Yeah, it takes an adult to appreciate the nuances of a story about a dude with a yellow fern for a haircut, BA Baracus with a gun for an arm and a talking catdog and their quest to stop The Crow from killing the planet with his mom's head
Why FFVII???
Because its head and shoulders over the rest of the games in the series.
Scratch that! Make that head, shoulders, torso, waist, legs ankles. THE GAME IS THAT GOOD!
The only game that comes close to touching it in terms of greatness is its predecessor, FF6.
The way the game came together with its incredible characters, storyline, music, universe, themes, etc just made for the ultimate RPG experience.
Perhaps rather than ask why FFVII blew up instead of FFVI, the more direct parallel in North America would be why FFVII blew up and Legend of Dragoon didn't.
Marketing can only do so much!
Because it was a pile of shit? Marketing can only do so much!
One reason.
The trailers were awesome and funny.
http://youtu.be/Ru9zzFEdGWk
http://youtu.be/t9pF9BJQBLo
http://youtu.be/KXHVb1wn8vo
FF 7 was the killer app for the PS1.
Huge budget, 3D characters and pre-renders settings. An engaging story with a plot twist that no one saw coming.
It hit the trifecta when it came to video games. It was the TLOU of its time.
FF8 and 9 couldn't match the hype that FF7 had going for it.
The localization was bad which made the story suck, but the fight gameplay wasn't bad.
It was more lackluster than outright sucking.
Maybe it's just me, but if I was going to buy anything at all being the seventh in a series, I would at least take a look at what the first six were like.
I think for the majority of people who went into the game wanting "the next FFVII", it certainly sucked. The designs are worse, the world isn't as interesting, there weren't as many FMVs, the FMVs weren't that well directed, the battle system was too slow, it was just... a poor attempt at doing something similar. In contrast I think stuff like Wild Arms got a much better reception because it wasn't trying to copy FFVII.
The trailers were awesome and funny.
http://youtu.be/Ru9zzFEdGWk
http://youtu.be/t9pF9BJQBLo
http://youtu.be/KXHVb1wn8vo
One thing I realized is that not having voice acting in the game is basically what made it as great as it is. I'm playing through FFX for the first time right now and it's clear to me how voice acting for RPGs is usually a big no-no, be it good or bad.
It's probably been mentioned but it was the first real FF to be released in EU if I remember correctly.
That combined with good reviews, for the time, great production values and the first JRPG for many made it a hit.
Plus anime was quite new and beginning to get popular at the time so that might have contributed too.
This is so true. Take FF9 as an example, Vivi is a truly endearing character. Now imagine Vivi with Vanille's voice actress... Not pretty, is it!One thing I realized is that not having voice acting in the game is basically what made it as great as it is. I'm playing through FFX for the first time right now and it's clear to me how voice acting for RPGs is usually a big no-no, be it good or bad.
Let me be clear; I love FF7. It was my first Final Fantasy, and it has a certain allure to its character design and story that makes it an incredibly enjoyable experience.
My question, though, is why VII? Why did FFIV and FFVI, both also amazing games for their time, not reach the height of popularity that VII did? Why aren't VIII and IX as "mainstream" as VII became? What makes VII so special? Even people who are not big into RPGs know about it. Cloud and Sephiroth are both iconic characters, while your average Joe won't know who Terra, Cecil, Seifer, Kekfa, or Kuja is. When I worked a shitty retail job, even my manager knew about and played FFVII when he was younger, and he wasn't exactly the gamer type. Why is VII, in particular, so popular and well known, both domestically in Japan and internationally everywhere else? It isn't the first Final Fantasy to be received outside of Japan. Is it the striking character design? The fact that it's hero with giant sword vs. villain with different kind of giant sword? Is it because it was the first intricately crafted Japanese-style storyline to reach out to a mainstream international audience, thus giving it a sense of uniqueness at the time?
What do you think?
There was an 'awe' about FF VII... It was an 'event', but I think opposite of what the cynicism toward an event like COD. An event as FF VII was saw was more... innocent yet because gaming hype, media, journalism and medium (magazines) were still yet young and naive. And the notion of what FF VII represented was also... interesting, curious, fascinating...
