#The Lost Art of the CD ROM
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Sparkstember Day 19:
OK so this one's a little tenuous, but follow me here... I was researching different editions of Lil' Beethoven and I saw there was a deluxe version of the album with a CD-ROM component, even boasting a Lil' Beethoven SCREENSAVER.
So what if Sparks had fully embraced the CD-ROM era and released AFTER SPARKS: the official screensaver collection...?
#Sparks#Sparks Band#Sparkstember#Sparkstember 2023#After Dark#CD-ROM#Screensavers#The Lost Art of the CD ROM#The Lost Art of the CD-ROM#Lil Beethoven
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and also this
🕯🌏💿🕯
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The Epitaph of Anything Goes
I decided that this morning I would talk about The Museum of Anything Goes and the subject of lost media.
For the uninitiated, The Museum of Anything Goes is an obscure "game" released in 1995 by Wayzata Technologies, a company that is so far under the radar that I was unable to find any useful information about it outside of TMoAG.
All I could uncover is that they published a few multimedia projects (which are essentially lost now) alongside some asset discs (clipart, SFX, etc.). That's it.
The brains behind Wayzata are even more difficult to locate these days: there are only two main names credited inside of TMoAG - Michael Markowski and Maxwell S. Robertson.
The game alleges that Michael and Maxwell are well known in the art world, but any additional information about the duo is scarce beyond the confines of the museum. Attempting to search for either name online turns up plenty of rabbit holes - but none of them have anything to do with the Michael and Maxwell responsible for TMoAG.
This is particularly fascinating because it essentially means that TMoAG is the only accessible record of their lives. Before we dig any deeper into that statement, let me step back and actually address what this game is.
The Museum of Anything Goes is, by definition, a virtual art museum. Functionally it's a prerendered point-and-click adventure game where you can explore a bunch of multimedia exhibits that give the surface-level impression of a children's edutainment game, but once you start exploring further it reveals a side that firmly plants the game's feet into a haze of substance abuse and surreal humor.
Many exhibits are essentially just toying around with the astonishing new powers of CD-ROM. Everything has to make noise. Everything has to spin and flitter around. There's an air of genuine excitement for the medium, and I can't help but find it extremely charming.
The game also functions as a scrapbook, filled to the brim with photos of random trips to the zoo and snow-mobile rides with friends. At one point we even get insight into something as specific as Michael's one-year job as a tutor at a Chicago middle school, where he talks about how it opened his eyes to how poorly funded and mismanaged the school system is.
It's simultaneously quaint and chilling to see so much personal history packed into a world doomed to obscurity. As I explore the deeper parts of the museum, I contemplate if the creators are still alive today. It's a bit morbid, but imagine that - you create a single obscure game with your friend and it's all the world can see. TMoAG is currently the only surviving piece that gives any insight into who these two men were.
While many exhibits are lighthearted or nonsensical, there are occasional moments where the game dips into the eerie.
One exhibit has the player kill a man by dropping him from the sky, and after burying him you open the coffin to a video of a rotting pig carcass being put into an incinerator.
Other exhibits just feature simple 3D renders shifting around a dark screen while haunting groans play in the background.
While I would never refer to the game as "scary," its darker moments combined with the occasional mature subject matter definitely begs the question: Who is this game for?
You have to remember that this game came out long before the concept of "alt-games" had become codified in the digital space. Sure, unconventional digital art had been around before the advent of 256 colors, but TMoAG was being sold on disk as a game! It came out 2 years after DOOM hit shelves!
The trend of using the PC for entertainment was certainly on the upswing around that time, but It's not like TMoAG had a massive audience to find a niche in. With its mature themes it certainly wasn't suited for the kids market either, so who was it for?
At the end of the day, it's a moot question. We already know the target audience for The Museum of Anything Goes: Nobody. It doesn't have an audience because by its nature, TMoAG wasn't being made FOR someone, it was being made BY someone. It's a raw, unfiltered form of personal expression.
I think games like these are pivotal, because they question why people assume a game has to exist for the sake of being a consumable product. TMoAG certainly has the shape of a product: it features an intro cutscene, it has a tutorial, it features intuitive UX, it even has a map! These are all features that are solely integrated to provide comfort to an end-user. But once you actually wander around the museum for a bit, you realize how bizarrely its packaging fits its contents.
I think TMoAG is criminally underrated. It's not because its core content contains some earth-shaking truth, it's because the game defied all odds and cheated death.
How many thousands of other personal projects were deemed a little "too exotic" to be archived? How much history was lost these past 40 years as the digital space evolved and ate its old skin?
God knows how many other TMoAGs we'll never learn about because they weren't lucky enough to be preserved.
The Museum of Anything Goes isn't just some nonsensical art piece, it's a grave marker for so much lost media. Its existence is a reminder that some people's lives were fossilized, then macerated into nothing because a construction company built a skyscraper over them. The only evidence we have of those other games existing is this little fossil that somehow slipped out from under the skyscraper unscathed.
Even though so much has been lost, TMoAG survives as an epitaph.
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TRIPITAKA - the lost spiritual sequel to Cosmology of Kyoto was found
This post is a compilation of a series of tweets I have composed over a period of weeks during this summer.
For years, it was uncertain whether TRIPITAKA 玄奘三蔵求法の旅, by Soft Edge, had in fact ever been published. I remind the more absent-minded readers that this is the studio responsible for the mythical CD-ROM Cosmology of Kyoto, originally released in Japan in 1993, later published in the United States by Yano Electric in 1995. Knowledge of this their second and final production comes solely from the online CVs of producers Hiroshi Ōnishi and Mori Kōichi. No other information could be found online, and no actual copy of the game was known to exist.
Earlier this year, this disc surfaced at Yahoo Auctions. It sold for nearly $300 after 24 bids.
As suggested by its tile, which translates to Xuanzang Sanzo's Dharma-Seeking Journey, it was always assumed that the game illustrated episodes of the life of the celebrated Chinese Buddhist monk, particularly his 7th century pilgrimage to India. The captures printed on the back not only show a character highly reminiscent of the ancient scholar, they depict a variety of scenes taking place in China and India.
According to the severely incomplete archived version of PD Inc's website, the Japanese publisher responsible for this digipack, it was available for sale at museums hosting the 1999 Silk Road Journey To The West exhibition, which suitably matches the date printed on the back cover. However, this date presents yet another open question, as the Ōnishi-San and Kōichi-San bios both list it as a 1995 production.
The technical specifications may provide an enlightening clue, as they refer to Windows 95, 640x480px resolution and an 8-Bit color mode. This indicates that TRIPITAKA was indeed developed sometime between 1993 and 1995, although it was never published in the CD-ROM game circuit, certainly not in the immediate years after its development was completed. Combined with the data retrieved from the publisher's website, the edition shown here appears to have been produced solely for the occasion, as a means to diversify the museum shop catalog for this major exhibit, given the shared theme.
It would have been nearly impossible, had the program been in fact published in 1995, for a single copy to not have been spotted or mentioned online by the many Japanese collectors who have attempted to locate it for decades, unsuccessfully. On the other hand, a CD-ROM that was sold at a museum exhibit is likely to be purchased by visitors who were entirely unaware of the item's relevance as an elusive multimedia gem.
If a tangent is permitted here, both productions are inextricably linked with the museum space, and as far as I can speculate, Cosmology of Kyoto was, itself, also published with the intention of being made available in gallery stores in addition to computer game retailers. I say this because this was a production made possible by collaborative efforts including a variety of Japanese museums, to the extent these are referenced by name in the game's credits.
Considering the price at which the item was sold at auction, I was fairly certain that it was purchased by one such video game collector who knew exactly what they were bidding for. Later in July, I was able to locate the buyer and establish contact. Initially, the buyer was only able to produce this screenshot of the disc program launcher. The title reads "Cosmology of Asia", validating the claims that Soft Edge was in effect planning for series of edutainment software prior to its demise in the mid-90s.
In my second contact with the owner, I asked if he was available to produce a disc image and share it online for purposes of software preservation. The owner politely declined, stating that this was not something he was willing to do but offered to record the following gameplay video instead.
youtube
At a glance, the art style of Tripitaka is unsurprisingly similar to that of Cosmology. Most of its episodes occur during the day, whereas the latter was mostly played under the dark cover of night. The first scene depicts a dying Xuanzang reminiscing on his journeys in the company of a young chronicler. Structurally, both games are also nearly indistinguishable from one another, producing ample historical information for context, including detailed maps and chronologies.
TRIPITAKA was considered to be lost media for decades. As such, the importance of this footage could hardly be overstated. I would not hesitate to compare this development to the unearthing of Osamu Sato's Chu-Teng, the Eastern Mind sequel that was also deemed lost for many years, miraculously found during the time this blog was inactive.
I am delighted to have played a minor role in the unraveling of this thirty year old mystery, and can hardly contain my enthusiasm, as I now find myself equipped with sufficient information to produce a full post concerning a game about which I could not have written more than a sentence, just last year.
I would also like to thank the author of the @mendelpalace Tumblr for his timely alert regarding the Yahoo listing.
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Shining Force Translations/Loreposting masterpost
About time I tried to organize all the rambling i do here.
Update: also organizing things even better on a website on Neocities, it’s still a work in progress but I hope to one day just replace this entire mess of links with it.
For now though, the mess of links below is the best we’ve got.
Shining Force:
partial translation of character bios from the Shining Force Encyclopedia (original scans here)
translations of the Shining Force Kouryaku no Tebiki Book (original scans here), starting from the character bios, then getting to Max’s diary, the epilogue interview with Nova, and the Country Guide.
translations of the Shining Force World Book (original scans here)
partial translations of the Shining Force Data Collection from Beep Megadrive magazine
Write up on the japanese pre release coverage of the game, including plenty of changed/removed content
Write up on unused content in the game seen through a ROM editor.
Some further investigation on unused content visible with walk through wall cheats: Khris’ scandalous secret line, unused NPCs in Alterone, and weirdness in chapter 7 and the debug mode (note: i have since then sadly confirmed that lines related to the unused event in Metapha are sadly removed in the JP version as well).
The unused content info is also summarized on TCRF as well.
that one post where i ramble a lot about the ending, including the japanese/english differences
All HQ quotes in the japanese and english versions
All special quotes from the ship HQ of Chapter 5, japanese and english versions
Bloodline of the Sacred Dragons novel translation [ongoing]
Shining Force CD/Gaiden 1 & 2:
Discussion and retranslation of the initial characters’ introduction scene
Sadposting about Hindel plus a small correction to the localization
tfw you don’t have money for treatment in Book 3
Hanzou’s bio from the Guide Book
Natasha is Nick’s cousin according to the SFCD manual
Origin of Apis’ name
Final Conflict:
Translation of all HQ quotes. From what I’ve seen these were mistranslated in the fan translation patch.
Sprite rips and comparisons between the original graphics and the sprites from Shining Force Chronicles 3, the lost mobile version of the game.
Darksol concept art
A few scenes from the start
Me crying about the ending
Unused spell indexes
The Natadecoco/Yogurt lore...
Not mine but worth linking here: the only footage of Shining Force Chronicles 3 I’ve ever found.
Shining Force 2:
All HQ quotes in the japanese and english versions, plus some related stuff from a guide book
Translation of the encyclopedia. You gotta put up with some rambling at the start because i didn’t put that in a different tag my bad.
Manual translations (The prologue and character bios). Also includes a retranslation of the lore dump of Tristan and discussion of the names changed by localization.
Write up of the japanese pre release coverage of the game, including plenty of early build screenshots. The post is currently broken and cannot be edited, but unlike what it says I won’t be making a second part, there are only a few screenshots missing and I’ll put them on TCRF later and link it here.
Bloodline of the Sacred Dragons novel translation [ongoing] (listed it twice in the post since it takes place between SF1 and SF2 with plenty of characters and elements from both)
Sadposting about Hawel
Observation about the Granseal escape sequence that haunts me
Ramblings and love for Zynk
Oddeye’s concept art/beta design
My gameplay of the japanese version. I didn’t make an specific tag for it so you gotta scroll past a few english posts first, my bad. Also I stopped the playthrough at Red Baron. Overall take translations in this one with a grain of salt because it’s messy and old.
Japanese and english versions of the conflict with Oddeye
Me trying and failing to understand the lore dump at Hassan
Fairly important cut line from Zynk
Shining Force GBA:
The english version’s odd obsession with giving relatives to people
HQ dialogue
English Nova forgets Anri exists
Shining Wisdom:
Guide Book translations
Interview snippet from before the game’s launch that says Final Conflict characters were meant to have a cameo appearance there
Shining in the Darkness:
JP manual and intro translation, plus a mention of Dark Dragon in a magazine
Shining Soul 2
Translation of the prologue and bios of the playable characters from the guide book and official website
Translation of bios of the town NPCs
Translation of bios of the boss characters
Masterpost about the lost mobile games
The general tag for discussing localization stuff
My playthroughs. Note that back at some of those playthroughs I hadn’t yet dived into guides and lore and stuff so they might have mistakes and stuff, I’m not linking them as a source of info, just as a source of fun:
Shining Force
Shining Force CD
Final Conflict
Shining Force 2
Shining Force GBA
Shining Soul
Shining Soul 2, mostly with a Slade sprite hack
Shining Wisdom
Landstalker
#shining series#shining force#shining force cd#shining force 2#shining force final conflict#shining force masterpost#about damn time#shining soul#shining soul 2#god it's so sad how sf2 is mostly my thoughts and zero actual info#i checked three strategy guides and none of them have anything interesting#obviously desktop kingdom people at least have things in the novel but... haha#shining in the darkness#landstalker
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Can's Best Friend - A Quick Review of Boxville
Welcome to Boxville - a cosy cardboard city populated by sentient tin cans that communicate via drawings. In this point-and-click puzzler developed by the Ukrainian indie team Triomatica Games, strange earthquakes leave you searching for your lost “dog” Rusty throughout the city, all the way from the rooftops to the industrial slums below. Along the way, fate seems intent on putting all sorts of obstacles in your path - but not to worry, as the city is full of other tin can residents that are (mostly) happy to help…once you’ve given them a hand with their own problems, of course. Grab and combine various items throughout the city, track down missing belongings, trade and help your neighbours in a chain-of-events style puzzle game where one puzzle solved usually helps progress the next puzzle. Hang on, Rusty - we’ll find you!
Boxville is a very, very short and sweet game - I finished it in just under 3 hours, without having too much difficulty with the trickier puzzles. Even so, it was a very enjoyable 3 hours; perhaps a little pricey, but absolutely worth grabbing if it’s ever on sale. The puzzles range from straightforward sequences to more complex headscratchers, but they’re never annoying or frustrating. You never feel like blaming the game for having trouble with the puzzles, and there’s always that lightbulb moment of “oh, that’s the solution, of course” which always feels great. As a point-and-click game, the old reliable trick of wiggling the mouse cursor all over the screen to see if it reacts to anything clickable still works, though sometimes it takes a little more critical thinking to figure out what to do with any interactables.
There’s something oddly nostalgic about the art style - it kinda reminds me of those old I Spy games, if any 90’s kids that grew up playing CD-ROM games know what I’m talking about. Add the chill music, and you get a cosy, almost “hand-made arts and crafts” vibe for the whole game. The lack of any written instructions, relying instead on drawings and visuals, make the game highly accessible, and even the short length of the game didn’t keep me from growing attached to the cute little tin can citizens - except for that one guy that steals your dog and keeps bullying all the other characters. Screw that guy. Again, it’s only a three-hour-or-so long game, but it was clearly made with love for a very fun afternoon of puzzle-solving. Try it out for yourselves, and support a team of Ukrainian developers at the same time!
