Final Fantasy VII retrospective: Premake | N64 Works Gaiden #01
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- Опубликовано: 8 сен 2024
- I said we'd be jumping over to N64 Works, and I meant what I said... it's just that it's happening, uh, gradually. In this case, we're defining the shape of N64 by what wasn't there: Specifically, one of the biggest and most popular games of the late ’90s. One part historic overview of the business politics of the N64 era, one part look back at the compelling introductory design of Final Fantasy VII's opening chapter, you'd better believe this video was basically just an excuse for me to play a classic game from outside the bounds of the Video Works project in an effort to bolster my spirits during the age of social distancing.
Video Works is funded through Patreon ( / gamespite ) - support the show and get access to every episode up to two weeks in advance of its RUclips debut! And be sure to check out the Retronauts podcast (www.retronauts.com), where I (and many others!) tackle a much wider array of classic gaming topics each week.
Jeremy your efforts on the various Console Works series has been stellar throughout the years but I have to say, breaking free from the requisite structure of the Works series to talk about the games and series you're most interested in during the pandemic has yielded a solid continuous run of what I think are some of your finest videos for the project yet. You are on one heck of a hot streak right now! Stay safe and healthy and thanks for being one of most important voices in video game preservation and history through Works and Retronauts for so long!
Jeremy please play whatever games you feel like at the time. We will happily watch anything you produce.
MrDeedsly I don’t know. Well I do think that he produces good content about whatever, I do think that his original mission statement of there being value in tackling games chronologically and within context is very important to the channel. I would definitely enjoying a great deal fast without that component, even if I still didn’t enjoy it.
This episode IS context, so it's all good.
I hope he talks about Megami Tensei sometime. A Soul Hackers episode would be amazing.
Alright Jeremy, time to start "Steamworks": Every game released on Steam in chronological order
I hope you get coal in your stocking this Christmas
@@JeremyParish Alright Jeremy, time to start "Coalworks": Every time a human being has actually gotten coal, in chronological order.
@@JeremyParish Alright Jeremy, Time to start "Jeremyworks": Every time a Jeremy was born, in chronological order ("Jimmy" accepted as a Gaiden)
@@JeremyParish R I P
Jeremey is really trying to do PS1 Works without actually having to go chronologically, isn’t he?
Square's love of making all of FF7 so "movie-like" would lead to them making Parasite Eve, a game marketed as "the cinematic RPG". That's the game that led to my family owning a Playstation in the 90s.
Parasite Eve needs a reboot now. Seeing the popularity of Final Fantasy, but also Resident Evil and Silent Hill(s?), now is the time for PE to enter the market yet again.
Thanks for buying my extra copy of FFVII, Mr Parish! Been listening to Retronauts for years so I am ecstatic to have been a help in any way with the “WORKS” series :)
That was yours!? Wild.
Jeremy Parish Yeah, and sorry about the hole-punch in the manual. It was like that when I got it.
No complaints here!
2:26 I got this sudden urge to sip down on a really huge glass of milk. I can't exactly discern why.
That was lovely, FFVII's actually my most favourite game, warts and all, and it is exactly this fixation on flashiness and PSX tech to make hours-long summons, and Matrix-like camera rotating in battles, that I love about the game. And I really like the thought I put into organising materia for my party. The Midgar section is perfectly streamlined like you said to serve as a tutorial, and ease the player from learning basic game mechanics and then branching off into wider and wider possibilities post-Midgar in a perfect cone-like fashion. For me though, the most precious parts of FFVII were all the story beats. That time when Aeris berrates Cloud for running ahead of her and they both burst into laughter, that moment when Tifa hesitates, turns and takes a look one last time at the crushed Sector 7, the lingering stairs-climbing scene, or that one huge chapter where the party would sit down in a hotel room and Cloud, for the next hour, would tell about his flashback in Nibelheim.
That stuff blew my mind, to have a video game where instead of action and platforming, you sit in a room for an hour and hear someone talking about their past and have it feel so real and engrossing. This is the kind of stuff that not even a lot of cinema would dare to try, and yet here it is in a video game. It's because of many of these gameplay conventions and expectatoins that are busted, and all these diverse sections of varied mini-games, yet unified in a single seamless package, that FFVII fundamentally reworked my conception of video games.
