From Midgar to Forgotten City, "Final Fantasy" and PlayStation's unforgettable 27 years
This article is written by Ershan APP-VHari. Please indicate the source when reprinting.
If you say which game can define the long history of PlayStation, the current leader in the home console market, a thousand players may give a thousand different answers. But in the memories of many players, the "Final Fantasy" series will undoubtedly become the most powerful answer, and the classic "Final Fantasy 7" released in 1997 is destined to be the brightest pearl in this crown.
As an extremely legendary work, "Final Fantasy 7" not only relies on its own quality to bring indelible memories to thousands of players, but also becomes associated with PlayStation due to the special background of the era. Square Enix (now SE) also had a wonderful chemical reaction with PlayStation because of it, and they have formed an inseparable and close relationship since then.
This emotion that is difficult to let go and cannot be forgotten has made the new Remake version released 18 years after the original game was released, and set off new waves with the release of Remake, the first chapter of the trilogy plan in 2020. Time jumps to February 29, 2024, two days ago, 2 "7" years after the release of the "seventh" game in a series. The second chapter of the trilogy, Rebirth, arrived amidst favorable comments from the media. "Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth" takes players out of Midgar and into the Forgotten City in the vast world, allowing the unforgettable memory to quietly reappear in the eyes of tears after nearly 30 years.
Let us move the needle of time and look back at the history of "Final Fantasy 7", the most eye-catching game in the immortal series "Final Fantasy", on the PS console. It seems destined to be the first to stay on the keyword "game carrier". This game changes the 2D style of the first six games in the series and adopts real-time calculation and pre-rendered 3D graphics for the first time. It is not only a huge leap forward for the series itself, but also reflects the background of the era of rapid development of computer technology around the turn of the millennium. In this context, cassette carriers with limited capacity were no longer able to contain such a huge work. The first-generation PS, which had the only solution at the time, CD-ROM, became the only way to compose legendary epics.
Claude, who has a golden hedgehog head and carries a huge sword of destruction; Sephiroth, who is slender yet strong, with long silver hair; and Alice, who is graceful and carries a flower basket, all have been brought to the world by the transformation from 2D to 3D. The first level of shock for players is a new visual experience. Those fuzzy scenes that used to require brainstorming and fantasizing deep in the heart gradually became clear and visible through the calculations of the first-generation PlayStation. The grand and realistic world view, the non-linear experience brought by the single-line plot and the extremely free exploration of large scenes, coupled with the characteristic ATB battle system inherited from "Final Fantasy 4", the profound game content is fully supported. The extremely intense picture evolution brings a second level of shock to players.
Based on the shock of the first and second floors, Tetsuya Nomura replaced Yoshitaka Amano as the person in charge of character design, Nobuo Naomatsu, the long-term music director of the series, and Hironobu Sakaguchi, the father of the series, turned to Yoshitaka Amano as the map designer. This The meticulous craftsmanship of the master-level lineup brings players a third level of shock. If the first level of shock uses the graphics computing power of PS to touch the player's vision; then in this third level of shock, thanks to the built-in sound effect chip of PS, the series' first use of digital music is also written into History of SE. Time flies. Today, 27 years later, you may have forgotten some details of the plot if you played the original game repeatedly, but the melody of the classic "Angel with Wings" is destined to be engraved deep in your memory.
Yes, "Final Fantasy 7" and PlayStation have joined hands to create many firsts. This "first" is not only the first for SE and the "Final Fantasy" series, but also the first for PlayStation, and even the first in the gaming industry. The first "Final Fantasy" to use 3D computing and digital music; the first "Final Fantasy" to land on the PS platform; PS single-platform sales exceeded 10 million, ranking first in the series; in the media evaluation at the time, some people even said bluntly "The game blows away everything else available on the PlayStation."
Such a masterpiece has also had a profound impact on later generations. In addition to becoming one of the textbooks for RPG games, the high-tech era background introduced by this game has since become an inseparable part of the series, making magic more powerful under the impact of science fiction. It's "fantasy". Derivative works of the game, including but not limited to side games, movies, animations, novels, etc., make the already huge world even more magnificent.