I hope you enjoyed this quick review of Boxville - feedback, reblogs and likes are all much appreciated!
Thanks for reading!
An Aussie Button-Masher
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lore building prompts [always accepting]
@marblewon said: What sort of things did Robin like to do growing up? Any hobbies, or games she liked to play? Did she bicker with her brother often, or did they get along for the most part?
~ What sort of things did Robin like to do growing up? Any hobbies, or games she liked to play?
Ever since she was small, Robin enjoyed drawing. It's why she was able to continue her craft and use it to pay for living expenses out in the Lost Woods once her family was gone. Her mother was an accomplished artist, so the sort of drive to create is genetic.
Besides drawing, she enjoys birdwatching and nature-watching in general. Her senses allow her to see things much better than most can, and this practice in being quiet and laying low to observe has helped her in improving as a hunter.
Her family didn't have any gaming consoles growing up, they had a TV with limited connection thanks to their location, and later a preowned computer used for financial things. Robin and her brother played old DOS games on it, like King's Quest and art games like Kid Pix. Lots of their homeschooling was supplemented with the "edutainment" CD ROM games purchased from thrift stores.
Even then, Robin and her brother spent their days outside most of the time. She would wrestle with Haruki in her wolf form, developing her control even further.
~ Did she bicker with her brother often, or did they get along for the most part?
As much as she doesn't like to admit it, yes, she did bicker with her brother. It's a natural sibling thing to do, but they didn't do it very much. If it happened, it was small spats, usually over who got to play what role in their pretend games, or who got to the racing finish line first. They bickered over Robin's powers, sometimes evolving into actual fights thanks to Haruki's insecurities.
They really got along for the most part. They were each other's sole confidants.
#marblewon#;ic#;from the depths of the woods where the wind was born (meta)#;letters delivered (asks)
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Last week I found my Master of Arts (sociology) that I completed in 2004 on a CD-Rom. Remember those?
Reading it was painful. There were a number of typos and after working for 16 years in in the area of social policy I’m a much more concise and clear writer.
I want to print the thesis again because I no longer have a hard copy. So over the weekend I found an old computer with a CD-ROM drive, somehow opened it without corrupting the file and started editing it. I couldn’t help myself as a perfectionist. The thesis was so stressful to write that I haven’t been able to look at it for 18 years with a clear mind.
I was able to spot and correct typos and cut out 8,000 words through editing to make it a sharper product. Although I received an A for the thesis, it was a document driven anxiety and uncertainty, and a quarter-life crisis. My supervisors took my course fees, but were very ‘non-directive.’ The only substantial feedback I received was from the external examiner.
This meant I padded my writing out through trying to anticipate every possible objection. I see now I sometimes went down rabbit holes and lost the bigger picture in what I created. For example, I thought I had to worry about and address questions about how we can know about the past. I wish the me I am now could have been the editor of the product I wrote in my early 20s.
So, although I can’t go back in time, I’m going to print an idealised version of what I created two decades ago.
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Wii channels shut doen
To an extent, most games seem to be seen as merely being disposable by the companies in charge. This mentality isn’t exclusive to Nintendo it seems to be the mindset of most publishers in general. Yet, the company hasn’t taken any real action to preserve these games from a legal standpoint. They will still live on in emulation communities like the retro games, but of course, Nintendo will never approve of this. But, it’s situations like the closure of the Wii Shop Channel that drive some gamers to turn to emulation and piracy in the first place.Īs I alluded to earlier, most WiiWare games are now gone forever from a legal perspective. Nintendo has not been shy about voicing its disdain for this sector of gaming, even going to the point of taking ROM sites to court-a move which had huge ramifications that spread throughout the rest of the community. True, a lot of the games that were available here are also officially available elsewhere, but it’s no surprise that they’re most prevalent in the ROM/emulation communities. I never really got into the VC, but I can see why retro fans in particular are mourning the loss of the Wii VC. Of course, the Wii Shop Channel’s truly biggest asset was the Virtual Console, which still remains as Nintendo’s largest collection of retro games to date. So, as simplistic as the Wii Shop Channel was, it still managed to charm my little 11-year-old mind. Prior to this, I played only on PC, and that was at a time when CD-ROMs and DVDs were still prevalent. The Wii was my very first console, so the Wii Shop Channel also happened to be my introduction to the world of digital games. Though, I do still have fond memories of booting it up and hearing that iconic music. That’s why I’d be lying if I said it’s truly sad for me to see the store close down. However, also just like the Wii’s retail library, the selection of truly top-tier WiiWare games is quite lacking in the grand scheme of things. Though, there were a few stand-out hits like World of Goo, FAST Racing League, Art of Balance, and Excitebike, which were just as polished as quality retail games. The Wii Shop Channel had a file size limitation of only 45MB, so the digital-only WiiWare games were usually very simplistic. Like the Wii console itself, the Shop Channel was incredibly simple and archaic when compared to the PS3’s PlayStation Store and the 360’s Xbox Live Marketplace, which had fully digital versions of all their retail games. The Wii Shop Channel was important for Nintendo since it marked the company’s first true attempt at trying its hand at an online marketplace. Seeing it all go offline seemingly so effortlessly reminded me of just how fragile this new age of digital gaming is-yet the industry continues to march ahead with embracing it. As a result of its closure, quite a number of digital-only games are now lost to time (at least from a legal perspective). 30, a whopping 12 years after first coming online. The Wii Shop Channel shut its doors on Jan. The fragility of digital games The fragility of digital gamesĪs a new year comes in, remnants of an era long past have finally been whisked away.
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Multimedia Design and How it Has Changed Our World
What Exactly Is Multimedia Design?
Multimedia design is the art of combining several types of media. It may be found in video games, information kiosks, websites, and a variety of other interactive applications. Careers in multimedia design are available in a variety of businesses, ranging from Madison Avenue advertising agencies to Hollywood production organizations.
To merge two or more forms of media, multimedia design demands both artistic and technical talents. It is perhaps most common on the Internet, where you could come across a web page that combines music, animation, and text. The advertising and marketing businesses have embraced the trend of utilising numerous types of media to reach a larger audience. Innovations in multimedia design are also benefiting industries such as video gaming and education.
The Value of Multimedia
Multimedia is a combination of the words multi and media. The original twofold definition of media (medium) is one that stores information on items such as discs, CDs, tapes, semiconductor memory, and others. The second type of transmission is the transfer of information carriers such as numbers, text, music, images, and so on. As a result, the related phrase and multimedia are a single media, and the media is physically compounded by a single media. Multimedia includes everything you view and listen to. It has pictures, audio, sound, text, and other elements. This is often recorded and played back, displayed, or accessed by information content processing equipment such as computers and electronic gadgets.
There are two components of media that are present in all current technology. It is either hardware or software, or a combination of machines and ideas. Control systems and information are two conceptual divisions of multimedia technology and characteristics. The primary medium for media storage and exchange is the multimedia CD-ROM. The computer business cannot sell hundreds of gigabytes of multimedia programs for audio, visual, and text data without such a handy CD-ROM. We are no longer a passive audience when it comes to multimedia; we can control, engage, and have everything done to our specifications. We can no longer have pointless and direct access to key data in a report.
Multimedia can be stored, communicated, shown, and interpreted in several ways. In other words, it is an effective mode of communication. Multimedia plays a significant part in today's culture since everything has to stay up with the times. Multimedia is a fantastic technique for communicating since it is simple to communicate and comprehend what others are saying.
Multimedia’s Impact
1) The influence of multimedia on children under the age of ten: This is also regarded as the most learning age in a child's life. The toddler absorbs practically everything he sees or hears from his surroundings. As a result, multi-media training improves a child's cognitive learning, reactivity to the environment, and understanding of more complicated concepts than previously. However, this strategy works in a good way if and only if the material supplied to a youngster is favourable. A substantial quantity of data was lost before expressing it owing to the youngster's lack of imagination because the child had never seen the notion visually before.
By using a graphical depiction of the same notion, adequate data is not lost, and so the overall quantity of data that a youngster sees is boosted. This enormous volume of data must be given in such a way that the information has a beneficial impact. If a youngster cannot handle the increased amount of material, the information should be regulated and levelled to the learner's cognitive capabilities.
2) In terms of e-learning: E-learning is presently the most cost-effective and efficient method of learning. Multimedia is extremely significant in the realm of Internet-based learning for communication. For example, in order to master a computer program, we must first understand its fundamentals. The most significant method of communication is multimedia teaching, which takes the shape of a website or tutorials. The optimal situation for this sort of learning approach is distant learning.
When compared to the traditional chalk and speech technique, digital learning is faster. At least two mediums are used to offer training via tutorials or web pages, for example. The visual component is video, and the audio component is human speech. When these two criteria are combined, this technique has the same, if not greater, impact than the instructor-to-student teaching system.
3) Print and Electronic Media: The fundamental field of multimedia is electronic media, and media now dominates people's thinking. Every one of us has seen a variety of programs and articles in various forms of media. Most individuals would agree that our brain is more drawn to visual data than to simply text from the newspaper. There are several subfields in electronic media, such as cartoons, movies, news, and television shows, all of which contain both enjoyable and educational literature. We can witness the true influence of multimedia in this arena. This information exchange mechanism has a profound effect on the human brain.
The human brain is a database that stores information and memories from one's whole life. In which the majority of memories and integrated information are the consequence of media communication. Everything we see and hear in the media changes our way of thinking slightly. It typically has little effect on the brain.
4) Influence on Social Media: When we engage with one another, we establish a society. It might be an impersonal or distant interaction. Human behaviour is strongly dependent on his way of thinking, and social behaviour is all he or she observes and learns from his or her surroundings. As a result, the human brain is heavily reliant on perceived information and prior experiences, the majority of which come from the media. So, can you see the broader picture now? It is a hierarchical structure in which each node is reliant on its parent node. The media governs the mind, and using many mediums is the greatest way to manage the media, because when you receive only a few inputs at a time, you are somewhat altered from it, but if you receive a lot of information at the same time, you are greatly affected by it.
5) The Effects of Multimedia on Adolescents: This is the age when a person's character and personality are formed. The data that a human perceives from his surroundings is processed through an analysis phase. This analysis is based on prior knowledge, previous experiences, moral ideals, and personal interests. As a result, the medium of education and technique of delivery should be more responsible, because any alteration in human nature at this age is irreversible.
If a person sees and hears all positive and motivating behaviour through the means of information, he will work favourably and have a beneficial influence on society. However, if the technique and nature of the information are bad, the behaviour will be combative, inconsistent, and uninspired, and all of his/her talent, learning capacity, and everything will go to pot.
Where Should Multimedia Be Used?
Multimedia increased a simple, text-only computer interface, as well as production acquisition and retention of attention and interest in measurable advantages. In a nutshell, the goal is to increase multimodal information retention. When correctly built, it may provide significant and beneficial multimedia entertainment. Multimedia may be used in a variety of settings, including work, education, home, public spaces, and virtual reality.
1) Business - Presentation, training, marketing, advertising, product demos, catalogues, networked communication, and voicemail are all business applications for multimedia. The presentation is quite beneficial in many areas of business and life. Because they are essential in business for sales, training, teaching, lecturing, and generally entertaining a crowd. Presentation enables us to give public lectures and showcase our product or initiative to large groups of people. Oral, multimedia, PowerPoint presentations, instructional or training sessions, or simply giving a discussion on a subject to a group on a volunteer basis for enjoyment are all examples of presentations. This aims to make communication easier for small businesses and their workers, customers, and future customers.
We employ multimedia in corporate marketing to encourage clients to buy our items. Customers in business include teenagers, the elderly, and others. So, we may employ multimedia to make it easier for them to grasp. These are the most typical marketing methods for photo sharing.
2) School - Many schools are now using multimedia in their classroom instruction. This may take teaching and learning to the next level. Schools are urging instructors to employ multimedia in conjunction with their instruction in order to pique children's interests. If they can activate various types of information, the body can absorb and retain knowledge more readily. Furthermore, integrating multimedia can assist in meeting the demands of students with different learning styles. The practical possibilities for using technology to improve teaching and learning are unlimited, but the learning curve of software and hardware is reducing. The best multimedia projects can give a way to actively engage students in the learning process.
Students, for example, can collaborate in groups to develop a digital movie production. Projects like these normally only interest students because they are significantly more personal than writing a paper, even though they may work more on the video project.
3) Home - Gardening, culinary, house design, remodelling, and repair software, as well as genealogical software, are now available in the home. Although young people in Malaysia utilize multimedia more than senior people, elderly people in other countries are equally interested in learning about it. Finally, the majority of the multimedia project will be delivered via the family TV or monitor's built-in interactive input. Either on the ancient East-West Women Network TV or on a high-definition television set. Following that, home users can use their own computer to watch movies, such as a CD-ROM or DVD driver. We would like to put up a player that connects to a television, such as a Nintendo, X-box, or PlayStation machine. As a result, we should have multimedia at home so that we are not bored at home.
4) Public Place - Hotels, train stations, retail malls, museums, libraries, and grocery stores can be found in public spaces. We create multimedia in public spaces so that anyone may access it 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This is then routed to wireless devices like cell phones and PDS. Wireless is available anywhere and at any time, allowing consumers to conduct internet research at any time. This makes it easy for folks since they don't have to travel back home because they can do so online. This can save time while also enriching one's life.
5) Virtual Reality - Virtual reality is a multimedia extension that employs fundamental multimedia components such as visuals, sounds, and animations. Because it needs navigation feedback from a human, virtual reality may be considered interactive multimedia in its most comprehensive form. It is frequently used to refer to a wide range of applications that are typically associated with immersive, highly visual, and 3D settings. The simulation environment might be identical to the real world, as in pilot or military training, or it can be radically different, as in virtual reality gaming. This term will be slightly ahead of romantic interest. People tend to agree on wearing a suit with a virtual reality display and data.
Conclusion
The field of multimedia is not insignificant in and of itself. It is a full approach and instrument for communicating your ideas and thoughts to others in a more effective manner. Multimedia has a huge influence on our culture, and its use transforms it into a tool or a weapon.
DesignLab is glad to provide you with information on such topics and you are more welcome to approach us with your doubts.
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It's hard for me to express the aching depths of longing that this background image from 1993's Math Blaster: In Search of Spot evokes in me. Even as a kid I felt this way.
This pot of pouring molten metal was weirdly significant for me and has stayed with me for 30 damn years.
#Math Blaster#In Search Of Spot#The Lost Art of the CD-ROM#The Lost art of the CDROM#1993#Abandonware
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2020 Favorite Video Games
I don’t know if I am an outlier or if this is the same for everyone else but I really did not play a lot of games this year. 2020 was a very harsh year for all of us, especially for me for some personal reasons. So to get to the chase, I am just gonna say it left me not doing much in what little free time I did have, and I didn’t play much either. Usually I try to keep my lists for ‘favorite of the year’ to only titles released that year but since I played so little this year, screw it. I am gonna include any game I played this year regardless of release date.
Collection of SaGa
By far a flawed rerelease. It’s bare bones: there are no advance features you would usually expect out of these kinds of emulated rereleases like save states, fast forward, or rewind, and there was no real effort made to touch up almost 30 year old localizations that had to meet Nintendo of America’s then harsh standards. This really is just 3 roms slapped into a nice looking interface with an option to increase the game speed (which by the way you better use, the characters walk very slow in these old games).