I also have a feeling that FFVII was so good that it caused some really awful trends to prop up in the games industry as a result of it. It was the first truly 'blockbuster' game, with over a hundred people working, three huge CDs worth of content, amazing visual effects and loveable characters, it was the 'Star Wars' of video games. And I think ever since that game developers always tried to match up to it as a standard, promising better cutscenes and more advanced visuals serving an epic story. It really caused a shift towards a superficial "bigger is better" mentality that would permeate in video games for a long time before indies would downscale ambitions and carve out a road in the opposite direction, and you can still feel the ripple effects of the meteor strike that FFVII made even today(which is even more glaringly obvious with the new remake).
So am I the last person on earth to realize the game starts with your level going from 6 to 7?
He literally says it in the video.
We all realized this in 1997... lol
thank you for getting the "square just shot themselves in the foot" post in there
honor and shame are huge parts of making youtube videos
I don't know how much you know about RUclips videos, but I'm an expert
Except that comment is dated 2008, so it falls flat and looks like a trollpost.
@@MetalPersonJ this comment is pure autism
At first glance I was confused by the "N64 Works" branding but you made your point clear - as always. I had a PlayStation in 1996 but I sold it as few games held my interest in contrast to the then-new N64. But I ended up buying a new PlayStation in 1997 for FFVII and thank god because that was also the year of Symphony of the Night, two games that simply would not have worked on Nintendo's system.
it seems so novel now in this day in age where all consoles are generally the same, that both the playstation and the n64 could respectively do things that the other console was simply incapable of, giving them both significant advantages and disadvantages over the other in different areas, whereas today it just feels like brand loyalty and marketing is all people care about.
Man, it always amazes me how far video games have come whenever I watch any of your episodes.
And this is from one of the more modern titles back in the day!
If Nintendo hadn’t lost FF I would have never bought a Playstation. Since they did it meant I had to get both.... wasn’t gonna miss out on Zelda either🤷♂️
HicksZ34 I remember at some point they gave away a FF7 demo disk in a magazine... maybe EGM or something... anyway I took it to my friends house because he had a PSX and our jaws hit the basement floor. It let you play to the explosion of the first reactor but gave you a few later game summons like Leviathan. Having practically learned how to read from 16 bit RPGs because I loved them so much it was definitely a no brainer to go with Sony. Of course I could talk all day about the multitude of other wonderful games but FF7 stands tallest for me.
FF7 was impossible on Nintendo because cartridges can’t store huge amount of CGI and contents. If FF7 was launched in Nintendo, it would look like FF6, 2d graphics with no cutscenes.
@@worawatsr9803 congratulations, you paraphrased the first ten minutes of the video.
Terrific writing and insight, as always. Great video. Thanks, Jeremy.
This was sooo good! Loving the Gaiden's
This was an excellent overview and synopsis of the importance of Final Fantasy VII and its place outside of Nintendo. I remember seeing that commercial for the PlayStation on television and it made me want one like you would not believe. Ultimately I got an Nintendo 64 and I was happy to have games like Super Mario 64 and Shadows of the Empire to help flesh out the new generation.
FF7 and DQ7 are now both available on Nintendo hardware. All's well that ends well.
And on cartridge, no less!
@@markinaustin7560 and digtal
I wish they would port DQ7 remake to switch
@@voidsabre_ I wish they'd port the original version to Switch but with enhanced graphics. The 3DS version cuts a ton of content - and it's some of the best parts that were cut or changed.
I got up this morning excited to watch more Tron Bonne on Famicoffee and instead I find a Jeremy Parish breakdown of my favorite rpg. What a wonderful surprise to wake up to!
Sorry about the stream, my internet is still being crummy.
Next N64 Gaiden is on DQVII? Looking forward to it in 2021!
An excellent insight as always Jeremy. I never had a chance to play Final Fantasy 7 until 1999 but I have so many positive memories when it came to experiencing this game for the very first time. I remember as a teenager I was absolutely loyal to Nintendo especially after enjoying Final Fantasy 6 during my final years of high school. I remember being so ignorant in my thinking that Final Fantasy and Nintendo had to stay together and I was absolutely broken hearted that the newest final fantasy game at that time was going to the playstation 1. I initially I thought it wasn't going to succeed on a brand new system but I was definitely wrong. The final fantasy series moving to the playstation 1 was indeed the right move and it is still considered a timeless classic and despite the remake being out. The original game still deserves to be played by people who have never experienced the game before.
As always, a great video. Though with you talk of the Square/Nintendo split, the split was brewing for years since the late Famicom years. Supposedly Square was not happy that Nintendo gave Enix more special treatment with Dragon Quest being the more popular series, but that is mostly heresy at this point. HOWEVER, Square convincing Enix to drop DQ VII for PS1 was something a former Square president apologized for later around 2002/03. It’s still out there in the Internet Archives for those to look up, I think Planet GameCube covered the story.
