Absolutely incredible article about FF7
- Thread starter Butchered
- Start date
Warden of the North
Ned Stark's head
RandV
It's a wolf v2.0
I read through most of that yesterday. One part I'm curious about is it covered a lot of the transition from Nintendo to Sony, but where was Sega in the picture? From what's there I can read between the lines that Sony was offering a whole lot of incentive that Sega probably wasn't going to match, but as a big Sega Saturn fan in the early days I'm curious about those details as well.
Really the only mention Sega got was an offhand remark that Sega would buy a $10,000 developer machine while Square would buy a $100,000 one, so when recruiting the prime talent would say 'I want to work with the $100,000 machine' and go with Square.
Otherwise though while my favourite FF is VI the article really does a great job showing how big and important VII was.
Really the only mention Sega got was an offhand remark that Sega would buy a $10,000 developer machine while Square would buy a $100,000 one, so when recruiting the prime talent would say 'I want to work with the $100,000 machine' and go with Square.
Otherwise though while my favourite FF is VI the article really does a great job showing how big and important VII was.
Butchered
I'm with Kuch
- Apr 30, 2004
- 6,338
- 1
I believe the PSX was already monstrously outselling the Saturn by the time this game started being developed. I think the article mentions the game was created in a year, which means it was being worked on through 96 and PSX was destroying in sales. Sega may have just not had the resources to make a pitch.
haha thats funny that dragon ball artists helped create chrono trigger. I always wondered since chrono had the dbz saiyan type of hair
SettlementRichie10
Registered User
- May 6, 2012
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Toriyama, the creator of DBZ, was the lead character designer of Chrono Trigger.
CT was and still is considered the "dream team" JRPG. Sakaguchi, Toriyama, and Horii are all legendary creators/designers in video games and manga/anime.
Unholy
kesbae
Will have to read this more closely when I'm not at work.
VII is not my favorite but I've replayed it maybe the second most and am very grateful for what it did.
Man I miss the days of SquareSoft.
VII is not my favorite but I've replayed it maybe the second most and am very grateful for what it did.
Man I miss the days of SquareSoft.
Oscar Acosta
Registered User
- Mar 19, 2011
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I remember getting it for a gift on PSX. Think it was like 5 discs so I was like it has to be good - got lost and backtracked too many times for me not to put in Triple Play 96 again and crush HRs with Eric Karros.
Then bought it on PS3 when the Playstation marketplace was newly up and running. Determined to play it all. Made it to about the same running around with loading screens, and fights every 4 seconds trying to get somewhere I just abandoned it.
2016 - get Final Fantasy XV for Christmas randomly. Toss it in and get annoyed and bored before end of tutorial. I will put it back in eventually but forget all of the overly complicated tutorial.
Then bought it on PS3 when the Playstation marketplace was newly up and running. Determined to play it all. Made it to about the same running around with loading screens, and fights every 4 seconds trying to get somewhere I just abandoned it.
2016 - get Final Fantasy XV for Christmas randomly. Toss it in and get annoyed and bored before end of tutorial. I will put it back in eventually but forget all of the overly complicated tutorial.
Big McLargehuge
Fragile Traveler
Gardner McKay
RIP, Jimmy.
It is well worth the read. My favorite game as well.
It shows you why they were so successful with FF7 as opposed to some of the more recent FF, IMO. The developers created the game they wanted. The game they knew fans would love. It was more artistic. The games they create now in the FF series are both very attractive aesthetically and have cool bells and whistles but it always feel like they are playing it safe.
That is why I am so excited about FF7. They know this game is going to sell just on the name alone so I think they will take some more creative leaps when remaking this game then they would if it was the next entry in the FF series.
RandV
It's a wolf v2.0
It was a lot more than just that. At the time a normal game dev team was about 20 people, and for Square it was 30-40. For the development of FFVII they expanded to 150 people (note: those numbers are from the interview, but the article comments other people so it may have been different). They spent $21 million (that's in 90's $$$) on new graphics hardware and software, buying workstations at $70,000 a piece and $500,000-$1,000,000 servers.
And this was all made possible because Sony being new in the console industry rolled out the red carpet for them. They gave Square a sweetheart deal, basically forgoing the cut the console maker gets for each game sale, and told Square they'd put their effort into the marketing. Final Fantasy VI only sold 400,000 copies in North America, so Square with Sony' backing spent $20M on marketing in NA banking on reaching a million sales, something no PS game had achieved to date. From a technical side Sony was also keeping some of the dev kit locked down, but opened up and let Square have full access to get what they needed.
So yes while Square had their full artistic merit behind the game they also had the perfect storm of getting the full backing of an industry giant trying to enter a new market at a time when new tech allowed for disruptive game innovation. I'm not trying to discredit what Square accomplished with their own ambition and merit, but it likely wouldn't have been possible to the same extend if they didn't have Sony fully backing them. Which also gave them several steps up on the competition who were still producing 2D sprite based RPG's, something Square had been considering for FFVII before Sony stepped in.
That's the part I found really fascinating with the article, how with the rockstar treatment it all just came together like that.
