In honour of SquareEnix’s announcement of a remake of
seminal Japanese Role Playing Game ‘Final Fantasy VII’ I have decided it is
time to explore my relationship with the series in the only way I know how. By
writing an in depth, emotional retrospective about the part the series has
played in my, and all of our, lives.
When Hironobu Sakaguchi first had the Bovril induced
fever-dream that inspired his creativity he was very worried that his passion
and fervour for the project would lead to him dying just as it was released
into the world, like some savage sadness akin to an octopus mother who snuffs
it the moment her wee’uns fly off to be eaten as fry by some fat whale. Hence
it was titled ‘Final’ fantasy, although the irony is he did not die, and went
on to make lots of very good games. Inevitably, as with all good things,
Hironobu’s creative love-child grew old and claimed to no longer need its daddy
and as usually happens with the cutting of the apron strings, it kind of went
off the rails a bit. Still, we live in hope that one day it will pull itself
together and remind us of what we knew was in it all along, and if not if it
could just plod along being decidedly normal then that’s good as well. The main
concern is the fact that for a while it looked increasingly drugged up and
bloated and we just hope its kicked the gear and is straightening up to fly
right.
Over the years the series has
seen protagonists, villains, characters, NPCs and worlds come and go, some more
engaging and immersive than others. But let us continue discussing where it all
began, those nappy-changing baby years of the series. Final Fantasy (for NES…and
Wonderswan Colour, and PS1, and GameBoy Advance and IOS and Android and
emulators and microwaves and smartwatches and eggtimers and other stuff)
Programmed on a Casio PocketPiss 1242, with a budget of two mismatched buttons and a hairy sausage, Final Fantasy was
hardly the beautiful marvel of graphics and spectacle of set-pieces we expect from SquareEnix these days.
But it was a matter of substance over style for series creator and all-round
wish-he-still-worked-at-Square-guy, Hironobu Sakaguchi.
Final Fantasy begins with a group of people with no back
story who all know each other for some inexplicable reason to do with magic
crystals. It’s like everything you ever read in one of those wanky new-age
shops, except instead of it being the believings of mad people with scruffy
hair and hemp clothing it’s a game plot. Anyway, they walk into a town and
because they have an aura of ‘I’d gladly give my life to fetch your inbred,
elitist brat’ about them they are enlisted to fetch the daughter of the King of
Cornettos. She has allegedly been kidnapped by Judy Garland and this will not
do, so you have to get her back. Her name is Sarah and that’s a name that will
come up later in the series when a man in a beanie hat who puts magic stickers
on his coat runs around punching things and shouting it, possibly because of a
cognitive impairment.
Upon returning, everyone tells them they’re very special and
should bugger off and save the world. I have to wonder how many sordid corners
of caves are filled with the partially decomposed remains of others who have
completed minor tasks and been told they are the special ones who should go off
and save the world. Still, your party of ragtag misfits go off and do try to
save the world.
The party can be comprised of a number of different
character classes, like Economy class, Standard Class, Business Class, First
Class and of course Warrior. The balanced party is considered to be one with a
person who can whack things, a person who can steal things, a person who can
burn things and a person who can make all your boo-boos better.
Anyway, you all travel the world, killing lots of stuff
along the way, ultimately making it a worse place for some reason before
travelling to some god-forsaken time-hole and starting the whole process again
because time-loops are a fool’s mechanic and the plot is about as thick as filo
pastry. Here lies Erdrick.
You see, Judy Garland had apparently been messing with the
time whatsits and everything got a bit fucky but then you hit things with a
sword and it all went back to normal – Hooray!
Anyway, it’s a pleasant enough experience, but purely a
nostalgiafest and an ability to see where it all began. Even for the time it may not have seemed all that groundbreaking, as Dragon Quest was already a thing. The characters are not
all that engaging, since they’re those silent, blank-faced, fill-me-in
protagonists with zero backstory except for black mage who all you discover
about him is he keeps his face in shadow because a sad wizard replaced it with
a two kilo bag of granulated sugar. You can see how all the ideas were
developed moving forward and later games pay huge homage to elements present
(Final Fantasy IX in particular) but overall I’d say you could give it a miss
or just watch some videos about it or read 8-Bit Theatre if that’s still a
thing (I remember when I got a letter published in Red Mage’s Letters – I was
so proud!) Some of the remade versions
make it a bit more tolerable, and the GameBoy Advance version adds bonus
dungeons, so if you do want to play try to get the best version.
The music, well that’s a different story. Composed by
Japanese metalhead and Demi-God Nobuo Uematsu, the thing is littered with
classics that I still hum to myself to this day. The famous Prelude began here,
the victory fanfare – but pieces that did not become leitmotifs for the series
also shine. Chaos Temple, Matoya’s Cave, Gurgu Volcano. It’s pretty good given
that the sound chips at the time were called chips because they were made of crispy
potato and sounded as such.
All in all, the game is a bit ‘meh’, but the impact it would
have would go on to spawn a series that would in time take it upon itself to
consistently redefine what could be achieved with the medium of videogames.
Welcome to Corneria. I like swords.