These videos are incredible, and the presentation style is stellar. The playlists here are one of my all time favorite sleep aids, but sometimes I just love to throw them on as I'm working on other stuff.
Another great video Jeremy. X and VI are my favorites but I still really enjoy FFVII. The remake wasn’t what I had hoped for. The night after finishing it, I loaded up my old PS1 save of VIi in the northern crater and stuck it to Sephiroth again.
it's very nice to see FFVII covered from the perspective of what led up to it. it amazes me how little it's mentioned that super mario RPG was basically just the prototype for FFVII in so many ways. nice to see that pointed out here. great content as always!
Great video, I loved all the details about the development of the game. To this day, FF7 is still one of the best games of the Final Fantasy franchise, but I still prefer FF6, with its 4 party member structure and freedom of choice (Cloud was an obligatory member for most of the game, leaving you with only 2 slots to decide). I also feel like that before FF7, the majority of sidequests were properly explained by NPCs that you could find in the game as you were exploring. From FF7 onward, Square introduced some very convoluted sidequests, forcing players to buy strategy guides in order to find everything (e.g. the guidebook to exchange for the underwater materia in FF7, the entire queen of cards sidequest in FF8 etc).
FF6 was a great game in itself, but we can’t deny that FF7 was the one that truly revolutionized the gaming industry with the introduction of 3D graphics, high quality CGI cutscenes, complex music and explorable over world. This was only possible on PlayStation console at that time.
This is some great work Jeremy.
I really appreciate all the hard work you have put into this channel and your books!
Thanks.
Once upon a time an older developer told me that ff7 ff8 and parasite Eve were all the same game in script, based all originally on the book parasite Eve. Apparently Edea was Jenova/Eve and the whole squall/seifer thing was basically cloud/sephiroth redressed. Don’t know if that rumor was ever true but looking at the characters similarities and the storyline of Eve becoming aware/Jenova thing seems like they just split up a bunch of character and story arcs through the machine of corporate productions.
As you mention the opening eerily resembles 2020 headlines. Complete with a meteor miss and loads of CRISPR news. What fun!
Final Fantasy VII was also the first ever Final Fantasy to be officially released in Europe too! Well, we got Mystic Quest, but it had the Final Fantasy name removed for obvious reasons.
It's a misconception that "roleplaying games" were defined because they supposedly have "roleplaying"
Rather, they are named "roleplaying games" because of their gameplay mechanics, such as exp, abstract combat, stats and advancement, etc...
This is an extremely perfect choice as the starting point, downright poetic even.
As well as being genuinely great, I really liked the passion and love you audibly gave off
when talking about Mega Man Legends. I was hoping for more, and I got my wish. Cheers Jeremy!
I wonder if it's possible to port ff7 to the n64 with modern cartridge size capabilities
Idk Square did say that the n64 couldn’t handle the game’s 3D graphics. But maybe with one of the later microcodes it could be possible?
@@lvl99ultrathug the n64 can easily handle the graphics. the n64 was a far faster machine than the ps1. it's liability was simply in storage capacity.
People were seriously like "FINAL FANTASY VII ANNOUNCED FOR ULTRA 64!!!!" based on that tech demo footage of what are clearly Final Fantasy VI characters.
I don't know if I ever thought you'd do a video on Final Fantasy VII, but I'm so glad you did. I absolutely adore the game to this day.
FFVII not only remains one if my all time favorites, but the ripple effect it created paved the way for so many RPGs to get localized.
As huge a Nintendo nerd as I am, the original PlayStation is my favorite console. At the time, and even now as I discover new games, it's provided me with some of my favorite game experiences, and really ended up being the system that would define my taste in games outside the Nintendo sphere for basically the rest of my life.
Also, Final Fantasy VII is now not only on a Nintendo console, but on a cartridge, which I find infinitely amusing. At least the cartridge isn't $1,200 xD
I would love to see FF7 put onto an N64 cartridge with a purple sticker with a big old school Final Fantasy logo that says Final Fantasy IV on it. Someone out there needs to do it.
Concerning the intro, I was very isolated in the years i owned a N64 (despite having just entered adulthood, i turned 18 in 1996) so i never felt like i was missing out on not having a PS because i never got to play one or see people play one. Besides, as i remember it, while there were more games on Playstation, almost every year the GOTY was on N64.... So my impression was ok there's a lot of good games on PS, and a lot of games period, but the future classics are released on N64. Now this wasn't entirely true, but it was at least fairly true.
