What makes this game so special?

[deleted]

[deleted]

That's a nice list. Here are some more reasons I would add:

Gameplay

FFVII introduced and/or popularized plenty of innovations in RPGs and videogames as a whole. It was probably the first RPG to offer near-endless amounts of in-battle character customization with the materia system, with the only limitation being the fixed weapon types for each character, while popularizing the use of classless character customization, abandoning the rigid class system used in most previous RPGs. The only previous RPGs to come close to such levels of ability customization was Square's own FF II & V and Treasure of Rudra, though even they didn't offer the same extent of flexibility and customization of FFVII (besides maybe FFII), which allowed players to assign whatever roles or abilities they liked to each of the characters, whenever and however they wanted, which was something very innovative for RPGs at the time. FFVII also introduced limit breaks, which was new for the FF series, though predated by Lufia II's somewhat similar IP attacks a year earlier, but it was FFVII that popularized the concept. FFVII also popularized the use of hybrid real-time & turn-based combat (which began with FFIV's Active Time Battle system) to the West, after which Western computer RPGs began implementing hybrid combat systems.

FFVII also popularized the idea of having a huge open world with tons of sidequests to do, and it also had as many as over thirty different minigames, most of which can be played from within the Gold Saucer. Many of these minigames were like games in themselves, like the tower defense RTS game (possibly the first of its kind), lightgun rail shooter, submarine simulation, motorbike racer, snowboarding game (which was so addictive I spent a whole night playing it with mates), etc. Such variety was unheard of for a game at the time, and in fact, nearly all the minigame collections we see today can be traced back to FFVII. In addition, it was also responsible for popularizing the adoption of RPG elements by other genres, including action, adventure, strategy and sports games.

Narrative

FFVII was probably the first RPG to present a complex, ambitious narrative with so much thematic and philosophical depth, with its symbolism & metaphors and its exploration of themes like cyberpunk, dieselpunk & biopunk, scientific dystopia, Bourgeois-Proletariat society, Marxism, capitalism & materialism, corporate politics & corporate economics, corporate exploitation, imperialism, slums, propaganda, ecologism, radical environmentalism & eco-terrorism, Gaia theory, Shinto animism & Buddhist spirituality, Abrahamic religion, doomsday, existentialism, free will, agency & determinism, paranoia, psychological disorders (schizophrenia, trauma-induced selective/lacunar/dissociative amnesia, split personality, post-traumatic stress disorder), social segregation & social approval, genetic engineering & human experimentation, immoral scientific research, human rights, homosexuality, jingoism, genocide, etc. Many of these themes were never explored in a game before, though some religious, philosophical and cyberpunk themes were explored by earlier games like Megami Tensei and Breath of Fire to an extent. FFVII is also one of the first RPGs to introduce dating sim elements, with dialogue choices that affect Cloud's relationships with other characters leading to changes in parts of the game, like who he goes on a date with (the only previous RPGs to have dating sim elements were Star Ocean and Harvest Moon).

FFVII popularized a modern sci-fi & fantasy hybrid setting (though Phantasy Star and Megami Tensei did something similar before), where the protagonists were not rebels fighting against an empire (like many previous RPGs), but were instead eco-terrorists fighting a corrupt capitalist corporation that exploited for profit (reminiscent of the historical East India Company), a theme not only original for its time, but remains unique to this day. It also departed from the two-way conflicts common in RPGs and instead presented a three-way conflict between the progagonists, Shinra, and Sephiroth. It also had a plot structure unfolding more like a psychological thriller, with the protagonists tracking down a renegade terrorist, while dealing with Cloud's psychological issues, rather than the traditional adventure plot structure found in previous RPGs. The phenomenal critical and commercial success of a game as story-centric as FFVII proved to the gaming industry that videogames are a viable medium for storytelling, and that stories in videogames can be just as good as movies & books, hence FFVII is responsible for the increasing emphasis on storytelling that we see in so many videogames across all genres today.

