies and creating character builds than following a proper narrative and dialogue-heavy journey. After its success many other games tried to mix its influences with different structures and narratives, there are multiple games like Divine Divinity that were an attempt to have
34776-449: The series went back to its inception. While he had taken a prominent role in earlier entries, Amano was unable to do so for Final Fantasy VII , due to commitments at overseas exhibitions. His logo artwork was based on Meteor: when he saw images of Meteor, he was not sure how to turn it into suitable artwork. In the end, he created multiple variations of the image and asked staff to choose which they preferred. The green coloring represents
34992-474: The sixth saddest game ever. On the other hand, GameSpy ranked it seventh on their 2003 list of the most overrated games. Final Fantasy VII has often placed at or near the top of many reader polls of all-time best games. It was voted the "Reader's Choice Game of the Century" in an IGN poll in 2000, and placed second in the "Top 100 Favorite Games of All Time" by Japanese magazine Famitsu in 2006 (it
35208-460: The source code for subsequent ports. Localization of Final Fantasy VII was handled internally by Square. The English localization, led by Seth Luisi, was completed by a team of about fifty people and faced a variety of problems. According to Luisi, the biggest hurdle was making "the direct Japanese-to-English text translation read correctly in English. The sentence structure and grammar rules for
35424-718: The staff, the polygon models were chosen as they could better express emotion. This decision was influenced by the team's exposure to the 3D character models used in Alone in the Dark . Sakaguchi decided to use deformed models for field navigation and real-time event scenes, for better expression of emotion, while realistically proportioned models would be used in battles. The team purchased Silicon Graphics Onyx supercomputers and related workstations, and accompanying software including Softimage 3D, PowerAnimator , and N-World for an estimated total of $ 21 million. Many team members had never seen
35640-410: The story established in Final Fantasy VII . It takes place six years prior to the events of Final Fantasy VII and focuses on the adventures of the Turks, a group of covert operatives working for the Shinra Electric Power Company, and their fights against both rebel group AVALANCHE and their corrupt employers. As the first major Final Fantasy game for mobile devices, Before Crisis was designed as
35856-402: The story progresses, the player receives vehicles that help traverse these obstacles, thus opening more of the game world for exploration. Chocobos can be found in certain spots on the map and, if caught, can be ridden to areas inaccessible on foot or by vehicle. In field mode, the player navigates fully scaled versions of the areas represented on the world map. VII marks the first time in
36072-507: The storytelling "dramatic, sentimental, and touching in a way that draws you into the characters", who "come alive thanks to sweetly subtle body movements". Both GamePro and Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine ( OPM ) said the ATB system gives battles a tension and urgency not usually seen in RPGs, and OPM called the summon animations "absolutely awe-inspiring". IGN ' s Jay Boor insisted
36288-506: The studio instead created a spiritual successor : Arx Fatalis . Toby Gard stated that, when designing Tomb Raider , he "was a big fan of ... Ultima Underworld and I wanted to mix that type of game with the sort of polygon characters that were just being showcased in Virtua Fighter ". Ultima Underworld was also the basis for Looking Glass Technologies' later System Shock . The 1988 Origin Systems title Times of Lore
36504-450: The team worked with were Cloud and Barret. Some of the real-time effects, such as an explosion near the opening, were hand-drawn rather than computer-animated. The main creative force behind the overall 3D presentation was Kazuyuki Hashimoto, the general supervisor for these sequences. Being experienced in the new technology the team had brought on board, he accepted the post at Square as the team aligned with his own creative spirit. One of
36720-453: The technology before. The transition from 2D graphics to 3D environments overlaid on pre-rendered backgrounds was accompanied by a focus on a more realistic presentation. In previous entries, the sizes for characters and environments were fixed, and the player saw things from a scrolling perspective. This changed with Final Fantasy VII ; environments shifted with camera angles, and character model sizes shifted depending on both their place in
36936-620: The template for many future action RPGs, even though it does not strictly fit the definition of later action RPGs. In contrast to previous action RPGs, such as Dragon Slayer and Hydlide, which required the player to bump into enemies in order to attack them, The Legend of Zelda featured an attack button that animates a sword swing or projectile attack on the screen. It was also an early example of open-world, nonlinear gameplay , and introduced new features such as battery backup saving. These elements have been used in many action RPGs since. In 1987, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link implemented