I hope to see a remake of Final Fantasy 6
Between this, the Advent Children podcast and the Remake podcast you think I'd be satisfied but I could listen to intelligent people talk about Final Fantasy VII til the end of time. If anyone hasn't checked out the Maximillian Dood video with Easy Allies diving into the theories on where the Remake is going I'd highly recommend it. It will blow your mind!
This was great. As someone who hit by the SGI bug after Toy Story dropped in '95, I was all in on computer generated imagery as a career (they had a road trip that reached all the way to high school career fairs in Halifax, Nova Scotia!) but my parents had other plans.
Gamefan's Nick Rox has been very active on Twitter re. some of this history, and the Console Wars book also helps to better understand Jeremy's bang on summary of this time period: "Pent up". Boy was it ever.
Re. the overall aesthetic, as causal gamer with no behind-the-scenes context (outside of gaming mags), but having played through all the previous North American entries, I've always dug the heavy use of sci-fi elements. Once I hopped on a *spaceship* to go to the moon in FF4, all bets were off.
This may seem a silly question but do you think there’s any link between the progression design of Mario RPG as a whole (pretty linear) and FF7’s Midgar? You mentioned it as being somewhat of a test run for some tech used in FF7 but I’m wondering if the design of it impacted the FF series in any way
Final Fantasy VII was a great game and even though I'm upset this game killed the N64 (basiclally) I prefer the fact that we saw it on the Playstation as it meant the game would become what it was meant to be and not be restricted to cartridge space.
One thing that always struck me about Final Fantasy 7 was the title screen. It was perhaps the first of the series that offered a completely silent, nameless title menu. It's more like pressing play on a film, or a temporal kind of space with only the stark visual of the iconic Buster Sword suggesting what's to come, no overture or CGI beyond the crystal fanfare crediting the developers . It creates atmosphere almost every time the game first loads up.
Seeing this make me think, with the Everdrive 64 X7’s power isn’t there a reason not to develop a MSU64 chip? (The N64 counterpart of MSU1, or MSU MD)
by far one of your more interesting videos on video game history - thank you!
03:55 that 1 was a real sucker punch in the feels when they did that
Jeremy, if you are planning on making more "gaiden" videos, I would love to see you do a video on Symphony of the Night. It would be awesome to see your take on the game and the history of its development!
These videos take dozens of hours to create, which is why there's a Patreon tier for requests.
Dude, play Dragon Warrior 7. It's soooooo good! I did my 5th runthrough of the PS1 version a couple months ago, it was a really delightful 70 hours.
I like DW7, but even more than that, I would like to live in a world where I have 100 hours of free time to capture footage for a one-off episode of a weekly video series
@@JeremyParish You can do it. I believe in you.
I can kind of understand why Nintendo let this game slip through their fingers. Much of the Playstation tech is used for presentation and storytelling. Nintendo doesn't really prioritize those things. Miyamoto in particular tends to regard the story and setting of a game as a means to an end. Like no one would play a game if the guy jumping everywhere was just a stick man so instead he's a plumber. Look at the utterly confusing Zelda timeline to get a good idea on what priority Nintendo puts towards story. No intentional narrative would be so ridiculous, it's simply that if the game concept requires a flood then the world is flooded. Needs to provide a repeatable schedule for game characters? Okay, there's a three day time loop. They put a barebones story and setting around whatever gameplay mechanic the game revolves around.
In terms of gameplay there is no reason why Final Fantasy VII couldn't have been done on the N64. Aside from mini-games like the motorcycle chase it probably could have been done on the SNES. But the presentation required FMV, pre-rendered backgrounds and red book audio so it needed to be on CD. To Square those presentation elements were necessary to make the game what it is and they were right in that the presentation is what made it so mind blowing at the time. It wouldn't have been the huge hit it was without it. But Nintendo doesn't understand such priorities. They focused on how 3D could provide new gameplay experiences for Mario and Zelda and the N64 accomplished that so why was there all this fuss on superficial pizzazz? Nintendo was never going to make a game like Final Fantasy VII so they didn't need hardware to make such a game.
To say that they lit it slip through their fingers kind of sells the story short. They where incredibly bitter about losing Final Fantasy to Sony.
FF7 doesn’t use Redbook Audio though, it used sequenced music like on the SNES.
