Next up in this 🧵: another rare interview from V Jump's special February 15, 1997 issue—this time with Yoshinori Kitase. FFVII's director speaks about his cinema-like responsibilities and comments on the the game's noteworthy story. (Scans courtesy of @duskyLimestone 🙏)
Kitase says that the increased capacity of CD-ROMs allowed for more realistic imaginary worlds than ever before. You didn't have to craftily manipulate and recycle a limited pool of assets, which translated to much more variety in locations and NPC models.
The shift to 3D graphics also liberated the team from limitations imposed by 2D worlds. You could now model a town in 3D space and arrange it as you saw fit instead of having to entirely redraw things if you decided the layout wasn't satisfactory.
FFVII allowed Kitase to create a visual-heavy production that resembled the ideal in his head. But imitating movies and simply tracing cinematic techniques wasn't enough. He had to be bold and take the game in a brave new direction.
The conventional "grammar of games" involved moving characters to locations, fighting a routine boss battle, returning to uneventful field maps, and occasionally seeing some flashy events. Kitase strove to break this reassuring yet very contrived-feeling pattern.
Kitase says FFVII's freshness came from how it broke the mold with its flowing visuals and story, making it feel much less contrived than previous RPGs. Where the norm was to have a few standout scenes at the beginning, middle, and end, FFVII included upwards of 40 all throughout
The materia system was a new take on FF's classic them of mixing and matching abilities to strategize against enemies. With items, the staff was worried there would be too many for players to find favorites, but they stuck with the amount for the sake of varied strategy.
Kitase says FFVII's story is set up as a three-act structure centered around Cloud's inner struggle. Each part corresponds to some leg of his personal journey, unlike in previous games, where the story would be divided into two worlds (e.g., World of Balance and World of Ruin).
Kitase says the first part of FFVII's story is made to feel like a conventional FF plot, with a black and white battle against evil. But then Aerith dies, and the story takes a turn for the enigmatic. [1/2]
Zack is introduced, and after retracing Cloud's past and addressing his trauma to some degree, the third act begins—a grand spectacle of Hollywood proportions. Kitase believed FFVII presented one path for the future direction of the video game medium. [2/2]
Stay tuned for the interview with Nomura coming up next (though it will likely be interrupted by the FFXVI coverage this week)
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Poring over 1,500 pages of lore is a bit intimidating, so in this thread I'll highlight what I think are the 7 best documents you can read to buff up on FFVII in anticipation of Rebirth.
#1: The Ultimania Omega story playback. This is an absolute must for any avid fan who hasn't played FFVII in Japanese. In addition to clarifying everything lost in translation, it reveals tons of new behind-the-scenes lore.
#2: The Ultimania Omega Truth Explained section. This delves into all of FFVII's central mysteries and clears up big misconceptions that still exist after a quarter of a century.
What's next in this 🧵: a very rare interview with the master himself, Hironobu Sakaguchi @auuo, from V Jump's February 15, 1997 special edition (courtesy of @duskyLimestone). He talks about FFVII's highlights, shares episodes from development, and names his favorite character.
Development was a bit of a shitshow. Programmers and graphics staff had to learn the new tech as they were implementing it, and it wasn't uncommon to see math textbooks open as they worked. Kazuyuki Hashimoto, a CG specialist, joined the team and provided much-needed guidance.
Toward the middle of the project, Sakaguchi had to work as a sort of headhunter. CG industry professionals generally weren't interested in the video game industry. He had to convince them FFVII would be a worthy project where they could freely test and show off their abilities.
In this 🧵: part 2 of an interview you've never seen. Jugemu continues talking over drinks with seven of FFVII's lead developers. As more alcohol flows, the devs shift to talking about their obsessions and attachments to the work. (Scans once again by Limestone!)
Before I continue with this thread, a disclaimer: Until yesterday, Limestone didn't even have this interview, much less know its contents. We have no bias when it comes to what we translate and when. Any views it contains about certain FFVII characters and pairings are incidental
FFVII's playtesting involved a team of roughly 100 people. Because of the volume of data, ROM burns could take up to 40 minutes for a single disc.
When Square released their first commercial for FFVII in early 1996, it featured actors instead of real programmers.
Investigating the late evolution of FFVII's scenario: a 🧵. In the interviews we recently unearthed, Nojima mentions two films that inspired his FFVII scenario: "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" (1983) and "Gamera 2: Attack of Legion" (1996).
In the beginning, there was the Jenova—not the extraterrestrial calamity we know today, but a particular region of the brain or genes, named after an old text left behind by the Ancients. Awakening one's Jenova would enable the use of magic and other special abilities.
Individuals whose Jenova had been awakened were known as "superbeings." Some, like Aerith and the Ancients, had innate powers, while others, like Sephiroth and the other SOLDIERS, acquired them through artificial stimulation of the Jenova.
The March 1997 issue of Jugemu also included a Q&A section with 50 questions fielded by the staff at Square. The ones about the game's characters are particularly interesting, so I'll put them in this 🧵. Thanks again to Limestone for these incredibly rare scans!
Q: The main character, Cloud, is an ex-SOLDIER. How many SOLDIERs are there?
A: We can’t give you an exact number, but the organization is split up into 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Classes, which are said to include anywhere between a handful and hundreds of members.
Q: All told, how many characters will we team up with?
A: I wonder....
(It wasn't clear at this point which characters would actually be playable as party members. Technically, Sephiroth is the 10th team member, if only briefly!)
I didn’t expect to be giving Japanese lessons but a lot of people have asked me why I translated 認識(したこと) in this script as “registering” instead of “recognizing,” so here goes! “Recognize” is a valid way to translate 認識する, but in this context [1/4]
it would be misleading because 認識する does not mean “to recognize something you have seen before.” Rather, it means “to become aware of the nature or value of something.” The English word “recognize” has two distinct meanings: [2/4]
“to know again / remember” (e.g., “I recognized her from the party last weekend”) and “to become aware of / acknowledge something” (e.g., “I recognized the artifact was worth a fortune.”) The Japanese word 認識 corresponds only to the latter usage. Therefore, in order [3/4]