# Final Fantasy VII - Work: Japanese RPG - Date: 1997 (PlayStation); 1998 (Windows) - Made by: Hironobu Sakaguchi (Producer); Nobuo Uematsu (Composer); Yoshitaka Amano (Promotional & image art) - Houses: Square / Square Enix - Platforms: PlayStation, Windows - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/works/final-fantasy-vii/ > Square's leap to CD and 3D, Final Fantasy VII followed a spiky-haired mercenary from the Mako reactors of Midgar to the edge of the Lifestream, and brought the Japanese RPG to a mass Western audience. **Why it matters:** Final Fantasy VII combined cinematic presentation, a modern ecological story and a flexible Materia system on the PlayStation, sold millions in the West, and established the Japanese RPG as a global genre. ## Quick answers **When was Final Fantasy VII first released?** Final Fantasy VII was first released in 1997 (PlayStation); 1998 (Windows). **Who created Final Fantasy VII?** Final Fantasy VII was made by Hironobu Sakaguchi (producer), Nobuo Uematsu (composer) and Yoshitaka Amano (promotional & image art). **Who published or developed Final Fantasy VII?** Square / Square Enix. **What kind of work is Final Fantasy VII?** Final Fantasy VII is a Japanese RPG in the Japanese RPGs (JRPG) tradition, released for PlayStation and Windows. **Why is Final Fantasy VII important?** Final Fantasy VII combined cinematic presentation, a modern ecological story and a flexible Materia system on the PlayStation, sold millions in the West, and established the Japanese RPG as a global genre. ## Overview It opens on a starfield that resolves into a flower girl in an alley, then pulls back across the smoking, plate-covered city of Midgar to a train pulling into a station, where a mercenary with a sword the size of a door leaps onto the platform. *Final Fantasy VII*, released for the PlayStation in Japan on January 31, 1997, announced a new scale for roleplaying games in its first minute. Across three CDs it tells the story of Cloud Strife and the eco-terrorists of Avalanche, the Shinra Electric Power Company that is draining the planet's life energy, and Sephiroth, a legendary soldier turned destroyer. It is the best-selling game in its series and the game that made the [Japanese RPG](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/japanese-rpg/) a mainstream genre in the West. ## Origins [Square](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/square/) began planning the seventh *Final Fantasy* in 1994 as a 2D game for the Super Famicom, on the model of [*Final Fantasy VI*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/final-fantasy-vi/). As the company moved toward a cinematic, three-dimensional style, it tested the new Nintendo 64 and found cartridges far too small; even a single Behemoth monster required around 2,000 polygons. Square chose Sony's CD-based PlayStation instead, a split with [Nintendo](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/nintendo/) that reshaped the console market. Series creator [Hironobu Sakaguchi](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/hironobu-sakaguchi/) produced; Yoshinori Kitase directed; Tetsuya Nomura designed the characters, taking over from [Yoshitaka Amano](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/yoshitaka-amano/), who contributed promotional art; Kazushige Nojima wrote the scenario; and [Nobuo Uematsu](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/nobuo-uematsu/) composed the score, including the choral "One-Winged Angel." A team of 100 to 150 people built it in just over a year at a cost of about $40 million. The game's look fused real-time 3D characters with pre-rendered backgrounds and extensive full-motion video, and its overworld became a fully three-dimensional map. Its setting broke with medieval tradition: an industrial, electrified world of reactors, slums, corporate towers and motorcycles, where the fantasy lies in the Lifestream, the spiritual energy of the planet itself. ## How it plays Battles use the series' [Active Time Battle](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/active-time-battle/) system, in which each character acts when a gauge fills, so hesitation costs time. Taking damage fills a separate meter for Limit Breaks, powerful character-specific attacks. Customization flows through Materia, crystallized orbs of Mako energy slotted into weapons and armor, which grant spells, summons, commands and passive bonuses and can be linked in pairs to combine effects. Because Materia can be moved freely between characters, the [The party](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/party/) is unusually flexible. Between battles the game is crowded with invention: snowboarding, motorcycle chases, submarine battles, the Gold Saucer amusement park, and the breeding and racing of [chocobos](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/chocobo/), whose colored strains unlock hidden parts of the map. The story itself turns on memory and identity. Cloud's certainty about his past proves false, and the death of the flower seller Aerith at Sephiroth's hand midway through the game became one of the most discussed moments in video games. ## Reception & impact The game sold more than two million copies in Japan in three days. For its Western launch, Sony Computer Entertainment spent heavily; the marketing budget was reported as about $10 million each for Japan and Europe and $20 million for North America, with television ads during *Saturday Night Live* and *The Simpsons*. North America received it on September 7, 1997, and it sold 330,000 copies in its first weekend and a million by December; Europe, which had never received a *Final Fantasy*, got its first on November 17, 1997. Reviewers gave it perfect scores in many outlets, and it holds a Metacritic rating of 92, though the English translation, produced under severe constraints, was criticized for its errors. A Windows port published by Eidos Interactive in June 1998 sold more than a million copies. By June 2020 the original release had sold more than 13.3 million units. ## Legacy *Final Fantasy VII* drove PlayStation sales, proved that a long, text-heavy Japanese RPG could sell to a mass Western audience, and opened the door for the many translations that followed. Square extended it into the multimedia Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, including the CGI film *Advent Children* (2005), and remade it as a multi-part project beginning with *Final Fantasy VII Remake* (2020) and *Final Fantasy VII Rebirth* (2024). The series' later move online, in [*Final Fantasy XI*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/final-fantasy-xi/) and [*Final Fantasy XIV*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/final-fantasy-xiv/), was built on the global audience this game created. ## Facts - Square moved the series from Nintendo to Sony's PlayStation largely because CD-ROMs could hold far more data than cartridges. - A Nintendo 64 test failed on polygon limits: a single Behemoth model needed around 2,000 polygons. - Its development cost about $40 million, and marketing another $40 million, half of it spent in North America. - Television ads ran during Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons. - It was the first Final Fantasy released in Europe, on November 17, 1997. - The heroine's name was rendered 'Aeris' in the 1997 English version; the intended romanization is Aerith. - It sold more than 2 million copies in Japan in its first three days. ## Sources and further reading - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_VII) --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.