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There are still people out there who swear that Final Fantasy VII is the greatest installment in the series.  I always thought that the game’s popularity was mostly due to a perfect storm of new technology that saw FF7 become the first sprawling next-gen 3D RPG at a time when the Internet was starting to make its way into the fringes of the mainstream.

Of course in retrospect the game just doesn’t hold up all that well.  The plot is nigh incomprehensible thanks to bad writing and a poor translation.  The art design is spotty at best, and the Full Motion Video that was so revolutionary at the time barely compares favorably with what the DS or the PSP puts out as a matter of course today.

Anyways, all of that pontificating about Final Fantasy VII has nothing to do with the content of this post.  Really I’m looking for an excuse to test out embedded video with the new site layout, so above is a video of the opening scenes of FF7 rendered in 8-bit graphics that look like they owe more to PC graphics of the early ’90s than the NES.  But the NES is what most gamers remember, so it’s the system getting the credit in the linkstorm.  Enjoy!

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I’ve been trying to get into the Final Fantasy IV remake for the DS, I really have, but did they have to make all of the characters look like medieval bobblehead dolls?  I’m not against revamping graphics on an old game as long as it improves the overall presentation, but I’m only about twenty minutes in and already the character design is driving me to distraction.  Perhaps I’m picking at nits, but it’s difficult to develop any sir of emotional investment in characters when they look like they would be more at home on the dashboard of a late 70s Firebird.

Not to mention that everyone looks and sounds like barely pubescent teenagers.  When I played the 16-bit version of Final Fantasy IV I had a mental image of Cecil as a grizzled and battle hardened commander grown weary of the world after one battle too many in the service of a king he no longer trusted.  The voice acting and character design has transformed him into the same androgynous pretty boy protagonist who is barely old enough to vote, let alone have a distinguished military career, that we’ve come to know and despise from the good folks at Squeenix.

Honestly, at this point I wouldn’t be surprised to see Tellah reimagined as a rebellious “old” twenty-something with an androgynous voice and plenty of Xtreme attitude.  I’m going to power through to see if the game remains compelling enough after all these years to make character design inconsequential, but at this point i’m starting to seriously wonder if hitting my mid-20s (which would qualify me for a senior citizen discount in most Final Fantasy settings) also means I’ve thoroughly aged out of Squeenix’s target demographic.

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