Compilation of Final Fantasy VII

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Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Compilation of Final Fantasy VII logo.png
The Compilation of Final Fantasy VII logo
Developer(s) Square Enix
Publisher(s) Square Enix
Creator(s) Tetsuya Nomura
Yoshinori Kitase
Platform(s) Android
iOS
Mobile phone
Nintendo Switch
PlayStation 2
PlayStation 4
PlayStation 5
PlayStation Portable
Xbox One
Xbox Series X/S
Microsoft Windows
First release Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII
September 24, 2004
Latest release Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
February 29, 2024

The Compilation of Final Fantasy VII is a metaseries produced by Square Enix. A subseries stemming from the main Final Fantasy franchise, it is a collection of video games, animated features and short stories set in the world and continuity of Final Fantasy VII (1997). Officially announced in 2003 with the reveal of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children , the series' core products are three video games and one film release. Alongside these are tie-in products and spin-offs including books, mobile games, and an original video animation. Advent Children and the mobile title Before Crisis are a sequel and prequel to VII, respectively focusing on Cloud Strife, the original game's main protagonist, and covert operatives known as the Turks. Crisis Core follows Zack Fair, a minor character in VII, while Dirge of Cerberus , a sequel to Advent Children, follows Vincent Valentine, one of the original's optional characters. The series has since been expanded to include more products, most notably a planned trilogy of games remaking the 1997 original; the first installment in this trilogy, Final Fantasy VII Remake , was released in 2020, while the second installment, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth , was released the 29th of February 2024.

Contents

The series was conceived by Yoshinori Kitase, the original game's director, and Tetsuya Nomura, the main character designer. Nomura would become the main designer for each entry in the Compilation. Other returning staff include writer Kazushige Nojima, art director Yusuke Naora, and composer Nobuo Uematsu. The video games belong to different genres, with none of them being traditional role-playing games due to production pressures related to the genre. While the first title revealed was Advent Children, it ran into delays during post-production, so the first Compilation title to be released was the mobile game Before Crisis.

Of the core titles, Before Crisis is the only one still unreleased in the west due to issues with overseas platform compatibility and staff changes. Reception of titles in the Compilation has been mixed, with Advent Children being praised for its visuals and criticized for its confusing nature. Before Crisis, Crisis Core, Remake and Rebirth have all received praise from critics, while Dirge of Cerberus garnered a mixed response. The presentation of the Compilation as a whole has met with a mixed response, and later staff linked it to the decline of the Final Fantasy series' prestige in the West. The Compilation inspired the creation of Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy , a similar subseries of linked video games.

Titles

Release timeline
1997 Final Fantasy VII
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004 Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII
2005 Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Last Order: Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy VII Snowboarding
2006 Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII
Dirge of Cerberus: Lost Episode: Final Fantasy VII
2007 Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
2008
2009 On the way to a smile: Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Complete
On the Way to a Smile -Episode: Denzel- Final Fantasy VII
2010
2011 Final Fantasy VII The Kids Are Alright: A Turks Side Story
2012
2013
2014 Final Fantasy VII G-Bike
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020 Final Fantasy VII Remake
2021 Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade
Final Fantasy VII Remake Trace of two Pasts
Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier
2022 Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion
2023 Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis
2024 Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
TBAFinal Fantasy VII Remake Part 3

Video games

Films

Multiple pieces of tie-in media have been created for the Compilation, nearly all relating to Advent Children. To promote Advent Children Complete, a series of short stories were written by Kazushige Nojima under the umbrella title On a Way to Smile. [30] [35] The stories were later collected into a single paperback volume and released on April 16, 2009. [36] An animated adaptation of one story, "Case of Denzel", was included in all copies of Advent Children Complete. [28] Nojima also wrote Final Fantasy VII Lateral Biography: Turks ~The Kids Are Alright~, a novel set a short time before Advent Children. The novel was illustrated by Shou Tojima. [37] Final Fantasy VII Remake: Traces of Two Pasts, a novel also authored by Nojima, was released on July 15, 2021 in Japanese and March 20, 2023 in English. It features Aerith and Tifa exchanging stories from their pasts. [38]

A mobile racing game based on a mini game from VII, Final Fantasy VII G-Bike , was released on October 30, 2014, for iOS and Android. A western release for the title was planned. [39] It was developed by Japan-based developer CyberConnect2 as part of a planned subseries of mobile games based on VII's mini games. [40] While related to VII and the Compilation due to its nature, the developers confirmed that it was not related to nor affected the Compilation itself. [41] Due to difficulties delivering continual satisfactory service, G-Bike was shut down in 2015 without seeing a Western release. [42]

