Tuesday, October 20, 2009 11:02 AM
Final Fantasy VII: Citizen Kane for the gaming set
Games don’t age as gracefully as books or film. It’s simply the nature of the medium. This doesn’t mean, however, that they’re not worth revisiting now and again.
A case in point is Final Fantasy VII, the beloved PlayStation One classic that essentially birthed the modern Japanese role-playing game. I downloaded it from the PlayStation Store a few weeks ago (it was released back in June) when I was playing around with the new PSPgo's download capabilities, and even with this holiday’s hot titles piling up around me I keep finding myself drawn back to this extraordinary game.
I won’t waste time discussing its plot. It’s one of the few games that doesn’t actually need much in the way an introduction, regardless of whether you’ve actually played it. Much as just about everyone who’s ever seen a movie knows about Luke, Han, Leia, and their tribulations, most people with even a passing interest in games are at least aware of Final Fantasy VII’s iconic, spiky-haired protagonist Cloud, his childhood friend Tifa, Aeris the flower girl,and at least some of the tragedies that befall them.
What amazes me is how gripping it remains some 12 years after the fact. The characters’ lines are corny, yet somehow compelling. The story’s anti-corporate, pro-environmental themes are so obvious they feel like anvils dropping on the player's head, but, strangely, still feel poignant and sincere. And the actual play—a mishmash of turn-based battles, quick mini-games, and dialogue-driven mystery solving—feels surprisingly modern.
The version released through the PlayStation Store is a warts-and-all port of the original, which, among other things, means there’s no support for widescreen, the simple d-pad navigation lets us move in only four directions, and we have to wait while the game searches for (and fails to find) PlayStation One memory cards whenever we try to save. These are annoyances, to be sure, and had developer Square Enix fixed these issues it probably would have improved the overall experience.
That said, experiencing the game again as it was originally designed is like watching the black and white version of a classic film as opposed to a newly colourized edition, or reading Shakespeare without Coles Notes. It’s a bit more difficult—perhaps even a little frustrating—but worth it in the end, if for no other reason than to be reminded of some of the ways in which game design and technology has changed over the years.
Should video games still exist in recognizable form 50 or 100 years from now, Final Fantasy VII will almost certainly be recognized as one of the medium’s early classics and great genre pioneers. If you’ve never played it, it’s worth taking the time now. It’s all but destined to become Citizen Kane for the gaming set.
