VII never started the androgynous hero idea. Just look at the designs for the previous Final Fantasy heroes and heroines, they were all gorgeous and thinning the line between boy-girl very easily.
I agree that FFVII didn't necessarily start it, but saying "every Final Fantasy hero/ine was a bishonen beforehand" is straight up incorrect. Because that factors in the playable FFI heroes to the FF 6 leads, and between Fighter, Galuf, Bartz, Faris, the Dragoons from FF 4 and Sabin - the characters that I'm somewhat aware of at least, there would be more - there are plenty of different heroes from all different archetypes.
Focusing on the main characters only? FFI had a fully customizable party, I'm pretty sure those Dragoons are fairly central (at least one of them, Kain is it?) and Bartz is a peppy kid hero. I can't speak for 2, 3 or 6 - mainly because I haven't played enough of them to get a handle on the "main" singleplayer characters - but even if he's not the first angsty bishie hero ever, calling the entire line of heroes before him "gorgeous and thinning the line between girl and boy" does a disservice to those characters.
The only character from an FF game that I've played much that "thins the line between girl and boy" is Faris, and she's a burly woman who was raised by pirates and crossdresses as a man.
Come sail your ships around me, and burn your bridges down.
He means the Ameno artwork. Only the sprite-based nature of previous games kept their leads from being just as (if not more!) androgynous as Cloud.
And it is true that a lot of this is due more to the nature of moving into 3D (I mean for comparison look at Zelda Link pre-Ocarina and post too) than because the creators were trying for crossover appeal. On a more meta level I remember 7 was also ''huge' in fanworks, especially on the female side. But a part of this isn't necessarily because of FF 7 being THE BIG ONE so much as how it coincided with the growth of the Internet. So much of 7 is influenced by what was going around (graphic upgrades, gamers going into teen years, the Internet) it that it's hard to review it in a vacuum.
May or may not have been raised by egregious Brazilian wolves.
- "Tifa's support underwear."
I always thought it was a HOOTERS outfit (minus the logo across the chest). Which is why I much prefer her look from Advent Children.
I wouldn't mind failure so much, if I didn't fail so much.
"was one of the first to permanently kill one of its characters AFTER you'd used them"
You never played FFII, IV or V, right? Because those games did kill party members too.
@MiinU: I agree. I personally dislike Tifa's outfit. It's nothing but fanservice - I am not a battler, but even I know that, if one of my main means of defending myself against attacks involves kicking, I am not gonna wear a freaking miniskirt. (at least wear some short shorts underneath...) I much prefer her AC outfit, too. It looked decent.
@HappyMan: Exactly. VII was not the first game to kill off a major character, be it in an RPG or in Final Fantasy.
But it WAS the first game to kill off a major player-controlled main character. Or am I wrong? It's fine either way but I want to be accurate as possible. I played bits and piece of previous F Fs but never full length.
As for Tifa's outfit... I like the Advent Children design better except for the back skirt. It's Rule of Cool and all but I imagine as a fist fighter you don't want something hanging down that someone else can grab. In the original game i wasn't always clear as to whether it was a bra Cloud was supposedly rifling through for or panties. But it does feed into my issue with how the camp / gag humor moments of this game are often placed at the worst times.
May or may not have been raised by egregious Brazilian wolves.
It wasn't. They did it in just about every preceding game except the first one and III.
What it did do was attempt to play the death for tragedy rather than stake-raising drama.
- "I agree. I personally dislike Tifa's outfit."
@camuto: I never said I didn't like it, I simply meant that's what her outfit reminded me of.
And while I agree about it being fanservicey, that isn't necessarily a bad thing either.
If anything, the one thing the part I didn't like was the size of her boobs. So I was glad Square Enix toned down her girls to more realistic proportions for AC/ACC.
I wouldn't mind failure so much, if I didn't fail so much.
^There really needs to be away to edit comments. I meant to link here. Also, I meant to say:
- "If anything, the one part I didn't like-"
@MiinU: To me, it is bad. Especially if the fanservice contradicts the simplest of logical mindsets. (Like my example, if I'm gonna kick people, I'm not gonna wear a freaking miniskirt)
And I agree about the size of her boobs. I like big breasts on women, but everything has its limits. And hers are JUST beyond my level of tolerance.
@frogwidget: Nope. Final Fantasy II, IV, V and VI, all had character deaths in them. (VI had even more, in the original draft)
@SpectralTime: That part never made sense to me. The deaths were sad and tragic to begin with. Just because they 'went down with a fight', doesn't make their deaths have any less weight.