I am bit harsh here, but only because I thought the Romancing SaGa remasters and the upcoming SaGa Frontier remaster all looked like they got a great budget and a lot of love while this is just another Collection of Mana situation (moreso specifically talking about Seiken Densetsu 1/Final Fantasy Adventure/Adventures of Mana part of that collection). I would have loved to see Square Enix do a bit more for these older games. Or at least include the remakes. Seiken Densetsu 1 had two great remakes, both unused in Collection of Mana, and all three of these original SaGa titles have remakes that have never seen the light of day outside of Japan. How great would it have been to get the Wonderswan remake of SaGa 1, as well as the Nintendo DS remakes of Saga 2 and SaGa 3?
But my gripes aside, these games are still fun as they ever were. Replaying SaGa 1 specifically during the holiday season really helped calm me down and made me feel at ease. It’s easy to forget but even in their Gameboy roots there are a lot of funky and weird experimental choices being made in these games. They aren’t your run-of-the-mil dragon quest (or considering the gameboy, maybe pokemon would be more apt) clones.
Raging Loop
Perhaps my favorite game of the year, Raging Loop is one of the best visual novels I have ever played hands down. The level of creativity and splitting story paths that went into it is simply mind blowing. The basic premise is both a wonderful throwback to the old days of Chunsoft sound novels while still modern and somewhat reminiscent of both Higurashi and Danganronpa. Essentially you play as Haruaki, a poor slub that got lost in the mountains with no clue where to go until you stumble upon an old rural village with a strange history and even stranger superstitions. Before you know it there has been a murder and the Feast is now afoot.
The less said about Raging Loop the better, although I do want to say a lot about it one day if I ever can write a proper review of it. This is a gripping game that will take hold of you once you get into it though and never let go. I actually 100%-ed this and I very rarely do that. I got every ending, every bonus hidden ending, played the entire game twice to hear all the hidden details it purposely hides on your first play through, played all the bonus epilogue chapters, unlocked all the hidden voice actor interviews, collected all the art work, etc, etc. I was just obsessed with this game, it’s that damn good! And the main character is maybe the best troll in all of video games, god bless Haruaki.
Root Double
From Takumi Nakazawa, long time contributor to Kotaro Uchikoshi’s work comes a game any fan of Zero Escape or Uchikoshi in general will probably enjoy. Root Double, like its name suggests is a visual novel with two different routes, hence Root Double. The first route stars Watase Kasasagi, the leader of an elite rescue team in the midst of their greatest crisis yet that could lead to nuclear devastation as they try to evacuate a nuclear research facility that has gone awry.
The other route stars Natsuhiko Tenkawa, an everyday high schooler whose peaceful life is thrown into turmoil when he stumbles upon a terrorist plot to destroy the nuclear facility in the city and his attempts to stop them. Together the two separate plots weave into one and creates a really crazy ride. Part Chernobyl, part science fiction, any fan of the genre will easily enjoy it. And hey it’s kind of relevant to include on this list too since it just got a Switch port this year (I played it on steam though).
Snack World
I was shocked upon starting Snack World as it is instantly incredibly charming, witty, and downright hilarious at times yet I heard almost zero people talk about it. EVER. This game is Dragon Quest levels of quirky though, and the localization is incredible. The game has such an oddball sense of humor that works really well with its presentation right down to the anime opening video that sings about the most bizarre things. Instead of the usual pump up song about the cool adventure ahead we get stuff like wanting to go out to a restaurant and eat pork chops.
The self aware/fourth wall breaking humor is just enough to be really funny, but doesn't overstay its welcome and always makes it work right in the context of the dialogue. And finally, just everything; with the menus, the name of side quests and missions, and the character dialogue -- are all just so witty and full of quirky humor. This is one hell of a charming and funny game and addictive to boot.
Trials of Mana
Trials of Mana has gone from one of those legendary unlocalized games, to one of the first major breakthroughs in fan translation, to finally getting an official English release complete with a fully 3D remake. In a lot of ways from a western perspective this game has had an incredible journey. As for this remake itself, I really found myself having tons of fun with it. I loved the graphics, and the voice acting while a bit on the cheaper side almost kind of adds to the charm since both the graphics and acting really give it an old PS2 vibe. I know that is probably just more me being weird but yeah, I had to say it.
I really hope Square Enix sticks to this style of remake more often, instead of just doing Final Fantasy VII Remakes that break the bank and involve extensive tweaking to both plot and game play. I’ll take smaller budget projects that play more like the original game any day personally. I wouldn’t mind if they also deliver a brand new Mana game all together in this engine either.
Utawarerumono Trilogy
This year saw the release of the first entry in the series, Utawarerumono: Prelude to the Fallen--and thus finally after three years since the sequels Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception and Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth came out in 2017 the trilogy is now complete in English. I ended up binging through Prelude to the Fallen very fast shortly after it came out and immediately jumped on to the sequels. Perhaps the best part of 2020 was that I finally played all three of these fantastic games, and did so back-to-back-to-back. Playing the first Utawarerumono was an experience I will never forget, it was like visiting old friends again that I haven’t seen in ages, by and large thanks to the fact that I saw the anime adaption of the game when I was much younger, nearly a decade ago. Back then I would have never of dreamed that I would get to play the actual game and get the real experience.
And it only got better from here, as all three games are such wonderful experiences from start to finish. The stories are all so deep, and by the time you get to the third entry, Mask of Truth, it’s crazy to see how they all connected over so many years and weaved together into a plot much bigger than they ever were. What carries it beyond all that though has to be the fun and addicting strategy role playing game aspect, which while a bit on the easy side, is still so much fun and helps make the game feel better paced since you get to play the conquests your characters go on and not just read about all the battles they fight. Beyond that the games are packed full of awesome characters, and I know I’ll never forget the amazing leads in all of them. Hakuowlo, Haku, and Oshtor will all go down as some of the greats to me.
Ys: Memories of Celceta
Ys: Memories of Celceta is a full 3D remake of Ys IV, a rather infamous game in Falcom’s Ys series. Not to get bogged down too much into the history of Falcom but by this point they were facing a lot of hardship and had to outsource this entry to other developers, and thus passed it on to two particular developers they had a business relationship with, creating two unique versions of Ys IV. Tonkin House who had worked on Super Famicom port of Ys III with Falcom ended up creating their own YS IV entry, Mask of the Sun for the very same system, where Hudson soft who had produced the much beloved Ys Books I & II remakes for the Turbografix (PC Engine) CD add-on created their own Ys IV entry Dawn of Ys for that console. Both games followed guidelines and ideas outlined from Falcom themselves but both radically diverged from each other and turned into completely different games.
Falcom finally putting an end to this debate on which version of Ys IV you should play have gone and created their own definitive Ys IV in 2012 for the Playstation Vita. I played the 2020 remastered version of this remake on my PS4. I even bought this on the Vita when it first came out but I am horrible and only horde games, never play them. So it was a lot of fun to finally play this.
Memories of Celceta is probably one of the best starting points for anyone looking to get into Ys, especially if you only want to stay with the 3D titles as out of all the 3D entries this explains the most about the world and series protagonist Adol Christian. Beyond that it’s just another fantastic entry in a wonderful series that has a few good twists hidden behind it, especially for long time fans of the series.
Random Video Game Console Stuff
Xbox Has Blue Dragon: I actually got an Xbox One this year for free from my brother. Because of that I started to play Blue Dragon again and there’s a lot I would love to say about this game. I don’t know if I am fully committed to replaying it all the way through however but I find myself putting in a couple hours every few days and enjoying myself again. Does anyone else remember Blue Dragon? I feel like it really missed its audience and had it come out nowadays and probably for the Switch it would have really resonated with the Dragon Quest fandom a lot more instead of being thrown out to die on Xbox and constantly compared to Final Fantasy VII and the like which it had nothing at all similar with.
The Turbografx 16 Mini: This was probably one of the best mini consoles that have come out and I feel like thanks to the whole 2020 pandemic thing it was largely forgotten about. That’s a shame, it has a wonderful variety of great games, especially if you count the Japanese ones (god I wish I could play the Japanese version of Snatcher included), and a wonderful interface with fantastic music. One of these days I would really like to be able to play around with the console more seriously than I have already.
Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon Never Existed: So Nintendo localized the first ever Fire Emblem game on Nintendo Switch which is awesome to see them touching Famicom games again--I haven’t seen Nintendo of America rerelease old Famicom titles since Mysterious Murasame Castle on the 3DS, but their trailer hilariously made it seem like this is the first time ever they released Fire Emblem when in fact they had already localized the remake Shadow Dragon on the Nintendo DS nearly 10 or 11 years ago. I and many other fans I talked to all found this really hilarious, probably solely because of how much they kept repeating the fact that this is the first time you will ever be able to experience Marth’s story.
All that aside though I have to say the collector edition for this newly localized Famicom game is probably the most gorgeous retro reproduction I have seen in a long time, and I really spent many many hours just staring at the all clear glass mock cartridge. I have found myself really obsessing over retro reproductions during 2020, and obtained quite a few this year. I really hope this trend continues to go on in 2021 as recreating classic console packaging and cartridges is a lot of fun.
#video games#collection of saga final fantasy legend#SaGa#SaGa I#SaGa II#SaGa III#Raging Loop#Root Double#Snack World#Trials of Mana#Seiken Densetsu 3#Utawarerumono#Ys#Ys IV#ys memories of celceta
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GWAR: THE definitive album ranking!
Some 50 Billion years ago, the overlords of the planet Scumdoggia sent (banished) their elite fighting force, The Scumdogs of The Universe, to pillage and plunder the poo-ball of a planet known as Earth. Their mission is the same today as it was then.. To slay and destroy all human life on Earth through means of Heavy Metal until they’re called back to Scumdoggia.
behind the theatrics, GWAR is comprised of former art students from Virginia Commonwealth University, having formed in 1984. In their nearly 40 year career, GWAR has released 15 studio albums.. Heroball resident headbanger, Carter Smith, will now give you, the people, THEE definitive ranking of all 15 blood curdling records!
15. We Kill Everything (1999) - Quite frankly, this album isn't very good. Even GWAR seems to think it’s a steaming pile of scat! They get away from metal, they sound drunk, it’s unorganized.. most of the tracks might as well be demos of ideas that never should have seen the light. That said, there are 4 decent tracks (A Short History Of The End Of The World, Escape From The Mooselodge, Jagermonsta, My Girly Ways)
14. Hell-O (1988) - The debut. The GWAR record that started it all. A mix of early thrash and near-the-bone punk rock, with a low-fi, raw quality to boot. It’s not great, but it was the start, and that counts for something!
13. Bloody Pit of Horror (2010) - The last album to feature Flattus Maximus on lead guitar, due to member Cory Smoot’s death. Musically it’s a tour-de-force, with Smoot giving some of the heaviest, beefiest solos and riffs to date. Unfortunately, the vocals are pretty phoned in with nothing much to get into on that side of things. For that reason, it ends up ranking lower on my list , despite the great instrumentation. Notable tracks include “Zombies, March!” and “Hail, Genocide!”
12. Ragnarök (1995) - GWAR’s first crack at a concept record. Detailing an oncoming meteor headed towards earth and the panic that ensues. Ragnarök is a pretty eclectic album that hits on heavy metal, thrash, punk, and some interesting use of keyboards here and there. It contains multiple GWAR classics (Meat Sandwich, Ragnarök) that have become fan favorites- This album starts out fantastic and kind of slips as it progresses and I find myself only listening to the first few songs before wanting to move on.
11. Carnival of Chaos (1997) - There is some experimentation and weirdness on this record that I admire. I find myself enjoying this album more and more as time goes on. This album has some great guitar riffs from Peter Lee, who played Flattus Maximus at the time, before leaving the band due to a gunshot wound to the stomach while on tour with the band. There are some weird 90’s alternative moments on this album that end up working well for my money. Weird but cool album. Favorite tracks: “Penguin Attack”, “First Rule Is”, “Let’s Blame The Lightman”
10. This Toilet Earth (1994) - When I was a kid in the 1990’s, I played the Beavis and Butt-Head game on SEGA Genesis. In the game you were on a quest to find your lost GWAR tickets. I figured GWAR was a band made for the game. When I realized they were a real band, This Toilet Earth was the first album I kind of found out about, because it was featured in the game, I believe (and on a Billboard Music Guide CD-ROM I had for Windows 95). Maybe my timeline doesn't add up, but I associate the game and this album for some reason.. With the experimental opening track, that has become a set staple “Saddam a Go-Go”, this album shows an odd side of GWAR. As a whole, it’s a fun album, and a solid effort from the band.
9. The New Dark Ages (2022) - GWAR's latest release. This album is really good, and this is the album they were supporting on tour when I finally got to see them live. It's heavy and melodic, but also experimental and odd. There are touches of Dio sounding vocals, and times of ambient oddness. A solid record though for their second release without Oderus.
8. Beyond Hell (2006) - One of the most melodic, and heaviest GWAR records. A concept album that sees GWAR going to Hell and battling Satan. Just a solid album start to finish, with the song “Tormentor” being one of the all time great GWAR songs!
7. Scumdogs of the Universe (1990) - To many, SOTU is considered not only a quintessential GWAR record, but a classic Heavy Metal album as well. It remains GWAR’s highest selling album and truly put them on the map. Focusing on the origins of the band, GWAR churns out a theatric and brutal record with plenty of their punk rock roots poking through. Notable tracks include “Sick of You”, “Horror of Yig”, “Vlad The Impaler”, and “Death Pod”.
6. The Blood of Gods (2017) - GWAR's first album without lead singer Oderus Urungus (Dave Brockie) due to his untimely death. This album brings back Mike Bishop as the new character Blöthar the Berserker on lead vocals (Bishop originally played bass and occasional lead vocals as Beefcake the Mighty from 1987 to 1999). This album took a while to grow on me, but I have come to realize it’s actually really good! It focuses a lot more on vocal melody, as opposed to bellows or yells, although it still has plenty. And it has some really great guitar work. There is a lot of feeling in this record, there is a recaptured energy, but also a sense of sorrow at the loss of their longtime frontman. It all comes to a head on the emotionaly charged “Phantom Limb”, a tribute to their fallen Scumdog. What is this? GWAR making me feel things!?
5. America Must Be Destroyed (1992) - a bonafide Thrash-Punk album. I love how fast paced this album is. Lead singer Oderus Urungus nails it, the riffs and solos kill, and the songs are a comedic commentary on the silliness of American life. “Ham on the Bone” is a fantastic opening track, and “Gor-Gor” tells the story of a giant Antarctican Dinosaur Creature that is both friend and foe to the Scumdogs.
4. Violence Has Arrived (2001) - The album that catipulted GWAR from cult shock-rock comedy band, to a legitimate Heavy Metal act. Following up the not-so-great album that was “We Kill Everything”, GWAR must’ve taken a step back and decided to get back to their roots. This produced a thrash metal, medieval themed masterpiece that contains two of my all time favorite GWAR tracks (“Abyss of Woe” and “Immortal Corrupter”). VHA contains a musicality that is refined and technical, as well as a renewed focus from Oderus on vocals that show some surprisingly impressive range.
