FFVII Remake breathed new life into one of the franchise’s most beloved games with its crisp graphics and overhauled gameplay, but did you know that it also renewed the setting’s world-building? Read on as we discuss FFVII Remake’s better world-building.
FFVII Remake’s Better World-Building Made a Forgettable Tragedy Impactful
World-building has always been Square Enix’s strong suit and rightfully so, considering their penchant for JRPGs with larger-than-life settings, characters, and lore. Their attention to detail and storytelling have been widely appreciated for their last few entries to the Final Fantasy franchise, but what about their older games? What about a classic like the original FFVII?
FFVII — as well as all Final Fantasy games that preceded it — still had SE’s iconic storytelling but were limited by the technology of their time. There are only so many polygons you can cram into each rig before things go haywire, after all. While their stories were undoubtedly memorable, such limitations made detailed world-building difficult, if not outright impossible.
Certain parts of the story just lacked the "oomph" needed to deliver the emotions they were designed to evoke, although that’s hardly the game’s fault. Now that we’re at the dawn of FFVII’s remakes and subsequent sequels, we’re afforded the luxury of blending a classic story with modern graphics.
As one would expect, advancements in gaming technology could allow for bigger, more dynamic cities, better-looking characters, and most importantly, better world-building. Finally, stories could be told to a more detailed degree such that the emotions they’re meant to evoke aren’t held back by something as paltry as hardware limitations. Case in point: the tragedy of the Sector 7 Plate Crash.
The Original Tragedy of the Sector 7 Plate Crash
The Sector 7 Slums is as good a starting town as any for a JRPG like the original FFVII. In addition to being a homely squalor under Midgar’s Sector 7 Plate, the area was home to many of the companion’s you’d bring with you for the rest of the game, as well as a couple of shops. This area directly succeeds a stellar intro-sequence where you blow up Mako Reactor 1, so it's a good place to take a breath after committing acts of terrorism (for a good cause, of course).
Quaint as it is, you'd be wrong to think that you'd be staying here for a while. Shortly after your arrival, you meet with your childhood friend and permanent party member Tifa Lockhart, who convinces you to stay for the next mission to take down Mako Reactor 5. Before you can, however, Shinra — the proprietors of the reactor you just took down — manages to find your group’s hideout and decides to drop the Sector 7 Plate on you, taking the rest of the Sector 7 Slums as collateral damage.
Your defense of the pillar holding up the plate proves fruitless and the Sector 7 Slums are destroyed. All of this happens in around 20 or so minutes — barely enough time to process what happened, much more to develop any attachment to the Sector 7 Slums. By the time the smoke clears and the rubble stops burning, any remorse for your actions or sadness at the lives lost may have dissipated already. But why is this the case if this area held so much lore and significance to this part of the story?
As I said earlier, hardware limitations really put a stopper on how much story could be told through the environment. Backgrounds are mostly static because they’re just stills of a pre-rendered 3D environment. NPCs are sparse because too many would make the game’s limited space unmanageable (not that that prevented it from being a large game anyway). No voice acting because…well…it simply wasn’t possible at the time. All of these amount to a feeling of slight estrangement when the plate comes down because all that just amounts to another level, not a thriving environment with lives and futures at stake.
The Renewed Impact of the Sector 7 Plate Crash in FFVII Remake
FFVII Remake took this event and expanded it into something truly cinematic. I mean, it did that for the whole game, but keeping to the case of the Sector 7 Plate Crash, it turned a forgettable scene into a gut-wrenching tragedy. The impact of the Sector 7 Plate Crash — pun intended — was increased by many factors, most of which were only made possible by modern technology.
I suppose the biggest one would be the game’s amazing 3D graphics. Gone were the bowling pin-looking overworld character models and here were the…ahem…anatomically correct, high-quality models of our favorite members of Avalanche. This did wonders for the setting of the Sector 7 Slums and Midgar in general, but do you want to know what really sold the game’s world-building? It’s the NPCs, an entire legion of them.
With an exponentially better engine and capacity, more NPCs could be present in all areas at any given time. Pair that with the game’s voice acting, and you’ve got enough interactions to sell the idea of a thriving undercity. These don’t just feel like one-off randos in a game anymore (though they are), they feel like real citizens of a real undercity area. Speaking of, this area is just physically larger, hosting more places to explore and do missions in, as well as an overhauled progression that goes on for much longer than the original game’s.
Together, all of these improvements allowed a greater capacity for world-building. It’s expected, of course. Such is the nature of a remake, after all. The problem is that a lot of the game’s improvements are relegated to both graphics and gameplay when much of the game’s narrative weight is carried by the revamped world-building afforded by modern technology. In truth, the attention given to this particular area’s "lived in" status sells the tragedy that befalls it later more than anything the characters do or say. You, the player, can feel the lives lost, and the slums destroyed — the weight of the event feels more than just another narrative device to move you forward.
I daresay, despite the title, this isn’t a comparison between the original and the remake. FFVII did what it could with what was given and FFVII Remake did the same, it just had more to work with. More than anything, I’m just glad that it wasn’t just the "game" that was remade, but the world that it hosted as well.
World-Building as a Supplement to Good Storytelling
There’s a principle in storytelling called "show, don’t tell" that exemplifies the importance of indirect storytelling to the overall quality of a story. The basic principle purports that if a detail could be shown through action or environment, it would be more impactful to the reader than merely stating it as so. For example, saying that "the Sector 7 Slums was a populated area full of immigrants" is far less effective than designing the environment to reflect it as such.
In the same vein, saying that the bombing of Mako Reactor 1 would have dire consequences is far less impactful than allowing the character’s regret to build over the course of a few missions and bookending it with said consequences.
While usually applied to characters, world-building allows this principle to be applicable to environments as well. In the context of a video game, this means levels, areas, and worlds. Good world-building dictates that environments shouldn’t just reflect their current state as dictated by the story, but the history that lead to their current state as well. Considering FFVII’s insane lore, there’s a lot about the original FFVII’s presentation that couldn’t capture it all. Fortunately for us, FFVII Remake managed to make a difference.
The difference between FFVII and FFVII Remake’s world-building is that FFVII Remake is afforded the luxury of showing instead of telling. Unbound by technical limitations, the game has every tool at its disposal to tell a story in a more creative way such that every event is evocative and of high quality. It’s subtle to most, but it makes a big difference in the long run.
What Could This Mean for FFVII Rebirth?
It could mean a lot! Apart from being a better retelling of the same story from the original, FFVII is making itself out to be a branching path from that timeline altogether. With major character deaths already reimagined (or outright removed), there’s no telling what could happen in FFVII Rebirth. Considering that the game’s a much better vehicle for world-building now, that uncertainty soars to new heights, and we could be looking at major plot deviations in addition to a better story.
That’s all theory for now, although I wouldn’t put it above Square Enix to make a few spicy narrative choices considering what’s already been done. One thing is for sure, however, whatever story we get, it’s going to be every bit as fleshed out and detailed as the one that FFVII Remake renewed.