37152-427: The temples to refuse to level him up. Xanadu Scenario II , released in 1986, was an expansion pack , created to expand the content of Dragon Slayer II: Xanadu . Hydlide II: Shine of Darkness (1985) also featured a morality system. Eurogamer cites Fairlight (1985) as an early action RPG. An important influence on the action RPG genre was the 1986 action-adventure The Legend of Zelda , which served as
37368-468: The term "action RPG" has come to be more commonly used for Diablo -style games, with The Legend of Zelda itself slowly recategorized as an action-adventure. Very commonly, these games used a fixed-camera isometric view of the game world, a necessity of the limitations of 2D graphics of early computers; even with 3D graphic engines, such point-and-click games are still presented from a similar isometric view, though providing options to rotate, pan, and zoom
37584-495: The text, the North American localization team made tweaks to the gameplay, including reducing the enemy encounter rate, simplifying the Materia menu, and adding new boss fights. The International version of Final Fantasy VII was released on PlayStation Network (PSN) as a PSOne Classic in Japan on April 10, 2009. This version was compatible with both PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable with support for PlayStation Vita and PlayStation TV coming later. Final Fantasy VII
37800-713: The things that I wanted to do and all the games that I ended up working on came out of the inspiration I took from [ Ultima Underworld ]". Gears of War designer Cliff Bleszinski also cited it as an early influence, stating that it had "far more impact on me than Doom ". Other games influenced by Ultima Underworld include The Elder Scrolls: Arena , Deus Ex , Deus Ex: Invisible War , Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines , and Half-Life 2 . FromSoftware 's Demon's Souls (2009) emphasized unforgiving enemies and environments, combined with risk-and-reward mechanics such as limited checkpoints, collecting "souls" that can be consumed as experience points to increase
38016-553: The third game in the Parasite Eve series, features a unique blend of action RPG, real-time tactical RPG, survival horror and third-person tactical shooter elements. Shooter-based RPGs include Imageepoch 's post-apocalyptic Black Rock Shooter (2011) , which employs both first-person and third-person shooter elements, and Square Enix's Final Fantasy XV (2016) , which features both hack and slash and third-person shooter elements. The online live service version gained
38232-540: The title overseas, Square dissolved their original Washington offices and hired new staff for fresh offices in Costa Mesa. It was first exhibited to the Western public at Electronic Entertainment Expo 1996 (E3). To promote the game overseas, Square and Sony launched a widespread three-month advertising campaign in August 1997. Beginning with a television commercial that ran alongside popular shows such as Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons by TBWA\Chiat\Day ,
38448-454: The title, but due to issues involving the capacity of mobile devices in the west, it has not been released outside Japan. The game was eventually shut down in 2018. With no access to the game being available in an archived format, the game is considered lost media . The game's story is recreated as a part of the mobile game Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis . Before Crisis is a real-time action role-playing game featuring 2D graphics as
38664-434: The title. In the game's debut weekend in North America, it sold 330,000 copies, and had reached sales of 500,000 copies in less than three weeks. The momentum established in the game's opening weeks continued for several months; Sony announced the game had sold one million copies in North America by early December, prompting business analyst Edward Williams from Monness, Crespi, Hardt & Co. to comment that "Sony redefined
38880-494: The trainee Turks on a mission in the city of Midgar to investigate AVALANCHE activities. With help from Reno, AVALANCHE retreat. However, the attack proves to be a diversion for a greater strike at the town of Junon, where President Shinra is set to give a speech. President Shinra is shot, but survives, and calls in Sephiroth. However, it transpires that even the attack on the President was a diversion, and AVALANCHE's real target
39096-428: The translators to identify characters. Translated text usually takes up more space than the Japanese text, though still had to fit to the screen appropriately without overusing page breaks (for example, item names, which are written in kanji in Japanese language, could overflow message windows in translated text); to mitigate this problem, a proportional typeface was implemented into the source code to fit more text into
