Undoubtedly at the heart of any RPG’s success is the plot. No matter how good your battle system or locations, without quality scripting there will be no incentive for the player to play. It is testament to FFVII’s story that the game is widely regarded as the acme of the series and still frequently referenced today. While Final Fantasy games have traditionally always drawn upon a huge selection of myths and legends, the seventh game used them as a framework for loftier ethical aspirations and ecologically conscious evangelism. “Sakaguchi had a great vision of the force behind the universe. He wanted to explore the idea that planets and people share the same basic energy and so are, in some way, intrinsically linked. He developed this philosophy from drawing upon other cultures that stated when a planet disappears an invisible energy is released into space. This energy goes to some place and concentrates to give life again when certain conditions are met. The same energy drives people. So no matter who or what this energy comes from, it will concentrate all together to give life to something or someone again.”
   
These were ideas that the Squaresoft founder had long been toying with and it’s unclear as to how much of the philosophy was pure fantastical fabrication and how much was his own dogma. What's certain is that they posed difficulties for Kitase, who says, “Sakaguchi’s ideas were incredibly difficult to represent in the game since they concerned an invisible abstract concept. It was something I’d never seen done in a game before. So, I came up with the Life Stream. This was an idea that planets have the same kinds of life systems as people’s blood or nerve network. It allowed us to more clearly examine the issues we wanted to. Sakaguchi’s main ideas for FFVII and the world he imagined for the game, the creatures and so on, were very closely integrated into the Final Fantasy movie. FFVII and Final Fantasy started at the same time in their development process and they share nearly identical roots. I may have to play/watch both again and compare all their common elements.”
   
Although the lengthy FMV, random battles and an arcane combat system alienated some gamers – especially in the west where anecdotal evidence suggests it became the most returned game in history – the combination proved a winning formula for thousands who had never sampled such fare before. Boosting weapons and skills with Materia, summoning devastating guardians, scouring the planets’ highest peaks and deepest oceans for secret items and raising and training Chocobo gave both fresh and old RPGers an inconceivably large universe to explore and revel in. It also provided us with a legendary videogame moment.

Easily the most infamous and memorable character in FFVII was neither the main lead nor the central antagonist, although both Cloud and Sephiroth are premier examples of excellent design and characterisation, but rather a flower seller who appears for little more than a third of the game.
   

_{^{Sephiroth and Aeris character concepts by Tetsuya Nomura}}

Tetsuya Nomura, character designer, conceived both the characters of Sephiroth and Aerith. “The main issues of contention for fans worldwide are still Aerith’s death and the ending sequence with Sephiroth. With the plot I wanted people to feel something intense, to understand something. Back at the time we were designing the game I was frustrated with the perennial dramatic cliché where the protagonist loves someone very much and so has to sacrifice himself and die in a dramatic fashion in order to express that love. We found this was the case in both games and movies, both eastern and western. But I wanted to say something different, something realistic. I mean is it right to set such an example to people?”
   

_{^{The team had only worked with CGI arts package SoftImage for six months, but the quality was consistently excellent}}

Final Fantasy VII is arguably one of the most significant games of all time. Not simply because it was so well conceived and executed, but mainly because of its wider significance to Sony. In Japan, history dictates that hardware cannot succeed without a best-selling RPG franchise. With Final Fantasy VII, Squaresoft secured its position as king of the adventure tale and won Sony an army of fans both in Japan and the west.
   
The continued pressure Square receives to do a remake of the title is evidence of the game’s continued popularity, and today's indeed, Square Enix has made various spinoffs from VII. But when we spoke to Kitase back in early 2003, he was coy about the rumours: “If I were to redo the game on today’s hardware I would like to make the characters more realistic, I mean like FFX for instance. I think I would try to include full voice support but I would definitely keep the very same plot and scenario. I know that other members of the team are eager to do the update but, currently, I have no plans. Cloud and Aerith have appeared in other titles, like Final Fantasy Tactics and Kingdom Hearts, so it is possible FFVII characters will appear in a future title but there are many discussions to be had first.”
   
But whether a new generation of videogamers get to experience this RPG in next-gen clothing is almost irrelevant. While few would go back to experience this epic again, it is one of those rare games that cast an emotional spell over legions of players. For that reason it will always remain the stuff of legend.

This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared in E123.
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