The success of Final Fantasy 7 outside of Japan is mainly due to the series incorporating CG, says series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi.
Speaking during a panel at the Monaco Anime Game International Conferences 2023 (via IGN), Sakaguchi, along with Castlevania: Symphony of the Night creator Koji Igarashi, explained the challenges Square Enix faced developing the Final series. Fantasy in West.
“At that time, Westerners viewed pixel art and three-headed characters as childish,” says Sakaguchi. “It was frustrating that our games were struggling there as we wanted to find a way to grow our business. It finally happened when we were able to incorporate CG for Final Fantasy 7.”
Sakaguchi believes Square Enix’s decision to switch from established 2D pixel art graphics to computer-generated 3D graphics has made a big difference in international markets. As we can see in all the games that followed, this decision clearly set a precedent for the rest of the series, as most games since, including Final Fantasy 16 due out this year, have stuck to the visuals. computer generated.
However, this does not mean that the CG method is infallible. As IGN explains in the same article, despite the success of Final Fantasy 7 on PS1 and PS2, Japanese games still started to lag behind in the West when the PS3 arrived, that is, unless you weren’t Nintendo.
Speaking of this period, Sakaguchi said, “I think one of the main reasons is the fact that consoles like the NES and PlayStation were very specific hardware,” the developer continues, “It allowed Japanese developers to easier to master the game.” hardware, as one could directly ask Nintendo or Sony in Japanese.
“I realize it might be rude to say that, Japanese games were higher quality back then,” Sakaguchi adds. “As a result, Japanese games were seen as more fun, but when the hardware became easier to develop, things changed quickly.”
Koji Igarashi also joined during this time, adding, “Japanese developers had developed skills specifically for console games, but in North America and Europe there was a long history of PC culture.”
Take a look at our best final fantasy games ready to see if your favorite made the cut.