You missed a couple of things: Square actually did have a version of Final Fantasy seven that was running on Nintendo hardware. There’s a screenshot floating around of it. It features graphics similar to Mario rpg. I will see if I can find it.
Also, I am surprised you did not mention how Medgar was essentially a extension of Narshe from FFVI. And, indeed, most of the plot of FF7 is recycled from FF6 and a Crono Trigger. (Narshe/Midgar, Lavos/Jenova, cetra/espers, terra/aeris, avalanche/returners, cloud in coma/ crono dying, mako/magicite, etc.)
By all accounts, that isometric pixel-art village shot was a mock-up, like the old Seiken Densetsu for Famicom screens.
Incidentally, Kitase once told me that they initially aimed for a more traditional pixel/anime style even on PS1 hardware before deciding to go with a combination of polygons and renders. It's surprising how quickly the actual game came together.
> Final Fantasy VII retrospective: Premake | N64 Works Gaiden
Love it.
Great video as always - informative, fun and in depth!
Really takes me back as well to the FF7, pre-social media days, anyone remember TheGIA and Fritz Fraunoorf's FF7/Xenogears/whatever's fanfics?
"next time on N64 Works Gaiden: nah im not gonna do that lmaoooo"
I just rewatched this as a chaser upon finishing my latest Final Fantasy VII playthrough last night, on my Nintendo Switch. Pretty cool to finally have it on Nintendo hardware after all these years. Incidentally, my enthusiasm for said playthrough was boosted tremendously by Sephiroth's inclusion in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Oh, and I FINALLY beat Ruby and Emerald Weapons!
Keep up the good work, Jeremy!
super interesting. I wonder why square didn't try segaCD or dream cast since they wanted CD based media since SNES
The sequence at 17:22 always stuck out to me because it seems like they harnessed much more power form the PS1 there then they did for the rest of the game. I mean look at those textures. You could believe this is PS4 graphics.
3:53 I may be misremembering how that PS3 demo was presented, but I seem to recall the guy on stage specifically saying “by the way, this does NOT mean we are remaking FF7” before or after the demo was played. Not that it means anything now, but it sure seemed like the act of trying to tamp down people’s expectations for a remake had the exact opposite effect.
sanyr80 yeah. They were pretty clear about it. But idiot gamers hear what they want to hear. Always do.
I don't really see why this is under "N64 Works" when this is more of a "PS1 Work" with some info on why FF7 wasn't on N64.
Read the description
This video is under the "Gaiden" name so its more supplementary information compared to the main videos.
You answered your own question.
@@JeremyParish But this video isn't about the N64. It's about Final Fantasy 7, which is a PS1 game.
Nothing gets past you, eh?
Well done man
When FF7 came out, I didn't get it right aways, I got it a few months later along with Brady Games FF7's Strategy Guide, by that time I played and finished all previous games (on consoles and emulators back in the day) and did 100% of the game, I sooo enjoyed the game and have fond memories, for me, FF7 is a masterpiece I love so much!
1:51 *Jeremy stealthly teases the next Gintendo MSX stream*
Ha, no... I don't think watching me play an 8-bit RPG in Japanese would be THAT interesting.
Consistency is for suckers, it's Roman aqueducts on N64 Works Gaiden, episode I gave up counting after the first one of these.
Thanks for bringing up the N64 tech demo.
Now, I don't really want to bash a game I've never played, but it still didn't age very well. Of course, it IS a console transition period, and they're getting used to the tech. Even FFX feels like a PS1 game in a PS2 body, and FF4 an NES game (slightly) in an SNES body. I can't say that FF7 is an SNES game in a PS1 body.
Actually, seeing the pre-rendered cinematics here reminds me of a 1990s video/DVD series called The Mind's Eye, where they showcased CG animation from all around the world, from Pacific Data Images to Pixar to Mainframe and even one-shot animators. They even had a hi-res, full-60-FPS version of the Captain Quazar title sequence. Silicon Graphics computer rendering just had a certain look to it back then.
Don't tease me with that - Dragon Warrior VII (specifically the PS1 version in favor of the more visually pleasing but less engaging 3DS remake) is one of the best games of all time - I'd say number one but it's just about evenly tied with Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back and Dragon Quest X ONLINE: Rise of the Five Races.
It is said that, before all development, Square had the option of re-use the FF6 engine to make a fast sequel. If that happened, maybe the JRPG wouldn't be the same as today (or the change would occur later)
Anyway, according to Wikipedia there were testings of FF7 on the N64, but the framerate was pretty slow.
