In 1996 Square’s producer Hironobu Sakaguchi explained to Edge why the next Final Fantasy would not be on a Nintendo console. Nintendo’s planned disk drive for the Nintendo 64 held “about 60Mb”, he said. “We need about 1,500Mb for FFVII, and we’re already squeezing it into two disks, maybe even three.” The finished game took three CDs. It put 3D characters in front of painted-looking rendered scenery, cut to computer-generated film at its big moments, and told a long story about a city that powers itself by draining the life out of its planet. It also took the series out of Japan’s specialist import shops: Final Fantasy VII was the first Final Fantasy released in Europe.
Fast facts
- Developer: Square, which published it in Japan; Sony published the PlayStation version in North America and Europe.
- Producer: Hironobu Sakaguchi.
- Director: Yoshinori Kitase.
- Music: Nobuo Uematsu.
- Released: Japan, 31 January 1997; United States, 7 September 1997; Europe, November 1997 (£44). The Windows version, published by Eidos, followed in June 1998.
- Discs: three CDs.
- Sales: 9.2 million copies by late 2002; Polygon’s 2017 history of the game put the figure at more than 11 million.
Leaving Nintendo
Every earlier Final Fantasy had been made for Nintendo’s machines. Square committed the seventh to Sony’s PlayStation because of storage: in Sakaguchi’s figures, the Nintendo 64’s disk drive offered about 60Mb, and the game needed about 1,500Mb. In the same 1996 article he dismissed rumours that Square might one day bring a Final Fantasy back to Nintendo. The Square entry tells the rest of that story, including the irony that Nintendo had earlier abandoned its own CD-ROM project with Sony.
Sakaguchi wanted the game to feel like cinema. “Instead of making my games equivalent to films,” he told Computer and Video Games in 1997, “I want my games to surpass films.” The game’s director, Yoshinori Kitase, had told Sakaguchi when he joined Square that he wanted to be a film director. “If the previous versions of this series were a puppet show,” Sakaguchi said, “this one was a real film requiring innovative effects including various camera angles.” Sakaguchi also gave the game its theme. He had been thinking about “life” since his mother died during work on Final Fantasy III, and in Final Fantasy VII the life of the planet flows as Mako, an energy that the Shinra corporation pumps out to power its cities and arm its soldiers.
What it cost
Square spent heavily to make the game. More than 100 designers at its Tokyo office were working on it in 1996, according to Edge; Square’s Kenji Mimura told British players the next year that it had taken “close to 200 people and two years of development”. Edge’s review found that Square “had nearly every Silicon Graphics machine in Japan working flat out” on the graphics.
The figures for the budget come from later accounts, and they differ:
- Development: Square’s president and chief executive, Tomoyuki Takechi, told Polygon in 2017 that Square “used about $40 million” on the game’s development, and “probably spent $10 million of that just on the computers”. 1UP.com had earlier put the cost at “around $45 million”.
- Marketing: Takechi estimated that “just in the North American market, we probably spent more than $20 million on marketing. … Including Europe, probably $30 million. … Including Japan, probably $40 million.” Sony shared the cost of promoting it.
The American campaign was visible at the time. In October 1997 Edge reported that Sony Computer Entertainment America was backing the launch with a “multi-million dollar marketing campaign which includes three dedicated television spots, massive print advertising, major national promotions”.
Three days in Japan, then the world
Final Fantasy VII went on sale in Japan on 31 January 1997. It was already “the most pre-ordered game in history”, Edge reported, with 1.8 million orders in the week before launch, and it sold “nearly 2.04m units in just three days”, partly through Square’s new policy of selling games in convenience stores. By October Edge was quoting a higher figure for those first three days, 2.5 million, and about 3.5 million sold in Japan so far.
Sony predicted the largest launch in video game history for the American release on 7 September 1997, with a ship-out figure believed to be 750,000 copies. The English version was not a straight translation. Square had lowered the rate of random battles after Japanese players complained there were too many, and added new “Weapon” monsters, “designed to be even tougher than the final boss”. Edge scored the American release 9 out of 10 and thought it came “closer than any title yet” to making the “interactive movie” work.
Europe came next. Edge had described Final Fantasy in 1996 as “in Europe, never been more than a cult interest among grey import gamers”. In November 1997 Computer and Video Games reviewed the European release at £44 and told its readers, “If you own a PlayStation you must own this game.”
Playing it
The game follows Cloud Strife, a former soldier in the Shinra corporation’s army, who joins Avalanche, a small group of rebels, to sabotage one of the giant Mako reactors in Shinra’s city of Midgar. Battles use Square’s Active Time Battle system: each character’s gauge fills in real time, and a command menu opens when it is full.
Magic comes from Materia. Computer and Video Games explained it for newcomers: weapons and armour have holes, “small stones called Materia are inserted into the holes to impart special properties”, there are five types told apart by colour, and “the more you use it, the stronger it becomes”. Green Materia casts spells, red summons creatures such as Ifrit and Hades, and blue “Support” Materia can at least double a spell’s effect. Chocobos, the series’ big yellow birds, can be caught with Materia and bred to cross rivers and mountains.
