Final Fantasy VII: Overrated?

[Egami]

All I'm trying to say is that VII's 3D-ness wasn't as big an influence as some make it out to have been. 3D RPGs would've come about whether or not VII was 3D just by virtue of other [popular; going with popular games here] games such as Mario 64 or Zelda: OoT.

Just because the PSX allowed developers to make games in 3D it does not follows that every developer would make their games that way. Likewise, just because there were already games in 3D it doesn’t mean that VII would be that way as well. Square could have easily made VII a gradual improvement over VI instead of a radical one. It would have been a game like Lunar or Suikoden, with the same but improved 2D graphics and sprites. Even if it did go to 3D, it could have made VII like a Mario 64 (Zelda was released after VII), in 3D but smaller and with no FMVs. In both cases Square would have remained with Nintendo as it was going to be.

But they didn’t and went for something bigger and revolutionary, doing something that no of the previous FFs (or RPG) had done before and eventually transcending the limits of a medium (the N64 cartridge). Not even the series main “rival”, Dragon Warrior, did as much with its seventh entry in 2000 for the Playstation. The fact that VII was released for Playstation and not for the N64 was one of, if not the main factor that lead to the failure of that console and the triumph of the Playstation.

VII’s “3D-ness” when you compare it to I-VI was a radical change from the previous games and it paved the way for what we see in VIII-XII, which have been gradual improvements over what VII did very much as II-VI were gradual improvements over the first game. VII marks a watershed in the series in particular and in RPGs in general. Note how after VII was released a bunch of RPGs mimicking what VII did start to pop up: Legend of Legaia, Legend of Dragoon, etc. VII was like the iPod of its generation, it broke new ground in the genre and then nearly everyone followed suit.

Basically, saying Final Fantasy VII is revolutionary because it was 3D is like saying Star Fox 64 was revolutionary for using the N64 analog stick.

I am sorry but I don’t see how that comparison works. You are shifting the focus from the game itself and how it is built to a particular button from the controller of the console that it uses. By that logic, a flight simulator which I can play in my computer with the keyboard suddenly becomes revolutionary because it allows me to plug in a joystick to play it. I know that this is not what you think; it is just an example to show a different perspective of what you said. Something like that has no real impact on the game itself, unlike a change from 2D to 3D graphics.


Egami