Jeremy, your Zanac/Lunar Pool 'Works was fantastic and made me realize that Puyo Puyo hasn't been covered much. It would be so awesome to see you cover it and its influence =on puzzle game design since then. So what if most puzzle games never reached Tetris' heights? Tetris itself must have had a DAMN good reason to cross over with a franchise with popularity almost exclusively in Japan.
I'm afraid I only take requests through the appropriate Patreon tier, sorry.
Tremendous retrospective!
7:14 Holy crap... you just described 2020
Secret of Mana/ Seiken Densetsu 2 was the game that was kneecap by moving from CD to cartridge not Trials. Stuff left on the cutting room floor was time traveling, a handfull of bosses, and more than 3 enemies on screen at one time. Trials was made several years later with the limitation of the cartridge in mind. Supposedly the time traveling stuff went on to be made into Chrono Trigger.
I am well aware of the history behind Secret of Mana, but my point here is that Trials clearly exceeded the bounds of the Super NES and the cartridge format. There's actual LOADING TIME when you open and switch menus. There's an appreciable input lag on battle commands. Trials of Mana was too ambitious for the platform, and the fact that its new remake plays so much more smoothly than the original really highlights that fact.
@@JeremyParish yeah theres clearly some compression going on in the game and I dont think they used an extra chip in it like street fighter alpha 2. Ok I understand what you mean now.
Please do EarthBound/Mother games I would love to hear you talk about them.
Another brilliant episode.
In a lot of ways the PS1 was the logical, "spiritual" follow-up to the NES and SNES, whereas the N64 was a more risky, experimental system by nature that moved beyond the level that game design in the SNES area was heading-for, albeit with a few sacrifices like not using CD-ROM and alienating some third-party publishers.
I still wonder what would've happened if Square had not jumped ship and the N64 did get FF7...would we be up to ff15 (or whatever # we're at...I've lost count and haven't played a mainline since X)? Would 7 be as big as it is? I have fond memories of getting 7 in 7th Grade. Same year the highly overlooked at times, Wild arms! Can't wait to look at your retrospective on this classic.
what really turns me off of this game is the constantly swinging dynamic camera during the battles. it really makes me feel queasy...
Nice as per usual. Thanks.
I really wish the PC port didn't turn out the way it did.
Has bugs in many places, but is superior in having a slightly cleaner translation and original music.
Gah, I take my hat off to you sir. Just amazing.
I’m thinking the Honeybee Inn actually spawned a lot of role-playing.
For the life of me, I don’t understand how that scene became so significant for so many people. I recalled it being almost completely a notable until the Internet blew up about it. It seems like it was only a few years ago but suddenly it became this big “thing”. People demanded that the remake included as though it was incredibly significant.
I've loved Final Fantasy VII a long time now and this is the best video I've ever seen on the game. Thanks for making this, and exploring link between N64 and the PS1. Those systems seem to be siblings to a degree.
Not aware of Arrange > Exchange to switch materia over wholesale?
In terms of raw gameplay mechanics, FF7 has never done much to impress me (it's probably one of my least favorite FF entries on that front), and there are aspects of the original English localization that weakened the story's impact for me when I first played it. Over time, though, I've come to appreciate the things it did well, and this video does a good job of pointing a lot of those things out. Your statement, for instance, about the opening Midgar section playing out as a tutorial (but not feeling "tutorial-y")-it makes me wonder what it was about FF13 that made it feel less successful on that front. Perhaps because feeling of tutorialization carried out for way too long? Or that it was less subtle about it?
Excellent vid!
If you only need seven levels of experience to be in SOILDER, call me Sephiroth! ;3
I'm glad that you went into the visual strengths of FFVII, it's a stark contrast to all of the people these days that write the visuals off as "old and outdated" just because they're from a PS1 game, without any regards to the actual art style.
I got this on the PC all those years ago, absolutely loved it despite running at about 15fps. Completed it and didn't need to get the PlayStation, couldn't afford one after buying GPUs that only lasted 12 to 18 months back then.
The VII Remake might be my favourite game since Kingdom Hearts 2. Brilliant. I enjoyed it immensely!!
Damn, I though u were gonna pull out a ff7 n64 demo🤦🏻♂️ I read the title wrong..
Nice and succinct for a 22 minute video. I've got issues with FF7 (I feel it's only really fun to play once) but the overall approach to storytelling and technical achievement (in all aspects, visually, music, the lot) were incredibly influential, so perhaps it shouldn't be that surprising that JRPGs still live in its shadow even 23 years on.