Setting

The setting of Final Fantasy VII is a world that has been described as an industrial or post-industrial science fiction milieu. [43] It is referred to as "the Planet" by the series characters, and was retroactively named "Gaia" in some Square Enix promotional material and by game staff. [44] [45] The planet's lifeforce is called the Lifestream, a flow of spiritual energy that gives life to everything on the Planet. Its processed form is known as "Mako". [46] [47] [48] During VII and its prequels, the Lifestream is being used by the megacorporation Shinra as an energy source. This is in turn causing the Planet to dangerously weaken, threatening the existence of everything and everyone on the planet. [49] The main narrative of VII focuses on an eco-terrorist group known as AVALANCHE, chronicling their conflict with Shinra president Rufus Shinra and his subordinates, including the covert Turks, and SOLDIER, an elite fighting force created by giving humans raw Mako. [50] Eventually, all come under threat from Sephiroth, a member of SOLDIER created through Shinra experimentation and driven mad when he learns the truth about his origins, and Jenova, an alien lifeform which seeks to destroy all life on the Planet. [51] [52] Among the main characters are Cloud Strife, a mercenary and self-proclaimed ex-SOLDIER, Aerith Gainsborough, a flower seller and last member of an ancient tribe known as the Cetra, [53] Tifa Lockhart, Cloud's childhood friend, and Vincent Valentine, a former Turk who was made immortal by Shinra experimentation. During the conflict, Sephiroth summons a destructive spell called Meteor to mortally wound the Planet. When Aerith attempts to summon Holy, a defense mechanism that can stop Meteor, she is killed by Sephiroth. Eventually, the party are successful in defeating Sephiroth, and the Lifestream reinforces Holy, successfully stopping Meteor. [54]

The Compilation titles act as continuations and expansions on the core narrative, with them focusing on various characters. Advent Children begins two years after VII, when people across the world are succumbing to a disease called Geostigma and Cloud, suffering from guilt, is forced to confront Kadaj, Loz and Yazoo, avatars of Sephiroth's will. [30] [55] Before Crisis begins six years prior to the events of VII, and follows the confrontations between the Turks and the original incarnation of AVALANCHE. [56] Crisis Core takes place in a similar time period, but follows events from the point of view of Zack Fair, a SOLDIER who befriended Cloud and was killed by Shinra troops after turning against the company. Among the characters who interact with Zack is Genesis Rhapsodos, a member of SOLDIER who successfully rebels and eventually decides to protect the Planet. [57] Dirge of Cerberus is set a year after Advent Children, and focuses on Vincent's conflict against Deepground, a sect of SOLDIER that was trapped beneath the city of Midgar during Meteor's descent. Last Order takes place during the events at Nibelheim, where Jenova was originally stored and Sephiroth first found out about himself.

Production

Creation

Final Fantasy VII director and Compilation co-creator Yoshinori Kitase at the 2009 Electronic Entertainment Expo. Square-enix dissidia yoshinori-kitase.jpg
Final Fantasy VII director and Compilation co-creator Yoshinori Kitase at the 2009 Electronic Entertainment Expo.

The Compilation of Final Fantasy VII was created by Yoshinori Kitase and Tetsuya Nomura, the respective director and character designer for Final Fantasy VII. It was at one point defined by Square Enix as their first step towards "polymorphic content", a marketing and sales strategy to "[provide] well-known properties on several platforms, allowing exposure of the products to as wide an audience as possible". [58] Speaking on why VII had been chosen for such a project, Kitase explained that the ending left far more development opportunities open for characters and setting than other games in the series. [59] There was also a strong financial benefit to creating the Compilation—following the unprecedented financial upturn prompted by the release of Final Fantasy X-2 just prior to the 2003 merger of Square and Enix into Square Enix, then-CEO Yoichi Wada decided that the company could tap into fan demands for continuations of the story of Final Fantasy VII. [60]

The first title to be conceived was Advent Children, originally envisioned as a short film presentation created by Visual Works, the animation studio behind CGI cutscenes for the company's games. Early in pre-production, plans to make Advent Children a video game rather than a film were considered, but due to several factors including Visual Works' lack of experience with actual game production, it remained a film. [61] [62] One of the main conditions for the project's launch was to reunite the original staff members of Final Fantasy VII: Nojima, art director Yusuke Naora and composer Nobuo Uematsu. After Advent Children began development, it was decided by the team that one title was not enough to fully explore the VII universe. In response, Before Crisis, Dirge of Cerberus and Crisis Core were conceived so as to embrace more aspects of the world and characters. [61] Nomura himself was surprised at the creation of the games, having originally assumed that the film would be the sole product of the project. [63]