Characters

Then there's the characters. It was very rare for a videogame protagonist to be as well-written and have as much depth as Cloud. Unlike most other RPG heroes, he didn't fall into the archetypes of 'badass warrior', 'emo teenager', or 'silent protagonist', but instead subverted these archetypes by displaying attributes of all these archetypes in addition to his unique traits. For example, while he may seem like a badass at first, it turns out he was just a wannabe-badass pretending to be something he's not, like the many gamers thought they were playing a badass hero, something they themselves aren't, only to realize that Cloud is also just a wannabe-badass like themselves; while he had plenty of emotional moments, he never whined about the struggles he went through, so he's not 'emo' either, or a teenager for that (he's 21 at the start); and while he talked very little at first, he eventually becomes talkative at times (even a joker sometimes), though quiet at other times, so he's not a silent protagonist either. So Cloud clearly isn't a character we can pigeon-hole into an established RPG character archetype. In the second disc, we also see Cloud display characteristics we've never seen in any previous videogame protagonists: we see him faced with an identity crisis, questioning his memories and even his own existence (led to believe he may be a clone created from Jenova cells and Tifa's memories), and after a plot twist no one could have predicted (the Zack twist), we realize Cloud was suffering from psychological disorders (schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder, split personality, trauma-induced selective/dissociative amnesia) which led to him lying to everyone and himself in order to cover-up a traumatic event in his life (the loss of his best friend) and hide his own failings (his failure to become a soldier), a twist comparable to several great psychological thriller films, like Kurosawa's Rashomon (1950), Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense (1999), Nolan's Memento (2001), and Scorcese's Shutter Island (2010), which all had similarly-themed plot twists revolving around a character's psychological state. Unlike other videogames which use the amnesia plot device to set up a mystery where the protagonist must uncover his/her past, FFVII used it in a completely different and creative way: for most of the game, the player isn't even aware that Cloud had selective/dissociative amnesia, but this was only revealed in the latter half to resolve the mystery surrounding the Nibelheim incident, rather than using the amnesia theme in a cliched manner to set up a mystery. Existential themes and psychological disorders were also never explored before in any video game prior to this, and very few ever touched upon these themes even afterwards. It's details like these that make Cloud, despite some flaws in his characterization (thanks to the sub-par English translation), one of the most unique and well-written RPG protagonists, and is one of the things that still makes FFVII remain unique after all these years, despite many later games attempting amnesia themes, very few of which used it in such a creative manner like FFVII did, and very few of which ever dealt with existential themes and psychological disorders.

Then there's Aeris, whose death scene shocked countless gamers and made them shed tears for the first time over a game (a scene that is now considered the videogame equivalent to the "I am your father" scene in The Empire Strikes Back). Up until then, the idea that a videogame storyline could be so emotionally-engaging that they could actually make gamers cry over a videogame character was almost unheard of. It was probably because it killed off a main playable character within the first half of the game (without them reviving later on like a deus ex machina), which was also probably a first (the only previous RPGs I know of to kill off a main playable character for good were Phantasy Star II, FFV and Lufia II, though none within the first half of the game). However, what set Aeris' death apart from these earlier characters' deaths is that these earlier characters sacrificed themselves for the good of the party, but in FFVII, Aeris didn't sacrifice herself, but she was brutally murdered by Sephiroth. This was something innovative for its time. Furthermore, that scene had such an emotional impact because of something that FFVII (and the FF series in general) often gets criticized for: linearity. It was the linearity of the story and the helplessness in preventing her death that made it have such an emotional impact, which wouldn't have been possible in a non-linear storyline. The emotional impact of the scene was so great that legions of fans tried various cheats to revive her (which all turned out to be false), many fanfics were produced to bring her back to life, petitions were held against Square to give her an official revival, and there are fan mods (for the PC version) even today that attempt to bring her back to life. Such a fan reaction over the death of a videogame character was also unheard of at the time. And then there was Sephiroth, a sympathetic antagonist who wasn't always a mass-murderer but had his own backstory showing us how he was at one time a decent person in the past and the circumstances behind his transition into a mass-murderer. In contrast, nearly all previous RPG villains before him were explicitly portrayed as evil, cruel and/or sadistic, the most extreme example being Kefka from FFVI. A videogame villain that seemed so human and well-developed like Sephiroth was also something new for the videogame industry, not to mention an antagonist that we can actually play as for some time (during the flashback). However, after Sephiroth mercilessly killed Aeris, many of the gamers who may have initially felt sympathetic towards him began hating him with a passion, and wanted to kill him for what he did to Aeris. Such a response was also something very unusual for a videogame at the time.

