Topic: What if Final Fantasy 7 were on Nintendo 64?

[honda_insightful]

How would it be different from the FF7 we actually got?  I thought of a couple things that would be left out:

- full-motion videos/pre-recorded movies (not enough room on N64 cart)
- the backgrounds would probably be flat, dull polygons like Mario64 or RPG rather than the hand-drawn art backgrounds (again, not enough room on N64 cart)
- Anything else?

I wonder if Square would have used the N64's memory expansion for hi-res 640x480 mode?  Probably not.
 

[KDR_11k]

Erm... What about "Full 3d world"? Without prerendered backgrounds that's the way you have to take. Sometimes I wish they had done that, I HATE prerendered backgrounds.

[Galford]

The closest we'll ever see to what FF7 would have looked like would be
the polygonal FF3 demo that as shown at the beginning of N64's life.

FF7 would have a very polygonish game with hours of cut-scene instead
FMVs.

It wasn't until  the N64 version of RE2 came out that any sort of major
pre-rendered work was done.

[honda_insightful]

Quote
Originally posted by: KDR_11k
Erm... What about "Full 3d world"? Without prerendered backgrounds that's the way you have to take. Sometimes I wish they had done that, I HATE prerendered backgrounds.

Well I've played Xenogears (fully 3D world) and I don't like it much.  It's too bland (very blocky buildings that all look the same) and the camera is terrible.  Half the time you can't see where you're going!  I prefer the pre-drawn worlds of FF7 & 9 with lots of background details.

FF6 was a 4 megabyte cart. It's safe to assume FF7 would be an 8 megabyte cart and look very similar to FF6... but with polygon people instead of sprite people.

Also, the battle engines would not be hi-res (640x480) like the PS1 version was (just thought of this today).

IMHO.

[ThePerm]

http://www.planetgamecube.com/forums/messageview.cfm?catid=18&threadid=5227

of course quest 64 had huge 3d worlds that are still pretty nifty even today...however tyhe storyline sucked...but prolly mostly do to the fact that the american storyline was not the same as the japanese storyline. THQ actually madeup the storyline for quest they dubbed it over and it was completely different then the japanese version! However i doubt the japanese version had a greeat plotline either....still yeah...final fantasy could have gone in that direction with a way better storyline.....

also zelda is very rpg like..very detailed and beautiful too....with good character design and level design....

[KnowsNothing]

I only rented Quest 64, and I couldn't figure out alot of it, AND I didn't get very far.  But I LOVED it.

I really have to buy that games along with a new controller.

[ThePerm]

i really have to give imagineer some credit as far as level design went..i mean limolyn was a huge recreated of a french city state....
i really liked the city's...imagineer made some awesoem cities.....which had stupid pointless npcs in them and linked the cities together with huge stretches of land. I havn't played a game as big since...maybe banjo tooie or dk64 were bigger in size im not sure...but yeah...had there been mroe done in the cities(as far as npcs go) and a better group of writers in the team the game would have been
a 10 rated game...instead its remembered as a beginner rpg. lemme ask you this when was the last time you played a full 3d rpg?
certainly not ffx because the level design sucked! your always in little small ass coridors and whatnot.  

[BlkPaladin]

It really depends on the developer of how good any world setup is. You can have a really pretty prerendered scene but if it isn't set up correct it a pain in the but and the camera could be in a seriously bad angle (as in a lot of places in FF7) and you can't change it.

In 3d levels you can have bland cityscapes. (Heck look at suberbs today, they are bland as they come and that's real life.) It just depends on a) wheater or not the developer wanted it this way; b) they just didn't care; and C) they ran out of time.

With Xenosaga I'm going with a.

The only real trouble 3d enviorments out side of apathy for level design is the camera system which can range from the really good (SM64) to the really bad; but mostly it in between. And usally they have a manual opition so you can change the angle if you don't like it.

[Galford]

Perm you're digging up some history with Quest 64.  The game was alright, the US version was an in-complete version of the Japanese and European games.  Those versions were suppose to remedy most of the problems the US version had.  The only problem that Quest had was the battle system.  Most end bosses were either very hard or far too easy.  Also the
way you leveled up was bass ackwards.

The sad part was, with proper writing and a fix of how you items, the game could have been very good.

[Uglydot]

If ff7 were on n64...smaller world?  Not something I have ever bothered to think about.  

[Cap]

when i clicked on this thread, i thought it would be about how the market may have ended up differently if sony had put ff7 on the n64 instead of the ps, not how the game itself would have changed. so, thats what i'm going to post about regardless of what has been discussed so far.

i dont know if it would have changed the market much anyways. i would imagine it had some sort of an impact though. it was a fairly big game at the time, and it alone probably convinced many people to buy a ps1 that would have bought the n64 had it been made for it. i'm sure square bashing the n64 and the cartridge format didnt help much either
when trying to get other third partys to make games for the system. when one of the biggest third partys isnt supporting a console, i would think the smaller ones would begin to question if they should.

[KDR_11k]

FF7 alegedly (sp?) sold because of the FMVs. If there were no FMVs in FF7, the series wouldn't be so overhyped nowadays.