The original Final Fantasy VII was considered revolutionary back then, showing fans what a 3D JRPG can look like. Admittedly, it hasn’t aged well, and now we know there’s an alternate timeline where this game would have been a beautiful 2D game instead.
Recently, old art of the game went viral, showing that there was a prototype of this JRPG as a 2D game similar to the previous SNES entries. Yusuke Naora, the original art director, recently commented on this viral post (translated by Automatron) and admitted that a 2D version of this RPG would have been released in an alternate reality.
"It really brings back memories… I was experimenting in preparation for the larger amount of capacity we would have, but I never imagined that after that we would end up making Midgar using the monstrous amount of storage space offered by CD-ROMs (lol). An FF7 like this would have been possible in an alternate timeline,” Naora said.
Depending on who you ask, the original Final Fantasy VII’s visuals are considered adorably dated or just hard to look at. Regardless of how fans feel about the first game, it’s definitely a product of its time and that’s good. Video game preservation is important and the fact fans can play this JRPG the way it looked back in the day is great.
Now that 2D pixels are an acceptable artstyle for many games, fans have come to appreciate older titles from the SNES, Genesis, and even NES generations. If Square kept this artstyle for the seventh Final Fantasy, it would have arguably aged like wine, similar to Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy IV.
Luckily, the Final Fantasy VII trilogy has given fans some of the best graphics they will ever see in current-gen consoles. While the Remake trilogy might be the preferred way to play this series, we think the original game is still worth playing. Luckily, fans can purchase both games in pretty much every current-gen system available.
Explore new topics and discover content that's right for you!