But then, I'm talking from the perspective of someone who saw Aerith's death coming a mile away in-game, because it was just so obvious, and considered the scene to look laughably stupid. Not to mention, I couldn't care about her death - even if one ups Aerith's value, she barely has any screentime, one never learns much about Aerith as a person, but more about Aerith The Cetra (which dehumanizes her to the player) and she barely plays a big role, to begin with. All those factors just meant she popped up now and then, only for her to be killed off... which makes it difficult to care because, honestly, I wasn't given enough time to begin caring about her.
- "Nope. Final Fantasy II, IV, V, and VI all had character deaths in them."
In part VI, Tellah died from over exerting himself in his attempt to kill Golbez. So it didn't have the same impact. And Palom and Porom only petrified themselves, but they were shown to be back to normal during the ending.
The only ones who dies in part are Shadow and Cid, which can both be prevented. If you wait for Shadow on the Floating Continent, he survives. And so long as you feed Cid fresh fish, he survives too.
There wasn't any way to save Aerith. She dies no matter what you do and it's permanent.
- "even if one ups Aerith's value, she barely has any screentime, one never learns much about Aerith as a person."
At the very least, she was a Mauve Shirt. She was the last remaining Cetra, who grew up in The Slums where she sold flowers for a living. Not much to write home about, at first, but she become a major character.
Retroactively, we learned more about her during Crisis Core, which shows how she met Zack, who was her boyfriend. He was also the one that gave her the idea to sell flowers. However, she never learned what became of himnote until both their deaths. So we learned just as much about her as a person, as we did of her Cetra heritage.
Either way, it hasn't dehumanized at all, it's further endeared her to the fandom.
I wouldn't mind failure so much, if I didn't fail so much.
^I meant part IV for Tellah, Palom, and Porom - and part VI for Shadow and Cid.
I wouldn't mind failure so much, if I didn't fail so much.
@MiinU: Oh, I'm all for saying that IV definitely overdid the sacrifice thing and it lost its impact, especially when all BUT Tellah were shown to be peachy-kay in the final showdown.
As for Cid, well, unless one knew how the fish 'minigame' for him worked, there was a high possibility that players ended up killing him. For Shadow, again, unless one knew about it, most people would not wait until almost the last second of the countdown. (And no love for General Leo? Sure, he was an enemy, but the only one on the side of the Empire, who seemed a decent person)
I LOVE Aerith in Crisis Core. Mostly cause Zack is there, too. She was portrayed as a bit shy at first, but got more spunk as she hung with Zack. Their romance? One that I believe.
But I am specifically talking about Aerith in VII. Not the play-the-prequel-then-sequel Aerith. I am going only by what the first appearance of Aerith, in VII, showed us. And it showed us nothing. It was always Aerith The Cetra.
If I were to add Crisis Core into this discussion, I'd say that Crisis Core was the better game, simply because Zack was a better main character, likeable the entire time and Cloud had just the right amount of screentime and size of a role, that I liked him. Though Genesis can go burn - I like Gackt, but Genesis is overdoing it majorly. (Neat that he's voiced by Gackt, too, but I more prefer Gackt's singing voice - and Genesis was still too shoved in)
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In Retrospect, a Mixed Bag
This is decidedly a part of gaming history and was indeed - for the time - graphically pushing the envelope. In the major cutscenes and battle, at least. For the majority of the cutscenes you will be looking at SD polygonal people with a pre-rendered background.
Where the game shines is that it tried something different - a fairly complex story with some adult elements and was one of the first to permanently kill one of its characters AFTER you'd used them - an emotional whammy to all new gamers.
However, the game also gets muddled in itself. It's trying to handle multiple themes - the pointlessness of death, the dangers of corporatism, the need for environmentalism, and Cloud's search for his identity. Unfortunately, this muddles the message somewhat because very little carries through on top of the Giant Space Flea from Nowhere and untangling the whole Sephiroth plot as well. They're all fantastic ideas in themselves, but together get diluted somewhat.
Perhaps the biggest crime though is... the characters often seem shafted. Shinra is a menace for all of perhaps the first fifth of the game but this is quickly deconstructed when its leaders turn out to be comedic sociopaths at best, incompetent goon squad at worst. Sephiroth is supposed to be a looming menace but isn't even really there most of the time and his plot to ascend to godhood is pretty convoluted. Even the main characters often, for all of their issues, descend into comedy between Tifa's support underwear and Cloud's crossdressing or Yuffie's clumsy thieving.
That said if you can look past that the system is fantastic. It's standard turn-based JRPG style so it's easy to learn and use. Materia is equally intuitive and allows for customization and easy replication if you invest the time. The summons are a lot of fun too which is always a bonus. The plot moves around at a brisk pace but you may need to play through twice to catch the whole picture.
I don't personally think it's aged well but I can see why it was such an important game at the time. There have been better plots and better graphics but this is the one that really put JRP Gs into Western audiences' hands. It's also the start of the Pretty Androgynous JRPG hero trope so there is that as well.