Squaresoft screwing over Nintendo is probably unintended payback for Nintendo screwing over Sony (which was reportedly justified if this article is to be believed: www.google.com/amp/s/venturebeat.com/2018/06/23/the-story-behind-nintendos-betrayal-of-sony-and-how-it-created-its-fiercest-rival/amp/).
As if the terrible Philips CD-i games weren't enough, Nintendo also created its own biggest rival to this day.
Now that's unfortunate.
“Quite possibly the greatest game ever made”.
btw Jeremy, yes it is gorgeous. And good on you for saying that. Plenty of idiots out there whose justification for the remake is “DURR AGED LIKE MILK”. The game is beautiful, and there is way more to it than just the simple models used for the snowboarding sequence and such.
I love watching the "keep politics out of my games" crowd twist themselves into pretzels trying to argue that this game isn't inherently anti-corporatism.
Agreed, those goobers can suck it
We probably would have had flying cars by now had Nintendo went with discs instead of cartridges for the N64
I have mixed feelings about the Remake having an Action Based Battle System. Just having this Battle System doesn't make me think this is Final Fantasy VII. Because of this, Victory Fanfare the Franchise is known for isn't handled right. 🙁
I've always known Final Fantasy to have Active Time Battle since FFVI(FFIII for Super Nintendo) and FFVII back in 1998.
Even since my first experience with Final Fantasy since FFVI, I thought the Active Time Battle Style was a "revolution"!
I'm just disappointed that it's not 60 Frames PerSeconds. Especially after the PS3 Tech Demo.
Even with PS4 Pro, there's still no 60 Frames PerSeconds!
And "Aeris" is supposed to "Aerith" based on my knowledge.
18:54- The Remake decided to ditch this feature, but still kept the Boss Battle.
You should probably just make the necessary graphics for a Playstation Works series already.
I saw the Final Fantasy VI Demo pictures in Nintendo Power and asked for a N64 for Christmas that year. Then months later I found out FFVII was going to come out on Playstation after I had a N64...I hated the N64 and most of the games on it....but a miracle happened...we were robbed...our insurance let me get a Playstation and I told the insurance agent the switch was because of that one game (he had too ask to make sure I didn't do it just for that game aka insurance fraud/burglary at 14). I am so glad I did get robbed. I also got a lame 2D Castlevania game also.
Midgar is still my favorite part of any game because of nostalgia...but in the end, I never enjoyed the rest of the game as much as FFVI...that was the first time that ever happened with a FF game and for me, it was really the end of my FF love (I hated VIII). I beat VIIII and X, but I just fell out of love with JRPGs along with the FF series after.
But I will always have nostalgia for this game.
The nintendo 64 had so many weird decisions made when you piece together various comments over the years.
Some things I've heard in various places over time (none of these are exact quotes, nor do I remember proper sources. But still.)
- from someone at SGI: 'We told Nintendo the n64 could be about twice as powerful if you'd just let us install a cooling fan. Nintendo insisted it should be passively cooled only.'
- Some comment from Nintendo staff about a CD drive. 'We'll only consider it if we can get at least an 8x CD drive'. in 1996 an 8x CD drive would have cost about $499, which would have more than doubled the cost of the system. You can see why they didn't do that.
Even so, a CD based game has some limitations. Notably you need considerably more memory for a given complexity of an area ingame, and dynamic data streaming is more complex.
- The whole 64DD thing. Clearly if you go through the history of Zelda and a bunch of other things they had counted on this existing very early on, but it didn't work out. In fact, some accounts suggest the 64DD was supposed to have a worldwide launch in early 1997. Considering the console launched in late 1996, that would have been pretty close to launch.
Now, 64 megabyte disks wouldn't have been miraculous, but they'd be much cheaper to make than cartridges, and given what games were doing with 64 megabytes around 2000, you'd probably have seen some totally different games if that kind of capacity had been available early on.
It would've had side benefits too. Notably up to 32 megabytes of writeable capacity per disk, which allows tons of save data (for the time) and thus complex dynamic stuff can be saved.
Disks being generally cheaper plus disk swapping capabilities would have meant multi-disk games would have been possible. Sure 3 disks of 64 megabytes may not compare to a game spanning 4 CD's, but it would have been a lot closer to your average playstation game if they could resist trying to use uncompressed CD audio. (given the n64 demonstrated the ability to use Mp3 decoding late in it's life, there certainly should have been viable alternatives). On top of that, the design of the 64DD technically lets you use it in hybrid form with both a cartridge AND disks, which gives you both cartridge performance for frequently accessed filed and disk capacity for everything else.