3. Battle Maximus (2013) - The final album to feature Oderus Urungus (Dave Brockie) on vocals, and the first album to feature Pustulus Maximus (Brent Purgason) on lead guitars, replacing Flattus Maximus (Cory Smoot) in the GWAR ethos. According to GWAR lore, Pustulus is the cousin to Flattus and took his place among the band after Flattus completed his mission on earth. A fitting replacement, as this album might be GWAR’s heaviest, and the guitar work is insanely precise and wildly impressive. Tops tracks include “Madness at the Core of Time”, “They Swallowed The Sun”, “Fly Now”
2. Lust In Space (2009) - From the opening riffs, Oderus’s rangy yells, precise drumming, this album is pure dopeness! They produce classic GWAR sounds in “Let Us Slay”, bring back some punk roots in “Lords and Masters”, and some headbanging glory in “Release The Flies” (sung by Flattus Maximus). If you want the complete essence of GWAR, “Lust In Space” is a great place to start in my opinion.
1. War Party (2004) - “COME JOIN THE WAR PARTY!” GWAR’s take on politics in post-9/11 Bush era America. This album is a banger and the first GWAR album that I really got into as a whole. Riffs for days. Melodies. Screaming. Punching. Pure GWAR goodness from start to finish! Tops tracks: “War Party”, “Bring Back The Bomb”, “Decay of Granduer”, “You Can’t Kill Terror”
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On 30 December, I drew Anna from Belarus, for my #NickDrawsNationals pandemic art project. We met in ██ █ █ █████ recycled art ███ █ Azerbaijan. Sadly, █ pandemic ███ ██ ████ ██ █ close the gallery ██ ██ ████, █ ██ curated for 11 years, ████ █ politically-motivated arrest █ ██ ██ financier. Loss of funds ██ █ █ ████ ██ ███ █ ██. ██ █ ██ last projects ██ █ ██ █ gallery space █ doctors █ █ clinics ██ store supplies █ ███ people with Covid. ██ █████ president ██ ██ █ power █ 27 years ██ █ fall of the USSR, ██ “doesn’t believe in the virus”. ██ ██ ██ distant childhood memories █ Communist times. ██ boyfriend █ █ barman, ██ █ ████ lost his job █ – ██ isn’t much work in hospitality ██. ███ █ ███, ██ ██ getting ready █ ████ New Year’s Eve ██ tasty treats, champagne ██ ███ – ██ █ Zoom call ██ █ family. ██ parents █ ██ Russia and Ukraine. ██ sister and niece █ ██ ████ █ ██ – ██ █ wealthy and materialistic, ████ ██ █ bohemian, arty ██ █████ struggles to make ends meet. ██ more of a curator ██ █ ██ ███, █ ██ dabbled █ artistic expression, ██ █ █ ██ ██ twirled CD-ROMs around her fingers █ █ ██████, ██ ██ couldn’t find a laptop █ ██ ██ █ █ █ art conference. ██ ██ ████ █ █ █ residency in Vienna, ███, ███ █ █ foundation ██ ████ Belarusian artists. ███ █ █████ historical links ████ Belarus and Austria – █ ████, ██ ████ ██ ███ █ occupying powers ██ World War II. ██ ██ Vienna’s galleries and museums, ████ ██ ██ closed due to Covid, █ ██ █ vineyards ██ ███ – ███ lockdown restrictions ██ couldn’t █ █ ██ wine. ██ ██ foraging for mushrooms ██ her dog █ █ forests around Minsk, ██ dreams █ ██ █ a country ██ warmer and simpler than Belarus. #nickdrawsneighbours #drawing #portrait #portraitdrawing #portraiture #birodrawing #ballpointpen #ballpointpenart #ballpoint #neighbours #sketching #artinlockdown #artinisolation #isolationart #NickDrawsNationals (at Portslade, West Sussex, United Kingdom) https://www.instagram.com/p/CN5UmrtHH15/?igshid=1n8ytdcj3r84n
#nickdrawsnationals#nickdrawsneighbours#drawing#portrait#portraitdrawing#portraiture#birodrawing#ballpointpen#ballpointpenart#ballpoint#neighbours#sketching#artinlockdown#artinisolation#isolationart
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The development of Final Fantasy VII is a mysterious and hard thing to follow. While there is plenty of info out there, much of it is either rumors or unsubstantiated. The sad thing is, there is no easy way to find legitimate information on the game. This is why I am here now, this article will serve as a source of factual information about the development of the original Final Fantasy VII.
Below, you will find interviews from the games development and release. As well as links to the sources of these interviews( interviews copied so they will not be lost one day ). Beyond interviews there will be Press Releases and some other cool information. Enjoy.
Logo concepts
Meteor Concept art
Final Fantasy VII – 1997 Developer Interviews
Hironobu Sakaguchi – Producer
Yoshinori Kitase – Director
Tetsuya Nomura – Character Design, Storyboards, System, Mech Design
Yuusuke Naora – Art Director
Motonori Sakakibara – Movie Director
Akira Fujii – Battle Scene Director
Ken Narita – Main Programmer
Yasui Kentarou – Magic/Summoning Effects
Kenzo Kanzaki – Backgrounds
Nobuo Uematsu – Music
FF6 vs. FF7
Kitase: Our development concept for the story in FF6 was to have over 10 main characters, any of which could be called “the protagonist.” We challenged ourselves to create a world without someone you could point to and say, “this is the main character.” This time, with FF7, we knew from the beginning that we wanted Cloud to be the main character, and we were going to tell his story.
Aside from the story, FF6 had a lot of details undecided when we began development. A great many things were filled out along the way. In contrast, with FF7 we knew from the outset that we were going to be making a real 3D game, so from the earliest planning stage we had very, very detailed designs drawn up. The script was also locked in, and our image for the graphics was completely fleshed out. So when we began the actual work, we had already created what you could call “storyboards”. Of course there was some experimenting as we worked, but we were very clear about what we were supposed to be doing from the outset.
Actually, the very first thing we decided in FF7 was how the camera angles would change during battle scenes. We also decided on the materia system, where any weapon and armor can be equipped with any materia. Accordingly we knew the battles wouldn’t be about characters with individual, innate skills, but rather that combat would change depending on the way materia was used.
Sakaguchi: After FF6 was completed the staff had some free time. We then started thinking about what new hardware there was and what we wanted to do with our next creations, and we created a movie as an experiment. At that time we were working with the SG1 workstations, which had rendering software designed for next generation hardware. For that reason we thought it would be good if we could continue using this setup for our next game. With the SG1 software, we could develop graphics for any hardware. 1 However, for our purposes, we didn’t want the frame-by-frame, slow rendering that takes many hours; we wanted to develop a way to render the visuals in real-time for our new game.
Kitase: I believe we only had 3 months to figure all that out.
Choosing the Hardware for Final Fantasy VII
Sakaguchi: It was starting to become clear to us what the memory capacity for the different next-gen consoles would be. Our games were going to need a huge amount of memory. The Final Fantasy VI CG demo we made for the Siggraph exhibition took 20 megs all by itself. We thought that demo had a lot of visual impact, so there really wasn’t much question about which hardware we would use; if we were going to realize the promise of the demo we had shown at Siggraph, nothing but the CD-ROM format would suffice.
Another reason for choosing the CD-ROM was related to price. I think one of the big reasons the first Final Fantasy was favorably received by players, and the later games in the series gained so many fans, was that you could buy those games for around 5000 to 6000 yen. We tried to have the same pricing for Bahamut Lagoon, Gun Hazard, and our other later Super Famicom games, but using cartridge ROM meant those games had to be sold for over 10000 yen. New players did not flock to those games like they had before. If we used CD-ROM for Final Fantasy VII, we’d be able to have a 2-disc game at a price of 5800 yen. I was hoping it would be possible to make a game that could sell several hundred thousand copies.
Introductions, Difficulties, Favorite Moments
Sakaguchi: I’ve been working with Kitase for a long time, since FF5. He did most of the event scenes in FF6: the opera house, Celes’ suicide scene, the scene where Setzer climbs the stairs and reminisces, and more. I’m not exactly turning things over to the next generation just yet, but for FF7 almost all the story was done by Kitase. His original ambition was to be a film director, so he’s well-disposed towards this work–I’ve left all the in-game event scripting in his hands.
As for my part, since FF3 I’ve led the battle team, and that was my role this time too. Well, actually, the battle team is composed of solid veterans, so I stepped back a bit and played more of a producer role.
Nomura: For FF7 I worked on character design, storyboarding, and the underlying story.2 I have too many favorite parts to sum up quickly here… well, I like it all.
Narita: I was the main programmer. I did all the programming related to the field, and I also helped get everything together at the end. As for difficulties… hmm. Since it’s been a pretty sudden shift from the Super Famicom to the Playstation, we struggled first with getting used to the Playstation hardware itself, then finding out what appealing features it had, and learning how to bring out those features to make a good, balanced game. But on the programming side, what was really hard for me was going from 2D to 3D. Probably any programmer would say the same I think.
As for things I’m proud of, I thought the movies and the in-game field scenes transition into each other very smoothly. That was also the most difficult thing for us in terms of the programming.
Sakakibara: I worked on the movie cutscenes. The challenge for me was just the amount of volume we had to create, it was crazy. What I liked was the opening scene in the beginning. Although I’m already starting to forget it. (laughs)
Fujii: I did the backgrounds for the battle scenes. What was hard for me was that the field graphics would design their graphics with a very high polygon count, and I think had to find a way to reduce that count so the graphics could be rendered in real-time. Selecting the primary elements to render was very difficult. At first I was just fumbling through it, but I gradually got the hang of it and was able to connect things very well. When I first saw characters move around in those backgrounds I had made, I thought they looked great… if I do say so myself. Unless you’re specifically paying attention to them, battle backgrounds aren’t something you usually notice in a game, but we really had to prepare a huge number of different backgrounds for all the different map terrains.
Kentarou: I did the programming for the battle effects and summons. What was fun for me was recieving the storyboard mockups from Tetsuya and thinking “there’s no way, this is impossible.” But then when I got down to it, they came out surprisingly well. The Titan summon was especially memorable for me. The way we did it was new to me, and I think it compares really well with the work I’ve done in the past.
The CG Team
Sakaguchi: We definitely hired a lot more CG staff than we had before.
Kitase: Yes, but they didn’t feel like a separate, “detached force” from our main development team. They had experience in the game industry. What’s more, our existing staff at Square, who up to now had only worked on games, were able to learn a bit about CG from them.
Sakaguchi: For FF7, about 80-90% of the field and game mechanics were done by our traditional staff. For the CG staff with their specialized hardware knowledge, we tried to let them do their thing (but this time with a video game). Several top-grade special fx guys who had worked at Digital Domain and Lucasarts’ Industrial Light Magic also contributed to FF7.
Maps and Backgrounds
Naora: I worked on the unifying all the graphics, including the movies. The majority of my work was on the background graphics. In our previous games, most of those graphics were done with a fixed top-down perspective. To take a town for an example, the map would be composed of various sprites: houses, streets, foliage, fences, and so on. With FF7 we didn’t have to use sprites and could instead present the maps as one seamless image.
I had experimented with this before in the trial scene of Chrono Trigger. I used a bunch of memory to make one single image for the background. Previously we had to reuse so many sprites for our maps, but it was very exciting to be able to include whatever we wanted for FF7. We could have more varied terrain, and our whole image of the game world really expanded.
The work of mine that I really want people to see is, of course, Midgar. I had the image of a pizza in mind when I designed that city, and I really like how it turned out.
In any event, what we really wanted to convey with the backgrounds was a lived-in feel. Down to the beds and individual toilets, I put a lot of detail into everything.
And even after I stopped working, my boss was still making stuff. On one of the posters hanging on the wall, he added an image of Hironobu Sakaguchi. (laughs) I should be upfront: there’s many graphics that even I don’t know about hidden away in the game. Be sure to look closely at the walls inside the buildings. Who knows what surprising things you might discover. The Rocket Town especially has a variety of interesting things hidden away.
Cinematic Aspirations
Kitase: Visually, I wanted Final Fantasy VII to be a completely unified work, with a single style running from beginning to end. The cut-scene movies, overworld map, and battle scenes would not be disconnected, but would instead smoothly and seamlessly transition into one another. To call this game “cinematic” would be correct, but what I really wanted was something where all the compositions and shots would be suffused with meaning and show the intent of the creators.
For all our previous games, when we’ve been in the phase of brainstorming ideas and sketching pictures, there’s always been the knowledge that we have to work within the hardware memory limitations. This time there were no limits, and no restraints.
That difference in available memory had a really big influence on the development. For the gameplay system, story, and in-game events, it didn’t change very much. What the increased memory allowed in FF7 was more painterly visuals, with a better sense of space and composition. Naturally the graphics quality itself has also gone up, but I think it’s in the cinematic presentation where you see the evolution.
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Sakaguchi: Speaking of cinematic, we also wanted to have a soundtrack with no repeated music. In movies, you don’t hear music get repeated, you know. Depending on the scene the tempo or the intensity might change though. I think something like that should be possible… although there is the matter of how much available spirit/creativity we can get out of our composer, Uematsu. (laughs) Of course FF7 is a game that takes over 40 hours, so some music is repeated, but our overall goal was to make it as cinematic as possible in that regard.
We also had Yoshitaka Amano do illustrations for the world of FF7. Some of his work appears as a frescoe on a wall in the game.
Kitase: We had really been wanting to use Amano’s artwork in-game before. In FF6, we wanted to have one of Reim’s drawings being Amano’s artwork. In the ending scene Reim would have painted a wall mural showing scenes of all the adventures the heroes had undertaken.
Character Design
Nomura: Since the characters in FF7 were going to be rendered in real-time, the nitoushin,3 chibi-style character design we’ve used in previous games wasn’t going to work here. If they brandished their sword overhead they’d end up stabbing themselves in the head. Not using the super-deformed style meant we had no limits on how to animate these characters.
Naora: I helped out on the character design too. In the previous games with the nitoushin, deformed sprites, it would look really lame if they rode a motorcycle or something. By changing the character’s dimensions, we were able to have them ride different vehicles.
Nomura: My involvement with FF7 goes back to helping create the basic story, and we came up with the characters during that time too. I think that was a good way to do things. Barret and Cait Sith were two characters whom I had wanted to create for a long time, but everyone else was created as we were writing the story.
As for things I personally designed, I think the Yin and Yang boss came out really well. Also, the Iron Giant. It wasn’t enough to just have a good initial design though. I had to create a design, then translate it into a 3D model, then see how it looked all-around, and only then could I say “alright, this is good.” Yin and Yang and the Iron Giant were two designs I felt that way about.
I also helped out on all the storyboad designs for the summons. Since 3D allows you to change the perspective in various ways, we decided to make the summons have really flashy camerawork.
Favorite Characters
Kentarou: I personally really like Red XIII’s scenes. Every time I remember that one scene of his, I start to tear up. (laughs)
Kanzaki: My favorite would be Tifa, because of her ample bust. (laughs)
Fujii: Yuffy. I like the sounds she makes. Also, it’s not a character, but I like all the summons.
Kentarou: Ah, yeah, I have a special love for Titan. Nomura said Titan should flip over the ground that the enemies are on. He would peel off a slab of the land: no matter what terrain he was on. (laughs) At first I had him come in on normal ground, and he’d flip the same slab of ground no matter what terrain… but that looked boring. I had a small insight into the problem and was able to solve it.
Narita: My favorite character is Barret. Because he does the same damage when he’s in the back row. (laughs)
Kanzaki: Yuffy and Vincent can do that too, though.
Narita: You can clear the game without getting Yuffy. I didn’t add her to my party. As for Vincent, I can’t forgive him. (laughs) Yeah, it’s Barret all the way for me.
Sakakibara: I like Jessie. She cleans your face for you. (laughs) If only you could have had Jessie in your party.