Much of what people remember is the story. The villain, Sephiroth, was once the most respected soldier in Shinra’s army, and his story is tied to Jenova, a secret Shinra project of genetic experiments. Partway through the game he kills Aeris, one of Cloud’s companions; the 1997 English release spelled her name Aeris, and later releases Aerith. Edge noted in 1999 that the scene is shown in computer-generated film, and that the violence of the game’s battles is “light, cartoon-like”, but “Sephiroth’s act of murder, though, is expressed in a far more graphic manner, his sword passing through Aeris’s body”.
The PC version
Square looked to a Western publisher for the Windows version, and Eidos, the publisher of Tomb Raider, released it in North America and Europe in June 1998. PC Zone reviewed it at £49.99 in August 1998, called it “the first major Japanese RPG to make it to the PC”, and gave it 92%, despite warning that about a quarter of the time the player does little more than press a button to move the story on. Computer Gaming World noted a limit of the conversion: “The 3D acceleration affects only the character models, the battle engine, and the overworld map. The prerendered backgrounds are a bit washed out”. The pre-rendered backgrounds entry explains why.
Sales
When Square and Enix announced their merger in 2002, their table of best-sellers was headed by Final Fantasy VII, with 9.2 million copies, more than half of them sold outside Japan. Later releases, including a download for PlayStation consoles in 2009, kept it selling; Polygon put the total at more than 11 million in 2017.
The remake
Square Enix announced a remake in 2015. Final Fantasy VII Remake came out for the PlayStation 4 on 10 April 2020, the first part of a series, and covers only a fraction of the original story, set in Midgar. It replaced the menus with real-time, pausable combat and the fixed pre-rendered scenes with 3D areas. Wireframe gave it 79%: its reviewer, Nic Reuben, loved the combat but felt that “something of Midgar’s atmosphere is lost without its predecessor’s bespoke, pre-rendered backgrounds”. It sold more than 3.5 million copies in its first three days, and by September 2023 Square Enix reported that Remake and its expanded Intergrade edition had passed 7 million. The second part, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, followed on the PlayStation 5 in 2024.
Sources
- Edge issue 37, October 1996, Square Soft feature: Sakaguchi’s figures for the 64DD and Final Fantasy VII (“We need about 1,500Mb”); his dismissal of a return to Nintendo; Final Fantasy as “a cult interest among grey import gamers” in Europe; more than 100 designers on the game.
- Edge issue 43, March 1997: the Japanese launch on 31 January, 1.8 million pre-orders, “nearly 2.04m units in just three days”, convenience-store sales.
- Edge issue 50, October 1997, p. 12, news: the US launch on 7 September, a ship-out of 750,000, SCEA’s marketing campaign, 2.5 million in three days and about 3.5 million in Japan.
- Edge issue 51, November 1997: US review (9 out of 10; $60; Silicon Graphics machines; Active Time Battle; changes for the Western version; the “interactive movie”).
- Edge issue 72, June 1999: feature on adult themes in games (the death of Aeris).
- Edge issue 119, January 2003, p. 13, “Square and Enix join forces”: Final Fantasy VII at 9.2 million copies, 3.9 million of them in Japan.
- Computer and Video Games issue 191, October 1997: interviews with Hironobu Sakaguchi (the theme of life; films; Yoshinori Kitase as director), Kitase and Nobuo Uematsu.
- Computer and Video Games issue 192, November 1997: European review (£44.00; Materia; Chocobos; the story; Kenji Mimura of Square on the Western changes and “close to 200 people and two years of development”).
- GamePro issue 104, May 1997, p. 35: the soundtrack “by composer Nobuo Uematsu”.
- PC Zone issue 66, August 1998, pp. 91–94: Windows version review by Charlie Brooker (£49.99, Eidos Interactive, 92%).
- Computer Gaming World issue 172, November 1998: Windows version review (3D acceleration and the backgrounds).
- Wireframe issue 39, May 2020, pp. 92–93: Final Fantasy VII Remake review by Nic Reuben (£59.99, 79%).
- Matt Leone, “Final Fantasy 7: An oral history”, Polygon, 9 January 2017 (web, secondary): Tomoyuki Takechi on development and marketing costs and on Sony co-promoting the game; Square’s first PlayStation titles published in the West by Sony; sales of more than 11 million. https://www.polygon.com/a/final-fantasy-7
- “Essential 50: Final Fantasy VII”, 1UP.com (web, secondary): development cost of “around $45 million”. http://www.1up.com/features/essential-50-final-fantasy-vii
- Wikipedia, “Final Fantasy VII” and “Final Fantasy VII Remake” (web, secondary): the European release on 17 November 1997; the Windows release on 25 June 1998 in North America and Europe; the name Aeris in the original localisation; the 2009 PlayStation Network release; the remake’s announcement in 2015, release on 10 April 2020 and Rebirth in 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_VII · https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_VII_Remake
- Connor Sheridan, “Final Fantasy 7 Remake launch numbers broke 3.5 million in first 3 days”, GamesRadar+, 21 April 2020 (web, secondary). https://www.gamesradar.com/final-fantasy-7-remake-launch-numbers-broke-35-million-in-first-3-days/
- “Final Fantasy VII Remake and Remake Intergrade have topped 7 million sales”, Game Developer, 15 September 2023 (web, secondary), reporting Square Enix’s announcement. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/final-fantasy-vii-remake-and-remake-intergrade-have-topped-7-million-sales