And #1 is.......
1. Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy VII is a console role-playing game developed and published by Square (now Square Enix), and the seventh installment in the Final Fantasy video game series. It was released in 1997 and is the first numbered Final Fantasy game for the Sony PlayStation video game console and Microsoft Windows-based personal computers; it is also the first to use 3D computer graphics featuring fully rendered characters on pre-rendered backgrounds.
The game's story centers on a group of adventurers as they battle a powerful mega corporation called "Shinra", which is draining the life of the planet to use as an energy source. As the story progresses, conflicts escalate and the world's safety becomes a major concern.
A major critical and commercial success, the game remains arguably the most popular title in the series, and is often credited with allowing console-style RPGs to achieve mainstream success outside Japan. The ongoing popularity of the title led Square Enix to produce a series of sequels and prequels under the collective title "Compilation of Final Fantasy VII". As of September 2004, Final Fantasy VII has sold more than 9.5 million copies worldwide, earning it the position of the best-selling Final Fantasy title.
Like previous installments of the Final Fantasy series, Final Fantasy VII consists of three basic gameplay modes: an overworld map, town and dungeon field maps, and a battle screen. The overworld map is a 3D model, featuring a scaled-down simplified version of the game's fictional world, which the player navigates to travel between the game's locations. It is the first Final Fantasy game to be completely in 3D. As with the preceding games in the series, the world map can be traversed by foot, by chocobo, by airship, or by other means of transportation. On field maps, the game's 3D playable characters are directed across realistically scaled environments, consisting of 2D pre-rendered backgrounds that represent locations such as towns or forests. The battle screen is a 3D representation of an area such as a building interior or grassland, in which the player commands the game's characters in battles against CPU-controlled enemies through a menu-driven interface. While characters are miniaturised on maps, in combat their renderings are more realistic and normal-scaled.
Initially, the player is restricted to travel within a single city, but as the game continues, more areas become accessible, and the scripted adventure sequences gradually yield more freedom to explore. Progression through the game's storyline is largely developed by way of scripted sequences, which cannot be skipped, and require frequent player interaction to proceed. At other times, pre-rendered cinematic cut scenes advance the story.
During its turn-based battle sequences, the game uses the same Active Time Battle (ATB) system designed by Hiroyuki Ito and first featured in Final Fantasy IV. Unlike previous games in the series, which allow 4–5 playable characters to participate in battle, Final Fantasy VII allows for only up to three characters to be present in the party at any one time.
Final Fantasy VII's skill system is built around the use of materia, magical orbs that are placed in special slots on weapons and armor, allowing players to customize their characters' access to magic spells, summons, and special abilities. In addition to their individual traits, materia can be used together in a fixed number of ways to enhance their effects or produce other abilities.
A modified form of Final Fantasy VI's Desperation Attacks appears here as the Limit Break. Every playable character has a bar that gradually fills up when they suffer damage in battle. When the bar is completely filled, the character is able to unleash his or her Limit Break, a special attack which generally inflicts significantly more damage on enemies than normal attacks, or otherwise aids the party in battle. Character designer and battle director Tetsuya Nomura implemented this advanced form of Desperation Attacks in response to the low probability of their occurrence in Final Fantasy VI, where they would randomly become available as an attack substitution only when a character's hit points (a numerically based life bar) were low.
Nomura decided to incorporate elaborately animated summon spells in the game, one of which lasts more than a minute. This idea became popular with Final Fantasy fans, and they were incorporated into the development of future games in the series. However, critics have described these animations as tedious.
The game's setting follows in the footsteps of Final Fantasy VI by presenting a world with considerably more advanced technology than the first five games in the series. Overall, the game's technology and society approximates that of modern or near-future science fiction. The world of Final Fantasy VII, retroactively named "Gaia" but referred to in the game as The Planet, is composed of three land masses. The eastern continent features the city of Midgar, an industrial metropolis that serves as the headquarters of the Shinra Electric Power Company, a ruthless mega corporation that operates as the de facto world government. Shinra's major military base, Junon, is also located on the continent, along with a chocobo ranch and a small town called Kalm.
The western continent features most of the playable areas, which include an amusement park, a seaside resort, and a settlement constructed on a plateau called "Cosmo Canyon". The tribe inhabiting the canyon places a strong emphasis on living in harmony with nature and dedicate great consideration to the planet's well-being. Their settlement features an observatory and serves as a research facility for those who wish to participate in a philosophy known as "the Study of Planet Life", an environmentally conscious way of life that encourages utmost deference for nature, and teaches that the planet has a life of its own. The northernmost continent is a heavily glaciated wasteland covered in snow and ice, with its few settlements largely concerned with excavation or research. It does, however, feature a ski resort. There are also underwater locations accessible via submarine.