Nomura: For me, it’s of course Cloud and Sephiroth. My concept for Sephiroth from the beginning was that everything about him would be kakkoii.4 His battle movements, and all his in-game scenes too. My image of the relationship between Cloud AND Sephiroth was that of Musashi Miyamoto and Sasaki Kojiro, and I had them in mind when I designed their appearance, as well as their swords. Of course Cloud is Musashi, and Sephiroth is Kojiro.
Animating the Characters
Narita: The movement of the characters during the in-game events was actually all done by character designers in the planning group. Normally those designers convey what they want to a motion specialist, who then animates them. But in our case, the character designers learned how to do the motion work, and if they wanted to add some movement or gesture to a character they did it themselves. That’s why each character’s movements differ depending on who created them. There were designers who liked very exaggerated movements, and those who preferred more quiet, subtle movement.
For the character battle animations, however, we had motion specialists for each character. But for all the other in-game events, the designers created the character’s movements themselves.
Narita: Nomura was the Demon King of retakes. He was always making the designers re-do things. “Nope, that’s wrong there.”
Kanzaki: But it’s really thanks to him that we achieved very realistic motion.
Nomura: We spent more time on the typical, everday motion of the characters than we did on other types of motion. That’s where the character’s personality comes out, after all. So yeah, I stuck my nose into everyone’s work there. (laughs) I drew the designs for these characters from the moment we had our basic idea of them; no one told me “draw him this way” or anything like that. Every character in FF7 is one that I designed just how I wanted to.
The first characters we had were Cloud and Barret. From there we kept talking, and as we worked our ideas out, new characters would come up. All the characters were created in the course of our discussing our ideas for the game. None of them were created after the fact, as in “oh, let’s make this kind of character.” As we brainstormed about the game, we’d realize a character was already there in our minds.
Limit Breaks
Nomura: With each Final Fantasy, the entire team contributes to the initial design/planning documents, and we then pick out the best ideas from there. During that highly individual period of brainstorming, I came up with the idea of adding limit breaks to the battle system. In FF6 we had desperation attacks that would happen when you were near death, and I wanted to build on that idea. Since you were free to build your character by adding and removing materia, I also wanted to add limit breaks as a way to bring out the individual, innate personalities of each character. For that reason I’m really glad we were able to include them. It also allowed us to add more unique animation for each character, too, further emphasizing their individuality.
The Music of FF7
Uematsu: I know many players were hoping that with the move to the Playstation, we’d have studio quality music instead of the internal sound chip like that used in the Super Famicom games. And I know other companies are recording CD quality music for their games, but with FF7 we decided to do all the music with the Playstation’s internal chip.
That’s because as far as sound quality goes, we felt the Playstation’s hardware was more than capable. It has a higher dynamic range than the Super Famicom, and 24 voices (the Super Famicom had 8). The sound effects were all recorded in the studio, but the music, from start to finish, is all the Playstation’s internal chip. This way the music puts less demands on the read access time of the CD-ROM. It’s stressful to be playing a game and have to wait all the time for the CD-ROM to load data. So we prioritized a less stressful experience over better sound quality.
From the first Final Fantasy up to Final Fantasy V, the music has had a European atmosphere: the north, castles, blue skies… But FF6 started to break away from that, and FF7 begins with a new image, a dirty city of the future. So I was thinking the music should change too. I personally like a lot of different styles of music, so I saw this game as a chance to show parts of myself which I hadn’t been able to express before.
I used keyboard and guitar for the basic compositions, and I read the story and script as I composed. But there were so many songs this time that I was really worried I would run out of time. There were something like 100 songs needed. I’d compose, then program it in, and if it was wrong I’d revise it. Rinse and repeat. I write the music out first and then proram it into the sequencer, but there was no guarantee that the Playstation hardware would have the kind of sound I was looking for. And the sound quality might be very different. For that reason there ended up being a lot of unused songs.
Wrapping things up
Narita: At the end of the development we had a closing party. We gathered all the development staff together, and we all watched the credits roll after the last boss was defeated. As the staff was listed, each respective developer stood up and took a bow. It was the first time I realized “oh, he did that.” And it was the first time I really felt how many people had been involved in making this game.
Fujii: Once the field, battle, and world maps were all joined, that was when I first felt the power of FF7 as a finished work.
Narita: Until then, everything was being developed separately, and only at the end was it all joined together. When the world map was added and you could walk around, that was definitely the moment when I felt, “wow, we’ve really made it.”
You see, the way we made FF7 was totally different from the way we made the previous Final Fantasy games. Before, there was no real “director”–everyone was, individually, their own director, and everyone created the actual data that would be used in-game by themselves. There was a head person who generally controlled the flow of work and made sure everything got into its final form, though. I guess you’ve got to have someone like that.
But to imitate that with FF7 would have required a huge number of staff and hardware for them all to work on. You could say that the way we made FF7 was closer to the way they make movies.
Sakakibara: Speaking of that, we were also asked to make sound effects that would be of the same quality and character as those you hear in movies. It felt entirely different from the way we made sound effects before.
Kanzaki: The quality of the backgrounds took a huge step up, too. We didn’t have to reuse any sprites or tiles.
Kentarou: When I was making the battle effects, it felt like business as usual for me, so I didn’t have a feeling like “these are awesome!” then. But at the very end when we were debugging and I saw them, I thought for the first time how nice they looked. I also thought, “damn, it’s a good thing I didn’t slack off.” (laughs) It would have been really bad if we had just made a bunch of shoddy effects. (laughs)
Kanzaki: There were a lot of worries at the start of the development though.
Narita: Yeah, in a certain sense, FF7 is something of a minor miracle. I mean, we only had a year to do everything.
Fujii: It’s the shortest development we’ve had so far.
Narita: Yeah, that it was. And normally you’d start developing your game after you’d learned the new hardware. But we had to learn the hardware and create the game all in the same year. I really couldn’t believe it when I saw the finished product of FF7. It’s amazing that so many people were involved, and that we completed it in so short a time.
Fujii: Time is always the one thing you’re in short supply of. We had to do the battle system after all the field stuff was done, so practically speaking we only had half a year for that. The last dungeon was a real slap-bang, rushed affair.
Midgar near finished
Concept
midgar
Interview with Official UK PSX Magazine
Published in October 1997
Official UK PSX Magazine: Describe the game in 100 words.
Square: The latest in the Final Fantasy series is the closest Square have come to their ultimate goal of blending real-time action with FMV-quality animation, in an all-encompassing, totally absorbing and immersive interactive gaming experience. This seventh heaven is a mix of stunning backdrops, adorable and believable characters, intriguing plots, pulsating battles and tricky puzzles, which all add up to the best RPG yet to appear.
What’s the plot?
The world of Final Fantasy VII expands on FFIII’s concept of Magitek, where magical forces are a reality and have thus been incorporated into the technological progress of civilisation. This isn’t your typical fantasy setting: vast chimneys belch smoke, steam trains criss-cross the urban sprawl, neon signs crackle in the rainswept ratruns between towering factories. It transpires that Mako is a ‘dark’ form of magic, and its insidious corruption of the Shinra Corporation has created a police state by empowering a security force. You begin the game as an ex-soldier-turned-revolutionary, and immediately find yourself assisting a terrorist group called Avalanche in their attempt to overthrow Shinra and restore balance to the exploited world.
Is there anything in this game that we’ve never seen in any other?
If you’ve played SNES versions of the Final Fantasy series, then possibly not. There are slight deviations from the first six, and the music and graphics are obviously enhanced. But as a PlayStation starting point, continuity was very wise. For novice owners, however, this will be like nothing you’ve seen.
What other games have influenced Final Fantasy VII?
Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy II… need we go on? There is a whole history of RPGs and all the paths that lead Square here were winding. In Final Fantasy VII, however, there have been more Western influences both externally and from those on the team.
What’s going to be the best bit of the game?
Taking an already believable story and gameplay and placing it in an environment that now looks real it is a real shock to the senses.
Why will it be better than any other game of its ilk?
The characters for a start. Square’s scriptwriting talents are once again employed to make you fall in love with the characters, then mercilessly pull your emotional strings as they experience suffering, joy, love, betrayal and even (whisper) d.e.a.t.h. Also the quest is huge, straddling no less than 3 CDs, and with so many locations that the average completion time is reportedly 120 hours.
Any specific technical conventions to speak of?
At first the system might seem to bear similarities to Resident Evil, in that your polygon hero can move around a detailed pre-rendered environment, but the backgrounds are packed with interactive ‘hot spots’. The integration of old and new techniques also gives FFVII a unique cinematic quality. Its many cut scenes are CGI movie sequences that use the same pre-rendering as the rest of the game, so that when the dizzying camerawork finally comes to a halt, the scene on which it settles is also the environment in which your character can explore. The direction is seamless. The combat system boasts AD&D complexity. Weapons and items have slots in which to fit Materia, orbs that endow the wearer with extra powers such as the ability to steal, or summon Esper-like creature attacks, with some weapons boasting more slots for combining enhancements.
So why should anyone care about the game?
Because it’s the best RPG to appear on the PlayStation. It’s sold five million copies already in Japan!
Hironobu Sakaguchi Interview
Interview with Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of the Final Fantasy series and producer of Final Fantasy VII. From PlayStation Underground #2 demo CD set, released in the US in 1997.
Transcription and screenshots by Tuulisti.
PlayStation Underground: Why is Squaresoft publishing Final Fantasy FVII only on PlayStation?
Hironobu Sakaguchi: In the August of 95, one of the US’s largest CG conventions, Siggraph, was held in LA. At that time we were not sure what the next generation RPG game should look like, so as an experiment we created a CG based, game like, interactive demo to be presented at the show. It focused on battle scenes that were 100% real time and polygon based. This became the seed of Final Fantasy VII and it was then that we decided to make this a CG based game.
When we discussed designing the field scenes as illustrations or CG based, we came up with the idea to eliminate the connection between movies and the fields. Without using blackout at all, and maintaining quality at the same time, we would make the movie stop at one cut and make the characters move around on it. We tried to make it controllable even during the movies. As a result of using a lot of motion data + CG effects and in still images, it turned out to be a mega capacity game, and therefore we had to choose CD-ROM as our media. It other words, we became too aggressive, and got ourselves into trouble.
Why did you need such a large staff?
A larger developer team will not always create a better game, but when a project moves onto a scale such as this, you get to spend a lot of money, and work with highly qualified staff.
We were able to use many high-end machines and work with a staff of approximately 100 people, and I believe this was one of the largest game development teams in history. As a result, the final game generates a tremendous amount of energy. My theory is this: if one person creates a game – it can be a racing game or anything – or 10 people create the same game, the one created by 10 people will be much richer in scope. There is a larger pool of resources to draw from, and each person is able to put passion into his role, creating a greater sense of depth.
How has film influenced your game-making?
It is easy to get emotionally involved with both films and games, although in different ways. Adding certain interactive aspects to films however, I believe players can get further into them, even become one with the visual images. I have always emphasized visual and sound effects because rather than making my games equivalent to films, I want my games to surpass films. That is my goal.
Why is Final Fantasy VII getting so much praise?
Without changing the basic game play, the visual and sound effects have been significantly enhanced further drawing the players’ emotions in to the game. One way RPGs enforce too many images and too much sound on the players, robbing them of the feel of control. In order to avoid those responses, we did extensive research during Final Fantasy V and VI on how to make the players interactively involved in the game, while upgrading the visual and sound effects. The results of this research are reflected in Final Fantasy VII.
Are there any new themes in Final Fantasy VII?
When we were creating Final Fantasy III, my mother passed away, and ever since I have been thinking about the theme “life”. Life exists in many things, and I was curious about what would happen if I attempted to analyze life in a mathematical and logical way. Maybe this was my approach in overcoming the grief I was experiencing. This is the first time in the series that this particular theme actually appears in the game itself. See if you can spot it!
What was it like to work with director Yoshinori Kitase?
I have been working with him since Final Fantasy V. When he joined Square, he told me he initially wanted to become a film director, but that he thought this would be impossible in Japan. The previous version of Final Fantasy could be called puppet shows compared to this one. It’s a real film requiring innovative effects and various camera angles. His experience studying cinematography and in making his own films has contributed a lot to the making of the game. He is the director of this game.
The Making of Final Fantasy VII
May 2003 edition of Edge magazine’s regular feature “The Making Of…”, spotlighting Final Fantasy VII. Interviewed for this article were Yoshinori Kitase and Tetsuya Nomura.
Transcription by Tuulisti.
3.28m sales in Japan, 2.92m in the US and 1.77m in Europe. Three CD. Over two years’ development. Over 100 team members. Nine out of ten. Adults in tears. But Final Fantasy VII represents much more than cold record-breaking statistics. Here was the catalyst for the worldwide RPG revolution…
“This was undoubtedly the game that changed everything.” Yoshinori Kitase, the director the most important RPG ever, has cause for hyperbole. “We felt a wind of change inside the company during the development process. There was this incredible feeling I’ll never forget: we were making a new thing… making history. Imagine.” He pauses. Imagine.
At the time there were many doubters, but Kitase-san’s instinct proved right; Final Fantasy VII eventually propelled the high-production RPG into one of the most popular videogame genres worldwide. The first demo of the title, creatively bundled on an extra disc with Square’s first 32bit offering, Tobal No.1, stunned the world with its steam punk setting, achingly melancholic score and arresting visuals. And it bore evidence of a huge team working on a title with aspirations not yet though possible in the medium of videogames. “There was a huge number of people we had never worked with before. Up until that point Squaresoft’s teams had only ever dealt with the traditional 2D medium. All of a sudden we had new people coming in working with software like Power Animator and SoftImage that we had never heard of before. From and industry point of view, it was unbelievable what we were trying to achieve. That is why we all had this strong feeling; this great enthusiasm.”
As the software houses were jumping from the 16bit systems to 32bit hardware, Squaresoft made the headlines for choosing Sony over previous soul mate Nintendo. The story behind the split is yet to be explained and as the two companies only recently kissed and made up (with the departure of warring Hirosohi Yamauchi from Nintendo and Hironobu Sakaguchi from Squaresoft) we’re are unlikely to anytime soon. Kitase-san is predictably diplomatic, “We had a big decision to make in terms of which hardware to use. Nintendo was not one step behind in terms of hardware. In fact, the N64 was quite attractive actually. But as our goal was to develop the next-generation RPG we came to the conclusion that only a high capacity mass storage media would facilitate what we wanted to achieve. This meant CD was the only option and so from that perspective, Playstation was the only choice.”
Access All Areas
There was a great pressure on the team to maximise the benefits of the new medium. “At that time Sakaguchi-san (Square’s founder) was the series’ producer. Right from the time the decision to go with CD was made he set down a ground rule for the team saying, ‘If the player becomes aware of the access times we have failed.’ So we tried many tricks to circumvent the issue such as offering animation while the game was loading data, etc. The constant fear for us having worked with cartridges for so many years was that the player would feel bored while waiting for loads. However, only CD media was able to facilitate more than 40 minutes of FMV movies so we virtually had the decision made for us.”
Another Dimension
Graphically Square was trying things only hinted at in the first generation of 32bit titles. Using polygonal characters on CG backgrounds and interspersing the action with streaming FMV was a bold aesthetic decision. “We were keen that the distinction between the in-game graphics and the CG movie sequences was not overly pronounced: something we could not have done on the N64. The change of dimension into 3D was a massive one for the Square team. You could see the game with maps and angles that only 3D could offer and in terms of game characters, we were able to offer far greater, detailed animations, so they would look more real and more alive on screen. But it was a daunting task.”