39312-478: The version available on Square Enix's North American and European online stores. The PC version would be released in Japan for the first time on May 16, 2013, exclusively via Square Enix's Japanese online store with the International version title. It has features unavailable in the western version including high-speed mode, no random encounters mode, and a max stats command. A release for iOS , based on
39528-479: The way. In contrast, with Final Fantasy VII , the developers knew from the outset it was going to be "a real 3D game", so from the earliest planning stage, detailed designs were in existence. The script was also finalized, and the image for the graphics had been fleshed out. This meant that when actual development work began, storyboards for the game were already in place. The shift from cartridge ROM to CD-ROM posed some problems: according to lead programmer Ken Narita,
39744-405: The west was announced at the 2006 Electronic Entertainment Expo , two years after its release in Japan. At the announcement, the localization was said to be "coming along nicely". The stated reason for the delay between the original and projected western release was that mobile phones in the west were not yet advanced enough for the game. One of the things planned for the western release was to bring
39960-452: Was at the time one of the most expensive video game projects ever , costing an estimated US$ 40 million, which adjusted for inflation came to $ 61 million in 2017. Development of the final version took a staff of between 100 and 150 people just over a year to complete. As video game development teams were usually only 20 people, the game had what was described as the largest development team of any game up to that point. The development team
40176-477: Was a mere infantryman who was never accepted into SOLDIER; the SOLDIER in his memories was his friend Zack. At Nibelheim, Cloud ambushed and wounded Sephiroth after the latter's mental breakdown, but Jenova preserved Sephiroth's life. Hojo experimented on Cloud and Zack for four years, injecting them with Jenova's cells and Mako. They managed to escape, but Zack was killed in the process. The trauma of these events triggered an identity crisis in Cloud, and he constructed
40392-399: Was a subtle detail. Levi Buchanan of IGN was generally positive, praising the dark art style, and finding the short mission-based structure ideal for mobile gameplay. 1UP.com listed the game as one of five classic Japanese mobile games unlikely to come to North America. Outside its immediate reception, Before Crisis had an effect on other projects within the Final Fantasy series. After
40608-462: Was a weapon called the Mako Cannon, which they planned to fire at Midgar, destroying the city. Elfé and Sephiroth do battle at the cannon, but the fight ends inconclusively, and AVALANCHE withdraw. AVALANCHE next target Rayleigh, a professor carrying data on the SOLDIER members and their creation. The Turks are sent to protect Rayleigh, accompanied by several Shinra guards, including Cloud. Fuhito,
40824-478: Was also one of the earliest action RPGs. Dragon Slayer II: Xanadu , released in 1985 (billed as a "new type of real-time role-playing game"), was an action role-playing game including many character stats and a large quest. It also incorporated a side-scrolling view during exploration and an overhead view during battle, and an early "Karma" morality system where the character's Karma meter will rise if he commits sin (killing "good" enemies), which in turn causes
41040-508: Was also released that year. It was a party-based action RPG, with the player controlling a party of four characters at the same time in a side-scrolling view. The game also featured character creation, highly customizable characters, class-based puzzles, and a new scenario system, allowing players to choose from 15 scenarios, or quests , to play through in the order of their choice. It was also an episodic video game , with expansion disks later released offering more scenarios. Falcom also released
41256-563: Was also voted as ninth in Famitsu ' s 2011 poll of most tear-inducing games of all time). Users of GameFAQs voted it the "Best Game Ever" in 2004 and in 2005, and placed it second in 2009. In 2008, readers of Dengeki magazine voted it the best game ever made, as well as the ninth most tear-inducing game of all time. The game inspired an unofficial version for the NES by Chinese company Shenzhen Nanjing Technology. This port features
41472-433: Was an action RPG with an icon-based point-and-click interface. Bad Blood , another Origin Systems game from 1990, would use the same interface. The designers were inspired by console titles, particularly The Legend of Zelda , to make their interface more accessible. The 1994 title Ultima VIII used mouse controls and attempted to add precision jumping sequences reminiscent of a Mario platform game, though reactions to
41688-610: Was an action RPG. Bill Loguidice and Matt Barton claimed that the Intellivision games Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1982) and Treasure of Tarmin (1983) were action RPGs. Shaun Musgrave of TouchArcade notes that Adventure lacked RPG mechanics such as experience points and permanent character growth, and argues that Gateway to Apshai is "the earliest game I'd feel comfortable calling an action-RPG" but notes that "it doesn't fit neatly into our modern genre classifications", though came closer than Bokosuka Wars released