As for the other characters, they may not have had the same level of impact as Cloud, Sephiroth or Aeris, but each had their own unique personalities, personal backstories and subtle influences. In Barrett's case, for example, it was unusual at the time to see black characters in videogames, let alone having a black character as the group leader (at least initially, until Cloud takes over as leader later on) with a three-dimensional personality depicting him not only as an eco-terrorist leader, but also as a caring stepfather with a tragic past and faced with personal moral dilemmas. Tifa, on the other hand, might seem like she falls into the archetype of the hero's childhood friend who has a crush on him (an archetype that FFVII itself may have popularized), though she was also also a three-dimensional character, being quiet and caring on the one hand, while also being attractive, tough and independent at the same time, in addition to some shady characteristics of her own, like how she hid the truth from Cloud, going along with his delusions despite knowing the truth all along. While her reasons for doing so were not clearly explained, there were subtle hints to suggest that she not only wanted to avoid hurting Cloud's self-inflated ego, but also because she wanted to delude herself into believing that Cloud really was a badass Soldier, when in reality he was nothing more than a grunt. While some might criticize FFVII for not explaining everything in-your-face, I liked the fact that it left many things open to interpretation, especially the open ending. It was the norm in RPGs at the time to give closure in the ending, but FFVII instead left the ending open to the player's imagination, with just enough hints for the player to conclude what happened after the finale. FFVII also had a nice balance of linearity and non-linearity, keeping it linear for the most part to maintain a strong emotional impact during key scenes (like the death scene and the ending mentioned above), while also being somewhat non-linear at times, like how having different characters in the party would lead to different dialogues in a given situation, the dating sim elements and dialogue boxes I mentioned above, Yuffie and Vincent being entirely optional characters, their sidestories being optional, the flashback about Cloud's friendship with Zack and the scene with Sephiroth's mother being optional, etc.

Production

Last but not least, it had enormous production values that completely dwarfed all videogames that came before it. This was primarily due to the introduction of cinematic CGI FMV cutscenes into the RPG genre, which meant the use of CGI cutscenes on a scale never seen before given the epic nature of RPGs, not to mention that FFVII was the first game to seamlessly blend cinematic CGI cutscenes with the gameplay (as we can see from the many cutscenes that seamlessly transition the pre-rendered backdrops into CGI sequences). The introduction of CGI cutscenes allowed a greater emotional and visual impact than previous sprite or polygonal graphics could do. FFVII was responsible for popularizing the use of cinematic CGI cut-scenes in the videogame industry. However, to create so many breathtaking cinematic CGI cutscenes, pre-rendered environments, sidequests, minigames, etc., it required a huge budget that was unheard of for a videogame at the time: a budget above a million was almost unheard of in itself, let alone one that reached $45 million (equivalent to $60 million today with inflation), the amount it cost to produce FFVII. And that was just the production costs, with another $100 million (equivalent to over $130 million today with inflation) spent on marketing the game.

Such huge budgets were not only unheard of for games, but even rivalled the production costs of the most expensive Hollywood blockbusters, even the most expensive one at the time, Titanic (which cost $200 million to produce). FFVII changed the way the videogame industry operated, with every big-budget videogame blockbuster since following in its footsteps, though none have yet surpassed the unprecedented budget spent on producing and marketing FFVII. It even had an impact on the movie industry, inspiring the creation of FF The Spirits Within, the first photorealistic CGI film.

References

For more reasons behind what makes FFVII a great game to this day, one only needs to look at the vast academic literature that examine FFVII from literary, philosophical and design perspectives, probably more so than any other RPG before or since. Here are a few such articles and books analyzing FFVII in such a way:

How Videogames Express Ideas
http://www.digra.org/dl/db/05150.07598.pdf

Final Fantasy VII: The Voice of the Planet
http://www.gamespite.net/toastywiki/index.php/Games/Issue13FinalFantas yVII/

Final Fantasy and Philosophy
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=qmDT1MFLD78C&printsec=frontcove r#v=onepage&q&f=false

Head in the Clouds: The Existential Journey of Final Fantasy VII’s Main Protagonist
http://1000needles.blogspot.com/2010/07/head-in-clouds-existential-jou rney-of.html

Popular Symbolism - Final Fantasy 7
http://popularsymbolism.wordpress.com/2008/11/10/final-fantasy-7/

Vintage games: an insider look at the history of Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario, and the most influential games of all time
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=M_bFdsP9L7oC

Final Fantasy VII: Plot Analysis
http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps/197341-final-fantasy-vii/faqs/16725

The Strife Manifesto
http://www.rpgamer.com/editor/2003/q2/042103aa.html

Dialogue Conventions in Final Fantasy VII
http://gamestudies.org/0202/smith/

Final Fantasy VII: The best Dieselpunk RPG ever made
http://flyingfortress.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/final-fantasy-vii-the-b est-dieselpunk-rpg-ever-made-almost/

Heavy hero or digital dummy? Multimodal player–avatar relations in Final Fantasy 7
http://vcj.sagepub.com/content/3/2/213.short