The change from Final Fantasy VI to Final Fantasy VII is as graphic a demonstration of the transition between 2D to 3D as one will see. Just how apprehensive was Kitase-san about this sea change? “It was during development that I realised the impact that 3D realistic CG visuals had on overseas players. In Japan, you have the manga culture with the traditional deformed style world design and characters that live through a story with very serious themes. Overseas, you don’t have this. To be honest we were pretty confident that FFVII’s characters and graphics would be accepted overseas and ironically I was much more anxious to see how Japanese users would respond.”
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 in to space. This energy goes to some place to give life again when certain conditions are met. The same energy drives people. So 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 is unclear as to how much of the philosophy was pure fantastical fabrication and how much was his own dogma. One thing is certain, they posed difficulties for Kitase-san, “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-san’s main ideas for FFVII and the world he imagined for the game (the creatures, etc.) 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 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 history—the combination proved the winning formula for thousands who had never sampled such fare before. Boosting weapons and skills with Materia, summoning devastating guardians, scouring the planet’s 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.
Death of a Friend
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 a little more than a third of the game.
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?”
Kitase-san is adamant that cultural art puts too high a value on the dramatically meaningful death, “In the real world things are very different. You just need to look around you. Nobody wants to die that way. People die of disease and accident. Death comes suddenly and there is no notion of good or bad. It leaves, not a dramatic feeling but great emptiness. When you lose someone you loved very much you feel this big empty space and think, ‘If I had known this was coming I would have done things differently.’ These are the feelings I wanted to arouse in the players with Aerith’s death relatively early in the game. Feelings of reality and not Hollywood.”
Classic Convention
At the time of release the internet was awash with rumours that it was possible to resurrect Aerith. Edge wonders if this was ever the developers’ intention? “The world was expecting us to bring her back to life, as this is the classic convention. But we did not. We had decided this from the beginning. There was a lot of reaction from Japanese users. Some of them were very sad about it while others were angry. We even received a lengthy petition addressed to our scenario writer asking for Aerith’s revival. But there are many meanings in Aerith’s death and that could never happen.
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 can not 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. Edge gently pursues the rumours. “If I were to redo the game onto today’s hardware I would like to make the characters more realistic, I mean like FFX for instance. I think I would try include full voice support but I would definitely keep 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 (Final Fantasy Tactics, Kingdom Hearts) so it is possible FFVII character will appear in a future title but there is much discussion to be had first.”
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.
Afterthoughts: Final Fantasy VII
Interivew with Yoshinori Kitase and Tetsuya Nomura from Electronic Gaming Monthly, issue #196, October 2005.
In light of all these new FFVII offshoots, we thought it would be interesting to look back at the groundbreaking original PS1 game that popularized the role-playing genre in the United States. We waxed nostalgic with two of FFVII’s most integral team members: Director Yoshinori Kitase and character designer/battle director/coauthor Tetsuya Nomura.
EGM: What does Final Fantasy VII mean to you?
Yoshinori Kitase: FFVII was the first Final Fantasy for the PS1, and it was also the first 3D game in the series, so it determined the new direction that the franchise would take after the 16-bit Super Nintendo era. It’s by far the most memorable and important title for me, and when I had the chance to expand any of the past games, I immediately chose Final Fantasy VII for the project. The ending of FFVII seemed to me to open up so many possibilities with its characters, more so than other games.
EGM: When you were working on FFVII eight years ago, could you conceive of how much the game would affect the RPG marketplace?
Tetsuya Nomura: When I look back, I remember having no concept of just how massive that project would go on to become. Of course, I’d been associated with the Final Fantasy franchise before FFVII, as I did monster designs on Final Fantasy V (Super NES). I remember that before we started FFVII, the characters from Final Fantasy IV were still very popular, despite the fact that FFV and FFVI had been released. I found this really frustrating. Why would people still be talking about those characters? So I made it my goal to create my own batch of characters that would be remembered and loved by the Final Fantasy fans. Also, starting with FFVII, I was far more deeply involved with the story and characters, so I was really extremely excited to work on that project.
EGM: FFVII was a departure from the Super NES titles… were you worried about fan reaction?
YK: I wasn’t really worried about response to the graphical shift, as there were already several 3D games in America that were accepted by fans. My fear had been that the Final Fantasy franchise might be left behind if it didn’t catch up to that trend, actually.
EGM: What did you think of Cloud as a hero when you were making FFVII?
YK: There wasn’t really much controversy or criticism about having him as the hero from within Square, but he is definitely a mysterious character. That’s one of the game’s main themes, the fact that the protagonist has all these secrets to unravel. He isn’t a straightforward hero like Superman; rather, he has lots of mysteries, self-doubts, and a real dark side. Mr. Nomura was also very good at designing a character like that.
EGM: We heard that the death of Aerith and the creation of Tifa both originated in a phone call between you two….
TN: It’s funny, some magazine ran that story, but only the beginning and ending of it. People think that I wanted to kill off Aerith and replace her with Tifa as the main character! [Laughs] The actual conversation between Mr. Kitase and myself was very, very long. Originally, there were only going to be three characters in the entire game: Cloud, Barrett, and Aerith. Can you imagine that? And we knew even in the early concept stage that one character would have to die. But we only had three to choose from. I mean, Cloud’s the main character, so you can’t really kill him. And Barrett… well, that’s maybe too obvious. But we had to pick between Aerith and Barrett. We debated this for a long time, but in the end decided to sacrifice Aerith.
EGM: Did you pick her to increase the drama?
TN: In the previous FF games, it became almost a signature theme for one character to sacrifice him or herself, and often it was a similar character type from game to game, kind of a brave, last-man-standing, Barrett-type character. So everyone expected that. And I think that death should be something sudden and unexpected, and Aerith’s death seemed more natural and realistic. Now, when I reflect on Final Fantasy VII, the fact that fans were so offended by her sudden death probably means that we were successful with her character. If fans had simply accepted her death, that would have meant she wasn’t an effective character.
EGM: Which female character in FFVII is your personal favorite?
TN: [Laughs] I’m not really interested in any superdeformed females.
EGM: Since Dirge of Cerberus is, chronologically speaking, the furthest game in the FFVII timeline, does it have a happy ending?
YK: AC and DC both have their own resolutions, so don’t expect cliff-hangers there. Also, DC isn’t the direct sequel to FFVII, Advent Children is. So we can’t view DC as the ending to the whole big FFVII saga. Plus, FFVII definitely has so many diverse elements, and different fans have interest in different characters, so if, for example, one person is interested in Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith’s relationship, then AC may provide some sort of answers for them. Somebody else might be interested in Vincent, so they might want to explore DC. It’s not like this is going to complete the whole story, but it will satisfy fans who have strong attachments to individual characters.
EGM: At the very end of FFVII, we see the epilogue to the whole story that takes place 500 years later, so really, you still have another 497 years’ worth of games and movies to fill in….
YK: Ha, maybe I’ll try to do that. In a way, I consider that epilogue to be the true happy ending of FFVII. Well, it’s a happy ending even though all the human beings are destroyed. [Laughs]
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Dengeki PlayStation Vol.17– Dengeki PlayStation Vol.40-Non Translated
Magazine Previews
Forum member Brooke dug up some old FF7 previews from August of 1997 and was kind enough to share them with us. If you were already a Final Fantasy fan then, you might enjoy the nostalgia of the excitement that had been absolutely ravaging the West after the game’s January Japanese release. If you were not, it’s a pretty fascinating look at just how beside themselves people were to play this game. Also included is the preview of Final Fantasy Tactics, another imminent release at the time, as well as a truly prophetic piece about gaming and the third dimension.-lifestream
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FFVII 10th Anniversary Discussion: p. 8 to 13 of the FFVII 10th Anniversary Ultimania
FFVII 10th Anniversary Discussion
In 2007 FFVII hit its 10th anniversary. To find out the secret of its appeal, we went to the 3 central members of the development staff behind FFVII and the Compilation. How does FFVII look through their eyes?
Cloud’s Animations determined the image of the scenario
– It’s been 10 years since FFVII was released. I think the reason fans have continued to support it for so long is because it left that much of an impression on them, but what scenes stand out most in your memories as the creators?
Nojima: For me, it’s the scene where Cloud first appears at the start of the story. That scene used the cool standing animation Toriyama (Motomu Toriyama: FFVII’s event planner) made. If I remember correctly, it was named “Cloud showing off” (laughs). But when I say that animation I thought to myself objectively, “wow, this is great.” It was when I’d just started writing the scenario, and Cloud’s false persona was kind of determined based on that pose, and after that the image of the scenario started to solidify. Back in those days, a lot of different tasks would be going on simultaneously during production, so there were a lot of cases like that where the other staff would influence each other. All the important stuff was usually decided by talking it over in the smoking room (laughs). Nowadays since you’ve got the voice acting to record the scenario needs to be done first, so it’s turned into quite a lonesome task.
Kitase: That Cloud ‘showing off’ standing animation appears in the Nibelheim flashback as well. When the Shinra soldier asked about doing “the usual”, he does that pose. The same scene is in CC too, so I instructed the staff to recreate that animation (laughs). You were in charge of the Nibelheim events in FFVII, weren’t you, Nojima?
Nojima: That’s right. Right up till the very end we couldn’t get the bugs out of it, so it was pretty rough. Like when Cloud was waiting outside of the screen for his part in the scene, his hair would be poking out from the edge of the screen (laughs). Story-wise, the scene at the Northern Cave where Cloud talks while upside-down left an impression on me. I worked on the direction for that scene, but getting the characters to run to match with the movie scene was tricky, and I remember having trouble with it. The part where Cloud addresses Tifa as “Mrs.” Tifa, I made that hoping that the people playing it would be taken aback by the change in Cloud and it would really hit the player.
Nomura: The scene that sticks out for me is the scene when Tifa going into Cloud’s mental realm and he remembers the truth about what happened in the past.
Nojima: It was Katou (Masato Katou: FFVII event planner) who made the events for that part, and the movies were made by Ikumori (Kazuyuki Ikumori: FFVII movie designer). Ikumori was originally graphic designer for the maps, and this was the first time he’d tried his hand at movies. He said, “I’ve never worked on the movies before,” but looking at him now…
Nomura: Now he’s the movie director on DC and CC.
Kitase: Katou also did the event on the airship, the night before the final battle.
Nojima: Oh, the scene with the risqué line of dialogue? It was Katou who wrote that as well, not me.
– The line “Words aren’t the only way to talk someone how you feel,” right? That was quite a mature conversation for a FF game.
Kitase: But I remember having to get another version that was too intense toned down.
Nojima: The original idea was more extreme. The plan was to have Cloud walk out of the Chocobo stable on board the Highwind, followed by Tifa leaving while checking around, but Kitase turned it down. But even with the line in question, maybe at that time none of us thought it would be something so important (laughs).
In the original scenario, Zack didn’t exist
– Mr. Kitase, which scene do you find most striking even now?
Kitase: Like Nomura, I’d have to say the climax in the mental realm. The scene where the mysteries regarding Sephiroth and Cloud all become clear. I didn’t know until we were in the latter stages of development that Cloud’s memories were Zack’s. First of all, when I originally checked the scenario, the character of Zack didn’t exist. Zack was a character who came up as Nojima was building up the mysteries. So until that part was complete I was left wondering just how he was planning to solve this, and all the while making the event scenes, still in the dark about the truth.
Nojima: But with Zack, I didn’t simply bring him in just because it was needed for solving the mysteries. When I joined the development team, the concept of Aerith seeing her first love again in Cloud was already there, so I brought him in to link that with solving the mysteries.
Nomura: About the concept of her seeing her first love again in Cloud, at first we were thinking of making that man Sephiroth. When I got the request for the illustration of Zack we were already near the end of development, so when you look at it now it’s not even coloured, and I can’t really deny that it feels like quite a sudden request.
– Had you thought about the truth of the mysteries regarding Cloud and Zack from the very beginning?
Nojima: No, I thought of it as I went on with my work. So at the beginning there wasn’t much foreshadowing. The foreshadowing scenes, I asked the staff in charge of the event scenes to add after development reached a point where an outcome for the mysteries came into sight.
Kitase: In those days it was easy to go back and change things around later on. Lately, with the workload involved in making the graphics, it’s hard to ask people to change something once it’s been finished.
Nojima: Well, even back then, there were some people you could easily ask to change an event later on, and people who were difficult to ask, so the locations of the foreshadowing might be biased. I only went to the people who were easy to ask, and the foreshadowing is focused at the scenes they were in charge of (laughs).
Red XIII: Four-Legged Bane of the Event Planners
– I think one of the things that have helped maintain FFVII’s popularity is the uniqueness of its characters. How did you go about creating the characters?
Nomura: At the very start of development the scenario wasn’t complete yet, but I went along like, “I guess first off you need a hero and a heroine,” and from there drew the designs while thinking up details about the characters. After I’d done the hero and heroine, I carried on drawing by thinking what kind of characters would be interesting to have. When I handed over the designs I’d tell people the character details I’d thought up, or write them down on a separate sheet of paper. At that time, I still wrote everything by hand as well.
– So in exactly what order did you draw the characters?
Nomura: The first ones I drew was Cloud and Aerith. Next was Barret.
Kitase: And then Nomura said he wanted to have a four-legged character, and drew Red XIII…
Nomura: After that I think things kind of stalled for a while (laughs).
Nojima: Because you said you wanted to have a four-legged character, it was a real struggle to make the cut-scenes. Like, ‘how is he supposed to climb a ladder?’ and ‘when he turns around his tail and his body end up going into the wall’ (laughs).
Nomura: The scene with Red XIII standing on two legs on the transport ship was funny.
Nojima: The scene where he says, “It’s hard standing on two legs” (laughs).
Kitase: You named Red XIII, didn’t you, Tetsu (Nomura)?
Nomura: I thought a name that didn’t sound like a name would be interesting, so I combined a color and a number. The reason I chose 13 was pretty much because it’s an unlucky number. The official details for the character and his real name ‘Nanaki’ was something one of the other staff did.
Kitase: It was probably Akiyama (Jun Akiyama: FFVII event planner) who thought of those.
– This is something I noticed before, but to type in ‘Seto’, Nanaki’s father, in Japanese with the keyboard set to kana input, you press the keys ‘PS’. I was wondering if this perhaps was where the name came from…?
Kitase: Did he think that deeply about it?
Nojima: If it was Akiyama who was in charge of that, I wouldn’t put some deep-rooted reason like that past him (laughs).
Yuffie and Vincent, who were almost cut at one point.
– Yuffie and Vincent are secret characters who you don’t have to get in your party, but I was surprised that they had so many cut-scenes prepared for them.
Nomura: There was even a time when some people thought we should cut them because we didn’t have enough time. But we somehow managed to veto cutting them, and as a result they became the secret characters they are today.
Kitase: The main reason for there being so many cut-scenes for Yuffie is down it the strong attachment that Akiyama, who was in charge of them, had. Her appearing in a battle and talking with her afterwards, all those were his ideas, and as development moved along the scope steadily got bigger and bigger.
Nojima: It’s really annoying when you try to save after the Yuffie battle and get tricked (laughs). For the story in Wutai, I made the parts related to the main story, but the events in the Pagoda of the Five Mighty Gods were the work of Tokita (Takashi Tokita: FFVII’s event planner).
Kitase: Those bits do have a Tokita-feel to them.
Nojima: Tokita is involved in the theatre, and the characters who appear there have the names of people involved with the theatre like playwrights.
– Who was in charge of Vincent’s cut-scenes?