41904-483: Was an ongoing rivalry developing between the Dragon Slayer and Hydlide series over the years. The Tower of Druaga , Dragon Slayer and Hydlide were influential in Japan, where they influenced later action RPGs such as Ys , as well as The Legend of Zelda . Falcom's Dragon Slayer , created by Yoshio Kiya, is "the very first action-RPG ever made" according to GameSetWatch. Originally released for
42120-459: Was brought on, the main scenario had not been completed, but he "went along like, 'I guess first off you need a hero and a heroine', and from there drew the designs while thinking up details about the characters. After [he'd] done the hero and heroine, [he] carried on drawing by thinking what kind of characters would be interesting to have. When [he] handed over the designs [he'd] tell people the character details [he'd] thought up, or write them down on
42336-459: Was charged with writing the scenario and unifying the team's ideas into a cohesive narrative, as Kitase was impressed with his earlier work on the mystery-like Heracles no Eikō III: Kamigami no Chinmoku , an entry in the Glory of Heracles series. To make the characters more realistic, Nojima wrote scenes in which they would occasionally argue and raise objections: while this inevitably slowed down
42552-464: Was discarded during early testing, as the 2000 polygons needed to render the Behemoth monster placed excessive strain on the Nintendo 64 hardware, causing a low frame rate . It would have required an estimated thirty 64DD discs to run Final Fantasy VII properly with the data compression methods of the day. Faced with both technical and economic issues on Nintendo's current hardware, and impressed by
42768-547: Was explored further in Final Fantasy VIII , The Spirits Within , and XV . Re-releases of Square games in Japan with bonus features would occur frequently after the release of Final Fantasy VII International . Later titles that would be re-released as international versions include Final Fantasy X and other follow-ups from the franchise, as well as the Kingdom Hearts series. Final Fantasy VII
42984-424: Was influenced by two factors: a highly successful tech demo based on Final Fantasy VI using the new Softimage 3D software, and the escalating price of cartridge-based games, which was limiting Square's audience. Tests were made for a Nintendo 64 version, which would use the planned 64DD peripheral despite the lack of 64DD development kits and the prototype device's changing hardware specifications. This version
43200-415: Was later released as a PSOne Classic in North America, Europe, and Australia on June 2. The PC version was updated by DotEmu for use on modern operating systems and released via Square Enix's North American and European online stores on August 14, 2012. It included high-resolution support, cloud saves, achievements and a character booster. It would later be released via Steam on July 4, 2013, replacing
43416-479: Was localized for the first time and retold as part of the internationally released mobile game Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis . Japanese website ITmedia reviewed the beta version in September 2004. The reviewer enjoyed the experience overall and found communication with other players easy, but found a few faults with the game that they hoped would be resolved later, and generally found the female characters less effective in battle. During its first day of operation,
43632-475: Was not a new technique, the increased power of the PlayStation enabled a more elaborate version of this effect. The biggest issue with the 3D graphics was the large memory storage gap between the development hardware and the console: while the early 3D tech demo had been developed on a machine with over 400 megabytes of total memory, the PlayStation only had two megabytes of system memory and 500 kilobytes for texture memory. The team needed to figure out how to shrink
43848-485: Was originally to be the only product of the Compilation , the production team agreed that one title was not enough to explore the world of Final Fantasy VII in full, so more titles were decided upon, including Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII and Crisis Core . Before Crisis was originally conceived by Tetsuya Nomura, one of the creative minds behind Final Fantasy VII and the Compilation . His initial idea
44064-559: Was positively received by Nomura and Yoshinori Kitase , but at the time Tabata was busy developing Final Fantasy Type-0 (then Agito XIII ) and The 3rd Birthday . Deployment for the SoftBank version ended in June 2015. All versions of the game ended with Square Enix's old mobile services were shut down in 2018. The composer for Before Crisis was Takeharu Ishimoto , who would go on to compose music for Crisis Core . Originally joining
