This is the stuff legends are made of.
Final Fantasy VII has a history. It's called 'Final' because the developers thought it would be their last game to make. It has, and still continues to have, many many sequels each with their own flavour and variety while still having some communality. It's the Doctor Who of games.
It must have had a big impact on me because after this one I played all the others and ended up writing my own version as the first full length project I worked on ('The Rose of Eternity'). All summer when I was sixteen I wrote that and I was able to do that because I had played all the games and understood how they fit together and how they could be manipulated into something new.
It's huge for me this game, I can't really overstate it. It gave me a way for exploring philosophy without me realising it. Environmental issues are at the forefront of today's world and this game explores that. As Doris Lessing would have it the main characters are 'good terrorists', defying the corrupt corporate world as they pollute everything for the sake of a promised land. Greta Thunberg could easily be one of these heroes.
But they are not treated as heroes. The roster of characters are the outcasts, the desperate, the abused, and all with a greater sense of destiny and purpose that is more than their own individual lives. They are discouraged, dissuaded, hounded and their lives are put in danger over and over. Yet their are the ones that everything depends on. They can't put their lives on hold or expect better weather will come. They know that if they do not do something than nothing will be done.
When I first played it I didn't know what to expect, especially not one that had a daunting amount of CDs to get through. The game is huge, filled with every type of terrain and habitat you can think of. Underground bases, spaceships, villages and forests, you can spend a lot of time just looking around.
It has an extreme amount of detail that must have gotten worked through during some heavy crunch times in it's development. There are minigames and side quests you can spend your life doing and even optional characters to get if you want.
It certainly looks clunky now graphic wise as if it were made out of Lego but the remake certainly corrects that. When it first came out you were amazed at the 3D rendering of cut scenes, at the sheer scope and scale of the majestic work that told an epic story, and a deep one to.
Not many games have the time to fit in an existence identity crisis in it's main hero but then this is why this game is different. Actually, why am I here? It's a tough question to bring up anywhere let alone a game. But the genre of videogames seems to have grown up at about the same rate I have, me being born in 1987, and is really asking some serious questions.
This seems like this will continue. When gamers acquire wealth and power we really could see a big transformation for how we live on life on earth. Life is a bit of a choose-your-adventure story anyway so making life more game-like could be rather enjoyable. With so many people just putting up with their jobs to scrape by a living making it more fun might not be such a hard sell.
All life could be a game if we really do live in a simulation but it's probably best to act as if what we experience is real and there is no other chance to live otherwise there is no incentive to make life just on this planet.
But I could live in the world of Final Fantasy. To be proactive in doing what's right rather than thinking about climate breakdown, being totally isolated from your neighbours and managing your anger by attempting to communicate to a wider world that might not be listening. At least I would get a cool sword to reek justice.
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