FFVII and MGS1 were the games that made me realize that videogames are not just kid's play and toys. They were a form of art with infinite potential. These 2 are landmarks of my 40+ years in gaming and will forever be the catalysts that made me appreciate this medium the way I do.

This game is so important to me for a few reasons. It blew my mind when I first played it, and although I wouldn’t know it at the time, it was also the last game I would play with my brother before I moved out. We would sit together taking turns, playing through the game in our bedroom. It just blew us away, we really hadn’t played anything like it. It kind of marked my transition from boy to man. A year later my daughter was born and I moved out with my partner to start my “grown up life” Both my brother and I have wonderful families now. I still game, I have four wonderful children, 25,19,17 and the surprise youngest child 5. The youngest and I are currently taking turns on FF16, and we are loving it. I’d like to go back though, for one day and sit there playing it with my bro.

I find it fascinating how “this is the best game ever made” means two entirely different things for when referring to an overnight success like Fortnite and Among Us versus a staple and tried and true masterpiece from the late Super Famicom/early PlayStation era SquareSoft. The former gets exponentially more attention at first, but dies in popularity within a few months at most, while the latter is mostly ignored by the crowd initially, it stands, and keeps standing, like a pyramid. It's so well-crafted that it doesn't need appraisal and attention to justify it's excellence and mark of mastery and care and passion from the developers. One day most of us all will have forgotten about Fortnite, Flappy Bird, Undertale and Pokémon GO, while Final Fantasy VII and it's contemporaries like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Resident Evil still be there for you to enjoy and gush over online, and be there for new players to fall in love with.

Excellent video. One of the best games I've ever played. Wish they made jrpgs like this still.

If the youtube algorithm doesn't pick this up, we revolt! Fantastic work!

As original 1997 fan first experiencing FFVII Japanese demo in Tobal No. 1 I applaud you for making the absolutely BEST documentary on the game that changed the industry forever.

I love how when describing Tifa, you just had to use a scene from Cobra Kai of Miguel describing Sam LaRusso XD

greatest game of all time no contest

This video is SUPER UNDERVIEWED!!

Dude this deserves way more attention. Great work

Awesome content as always! Great game choice, hard to believe it has already been 25 years

KZfaq recommended this to me and it did not disappoint! Watched the whole thing and what a great documentary. Really obvious how much passion and work went into this video. Thank you for making this!

Wow!! This is beautifully done! Thank you for capturing the backstory of this masterpiece

This is really quite well done man. I'm just halfway through, but I'm commenting now in case I forget later. Hope your channel continues to grow. There's some footage here that I either haven't seen before (from the VERY early days of development) it it's just been so long that I'd forgotten. Really well done. Back to the video and wish your channel all the best. Good stuff.

I am an avid game collector my favorite two genres of games are FPS and RPGs and I'd have to say my all-time favorite game out of all the consoles and PCs I have played on is hands-down Final Fantasy 7. I have watched several documentaries on Final Fantasy 7 this one by far is the best one. Well done sir 👍👍👍

This was really well put together and not too long 👏👏👏

You deserve highest of "allocades" for the work you've done here. All jokes aside, you did an excellent job with this documentary.

Damn man, this is so good and so thorough, you should have 100 times the sub count from this alone. I mean dang man. Great work.

my favorite art work ever made

Every morning at 5am i am watching parts of this video on my way to work. You are my wake up ff7 voice every day, talking about one of my fav games of all time. Very well done.

WOW. What a fantastic video! Research and presentation immaculate. Well done! This is a beautiful piece of work Thank you!

this video was so awesome! I’m really glad it showed up in my feed!

The high resolution footage is amazing. Superb video!

So glad KZfaq actually recommended something worthwhile and that I’m interested in, that literally never happens lol this was a fantastic documentary and was so well made! I will deff be checking out the rest of your vids!!

This was an amazing watch. Well done.

Great job man, excellent documentary!

Awesome vid! I think i need to replay this very soon. It's been a long time. 💪🔥🙌

ahhh FeelsgoodMan, 25 years and still rocking hard, great vid, cleared a lot of stuff for me.. :)

Quality video. Thanks for your time amd effort!

FF7 is such a great game, it feels so grounded even with magic and giant monsters, also few games has such great pacing 😁

This is such a killer video. Thanks so much for making it.

As someone who owned a Nintendo system and played all Squares JRPG's when I was uh, lets just say younger..lol, I bought the Sony playstation specifically to play FFVII and I can not put into words what a mind blowing experience it truly was. Thank you for this incredibly well done documentary about the technical aspects of what truly made FFVII such a wonder back in 1997. Most "documentaries" on youtube (I use the word loosely here) never take into account the year it was made, never go into detail about Why the game was truly an innovative masterpiece. Instead they try to make it about their take on politics. I Adore the FFVII ReMake and look forward to playing the rest of the game when it comes out. I know it will be a truly magical experience. Many naysayers will hate on the ReMake saying "they ruined it", but I think, Square is remaking the game in such a way that it will instill the same feelings of awe and wonder that the original did, because, while many of us know the og story, there will be many new adventures to look forward to, while still encapsulating what FFVII truly is. This video deserves 1 million views and likes.