Still, absent cost factors, cartridges are a technically superior option. (side note, n64 is designed with 256 megabyte cartridges in mind before you need to resort to things like memory mapping chips.)
But cost is still an issue. a Very serious one in fact.
Right now I can buy an insanely fast 4 terabyte SSD for $1500, or I can buy a 4 terabyte mechanical drive for somewhere approaching $200
That, but with a much more extreme difference, is the heart of the problem that cartridges had at that point in time. A cartridge of that era isn't close to 8 times the cost, as in my SSD example.
It's closer to a factor of 3500.
That's the problem.
A 650 megabyte CD cost about 10 cents even back then. (mass produced commercially)
A 64 megabyte cartridge cost $35 per cartridge made (and that was in 2000, while the CD was already that cheap in 1994 or so).
It follows that if people had been willing to pay about $400 per game, then sure the n64 could have matched CD capacity.
But... I mean, the reason why that doesn't work kind of answers itself, doesn't it?
I wonder how different would be the console history if the DD format were used at first.
Also saying final Fantasy could 'never' have existed on the n64 is a bit extreme.
It's safe to say it could never have existed at the time.
But since cartridge space limitations are a function of cost, not core technology...
There's nothing stopping an n64 port of Final fantasy 7 happening right now.
There's no sane business reason why anyone would do it, but a technical problem it is not.
Not like the n64 can't handle FMV (it has video decoding logic in hardware for Motion Jpeg, which was contemporary at the time), and it can certainly handle pre-rendered backgrounds (see Ocarina of Time).
Thus the only problem as such is storage space.
FF7 appears to be about 1.5 gigabytes.
Aside from needing to devise some kind of bank switching logic to map that into the 256 megabyte cartridge address space, a hobbyist could make a cartridge in that size range nowadays for less than what the official cartridges cost developers back in the day to get just 64 megabytes...
Sounds like the kind of project some crazy fan might even do...
@@hecatialapislazulli5426 Still think the N64 woulfn't have done as well as Nintendo would have liked. CD's would always have been the future until the storage medium got cheaperish.
Nintendo's fear of CDs is at least understandable when you consider their not-too-distant history of rampant Famicom Disk System piracy. Cartridges with expensive dedicated ROM chips equaled control for them. It was the wrong decision, sure, but not a senseless one.
Am I the only one who things that these pre rendered backboards look worse/have aged worse then even something like super Mario 64?
It's really easy to see that the Backgrounds aren't 3d it looks like 3d characters walking on a 2d image.
I'm sure it's all a matter of opinion. I actually didn't particularly like them at the time because it was obvious it was 3d on 2d, which felt lower tech, but I accepted it because it allowed for more detail. Now I like it much more. They showcase the strong sense of environmental art style that a lot of these games had in the face of technical limitations. I've been rewatching FFIX parts and I'm struck by how much better it looks than I remember.
On the other hand I remember the fidelity of SM64 being higher than it actually is. I still think it has strong visual design, but I don't know if I'd be at the fore of advocating it aged better.
I think our collective memory of Mario 64 has been distorted by emulators that up-rez the game and smooth the edges-even official releases on Virtual Console upscale it! I've captured it from original hardware for these videos, and it's remarkable to be reminded how chunky it actually was.
Midgar: Why the EPCOT concept is problematic.
Whoa man. Spoilers.
I’m the one guy that never played FF7. Thanks for looking out for me
Definitely one of those cases where I appreciate a game's art direction far more than anything else about it. Too bad it struggles to recapture the high of the first disc in that regard.
Crazy how you made your first PS Works Gaiden video like it was about the N64. It was great, though. Please do the one about Dragon Quest VII, we want more PS Works Gaiden
I covered a PS1 game last week, chief.
I think FF7 is great but damn is it long, dude I was playing my brothers copy back when it was new and I got to the third disc and just got kind of bored because it was taking forever to beat it.
eh...not that long...think if you do the main quest it clocks in to about 40 hours...if you do everything maybe 60-80. There's longer RPG's out there
For today standards it's average, FF7 is like 30-35 hours.
There are RPGs, like the Persona/SMT series, that have more than 100 hours of gameplay.
I'm just under 2 minutes into the video so far. I like what I've seen so far. But there's 1 small detail that's inaccurate. FF7 want originally planned for the Ultra64, it was originally intended to be a SNES title. But they couldn't fit everything into a SNES cart.
The best part of this game is no dumb time ghosts.