Conclusion

It was the first RPG to gain mainstream popularity (most had never even heard of a RPG videogame until then). In many ways, FFVII is like the Star Wars of gaming. They weren't completely original (Star Wars borrowed from American sci-fi and Japanese samurai films, while FFVII borrowed from previous RPGs and influences outside of videogames), but they incorporated many innovations in a complete package that felt incredibly fresh and exciting when they came out. Like Star Wars, many of the innovations that FFVII popularized are now considered cliches today, because they've been repeated so many times by so many later games that they've lost the impact they once had. It's only if you keep comparing them to modern works that they might seem somewhat "overrated", but hardly anyone back in the 90s would have applied such a label to FFVII, with nearly all publications back then considering it one of the greatest games ever made.

Like Star Wars which was innovative in its time but seems cliched today, FFVII was too influential for its own good, popularizing plot/gameplay elements that are now considered 'cliches', leading to the "overrated" label being applied to the game, usually by those who fail to understand the context behind why so many considered it as one of the all-time greatest games at the time. With so much praise for a game that seems to have many 'cliches' (though it was FFVII that popularized many of those cliches), I'm not surprised at the backlash it received over the years with the usual "overrated" complaints. While many film fans often take the historical context into account to truly appreciate old classics like Citizen Kane, Seven Samurai or The Godfather, it's a shame many gamers aren't willing to do the same for old-school gaming classics, especially one as important as FFVII.

Some might criticize its graphics and gameplay mechanics as dated or the overall plot as cliched by today's standards (even though it was FFVII that popularized many of those cliches and mechanics), it's the subtext, subtle themes and underlying narrative behind the plot that remain unique to this day, like the various themes mentioned above and described in the referenced articles (though some may criticize the complex narrative for being 'convoluted'). Many of these themes have rarely ever been explored in videogames to this day, despite countless later games borrowing FFVII's plot elements, gameplay mechanics and graphical enhancements. And of course there's the range of emotions that FFVII is able to evoke, from enjoyment and laughter, to sadness and tragedy, to hate and anger, like its famous death scene that can still invoke strong emotions from gamers to this day (despite the primitive graphics and lack of voice acting). FFVII was a landmark title that deserves credit for the amount of depth, creativity and ambition it had in its time.

[deleted]

Interesting post. I mostly agree with what you said, though I thought I'd throw in my two cents on the following issues:

It’s written by the same writers (save for Sakaguchi). Therefore, it’s canon whether it's good or not.

And honestly, I hardly find this game “art.” Is it a great game? Yes. Does it tell a great story? Definitely (albeit slightly convoluted). But artful? Come on now. I mean, the idea of what is and isn’t art is subjective so you may find Final Fantasy VII artful whereas I find Shadow of the Colossus or Okami true art from video games (story and gameplay). But again, that’s all subjective so if I don’t find Final Fantasy VII art or you don’t find the ones I listed art doesn’t mean either one of us don’t “appreciate a good story or good art.” It’s just personal preference. No offense but you sound a little elitist when you judge whether someone would appreciate a “good story” or “good art” based on whether they like a simple video game or not.

That's a good point. I suppose all the Final Fantasy games do share plenty in common so pointing out the similarities between VI and VII doesn't accomplish much considering it's usually the same premise with each installment (protagonists battle against [insert empire/corporation/mystical force/etc.]) I suppose my complaint stems mostly due to personal preference since I prefer Final Fantasy VI to VII and revere it as an overlooked gem in comparison to VII's cult status. I rescind that complaint against VII.

Hi.
I wasn't actually speaking of the effects on the games narrative, but overall damage that was physically done.
If that was the case I would put forth Yu-Yevon and Orphan before kefka.
And I wasn't actually speaking of the scenes from the beginning of the fourth disk. But the actual battle message in the very final fight:

Ultimecia, transformed to absorb all time and space. Absorbing all existence as we speak.

Or perhaps Caius does the most damage now, I haven't really studied Xiii-2 since I thought it sucked. So some fan of that game might put him forth.

Again, all those things that Kefka's done? Not that different from what antagonists like Sephiroth, Sin, Kuja, Exdeath etc. has achieved. Relatively speaking, it's not a major accomplishment.

And lolwut? The reason you don't see many people talking about how their world has been affected by change in FFVIII is because THEY'VE BEEN ABSORBED IN TIME.

Considering that until TC was undone, Ultimecia virtually erased everything that exists, has existed, and will exist, yes, the scale of destruction she caused was much grander than Kefka's.

But like Cademon said, Caius might've outdone her now, but I wouldn't know either since I haven't played FFXIII-2.