Great Documentary. Really enjoyed it.

What an incredible video! Very well edited. Also, this sounds weird but I bounce off documentaries based on someone's voice. You kind of need to be a good voice actor to hold someone's attention with an hour of talking and you have that voice! I just finished rebirth and booted up the original again. This game series is so special to me and many others. I'm interested to see what other videos you have.

Amazing video. Well done!

Very well done!

Nostalgic game.... story, music, gameplay... iykyk

Great video! Ff7 is a masterpiece

Great content. Subscribed!

Thank you for this, honestly this channel deserves WAY more subs. Bravo! Good shit! Chrono Cross next maybe ;)?

This is really great thank you!

Immediately subscribed

Very cool video, enjoyed it very much

Great video 👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿

This was superb, thank you. What mod/s were being used during the gameplay capture? Everything looked upscaled very cleanly. Thanks again, that was a real pleasure to watch! Subbed

amazing vid ty

Great doc!

Those 60 FPS FMVs are beautiful

Well done liked and subbed

Watching this video makes me more interested in what'll occur in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. It'll probably follow the orginal narrative but to what extent? Wish I had the game in my hands now. Superb video by the way, I'm thankful KZfaq recommended this.

Amazing video and your voice is great to listen to🤩! I had to subscribe because you did such a good job with this 😁. FF7 is my favorite game of all time 💙 and I love this kind of videos.

Have a lot of fond memories of FF7. Was 13 when it came out and I was fully in on it as were all my friends

Beautiful doc

Great video

Really enjoyed this documentary. Love this game. Thank you

Excellent video! I’m playing FFVII for the very first time! The only one I’ve ever played before is 1!

This is a great doc

Amazing video. FF7 is my favorite game of all time, yet I still learned a few things. I hope more people watch this.

Great video, I watched this while playing rebirth

I am so happy that the technology is here to now give FF7 a proper and bad ass remake. Also so glad they decided to make the remake longer than the original. In my memory, and so many others, Midgar was most of the game while the reality is that it was barely one fifth of it. Having forty hours to explore Midgar was a perfect decision. Can't wait to see what's coming in Rebirth and the final part of the trilogy. I know Square has rumors about an FFX, FF9, and even an FF8 remake but maaaaannn would it be awesome to have an FF7R-style remake for FF6. The CG teaser we got with FF Anthology decades ago proved to me that Square can take a 2D masterpiece and turn it into something even more mind blowing. ❤❤

The bouncing ball sound @50:49…love the details. Been playing VII since 1999 because of EGM. Thank you for taking me back

The footage shown on screen is interesting. For anyone else interested, here are the notes I took while watching the video in its entirety: 6:12 -> first indication the footage is "off." Cloud's name is listed as Ex-Soldier instead of the Ex-SOLDIER seen in official English releases. 17:24 -> Reno's name is written as Leno in the text box. As non-party member names could not be changed in the game, this indicates this is a mod/fan translation, although the video/editor has not indicated this. Reno is the pronunciation said in the Japanese versions of the Remake, Advent Children, etc., but a quick search on the FF wiki showed that the original release also had a guidebook at the time which listed the Japanese romanization of his name as Leno, so if this is a fan translation, it seems they're going for a more accurate translation by also changing the English spellings of the name. Zack's name was also "Zakkusu" (Zax) instead of the now used "Zakku" (Zack) _at the time_ so if this mod is using original romanization spellings, I assume they'll also go with Zax instead of Zack. 17:37 -> Text box says Shin-Ra instead of Shinra. Shin-Ra is the Japanese romanization, so this further indicates that this is indeed a fan translation intended to showcase a more faithful 1:1 translation rather than a localization. 18:37 -> Huh. Text box says "Professor Gusto" for Professor Gast even though the Japanese romanized spelling would be Gasuto. Wonder where the Gusto comes from. 32:33 -> and there's the confirmation. "Footage utilizes a mod translating dialogue". Wonder why they didn't just show this at the beginning, but it's all good lol. 37:31 -> While her name was always intended to be "Marlene Wallace" the Japanese romanization would've been "Marin Woresu" based on how they'd pronounce it. So it's interesting that this mod still elected to use Marin. 42:32 -> I wonder why the fan translated mod changed Nibelheim to Niblheim? 44:39 -> Ah, there it is. Zax instead of Zack. 56:17 -> Zeng instead of Tseng, Yrena instead of Elena. Elena's makes sense, but Zeng should be Tson if they're going for the accurate Japanese. Wonder when Zeng comes from. 1:00:16 -> Cid's reaction in this fan translation when he gets told one of the (female) assistants is still there, is to say "which one of those tits was it?" Bruh 💀 1:00:35 -> ah, this footage is the pre-patched PC version. You can tell by the inverted summoning (white circle with brown cracked ground pieces). They've since fixed that so that the PC summoning animation is the same as the OG PS1 version If you're someone else who was also noticing these differences/changes in the footage shown on-screen, there ya go.