Final Fantasy VII remains the most grand Japanese RPG and the pinnacle of scale in genre. That isn't a statement about which game is best or most creative or most fun or my personal favorite -- it's none of those. What I'm referring to is scale, and how it was perceived. What Squaresoft tried to create was on a greater scale than anything before and is still unrivaled. Not only did they aim for an epic with the story, they aimed for a blockbuster with the story. And I don't just mean a blockbuster game. It was that, too. The story was grander than anything else, and probably still as grand as any game since. The world, quests, minigames? I mean, I don't think any JRPG rivals VII's side-quests and mini-games. Even yet today, those pre-rendered backdrops are incredible. But it was beyond just a blockbuster game. It was a blockbuster event. Everything about the game was grand. The only game that came close was VIII (the series has been on the decline of relevancy and remarkableness ever since), and that was equal parts because of VII and because of production values. There wasn't the same mystique about VIII because it was replaced with expectations. VII had no expectations, just curiosity and unexpected awe.
FF VII was everywhere when it released. It transcended from gamers to non-gamers as no other console RPG has. There were two-page advertisements everywhere. Read through a stack of gaming or entertainment magazine from the year before release up until a couple months ever.
It was one of the 'strongest' (and I mean feeling and response) marketing campaigns we'll likely ever see because of the timing of platform drama and publication evolution. A sort of 'perfect storm.'
Gaming hype today can never be the same because of the internet and marketing is very unlike when Final Fantasy VII released.
The game had a certain level of intrigue and mystique because of the marketing and platform shift, and it's likely something we will never see in the same form ever again because of the internet. FF VII released at what must be close to the peak of gaming magazines, too, and 'hype' back then was a very different -- much less cynical and more magical. The ads garnered curiosity from the casual and from the hardcore it received awe.
The story was much the same. If I had to use one word to describe the story, it would be atmosphere. Because of the hype going into the game, a lot of people entered the game with much more mystique and much less cynicism than any console RPG before and likely any other video game since. And the story, for whatever strengths or faults it had, did everything it could use scale and mystery to fuel that atmosphere to make for a brooding and tense mood.
If Final Fantasy VII was one thing in its entirety of development, marketing, and release, it was a curious or enthralling, and it's greatest success in all those respects was its grand or ominous atmosphere.
One reason.
Cid is the man
why? because its a great game, nothing else
I'm from europe and FF7 is pretty much the first FF to come out here, but hear me out, FF7 is my favorite game ever, and heres how it became so, i never saw commercials, never read articles on it, no one said to me how great the game was, i simply went to a friends house, and i just simply put the disc in my friends ps1, turned it on and started a new game, that intro blew me away, and i didnt even reached the first boss and i imediately fought that i had to buy a copy for myself
sure compared to now the game looks bad graphically, but no one can say its not a great game, it has a pretty good story, with very accessible, fun and challenging gameplay, with lots of side stuff to do, its not really hard to see how a game like that became so popular, wether you were informed about it or not
I think I've spent half my life vexed by the mainstream popularity of FF after VII (I was into it before it was cool, man)....
...and then I spend the other half vexed that FF's mainstream popularity had declined.
lls; I see alot of the final fantasy 6 fanboys have come out of the woodworks for this one. 7 was popular because it was and still is a great game. I didn't play ff7 until it came out on the PS3 as a psone downloadable classic; I was so engrossed in the game that I didn't care about the graphics or anything else I wanted to keep the story going and seeing what "happens" next. The feeling of exploration; golden saucer; trying to beat all the weapons; etc. Are things that help to make this a timeless classic.
I think Final Fantasy 1 did come to PAL regions, courtesy of Nintendo.
But yeah, it blows my mind that Europe missed out on games like FFIV and VI.... In general EU got the short end of the stick during the golden age of 16-bit RPGs (Terranigma aside)
I do think you have a good point about anime becoming popular at the time. In the late 90s, it was this rising star in the west, and yeah, VII came out in the midst of it.