The nine main playable characters in Final Fantasy VII are Cloud Strife, an unsociable mercenary who serves as the game's protagonist and claims to be a former 1st Class member of Shinra's SOLDIER unit; Aeris Gainsborough (named "Aerith" in later Final Fantasy VII titles and the Kingdom Hearts series), a flower merchant living in the slums of Midgar who has been pursued by Shinra operatives since she was a child; Tifa Lockhart, a martial artist and childhood friend of Cloud's with romantic feelings toward him; Barret Wallace, the impatient leader of the second incarnation of the anti-Shinra organization AVALANCHE, who bears a grudge against the corporation for razing his hometown, and causing the deaths of his friends and family; Red XIII, also known as Nanaki, a wise lion/dog-like creature capable of speech who was experimented on by Shinra scientists; Yuffie Kisaragi, an experienced thief, and the young, bitter princess of Wutai, a nation descended from ninjas which was defeated by Shinra in a war several years before the events of Final Fantasy VII began; Cid Highwind, a pilot whose dreams of being the first man in outer space were crushed when he canceled his rocket's launch to save the life of one of his assistants, leading to the withdrawing of the Shinra Company's funding of a space program; Cait Sith, a fortune-telling cat who rides a magically animated stuffed moogle doll; and Vincent Valentine, a former member of Shinra's Turks unit who was killed and brought back to life as an immortal through experimental anatomic reconstruction.
All of the game's main characters have had significant ties to the Shinra Company in their past, and all harbor disapproval or outright hatred for the corporation and its activities. Although the antagonists for the first portion of the game are the Shinra executives, a mysterious man named "Sephiroth" — once hailed as the greatest SOLDIER — reappears several years after disappearing in a battle in which he was concluded to have died. He is soon revealed to be the most immediate threat to the planet, prompting both AVALANCHE and the Shinra Company to take up the position of defending it, though their methods differ significantly.
The game's character designer, Tetsuya Nomura, has expressed feeling that Final Fantasy VII was hindered by graphical limitations, and that his designs were, consequently, very plain in comparison to his "true" style. However, he was able to find other means of expressing some of his ideas. Cloud's original character design called for slicked back black hair with no spikes, intended to serve as a contrast to Sephiroth's long, flowing silver hair. To give Cloud a unique feature that would emphasize his role in the game as the main character, Nomura changed the design to feature Cloud's now trademark shock of spiky, bright blond hair. For Tifa's design, Nomura has admitted to facing a difficult decision in choosing to give her a miniskirt or pants. With input from other members of the game's development staff, he eventually selected a dark miniskirt, contrasted by Aeris' long, pink dress.
Vincent's character developed from horror researcher to detective, then to chemist, and finally to the figure of a former Turk with a tragic past. It has been explained that his crimson mantle was added to symbolize the idea of carrying a heavy weight on his shoulders associated with death. Nomura has indicated that Cid Highwind's fighting style resembles that of a Dragon Knight, a character class so chosen because his last name is the same as that of two previous Dragon Knights featured in the Final Fantasy series, Ricard Highwind of Final Fantasy II and Kain Highwind of Final Fantasy IV.
Due to their popularity, several characters from the game have made cameo appearances in other Square Enix titles, most notably the fighting game Ehrgeiz and the popular Final Fantasy-Disney crossover series Kingdom Hearts. Sephiroth remains one of the most popular villains in video game history, unanimously voted #1 by the staff of gaming publication Electronic Gaming Monthly in their "Top 10 Video Game Bosses" list in October 2005. During spring of the same year, the character won GameFAQs' best villain contest.
Final Fantasy VII begins with Cloud joining AVALANCHE in a raid on one of eight mako reactors that surround the city of Midgar. The mako reactor is destroyed and the group makes their way back to their base. During their next mission at another reactor, AVALANCHE is trapped by President Shinra before they can escape. Although they defeat the Shinra's machine, the reactor's explosion sends Cloud flying from the upper levels of Midgar into the slums below. Falling through the roof of a derelict church in Sector 5, he lands on a flower bed unharmed, where he is formally introduced to Aeris. Cloud agrees to work for Aeris as her bodyguard, an agreement prompted by the arrival of operatives of the Shinra Company's Turks organization, who have been ordered to capture Aeris.