This immortal work also allowed PlayStation to completely consolidate its position in the industry after its emergence. Yes, it was not "God of War", "The Last of Us", or "Marvel's Spider-Man" that set sail for PlayStation, the dominant player in the console industry, but the first-party exclusive masterpiece that we are now familiar with, but the one that in 1997, The yellow hedgehog head that saved Square when he was in trouble. The close relationship between SE and SIE also began. Maybe there is no absolute platform-exclusive game in the "Final Fantasy" series, but after "Final Fantasy 7", every "Final Fantasy" work, and even some other SE games, will never miss the PS series console as its launch platform , and often even advance and retreat together as limited-time exclusive works, just like "Final Fantasy 7" which was launched on PS in 1997 and only moved to PC in 1998.
In 2020, the much-anticipated "Final Fantasy 7 Remake", the first chapter of the series' completely remade trilogy, has, as expected, once again received widespread praise together with PS4. 23 years have passed, and we may not be able to remember many things, but the experience of going on adventures with the "original Shinra soldiers" and their partners will always ripple in our hearts. It also once again proves the iron law that "FF and PS are inseparable". Another four years have passed by in a blink of an eye, and "remake" has become "rebirth", and PS4 has also become PS5. In the past 27 years, the hardware leap from PS to PS4 to PS5 has made our "fantasies" even more unrestrained.
If we talk about the functions of PS4, it gave Claude, the "block man" of the 1990s, a brand new realistic body that is in line with the first-tier level of the modern game industry. So the evolution from PS4 to PS5, in addition to making Tifa and Alice more beautiful and moving, the core theme of "Out of Midgar" also highlighted some things that "only PS5 can do". The reason why the "remake" created for PS4 places the ending of the story at the point where a group of people escape from death after being framed by Shinra and leave the seventh slum. In addition to the natural separation of the storyline, the function of PS4 The limitation that makes it unable to support subsequent scene operations in large map-type open worlds is also a factor that cannot be ignored.
However, from 2013 to 2020, there has been a huge leap in performance, allowing the later generation PS5 to lead players to roam the vast world without any pressure. If you skip the PS4 "remake" and directly compare the large map scene of "Rebirth" with the 1997 original work, then whether it is from the Q version of the characters from the bird's eye view to the realistic modeling from the third person perspective; or it is still green, Comparing the imaginary "prairie" with the ecologically rich and complex terrain scenes, you will feel more clearly what "rebirth" is. The PS5-level SSD, which has been the focus of publicity since it was first announced in 2020, is also one of the important contributors to supporting the "rebirth" world. The improvement in graphics performance only ensures that the PS5 has the ability to outline the target, but to allow these exquisite images to be quickly presented on the screen, it undoubtedly requires the support of an SSD with faster loading speeds.
Improvements in graphics performance and loading speed allow next-generation image quality to be faithfully presented, and improvements in CPU performance make the 60-frame mode that players expect possible when the game is launched. The simultaneous provision of image quality mode and performance mode means that SE has not fallen behind others in this era, just as it accurately sensed the direction of the industry in 1997 and unswervingly brought 3D graphics to "Final Fantasy 7". Of course, the controller features that enrich the PS5 gaming experience, such as adaptive triggers and more detailed vibration feedback, are also meticulously integrated into every step of the game in this game.
Yes, 27 years ago, "Final Fantasy 7" captured the graphics performance, digital music module and CD-ROM support of the original PS; 27 years later, "Final Fantasy 7 Reborn" also captured the graphics performance of the PS5 , loading speed and handle characteristics. The successful cooperation over the years has undoubtedly formed a relationship between "Final Fantasy" and PlayStation, where we work together to advance and retreat together. The performance control and feature release of the PS console at the same time when the work was launched also made the IP of "Final Fantasy" not the first party, but better than the first party, and became a symbol of beautiful memories and sentiments accompanying many PS fans.
On the occasion of the release of "Rebirth", in addition to praise from the media, fans also praised it positively. This reminds you once again that the game's capacity is far beyond 100GB, and more hard drive capacity is needed to accommodate Tifa and Aerith. Perhaps, the launch of a new version of PS5 that increases the internal hard drive capacity from 825GB to 1TB also has the meaning of coping with the smooth landing of "Rebirth".
As "Final Fantasy 7 Reborn" exclusively lands on the PS5 platform, our memories start from Midgar and go all the way to the Forgotten City. From the original work to Remake and then to Rebirth, we have not forgotten "Final Fantasy 7", nor have we forgotten the countless touches that the series' long-term cooperation with PlayStation has brought to us. How many 27 years can there be in life? I hope that "Final Fantasy" and PlayStation can bring us more unforgettable memories as they are "reborn" again and again in the future.
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