Oddly enough, the games in the Final Fantasy series are not related, unless they’re labeled by the same Roman numeral (Ex: FFX-2 is a direct sequel to FFX but FFX is not a continuation of any of the previous Final Fantasy titles.) However, the games in the Final Fantasy series share some similar elements, such as a story revolving around saving the world, and the appearance of certain creatures like moogles, chocobos, and others. Certain names are also commonly used, including Biggs and Wedge (a Star Wars reference), and Cid. Even though similar creatures appear in most of the games, the world each game is set in is clearly different, with a unique world map and world history.
There are games outside of the Final Fantasy series that directly borrow characters from Final Fantasy VII and more recently Square-Enix has been developing new games that directly take place in the FF7 universe as part of its “Compilation of Final Fantasy VII” project. Below I discuss each of these games.
Kingdom Hearts
Kingdom Hearts is the story of Sora, a boy who seeks to find his lost friends Riku and Kairi after the Heartless invade his home island. After defeating some of the Heartless, Sora wakes up in Traverse Town, where he meets Donald and Goofy, and learns more about what has happened. The Heartless are an evil beings that have been invading many worlds through portals that can only be sealed by the Keyblade, a mystical key weapon that Sora somehow possesses. To save all the worlds, Sora must travel to them all and find the portals, sealing them with the Keyblade. During this journey Sora searches for his lost friends. Donald and Goofy aid him in his search and are on their own search to find King Mickey.
Each world is themed after a Disney movie, including Alice in Wonderland, Tarzan, and Aladdin. Traverse Town is one of the few unique locations and is where many people have fled to in order to escape the Heartless. Most of the Final Fantasy VII characters that appear in the game are located in Traverse Town, including Aerith, Cid, and Yuffie. Their personalities are similar to that of the actual FF7 characters, but their histories are somewhat different (such as Aerith not being killed by Sephiroth). Both Cloud and Sephiroth appear in the game, but only in the Coliseum, a fighting arena styled after the Disney movie Hercules.
This game was produced by Disney and Squaresoft with the plan of attracting both Disney fans and RPG fans, both young and old gamers. It seems to have worked, as the game became very popular, leading to the release of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories for the Gameboy Advance and the upcoming release of a true sequel Kingdom Hearts II, for the PS2 (the first game is also for PS2). I played the game purely for the FF7 characters. I was pleased with the battles featuring Cloud and Sephiroth and with some of the worlds including the Nightmare Before Christmas world and Hollow Bastion. However I found the story and character development lacking and incomplete. I’m sure it won’t stop me from buying the sequel, which promises to be a darker game and which will feature more Final Fantasy characters.
Ehrgeiz: God Bless the Ring
Ehrgeiz is a tournament where fighters compete for the Ehrgeiz sword, a mysterious weapon recovered from the remains of an ancient German Castle. Rumors have spread that the sword is actually a key to the Middle Eastern ruins rumored to hold the secret to immortality. The ambitious joined the Ehrgeiz tournament in hopes of obtaining the sword and immortality.
The game was made by Squaresoft and Dream Factory for the Play Station and features a fighting mode, several mini-games, and a quest mode. All of the extras seem to be an attempt to make up for the poor quality of the fighting game. It’s just not all that interesting, and the FF7 characters weren’t given their own CG endings when the fighting mode was completed with them. There was no particular reason the FF7 characters were thrown in except to get people like me to buy the game. The FF7 characters included are Cloud, Sephiroth, Tifa, Vincent, Yuffie, and Zack. The best thing to come out of the game was some more official art including the portraits of Vincent as a Turk and Zack.
Final Fantasy VII: Compilation
Square-Enix, after the success of FFX-2, the first true sequel to a Final Fantasy game, decided to revisit the FFVII universe. Since FFVII was one of the most popular Final Fantasy games ever, it seemed like a good investment to make more games (and even a movie) since a market base is pretty much guaranteed. FFVII fans range from the elated to the immensely paranoid. Revisiting the FFVII world may tarnish something treasured by many or may add depth to the characters that fans will love and appreciate. Either way, people like me will buy the games and the movie.
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children is a CG (3D computer graphics) movie released September 14, 2005 in Japan and will be released some time in late 2005 for us English speakers. The movie will be sold on the PSP’s UMD format and also on DVD. What types of bonus content will be available for the North American release is unknown at this time. In Japan a limited edition movie package was released that included a Cloud figure, other knick-knack merchandise, a making of the movie feature, and a 25 min anime titled “Last Order” that focuses on Cloud and Zack during and after the Nibelheim incident. The plot for Advent Children is summarized on the official English Advent Children website:
"Two years have passed since the events of Final Fantasy VII. Though Midgar--city of mako, city of prosperity--has been reduced to ruins, its people slowly by steadily walk the road to reconstruction.
However, a mysterious illness called geostigma torments them.
With no cure in sight, it brings death to the afflicted, one after another, robbing the people of their fledgling hope.
And so Cloud, who walked away from the life of a hero to live in solitude, must step forward yet again."