After Cloud defends Aeris from her would-be kidnappers, Aeris offers to show him the way back to Sector 7. Along the way, she reveals that her first boyfriend had been a 1st Class SOLDIER, as Cloud claims to have been. The two spot Tifa entering Wall Market, an area of Sector 6 infamous for criminal activity, to which they follow her. After infiltrating the mansion of crime boss Don Corneo, the three learn that Shinra has discovered the location of AVALANCHE's hideout and plans to collapse the upper level of Sector 7 onto the slums below. Despite AVALANCHE's efforts to prevent it, Shinra successfully destroys Sector 7, killing its population and three members of AVALANCHE. The Turks finally capture Aeris, who the player learns is the last living member of the "Cetra" race. The Cetra, it is explained, are closely attuned with the planet. Therefore, President Shinra believes that Aeris can lead him to a mythical land of fertility known as the "Promised Land", which he expects to be ripe with mako energy that can be easily harvested.
As the only remaining members of AVALANCHE, Tifa, Barret and Cloud infiltrate Shinra's headquarters to rescue Aeris. After freeing her and Red XIII, who joins the party, they escape when most of the personnel in the building — including President Shinra — are killed. Finding the body of the president skewered by a long sword, Cloud suspects a man called Sephiroth who has returned from his presumed death. These suspicions are confirmed by an executive spared during the massacre, who claims to have witnessed Sephiroth murder the president and state that he would never allow Shinra to claim the Promised Land. The party also learns that during Sephiroth's attack on Shinra, the headless body of a creature named "Jenova" disappeared from the building's research facility.
While Rufus Shinra, the president's son, assumes control of the Shinra Company, AVALANCHE pursues Sephiroth across the planet, fearing his intentions for the Promised Land may be more destructive than Shinra's. During this pursuit, the party is joined by Yuffie, Cait Sith, Vincent and Cid. As the journey progresses, each member of the group must come to terms with personal conflicts from their past, and the full scope of Sephiroth's plan is eventually revealed to the player: if the planet is significantly damaged, the Lifestream within will gather at the point of injury, attempting to heal the wound. Sephiroth explains that he intends to use a powerful spell known as "Meteor" to fatally injure the planet, inciting a reaction in the Lifestream to heal the wound before it can cause the planet's destruction. Entering the fissure created by the meteor's impact, Sephiroth would merge with all the energy of the planet, granting him god-like power over it. At an ancient temple erected by the Cetra, AVALANCHE attempts to undermine Sephiroth's plot by claiming the Black Materia needed to activate Meteor, but Sephiroth displays a mysterious power over Cloud, forcing him to relinquish it.
Fearing that Sephiroth may cast Meteor, and having gained a greater understanding of her heritage from scholars in Cosmo Canyon and the memories of her ancestors in the Cetra's temple, Aeris sets off to stop him on her own. Concerned for her safety, AVALANCHE follows her to the northern continent, where the player must enter an ancient Cetra city. After finding Aeris praying to the planet for aid, Sephiroth, unseen, begins affecting Cloud's behavior once again, and attempts to force him to kill her. Although Cloud resists Sephiroth's command, however, Sephiroth himself appears and kills Aeris. After laying her body to rest, the surviving characters resolve to defeat Sephiroth and avenge her.
Later, Sephiroth begins causing Cloud to doubt his memories and insists that he is not a real human, but rather a specimen created from Jenova's genetic material by Professor Hojo. Jenova, the player learns, was an interstellar creature who crashlanded on the planet approximately two thousand years earlier, arriving via travel on a meteor. This collision formed a large impact crater, grievously harming the planet. Jenova soon emerged from the crater, intending to infect all living organisms on the planet with a virus that would induce insanity and incite monstrous transformations. Among its victims were most of the Cetra, who were approached when Jenova used its mimic abilities to appear as their relatives. Attempting to defend itself, the planet created giant monsters called "WEAPONs", while the majority of humans fled rather than fight Jenova. However, a small group of Cetra survivors fought to defend the planet and managed to defeat Jenova, confining it within the fissure created by its landing. Afterward, the WEAPONs entered hibernation to await any future threat that could harm the planet. Eventually, the mummified remains of Jenova would be unearthed by Professor Gast, a researcher for the Shinra Company. Mistaking the creature for a Cetra, Gast was given authorization to conduct an experiment to artificially produce a Cetra by combining cells from Jenova with the fetus of an unborn child.
Five years before the present-day events seen by the player, Sephiroth learned that he was the product of this experiment while on a Shinra mission in Nibelheim, the hometown of Cloud and Tifa. However, unaware of all details involved, he concluded that he was a Cetra who had been produced solely from Jenova's genetic material. Enraged, he burned down the town, intending to kill all descendants of those he believed had abandoned his ancestors in the defense of the planet. According to Cloud, he confronted Sephiroth during this massacre, after which Sephiroth vanished under unknown circumstances and was presumed dead until his reappearance in the Shinra building. When AVALANCHE reaches the Northern Crater, Sephiroth tells Cloud that he was not in Nibelheim, showing him images of a 1st Class SOLDIER with dark hair who occupies Cloud's place in his memories. With Tifa unable to refute Sephiroth's claims, Cloud breaks down and allows him to cast Meteor, resulting in the WEAPONs' awakening. During the earthquake that follows, Cloud is separated from his companions and falls into the Lifestream.
