Final Fantasy History: VII-IX Special @ Gaming Target

Written by Kyle Williams on July 12, 2001

Special: The Playstation (Wonder) Years

While the Final Fantasy Series spent several years developing on various Nintendo systems, it was with the release of Sony's Playstation that the games took on an entirely new look. The overall game structure continued to remain, with the randomly generated encounters and the pseudo turn-based combat, but with Final Fantasy VII Square began to redefine just what was expected from a post 16-bit role-playing game.

When it was released in 1997, Final Fantasy VII (FF) was heralded as being one of the best RPGs of all time. With a cast of outlandishly deformed characters and beautiful hand drawn backgrounds, FFVII took you on an enjoyable journey that was full of humor, drama, and uncensored dialog. Sony kept their hands out of the dialog of this game and allowed some of the first uses of "goddamn" and "shit" in a video game. Also of note were the incredible effects that accompanied the use of magic and summoning of Guardian Forces, giant magical creatures that would smite your enemies for you. Each use was both dramatic and visually mesmerizing, yet just a tad bit too long. However, all of this would have been just a novelty without the great story that that came along with the package. The events of this apocalyptic tale were masterfully told through a combination of dialog (no voice-overs, just text balloons) and beautifully pre-rendered cut scenes. It is in these sequences that Square really excelled and upped the ante for game makers everywhere and in turn built the foundation for this summer's Final Fantasy movie.

Two years later, Square returned with the next installment of the Final Fantasy series that was aptly titled Final Fantasy VIII. For this iteration, Square maintained the masterful visual and aural quality of FFVII and took a small detour from the time-tested gameplay of the rest of the series. Most notably changed in this chapter was the magic system that was employed. Instead of each character learning specific spells as they advance in level, spells were "drawn" from enemies while in combat and that magic points were absent from the equation. This was useful in that any character now had access to any spell at any time, so long as you had some of it left on hand. If, by chance, you ran out, then you simply had to draw more of it from the appropriate creature or draw point. Once again, the most powerful attacks in the game came from the Guardian Forces that you found during the course of the adventure. Summoning a GF was once again spectacular, but as in FFVII, the sequences started to feel long after the first dozen times you had seen them. The most notable difference in FFVII was the turn towards more realistic and human like characters, and a more futuristic storyline. The characters of FFVII now had normal bodies that resembled you and I, instead of having the normal big heads and small bodies that FF games are accustom too. The storyline also took on a radical turn, it focused more around technology than fantasy. The entire world revolved around a super advanced society that had built giant cities, which could become flying fortresses. Every aspect of FFVII story and world was far from the tested and true plot lines of past FF titles. Square wanted to take the FF franchise to a new level with FFVII, but based on results fans deemed FFVII the least liked of the FF titles.

Final Fantasy IX is the final installment of the series that will have had its debut on the Playstation. Released late in 2000, FFIX returned to the fantasy setting of the more "traditional" RPGs. As in the other PSX installments of the series, FFIX was a cosmetic masterpiece, with even more impressive cinematic sequences and a more dramatic score than its predecessors. The game itself was a successful throwback to the earlier days of the Final Fantasy series. Many of the gameplay elements that surfaced in this game had been used in previous chapters and, for one reason or another, evolved out of the series. Also, FFIX returned to lovable big head characters and also to a story that made us laugh, cry, and ultimately be engrossed into the entire FFIX world. Final Fantasy IX was the spitting image of what a truly great RPG should be.

The one drawback of each of these titles was the same one that has existed since the beginning of this series. That drawback was that the encounter with enemies was entirely random. With the advances in technology that have been achieved, you would think that this one overly frustrating aspect of the Final Fantasy series would have been revamped. Other combat systems were realized in titles such as Chrono Trigger & Cross, and Valkyrie Profile with varying degrees of success, but they were notable because they tried something new. If there is one aspect of the Final Fantasy Legacy that should not be carried over to the PS2, one should hope that it will be this one.

The Playstation installments of Final Fantasy brought about great leaps and bounds in how an RPG is presented on modern video game consoles. Gone are the days of 2D characters and bland backgrounds. The modern day RPG must be more than that to compete any more. Even Square realized that the graphic sequences they used in these games were successful in furthering the story they were telling, and they re-released several earlier chapters of the series on the PSX, this time including cut scenes that harnessed the magic that they have become so prolific at creating. Final Fantasies VII through IX have shown us how a video game can enhance the lines between reality and fantasy.