Get the latest tech news

How did Final Fantasy 7 capture so much humanity?

A look back at the emotional impact of Final Fantasy 7.

The pre-rendered backgrounds have a real sense of atmosphere and character; there is the honeycomb warmth of Costa del Sol, for example, and Cosmo Canyon is the colour of autumn leaves. Much like reading a novel, the original game let the player imagine how characters sounded when they spoke, and the lack of a fleshed out context to certain scenes also gave us the freedom to create our own characterisation touches. Now, in my mid-30s, seeing turn-based gameplay in Final Fantasy (and PSX games in general) being regarded as old fashioned, I'm starting to feel like Steve Rogers, 'a man out of time'.

Get the Android app