As the meteor summoned by Sephiroth slowly approaches the planet, the Shinra Company focuses its efforts on protecting humanity from the WEAPONs, who have begun to perceive everything as a threat to the planet. Meanwhile, AVALANCHE searches for Cloud, eventually locating him on a tropical resort island where he washed up following the casting of Meteor, they learn that he is in a catatonic state. The WEAPONs' destructive activity quickly causes the island to split open, depositing Cloud and Tifa into the Lifestream below. There, she reconstructs Cloud's memories and learn the truth about his past. Although the player learns that he is a real human being and had actually been in Nibelheim during Sephiroth's attack, he never actually succeeded in joining SOLDIER and only managed to attain the rank of private in Shinra's military. The player learns that the previously-seen dark-haired SOLDIER is named "Zack", and was Aeris' first boyfriend. During Sephiroth's destruction of Nibelheim, Zack, Tifa and Cloud fought Sephiroth in Nibelheim's mako reactor. Although Tifa and Zack were defeated, Cloud and Sephiroth severely wounded one another. After decapitating the body of Jenova, which had been stored in the mako reactor, Sephiroth is thrown into the Lifestream by Cloud, taking the creature's head with him. Rather than dying, however, his body and consciousness were preserved in mako inside Jenova's crater.
While Tifa was taken to safety in Midgar, Cloud and Zack were among the wounded survivors who were apprehended by Shinra as part an elaborate cover-up of Sephiroth's massacre. Professor Hojo subjected these survivors to an experiment, in which he performed the same enhancements given to members of SOLDIER. However, because Hojo conducted the experiment without any concern for the subjects' mental capacities to handle the procedure, all but Zack entered a comatose state. Nearly five years later, Zack broke free from his confinement and took Cloud with him. The player learns that the procedure used to enhance members of SOLDIER involved both mako showers and the injection of cells from Jenova. The alien cells inhabiting Cloud's body allowed his mind to construct a false persona, built around Zack's behavior, fighting style, and description of Sephiroth's destruction in Nibelheim, but they also allowed Sephiroth to modulate his behavior. The cells' inherent ability to duplicate information led Cloud to believe that he had been the 1st Class SOLDIER in Nibelheim, as Zack was shot and killed outside Midgar by pursuing Shinra soldiers, shortly before the beginning of the game. Afterward, Tifa discovered Cloud, who was wearing Zack's spare uniform, and offered him a job with AVALANCHE.
With the truth revealed, Cloud awakens and rejoins AVALANCHE. The player learns that, in her final moments, Aeris was casting a spell known as "Holy", the only means of opposing Meteor. Though she succeeds, Sephiroth's focused will prevents the spell from taking effect and has been restraining it since. Deciding that humanity must be protected from the WEAPONs before Sephiroth can be approached, Shinra and AVALANCHE destroy the WEAPONs, but nearly all of Shinra's executives are killed in the process. Among the few survivors are Reeve Tuesti, revealed to be the repentant controller of Cait Sith, and Professor Hojo, who is revealed to be Sephiroth's father. He explains that he and his wife were assistants to Professor Gast, and offered up their unborn child as a test subject to research involving Jenova. When Hojo attempts to help Sephiroth to gain mastery over the Lifestream afterward, AVALANCHE is given no choice but to fight and kill him.
With each member of AVALANCHE at peace with his or her past and all other opponents defeated, the group travels through the mantle of the planet to its core, where they defeat Sephiroth and free Holy. However, due to Meteor's already close proximity to the planet's surface, Holy is unable to destroy it alone. Selected as Meteor's target, Midgar is almost completely destroyed by the storms that spawn from its presence. However, sent by Aeris' spirit, the Lifestream itself rises from the planet to aid Holy by pushing Meteor away, allowing Holy to destroy it. During the epilogue that follows, the ruins of Midgar are shown five hundred years later. While the landscape had once been desolate due to Shinra's operations, it is now a land of lush greenery.
The game's release in North America was preceded by a massive three month marketing campaign for which Sony allocated a US$100 million budget. The high-profile campaign consisted of three 30-second television commercials on major networks, a holiday promotion with Pepsi, and printed ads in publications such as Rolling Stone, Details, Spin, Playboy and comic books published by Marvel and DC. In 1998, Final Fantasy VII was ported to Windows-based PCs. This re-release featured smoother graphics and fixed certain translation and spelling errors, as well as various gameplay-related glitches. However, the PC version also suffered from its own bugs, including errors in the display of some full motion videos.