Kitase: I remember making the event where he joins you in the Shinra Mansion, but his episodes themselves was Nojima, wasn’t it?
Nojima: I did write his episodes. The back story for Vincent and Lucrecia was around from the start, and I remember linking that with Shinra. In the end, Chiba (Hiroki Chiba: FFVII’s event planner) crammed the Vincent-related events in right at the last minute.
Kitase: Chiba is in charge of DC’s scenario, but thinking about it now maybe it turned out that way because he worked on the events with Vincent in FFVII.
Nojima: However, despite Vincent not having many scenes due to him appearing in the latter half of the story, he has a fair amount of dialogue, and when he does show up he talks a lot. Even though really he’s meant to be a quiet person (laughs). Even now I have a problem when creating scenarios, where even though the character is a cool and silent type, I end up making scenes where they just keep on talking and talking. Roles like Barret, who appear from the start and have a lot of lines, most of the time, basically don’t know anything. But characters like Vincent, or Auron in FFX, it tends to be the case that the quieter they are the more they know about things, and they just end up with more expositional dialogue. I still haven’t found a solution to this problem.
The reason FFVII’s characters have continued to be loved
– When thinking of the character’s stories or working on their designs, do you have any kind of tried and tested methods, Mr. Nomura?
Nomura: Maybe not a method in particular. For FFVII’s characters, they’re the result of wanting to make varied, and in a sense going for an orthodox balance. In the recent FF games, I now receive the profiles of the characters before handling the designs, so I don’t worry about the character building much now. I think FFVII was it as far as me thinking of the character’s stories first goes.
– The characters of FFVII seem to be especially popular even out of the entire series, but where do you think the reason for that lies?
Nomura: Hmmm, I wonder? Nothing really hits me. Well, I guess that each character has their own individual episodes which are well told. You might say their personalities are too strong (laughs).
Nojima: Yeah, they were made nearly excessively individual. For example, once you’ve decided Aerith speaks like this, it starts to escalate in that direction. And like Cloud’s cool standing animation we mentioned before, all the staff in charge of the events took in anything that seemed interesting. Even Cloud’s “not interested” catch phrase comes up so much you start to think, you won’t normally say it that much (laughs).
Kitase: Everyone used it, didn’t they?
Nojima: In that sense, their characters were definitely strong. In FFVIII onwards, the height of the characters increased, and we starting to be conscious of realism. And when that happens, there are times when you start comparing them to real life people. But with FFVII’s height, even in 3D, you still don’t really get that sense of reality. Maybe in that aspect they were like cartoon characters, which was a plus. I think, maybe they had a kind of easy to remember quality as symbols.
Kitase: When I first read Nojima’s scenario, I felt strongly that his image of a heroine was fresh. The hero didn’t have a typical personality, single-minded or righteous, and Aerith lived in the slums. Those things were really fresh. And having 2 heroines, Aerith and Tifa, and having the hero waver between them, at the time that was something new. And Sephiroth too, who appears from the start and is the final enemy, and is sort of a rival. For me personally, I think those things which weren’t in past FFs might be the secret to its popularity.
Nomura: In regards to Sephiroth, I wanted to avoid having the kind of plot development where you get to the end of the story and suddenly this boss you’ve never heard of yet just appears. With FFVII, I wanted to do a story where you’re chasing someone you’ve known was the enemy from the get-go. As for the heroines, during development some people were of the opinion that compared to Tifa, Aerith has fewer scenes and didn’t really stand out, so we also increased her appearances.
Nojima: As a motif for them, Tifa is “the childhood friend who’s been with you since nursery school”, and Aerith is “the girl who transfers school mid-term and quickly leaves for another school.” Since she doesn’t have many scenes, you’ve got to make it so that the transfer student has a big impact. That was what I thought.
Feelings about Aerith, the tragic heroine
– You can’t talk about FFVII’s heroines without talking about the tragedy that befalls Aerith at the Forgotten City. That event was a very memorable scene not only for the FF series, but all RPGs.
Kitase: In the past FFs as well, important characters died and went away. Like Galuf in FFV for example, they followed a pattern where the character would go down after giving it his all in a fight. In this case, often it went that the characters think something like, they’ve tired so hard, and just accept the death and overcome it. When creating stories I think that is an option, but in FFVII we were thinking, could we take this a step further? Bring out a sense of loss somehow? What I didn’t want to have was the kind of story development where even when a character dies there’s no sense of loss, on the contrary it just raises motivation and pushes you forward.
Nojima: Kitase’s loss talk has been consistent since back then.
Kitase: And with a lot of stories, before they die there’s a lot of dramatic preparations, aren’t there? Like a “pre-prepared excitement”, or “using this as a step to fight evil further”, those are the kinds of developments I wanted to avoid. In reality, death comes without warning, and you’re left feeling dazed at the gravity of the loss… Rather than wanting to fight evil, you’re just overcome by a great sense of loss, like you just want to give up everything. I was in charge of the direction of that scene, and I tried to bring out that sort of sense of realism.
Nomura: It’s related to ‘life’, one of the themes of FFVII, so it’s not portrayed as a “death for excitement’s sake” but expresses a realistic pain. Death comes suddenly, so I think the emotion there wasn’t excitement or anything, but sadness.
Nojima: Speaking from a scenario standpoint, FFVII is ‘a story of life cycling through the planet’, so someone needed to be part of that cycle. In other words, although what happened to Aerith isn’t really based on logic, as far as the story goes, maybe one of the team was destined to lose their life from the very start. But how that one became Aerith wasn’t decided through a notice as is popularly mentioned. It was decided after everyone, including myself, racked our brains about what to do.
Truth hidden in the abbreviations of the Compilation titles
– 7 years after the release of FFVII, the Compilation began, but it was a surprise that Advent Children, the sequel, was a film.
Kitase: Originally the AC project came about when the staff said they wanted to make a film.
Nomura: But having that film work being based on FFVII was decided from the beginning.
Kitase: They’ve made several of the movie scenes for games before, so they have the know-how. But an independent film was a big challenge for us, so we had to be ready for it being considerably difficult. When thinking of what subject material we work with while having that readiness, we came up with FFVII. At first it was only planned to be 20 minutes, but before I knew it there were fight scenes, and finally it grew to 100 minutes… (laughs).
Nomura: After we started the project, there was a period where it was put to one side for a while. At that rate, the project itself seemed like it would just go up in smoke, so I put my hand up and said I’d do it, and started again from there, adding in fight scenes and so on.
– Was the formula for the Compilation’s titles, AC, BC, CC and DC, planned from the start?
Kitase: In order of release BC comes first, Advent Children was the first title we decided on.
Nomura: For BC’s title, Taba (Hajime Tabata: BC’s director) and Itou (Yukimasa Itou: BC’s producer) came to me saying they had a good idea. “How about linking with AC, and Before Christ (B.C.), and going with Before Crisis?” I just gave an nonchalant “sure, why not,” but I never thought it would end up being a formula (laughs). So, next we skipped C and went for DC. Then planning for CC suddenly began. Kitase came to my office one day and told me, “think of something” (laughs).
Kitase: That was how it all began. At then, we were thinking of a PSP port of BC. At the time, you could only play BC on NTT DoCoMo mobile phones, so we wanted to let a wider spectrum of players to have a chance to play it. So personally, I was planning releasing it on the PSP with basically the same graphics as the mobile phone version, even if we did fill in the story a bit. However, when I told Tetsu about this, I hadn’t realized at that time that that wouldn’t be enough (laughs).
Nomura: Since at first I was told it’s BC on the PSP, I thought of calling it “Before Crisis Core”. But at that time we’d already decided on having Zack as the main character, so we said, “since it’s going to be different from BC, we don’t need ‘Before’ in the title, do we?” So we took off the “Before”, and by chance it fitted the CC which we had skipped.
Kitase: When I saw the cut-scenes of the completed CC, the quality was good enough to release on the PS2, and I never expected it would be this good. With CC, I had only read part of the scenario when I worked on it, so when played up to the ending myself, as a consumer, I was moved, like “aah, so this is what Zack’s story was like…” (laughs). When I saw the ending, I though to myself, “all the titles have come together nicely. I’m glad we did the Compilation.”
WEEKLY FAMITSU ISSUE NO. 1224: YOSHINORI KITASE INTERVIEW
IT BEGAN ON THE SNES
—First off, can you tell us how the development of “FFVII” came about?
Kitase: After development on “FFVI” ended, we started the “FFVII” project on the SNES. All of the team put forth ideas for the characters and game systems, but during that time we needed to help out “Chrono Trigger” team who at the time had run into trouble, so for a time development of “FFVII” was put on hold.
—Was the “FFVII” being developed then different from the finished one?
Kitase: Yeah. It was completely different, and Nomura (*1) had proposed things like a design for a witch. In the end, when development started up again it changed to the current setting centred on mako and the like, but the design for the witch Nomura made was incorporated into “FFVIII” in Edea.
—I see. So then, when the development began again, it become the world we have now which has a strong sci-fi feel.
Kitase: At the time there were a lot of Western-fantasy RPGs around, so we wanted to set it apart, and we wanted to achieve more realist ways of showing the story. Also, Mr. Sakaguchi (*2) had suggested a modern drama-esque story with a strong sci-fi feel.
—Had you decided on making it an RPG using 3D polygons at that point?
Kitase: When development had restarted, talk of a next generation console was already in full swing. Since the next generation hardware was said to have chips that excelled at 3D graphics, we also made a 3D battle demo movie based on “FFVI” and studied using 3D. Soon the idea came up that movies would be indispensible to the evolution of “FF” and we decided to development for the PlayStation, which utilised CD-ROM that had a large storage capacity.
“ALONE IN THE DARK”
—Was the decision to make “FFVII” in 3D a unanimous one?
Kitase: There were two directions the development of “FFVII” could have taken. One was to put pixel characters on 3D maps, like “Dragon Quest VII” and “Xenogears” would later use. And the other was the method used in “FFVII” where the characters are rendered using polygons. The pixel characters used in the story scenes in previous “FF” games were extremely popular, so at first we were considering the former which is an extension of that method. But as we couldn’t made a realistic drama in that way, and with polygon characters we could use the movement of their entire bodies to express things, we went for the later to look for new possibilities.
—Was there no resistance from the team?
Kitase: There was at first. Particularly, with the loss of the pixel graphics, the designer team such as Naora (*3) seemed to have felt that their job was put at risk. But in their own ways, everyone went to the CG training sessions and such and learnt to handle it. The people who had been there since the old days are those who had overcome that sort of times of change. In a sense, that was really the turning point for the development.
—Were there any titles that served as a reference when making a 3D RPG?
Kitase: A foreign game called “Alone In The Dark” was an inspiration. The backgrounds were single images done in CG, and when the polygon character moved along them, the camera would switch and the viewpoint would change. That method was new. “Alone In The Dark” was an adventure game, and its story was set in a mansion, but I thought that by taking this and using in it in RPG with vast field maps, it could be something different and new, so I went around showing this game to all the staff.
MOVIE SCENES YOU CAN CONTROL
—In “FFVII” one of its unique features was being able to control characters during the movies.
Kitase: What I wanted to do most of all in “FFVII” was to seamlessly join the movies and the game parts. We wanted to avoid there feeling like there was a massive gap in the graphics when moving from the movies to the playable parts, and Mr. Sakaguchi also said to not make it feel like the movies stick out. So we did some tests and made the part in the opening where the camera zooms in from a shot of all of Midgar to Cloud jumping off the train. I was in charge of the composition of that part, we used a method where as it moved from the movie to a CG image, the characters were positioned so they didn’t move out of place, and we refined it numerous times to get it to sync up nicely. When it went well without moving out of place, it felt brilliant. By the way, the kind of showy events like the scene where Tifa jumps off the Junon cannon, I was mostly responsible for those (laughs).
—Do you think scenes you can control during movies not being in other games was down to Square’s high level of technical skills at that time?
Kitase: No, rather than technical skill, I think it was more the inventiveness to want to do those kind of things. We wanted to take what “Alone In The Dark” did, having polygon characters on top of a CG background, and take it one step further. And because this was our first 3D game, we didn’t know the limits so we could have reckless ideas. We commissioned an outside CG company for the movie scenes, but when the trial version was completed, we would say “the story’s changed so we’d like to extend the movie scene by about 30 seconds” which really surprised them. Since at that time even just extending a movie by a few seconds costed 10 million yen. We made these unreasonable orders without knowing that. In the end we made do with a few revisions, but we gradually learnt that you can’t get retakes as easy as you could with games (wry smile).
—(Laughs) Did Mr. Sakaguchi give any orders for other parts?
Kitase: I think Mr. Sakaguchi wanted to follow the tradition of the pixel graphics, and to show the characters’ expressions on the field screens, so he paid attention to the size of the heads. In battles you can zoom in the camera, but since the field screens are a single background image, you can’t do that. As a result, the proportion of the characters are different in battle and on the field. But when we looked at it after “FFVII” was released, we thought “people are probably going to feel something is off with the difference in proportion” and so in “FFVIII” we the proportions on the field and battle scenes the same.
A SCENARIO WITH A HINT OF MYSTERY
—How was the story, which was distinct from the RPGs that had come before it, created?
Kitase: Before “FFVI” we had Mr. Sakaguchi’s plots, and based on that each of the staff would throw in their ideas and flesh it out, but with “FFVII” we could express things more realistically, so we couldn’t take a mishmash of all the separate episodes the staff had made up and make a single coherent game. That’s where Mr. Nojima (*4), who was one of the new staff members, came in. He had written an RPG scenario with mystery elements for “Glory of Heracles III: Silence of the Gods” on the SNES, so to make it a surprising story like that we left the scenario to Mr. Nojima and he incorporated the elements everyone wanted to do.
—Things such as Cloud’s true identity were certainly surprising.
Kitase: For Cloud’s identity, we only vaguely had an image of Cloud’s own existence being up in the air and it ending there, but the actual unfolding of events was left in Nojima’s hands. And he made not only the scenario but the actual event scenes as well, and the parts where all the mysteries get made clear like Nibelheim in the past were all in Nojima’s head so he hadn’t written it down in detail in the scenario. So we were doing the test play with no idea how it was going to end, and that’s how we first found out what happens. In particular Zack was made like that as well, he was a character Nojima brought in while he was building up the mystery, so we had no clue that he was that important a character (laughs).
—That’s surprising (laughs). Did Mr. Sakaguchi have any directions for the story, having written the plot?
Kitase: Mr. Sakaguchi had been deeply involved with the story up to “FFVI” but with “FFVII” he focused his efforts on the battles. It was Mr. Sakaguchi who suggested the materia system. At first materia had the name “spheres” which Nomura proposed, but Sakaguchi thought we should make it something that would resonate easily even with elementary school kids, so we went for ‘materia’. Back then, the staff were trying to come up with some cool name, but Sakaguchi said that in order to get it embraced across the board you can’t just think about what’s cool.
DEVELOPMENT BRIMMING WITH ENTHUSIASM
—Was the wide variety of mini-games something you planned to include from the start?
Kitase: We had thought of the bike mini-game where you escape from Midgar, but apart from that we had no plans at all (laughs). Now we don’t have staff who aren’t working on anything, but back then we could have staff who had a bit of free time between projects. There were some new staff as well so, kind of doubling as training, we had them make things that needed specialised programs, like the roller coaster shooting game or the submarines.
—So that’s the story behind it! By the way, were there any specific episodes from back then that left a mark on you?