Many of the main character make an appearance in some form or another in the movie, including all of AVALANCHE and the Turks. Familiar locations appear in the film including the ruins of Midgar and the City of the Ancients. Much of the movie contains extravagant anime-style fighting scenes. The plot of the film involves Jenova and another “Reunion,” which fits into the goals of the three silver haired villains that have some connection to Sephiroth. Cloud is the main character of the film and during the conflict with the sliver haired men, Cloud is faced with memories of his past, including his relationship with Sephiroth and his guilt over Aeris’s death.
Final Fantasy VII: Before Crisis is a cell phone game that is playable on the Foma i900 series mobile phones on NTT DoCoMo's iMode service, which is only available in Japan. (Side note: the Foma i900 phone is the PHS (Personal Handset – a Japanese term for cell phone) Cloud uses in the Advent Children movie.) So far the game is only available in Japan but there are rumors that the game may be released in United States some time in 2006 through Verizon on specific cell phone models. So for those of you already with Verizon and willing to spend lots of money on new cell phones, you may get to play the game. I would have preferred it if the game were adapted to the PSP.
The game takes place six years before Final Fantasy VII and ends near the start of FF7. Before Crisis features many familiar characters such as Cloud, Aeris, Sephiroth, and Tseng. But this time the story focuses on the Turks. The player selects a character from the six models provided (three male, three female) each with different weapons and back-story. The player takes their character on missions to increase rank from a trainee to a full-fledged Turk.
The story sets the Turks up against the terrorist group AVALANCHE (the original organization before Barret had control) who are attempting to overthrow ShinRa. The gameplay is mission based, and new missions and features are added to the game on about a monthly basis. The battle system looks much like a typical RPG but now players can “call for help” over the network to team up with other players to defeat battles. The game also features a materia based magic system, but to get materia players must take pictures with their phone’s camera feature. The Shinra lab makes the materia based on the colors that appear in the picture.
An English translation (work in progress) of the game is featured on the website Gunshot Romance.
Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus is a PS2 RPG action/shooter game set for release in January 2006 for Japan (probably much later for North America). The game takes place three years after the end of Final Fantasy VII (two years after the Advent Children movie) and stars Vincent Valentine. There are also confirmed appearances by Cait Sith, Reeve, Yuffie, Cid, Tifa, Barret, and (if you’re crazy and look at the more recent trailers frame-by-frame) Cloud can be seen on his motorcycle from the Advent Children movie. So far Azul, a character featured in the game Before Crisis, will appear in Dirge of Cerberus but more characters from Before Crisis may make an appearance. Not much has been revealed about the game, but various gaming magazines have stated that mysterious new enemies known as the Deep Ground Soldiers (DG Soldiers) have been raiding towns, including Kalm Town, where several screenshots have shown Vincent fighting them.
The DG Soldiers are a secrete military group commissioned by the late President Shinra that were trapped underground after the fall of Meteor. From the screenshots they appear technologically advanced and highly organized. They also have warriors that don’t seem quite human, which may be the results of strange experiments reminiscent of Hojo’s work.
There is much mystery surrounding the DG Soldiers motives, but the trailer has suggested they may be after ancient materia and Vincent may be the only one who can stop them. His gun in the game, called “Cerberus,” has three barrels and a dog’s head on the top barrel and a Cerberus design on the handle. During the course of the game, Vincent will discover the dark secrets of Midgar as he tries to stop the DG Soldiers.
The gameplay is similar to “Devil May Cry.” You control Vincent from a third person perspective, but there is the option to change to a first-person for sniper shots. Vincent’s main weapons are guns, including the Cerberus gun, a sniper rifle, and a machine gun. Vincent can engage in hand-to-hand combat, such as slashing the enemy with his claw. In recent game coverage of the 2005 Tokyo Game Show (TSG), the playable demo included the option to transform Vincent into a beast with fire based attacks (a redesigned Galian Beast). Vincent’s other limit break transformations have not been confirmed, but for those of you observant enough, you may have seen the word “Chaos” flash by in the 2004 TGS trailer.
The game also features an online mode where players can fight as a Deep Ground Soldier competing against other Soldiers to become the ultimate fighter. A Japanese website is now up for the game here. The site features a game trailer including CG cut-scenes and gameplay graphics, information on the online game, and character profiles, all of which are in Japanese. A bit of the trailer is in English, including this amusing typo: “On that day, Midgar died. With thousands of Soldiers trapped deep with its bowels.”
Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core is an action RPG in development for the PSP set for release some time in 2006. A recent trailer for the game showed anime cut-scenes taken from the anime “Last Order” that was included with the limited edition of Advent Children in Japan. The trailer opened with the voice of Aeris discussing the last time she saw Zack. The anime scenes that followed focused on Zack and the Nibelheim incident. Current speculation is that the game will feature Zack as the main character and follow his escape from Hojo’s lab and journey to Midgar. At this time not much else is known about the game.
For recent news on the FFVII: Compilation project I recommend visiting adventchildren.net