Final Fantasy VII: Overrated?

[Bolivar]

Bernie Stolar is the guy you're thinking of. As the first president of SCEA he implemented a "no RPG" policy in the early days of the Playstation because most at the time were 2D, which he felt didn't showcased the PS1's power. Therefore it's logical to infer he discouraged any games from being 2D during his time there. He was released from Sony after the first holiday season of the PLaystation and then went over to Sega, where he oversaw the Saturn and the time leading up to the Dreamcast launch, before being let go from there also.

He left Sony before Square had begun developing VII and we find games like Suikoden and Beyond the Beyond, which are 2D RPGs, being developed and released during his time and which were more likely to be affected by his influence.

Yeah, there's alot of problems with that "no 2D" theory.

VII was expected to be a big hit. Letting it be of poor quality would've killed the series, which would've been bad for both Square and Sony.

Lesser games CAN get away with it later because they aren't expected to do much anyway.

FFVII's expectations only began to build once people started realizing how important of a game it was going to be. Final Fantasy, up to that point, had taken a backseat to Dragon Quest in Japan, and had only a moderate success in the states. It was virtually unheard of in Europe. At the same token, Dragon Quest VII, always a big hit, opted to maintain 2d, and we're talkin years into the Playstation's life cycle.