Kitase: Actually, 6 days after “FFVII” mastered up, my eldest son was born. I luckily got there in time for the birth, but afterwards my wife said “you can’t just simply show up for the moment he’s born and everything’s fine” (wry smile). So while I caused some worry, it was a memorable time also for the birth of my son.
—So finally, can you give a message to the fans of “FFVII”?
Kitase: Looking back on the development of “FFVII” now, the difference in proportion between the field and battle sections encapsulates how the desire to “include the stuff we wanted to do” won over consistency. Those bits that are rough but you can feel the energy behind them, those are my favourite points in “FFVII”, and I think maybe what has been supported for so long. As you get used to game development you try to make something more clean and refined, but even if some things were a bit irregular, like there being so many mini-games, later on you come to realise that those can create some unpredictable sort of fun. I hope we can treasure that energy in the future as well, and not forget the enthusiasm we had at first as we make new games.
*1: Tetsuya Nomura. Character designer for “FFVII”.
*2: Hironobu Sakaguchi. Produced heavily involved with the “FF” series.
*3: Yusuke Naora. Art director for “FFVII”.
*4: Kazushige Nojima. In charge of the scenario of “FFVII”.
– On the 15th anniversary
To Tetsu
You’ve mainly received attention for your character designs, but you also suggested various systems like the limit breaks in “FFVII” which would be used in later games in the series. Limit breaks are similar to the special attacks in fighting games, but what an interesting idea it was to think it would be fun to place those into an RPG format. If I said it to you directly you’d get ahead of yourself so I won’t, but I would just like to say ‘thank you’ (laughs). (Kitase)
– On the 15th anniversary
To Nojima
While we were asking you to come up with a mysterious story like “Glory of Hercules III”, me and Nomura kept throwing these elements we wanted without considering foreshadowing, so I think incorporating them must have been tough. But I am grateful that you pieced them together without turning us down. Thank you. But around the time of “FFX” our unreasonable behavior was too much *even for you* and you had a displeased air about you, didn’t you (wry smile). (Kitase)
WEEKLY FAMITSU ISSUE NO. 1224: TETSUYA NOMURA INTERVIEW
CHANGES IN THE VISUAL ASPECTS
—What was the most significant thing for you in the transition from “FFVI” to “FFVII”?
Nomura: I guess it was utilising polygons. The difference in high between the characters on the battle screen and the characters on the field screen also kind of seems like the gap between “FFVI” and “FFVII”, and seeing that process of trail-and-error is memorable for me.
—At that time, I hear you could have gone in the direction of using pixel graphics, or 3D, but what were your thoughts on it?
Nomura: I originally handled the pixel graphics, so I thought that if there were no pixels then my work would be gone (laughs). Later I took some training to learn CD, but I went into design and direction rather than working as a modeller.
—The “FF” series had been particularly known for Mr. Amano’s (*1) illustrations previously, so did you feel any pressure when your illustrations were to become the main focus in “FFVII”?
Nomura: I thought of my drawings as the standing images for the pixel graphics of the previous games, so there wasn’t any pressure.
—Standing images for the pixel graphics?
Nomura: In the “FF” series, Mr. Amano’s image illustrations and the pixel characters’ designs didn’t necessarily match. Personally, I considered image illustrations and the pixel graphics as being different categories in a sense. I was in charge of the pixel graphic parts, so I never considered myself as standing alongside Amano or taking over from him. The company decided from a rights perspective to put my name out in front, but originally there weren’t any plans like that at all.
THE TRADEGY OF AERITH AND THE BIRTH OF TIFA
—It was apparently Mr. Sakaguchi who selected you for “FFVII”, but how did that come about?
Nomura: From before when making a “FF” title, everyone would put plans regardless of their section. While everyone handed in text documents they made on a PC, mine were hand-written and had illustrations attached. Because I had originally studied advertising, I would keep in mind how to make people want to read it. Mr. Sakaguchi thought those illustrated proposals were amusing. Then one day he said, “let Tetsu draw the characters.” The start of this was the brush images for “FFVI”.
—Because your proposals were amusing!?
Nomura: Until that point, I hadn’t had many proposals taken up at all, so I don’t think that’s the reason (laughts). I suppose he liked the illustrations on the proposals.
—When it was decided that you would draw the illustrations, was the world and characters’s details already pinned down to a degree?
Nomura: There was a plot for the story, and I drew them based on that. But during the course of it Mr. Sakaguchi put Mr. Kitase (*3) in charge of production, and at that point in time the plot went back to square one. From there, I was also included in coming up with the original idea for the story, and began drawing while thinking up character and story details. At first Mr. Nojima (*4) was still on the “Bahamut Lagoon” team, so Kitase and myself refined the plot.
—Was the Aerith’s shocking death scene also confirmed at that time?
Nomura: I suggested to Kitase about having either Aerith or Tifa die, and it was decided that we’d go in that direction.
—Were there two heroines from the outset?
Nomura: No, originally there was only Aerith, and Tifa was added as another heroine later. To make up for Aerith dying, we needed a heroine who would be by the hero’s side until the end. Plus with Aerith’s death, while there were characters in previous “FF” games who lost their lives, we wanted to try a different approach. By bringing out a ‘sense of loss’ with Aerith’s death, we also wanted to portray the theme of “FFVII” which is ‘life’.
—It did certain have a different impact than that of the loss of characters in past “FF” games. Were there any other points you focused on with the story?
Nomura: I wanted to have a story where you chase Sephiroth. One where there is a SOLDIER who was once a hero, and the heroes follow him. Following a moving enemy hadn’t been done before, and I thought that by chasing something it would help pull the story along.
RELATION BETWEEN THE ORIGINAL CONCEPTS AND THE DESIGNS
—Were there any aspects of the character designs that you struggled with?
Nomura: For Cloud, at first I thought that it’d be better not to use too many polygons, so I gave him sweptback hair, but I didn’t think that looked much like a main character so I changed his hairstyle.
—Were you already thinking about polygon counts at the design stages?
Nomura: While considering it, I tried to be as unreasonable as I could. I thought that was necessary in order to do things no one else had done. For instance, making Aerith’s dress with polygons was very hard at the time. But I believed that thinking about how to make that so it moves naturally would lead to improvement of skills and rendering.
—Sephiroth’s long hair must have also been tough work.
Nomura: That’s right. That was also because I wanted to make the contrast easy to see between Cloud and Sephiroth in their designs. Blond and silver, short and long.
—At the time you said in an interview with our magazine that the image of Cloud and Sephiroth was based on “Musashi [Miyamoto] and Kojiro [Sasaki].”
Nomura: Yes. In particular the weapons, and the “showdown” image, was Musashi and Kojiro.
—Were there any other parts where the story concepts or mental images came through strong in the designs?
Nomura: At first, Sephiroth and Aerith were to be brother and sister, so I gave them similarities in their fringes. That aspect was dropped during the early stages, but the fringes stayed (laughs). I believe the original idea for them to be siblings later became that Sephiroth was Aerith’s first love. Ultimately Nojima thought up Zack, and it was all tied up.
WHITE IS THE “FF” IMAGE COLOUR
—Back at the time, did you realise the extent of the influence “FFVII” had on people?
Nomura: The Internet wasn’t wide-spread yet, and there weren’t really any avenues to see the opinions of a vast number of people, so I didn’t really know how it was being received by the public. But as the release was drawing nearer, the commercials on TV were played a lot, which gave a sense of the scale of things.
—There were several variations of commercials, right.
Nomura: Among those was a commercial that Kyle Cooper (*5) had edited. That was really cool, and it impacted me the way that different editing can give such a different impression. It was because of that that I took an interest in video editing.
—So the current high quality trailers came about because of a commercial for “FFVII”!?
Nomura: No (laughs). There is an outside editing director who has worked with us for a long time, but the present trailers are created with him.
—I see. The novel design for the game packaging, with just the logo on a white background which would be carried over to the future titles in the series, was also talked about.
Nomura: A lot of that was down to (Tadashi) Nomura who lead publicity for “FFVII”. Actually, we were talking about removing the lettering of the logo and just having the image of Meteor Amano had drawn. To have people recognise that it was “FFVII” from that. I thought that was pretty cool, but it didn’t materialise. The background being white was because Sakaguchi said that the image of “FF” was white.
—So there were lots of ideas even for the packaging. By the way, I heard that you are also involved with overseeing merchandise and publicity?
Nomura: That’s true, at the time I wasn’t sure how much I should do, so ended up drawing everything like roughs for plush toys and such (wry smile). I think it’s precisely because I didn’t know, that I was able to try my hand at everything. It was “FFVII” that was the start of my involvement in publicity as well. Though I ended up revealing info about “FFVII” I shouldn’t have and causing trouble, after that I started getting confirmation first. After I started working together like that, I was also able to cooperate with their publicity strategies, and I think I managed to get them to understand the intent of the development. Most of all, it was fun to be able to do that together.
ENERGY FROM IGNORANCE
—What sort of impression do you have now looking back on time spent making “FFVII”?
Nomura: We were basically rushing headlong, without knowing what we could or couldn’t do. And that’s why I think we could generate that much power, and pack everyone’s ideas in there. Our being able to be reckless making games that way ended with “FFVII”. Personally, it was the first “FF” where a wide range of my ideas were picked up, so it was a lot of fun.
—But before then as well, you not only created the pixel graphics but also submitted proposals as well, right?
Nomura: I put forth ideas for “FFV” and “VI”, but they were only really a part of the whole. Unlike in “VI” where with the inclusion of my ninja and my gambler I was given charge of the stories for Shadow and Setzer, “VII” was the first “FF” where I was involved from the ground up. Before then, I had been giving my opinions to a few people like Kitase, so it was interesting to be able to openly introduce proposals.
—”FFVII” is a game that has been supported by fans for over 15 years, but what kind of feelings do you have for the “FF” series?
Nomura: I still remember well what Mr. Sakaguchi said about “FF” at that time. There’s no one to tell that to the new staff, so I’d like to ask Kitase if he’d do so (laughs). I watched up close how Sakaguchi had left Kitase in charge of the development floor, and personally I think that Kitase is the true heir of “FF”. Also, “FF” carries weight because it’s a title that passed through many people’s hands and not just a single person’s. For example, “Kingdom Hearts” has the same main characters and the story carries on, but with “FF” the fact that ‘each time it’s different’ can feel like a tall hurdle. But that’s exactly why the new “FF” must always exceed the ones of the past. Even “FFVII”, which has been supported by the players for a long time and many people hope for a remake, but right now we want to prioritise new titles, and to try our best to make those become like “FFVII” or something greater.
*1: Yoshitaka Amano. Works on the image illustrations and logo designs for the “FF” series.
*2: Hironobu Sakaguchi. Producer heavily involved with the “FF” series.
*3: Yoshinori Kitase. Director of “FFVII”.
*4: Kazushige Nojima. In charge of the scenario of “FFVII”.
*5: Kyle Cooper. A video creator who produces the opening credits for films, with many credits such as “Se7en” and “Mission: Impossible”.
– On the 15th anniversary
To Kitase
We see each other a lot normally, so I don’t really have anything to say (wry smile). Lately, there are getting to be fewer people who worked on “FF” with Mr. Sakaguchi. Among them, I’ve worked with you for a long time, and it feels like you’ve done a lot for me. Let’s keep on going into the future. (Nomura)
– On the 15th anniversary
To Nojima
I think it’s great how you write this dialogue that gives characters clever things to say, and surprising stories. In “FFVII” Cloud’s true identity was a real shock. You later founded your own company and went independent, but I hope we can keep on working together still in the future. (Nomura)
Sources and Other Links!
If you like to read about Final Fantasy VII, I would also recommend buying the Final Fantasy VII Ultimania.
Interviews
Interview with Official UK PSX Magazine – October 1997
Hironobu Sakaguchi Interview – from PlayStation Underground #2, 1997
The Making of Final Fantasy VII – from Edge #123, May 2003
Afterthoughts: Final Fantasy VII –
Dengeki PlayStation Vol.17– Dengeki PlayStation Vol.40
“EGM2 August 1997 issue” scans
FFVII 10th Anniversary Ultimania p. 8-13 “Creators’ Discussion”
Final Fantasy VII Developer Speaks Out About “The Travelling Salesman”, interview by GlitterBerri.
Yoshinori Kitase Interview
Tetsuya Nomura Interview
Press Releases
FFVII North American Release Announcement – SCEA, February 1997
FFVII’s Marketing Campaign – SCEA, August 1997
FFVII Official Release Date Broken – SCEA, September 1997
FFVII Breaks Sales Records in First Weekend – SCEA, September 1997
FFVII Sells Over 500,000 Copies in the U.S. – SCEA, September 1997
FFVII Sells Over One Million Copies in the U.S. – SCEA, December 1997
FFVII for the PC Official Announcement – Eidos, June 1998
Other
Marketing material https://www.resetera.com/threads/final-fantasy-7-marketing-stuff-etc-reunion.37961/page-2
Xenon- http://xenon.stanford.edu/~geksiong/papers/sts145/Squaresoft%20and%20FF7.htm
Final Fantasy Beta- https://www.unseen64.net/2008/04/11/final-fantasy-7-beta/
See Also Beta versions of Final Fantasy VII’s world and assets- Here and here
Deleted Scenes and unseen text- Here
Concept arts here and here. Oh look more.
From the FFVII Ultimania Omega (2005).
Early concepts for the world, characters and themes.
– Character Files: Page 518, Cloud, Barret & Tifa.
– Character Files: Page 519-520, Aerith, Red XIII & Cait Sith.
– Character Files: Page 520-523, Yuffie, Cid & Vincent.
– Worldview & Terminology: Page 523-525
– Scenarios & Scripts: Page 525-526
– Scenarios & Scripts: Page 527-528
– Scenarios & Scripts: Page 528-529
– Scenarios & Scripts: Page 528-529 (Part 2)
The Unused Text Series
Text and scenes found within the game code of the retail editions. Complete with in-depth commentary written by Shademp.
• Article Index and Term Register
• Part 1: Bombing Mission & The Train Ride
• Part 2: Sector 7 Slums
• Part 3: Train Escape & The Sector 5 Slums
• Part 4: Honey Bee Inn – (1) Entrance, Lobby & Dressing Room
• Part 4: Honey Bee Inn – (2) Waiting Room & Second Floor
• Part 5: Rescuing Aeris, Story Time at the Inn – (1) Wall Market to Shinra HQ Library
• Part 5: Rescuing Aeris, Story Time at the Inn – (2) Shinra HQ Library to Kalm
• Part 6: Chocobo Farm to Corel Prison – (1) Chocobo Farm to Cargo Ship
• Part 6: Chocobo Farm to Corel Prison – (2) Costa del Sol to Corel Prison
• Part 7: Gongaga to Wutai
• Part 8: Keystone Quest to End of Disc 1
• Part 9: Over the Glacier – Attack on Junon
• Part 10: On the Highwind – Cloud’s Return
• Part 11: Underwater Reactor – Infiltrating Midgar
• Part 12: End of Disc 2 – Final Dungeon
Additional Sources- http://shmuplations.com – http://www.ff7citadel.com/ –
As time goes on, I will try and further enhance this article with more sources and interviews as I find them. I truly believe it is important to keep the history of classic games development alive.
The Development of Final Fantasy VII The development of Final Fantasy VII is a mysterious and hard thing to follow. While there is plenty of info out there, much of it is either rumors or unsubstantiated.
#aeirth#aeris#cloud strife#concept art#Development of Final Fantasy VII#final fantasy vii#jessie#kitase#nojima#nomura#remake#sakaguchi#sephiroth#tifa
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