44280-492: Was potentially his best work. Final Fantasy VII has received some negative criticism. OPM and GameSpot questioned the game's linear progression. OPM considered the game's translation "a bit muddy". Similarly, RPGamer cited its translation as "packed with typos and other errors which further obscure what is already a very confusing plot". GamePro also considered the Japanese-to-English translation
44496-418: Was published in Japan by Square. A re-release of the game based on its Western version, titled Final Fantasy VII International , was released on October 2 the same year. This improved International version would kickstart the trend for Square to create an updated version for the Japanese release, based on the enhanced Western versions. The International version was re-released as a physical disc as part of
44712-784: Was ranked 99th in IGN ' s "Top 100 Games of All Time" and as third in PALGN's "The Greatest 100 Games Ever". Final Fantasy VII was included in "The Greatest Games of All Time" list by GameSpot in 2006, and ranked as second in Empire ' s 2006 "100 Greatest Games of All Time", as third in Stuff ' s "100 Greatest Games" in 2008 and as 15th in Game Informer ' s 2009 "Top 200 Games of All Time" (down five places from its previous best games of all-time list ). GameSpot placed it as
44928-405: Was ranked in 12th place. It has also appeared in numerous other greatest game lists. In 2007, Dengeki PlayStation gave it the "Best Story", "Best RPG" and "Best Overall Game" retrospective awards for games on the original PlayStation. GamePro named it the best RPG title of all time in 2008, and featured it in their 2010 article "The 30 Best PSN Games". In 2012, GamesRadar also ranked it as
45144-575: Was re-released with a PS4 "Pro" edition in 2018. Assassin's Creed , a long-running Ubisoft franchise, also shifted towards the action RPG formula, inspired by the successes of The Witcher 3 and the Dark Souls series, with its titles Origins (2017), Odyssey (2018) and Valhalla (2020). Avalanche Software released Hogwarts Legacy in 2023. Set in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and its surrounding areas,
45360-422: Was referred to by GameFan as "quite possibly the greatest game ever made", a quote selected for the back cover of the game's jewel case . GameSpot commented that "never before have technology, playability, and narrative combined as well as in Final Fantasy VII ", expressing particular favor toward the game's graphics, audio, and story. The four reviewers of Electronic Gaming Monthly unanimously gave it
45576-403: Was released for arcades in June 1984, and was intended as a "fantasy version of Pac-Man , with puzzles to solve, monsters to battle, and hidden treasure to find". Its success in Japan inspired the development of Dragon Slayer (1984) and Hydlide (1984). Dragon Slayer , Hydlide and Courageous Perseus (1984) "vie for position as genre precedent" according to John Szczepaniak, and there
45792-444: Was simply for a mobile action role-playing game using the mobile network. During pre-production, it was decided to set it within the world of Final Fantasy VII . Hajime Tabata joined at this point. He approached Tabata, who had only recently joined the company's mobile games division, and asked if the division could create a mobile game focused on the Turks. Nomura would end up designing the game's characters. Production began in 2002. It
46008-487: Was split between both Square's Japanese offices and its new American office in Los Angeles; the American team worked primarily on city backgrounds. The game's art director was Yusuke Naora , who had previously worked as a designer for Final Fantasy VI . With the switch into 3D, Naora realized that he needed to relearn drawing, as 3D visuals require a very different approach than 2D. With the massive scale and scope of
46224-409: Was that mobile phones in the west were too low-spec for Before Crisis , which could only run on high-end phones in Japan, making a port impossible. Another possible reason suggested by Fujita was Ito's move from Square Enix to Capcom in 2008, leaving no-one to manage any future localization and porting efforts. Though the original version of the game has not seen a release outside of Japan, its story
46440-515: Was used in many later games. T&E Soft 's Hydlide , released in December 1984, was created by Tokihiro Naito, who was influenced by The Tower of Druaga . It was the first action RPG with an overworld . The game was immensely popular in Japan, selling 2 million copies across all platforms. According to John Szczepaniak, it "cannot be overstated how influential Hydlide was on the ARPGs which followed it". The same year, Courageous Perseus
46656-450: Was worked on by a core team of 18 people. Staff from the original game took supervisory roles. The game's title was thought up by Tabata, and would go on to establish a system of letter-based abbreviations used by staff for titles in the Compilation . To help solidify their goal, the staff created a timeline for the world of Final Fantasy VII . Since there was little definite information concerning events prior to Final Fantasy VII , they had
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