This was immense.

Less go babyyyyyyyy 😤

Good documentary! The audio/voice recording is pretty rough though.

Holy didn't destroy meteor, it failed and then the life-force saved the planet, so the spirits of the dead saved the day in the end, which is just about the most beautiful ending I've ever seen to anything ever in my life.

On the sales being low in the west for JRPG’s, they were rarely released in the UK. I had to have a dodgy adaptor to play NTSC version FF6 (called FF3 at the time in US) on my PAL SNES - fantastic game, but the adaptor blocked the end sequence. It was many years later I got to see it at last! I switched from Nintendo to PS only based on FF7 coming out exclusively there. What a game!

Is there a source where I can find the full video at 11:05?

man i wish we had that HD version on console noticed how ice is called Blizzard too on there, just wish I could have that on big screen then mudded on PC

This game along with the original Wild Arms are both legendary.

There is a document online about its engine It's awesome!

6:58 "deceptively containing a triangle in their logo" 😂😂☠☠

It has two triangles in the logo, which you can use to make a square.

*FF7 had the most polarizing cover art for a game ever. Cloud and that massive sword in front of blinding white light and the reactor....nothing like it 👍 and I still remember that one commercial AND IF YOU FAIL, YOU CAN ALWAYS HIT....THE RESET BUTTON* 😬😂

Nice video. If I could offer some advice (which I know you probably aren’t looking for) add some background music to go along with your dialogue. Also, your voice comes off very monotone whilst reading your essay. You have a nice voice, it just needs some work when it comes to hooking your audience. Cheers, upvoted.

20 days until the launch of FF 7 Rebirth and 11 days for the launch of the Junon region demo!

Remake converted me into a FF fan this week. I never play old games but I’m downloading the original rn. Have to play this game before Rebirth 😫

There are very few masterpieces in JRPG history. Final Fantasy IV, VI, VII are considered by many to be this pinnacle, as is Chrono Trigger and Xenogears. And a lot of mention of Final Fantasy X, XII, and XIV are mentioned almost as much. They may slip here and there. But damn they have the cornerstone of JRPG.

I´ve heard people say many times through the years "oh why the charactes are so blocky out of combat", but the point is that squaresoft was making avatars, just like in the snes and nes games, jrgps used avatars and icons and you were suppose to imagine the scene, some jrpgs used the technique of making avatars but making more detailed sprites for the combat, for example phantasy star 4, the shining series, and some others, so squaresoft did basically the same, they made 3D avatars for the story and detailed avatars for the combat, and people outside jrpgs and outside FF didn´t get it., they listened to the complains and made detailed avatars for FF 8 and 9 and then on

One of my favourite games oat

Can someone please mention which graphics/upscale mods are running on the version shown here?

Love it

I still remember years ago the devs stated that xenogears was originally supposed to be ff7 but it changed due to the story being too dark. Im glad they did because i enjoyed both xenogears and ff7.

33:01 "allocades" instead of accolades 😆

I love Remake... technically it doesnt seem to be a remake however but an alternate take and sequel... I have high hopes and my one of my favorite parts is actually the different ending...

What version of ff7 with the higher res backgrounds is playing in this video? I assume its a mod

Comment for the algorithm!

Its the greatest game of all time, you cannot debate that.

Really great retrospective on one of the most important games ever made. I wonder just how much Nintendo regrets not being able to have had a part in releasing this. Same for merging with PlayStationn at the time. Crazy alternate timeline there. I personally will never be a fan of the remakes, but they are very much not made for me.

50:48 😂

33:04 ack oh laids

How come the music was so different between the PS1 version vs. the PC version?

Best. Game. Of all time ✌️

Without Aerith the gaming community would probably never have learned to cry. To me, her death is the most tragic event I have ever experienced in a video/computer game. This is proven by the fact, that over a very long time there was a theory that it was possible to save Aerith from dying. This shows how strongly her death was not accepted by the people that played the game.

We do not know that Rebirth will be released this year, they announced WINTER 2023 which means it could be released up to March next year, February 2024 like Remake was released in February is most likely.

Has Maximilian seen this vid ?

Truly one of the best FF7 and Square back stories on KZfaq. A like and subscribe 5 minutes into the video. 🤩

Yoshinori Kitase didn't make the story. People always overstate what those that provide the basic ideas and backgrounds do. There is a vast difference between a guy handing over 10 pages of outline and telling a guy "now make a full story." Kazushige Nojima is the true writer.

If they actually set out to make something as wonderful and grand as Final Fantasy 7 from the beginning it would be 10 years past its launch date and hundreds of millions of dollars over budget

Maybe you guys could do a video about how it became a cash cow?