Development

Each title had a different impetus fueling its creation and development: Before Crisis was thought up by Hajime Tabata, a new employee at Square Enix's mobile division, when asked by Nomura to create a video game featuring the Turks. [64] Dirge of Cerberus was inspired by Vincent's choice of weapon, Kitase's love of first-person shooters, and the challenge it would provide developers. [65] [66] Prior to the series solidification and the release of Advent Children and Before Crisis, the team had considered other gun-wielding Final Fantasy protagonists for such a game. [67] Crisis Core originated simply as either a Final Fantasy spin-off or a port of Before Crisis for the PlayStation Portable, and after talks with Kitase and Nomura, it was decided to make it another title in the Compilation. [68] [69] The creation of Before Crisis after Advent Children began a lettering formula for the series later used by the staff as common abbreviations: 'AC' stood for Advent Children, 'BC' for Before Crisis, 'CC' for Crisis Core and 'DC' for Dirge of Cerberus. The sequence was nearly disrupted when Crisis Core's title was considered as Before Crisis Core, but the "Before" part of the title was soon dropped, coincidentally creating the sequence. [70]

Before Crisis began development in 2002. [45] The Compilation was first unveiled in 2003 with the announcement of Advent Children. [71] None of the titles in the series up to that point were traditional role-playing games like the original. The explanation for this was that traditional RPGs took long production periods and a large staff, which would have made the project stand out a bit too much. One of the other considerations for the team was not to make the titles lightweight as X-2 had been, due to backlash from parts of the fanbase. Conversely, making Final Fantasy X-2 reminded the team that they did not need to stick to completely serious traditional RPGs, enabling the original creation of the Compilation. [61] While Advent Children was the first Compilation title to begin production, it ran into problems during post-production, resulting in the first released title being Before Crisis, despite it being the second title to begin development. [71] [72] Before Crisis was also originally planned for release in North America, but the mobile phones available in North America at the time were not able to handle the game. In addition, the producer Kosei Ito left Square Enix in 2008 and Tabata moved on to other projects, leaving its localization unlikely. [73] Japanese animation studio Madhouse created a commercial to promote Before Crisis. Due to its success and staff feelings that important scenes from VII represented in Advent Children had been needlessly disjointed, the studio was chosen to produce an animated film: this eventually became Last Order. [74] Crisis Core was originally going to be an action game, but became an action RPG, staying within the staff's design strengths while incorporating action elements. [68] [75]

Wada had stated in 2006, while the development and release of Compilation titles was still ongoing, that the Compilation could remain an active franchise until 2017, the twentieth anniversary of Final Fantasy VII's release. [76] After finishing work on Advent Children Complete, the team took a break from the series, although they said that they still had various ideas for future titles. [77] In later interviews relating to Final Fantasy VII, multiple staff members including Nomura revealed that the Compilation was only ever intended to extend to three games and a film, ending with the release of Crisis Core. Their reasoning was that releasing any more would saturate the market. [60]

Reception

Aggregate review scores
Game Metacritic
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children 88/100 [78]
Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII 57/100 [79]
Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII 83/100 [80]
Final Fantasy VII Remake 87/100 [81]

Compared to the original VII, which received near-universal critical acclaim and later cult status as a classic game, the entries in the Compilation have often garnered a mixed reception, and the Compilation as a whole has been critiqued by some. In July 2007, Edge magazine wrote that the titles "could be of a high quality, but there is also a perversion of the original". [82] RPG Site's Alex Donaldson, during a review for Crisis Core, said that the Compilation was "too far detached from the lore of Final Fantasy VII". While critiquing Advent Children and Dirge of Cerberus, and faulting Before Crisis's lack of the original game's characters, he felt that Crisis Core was the Compilation's "first classic [Final Fantasy VII] spin-off". [83] RPGFan's Stephen Meyerink said that the Compilation titles prior to Crisis Core had "expanded, extended, and retconned [the story] into what some would call an unrecognizable mess". [84] Alexa Ray Corriea, writing for Polygon , was highly critical, saying that few of the Compilation titles were good, and only served to "cheapen the 1997 [PlayStation] original". [85]

Reviews for Advent Children have been mixed to positive: while critics have praised the presentation, graphics and fan appeal, all reviews agree that the story's context and delivery were confusing for people new to the series. [86] [87] [88] While western critics were positive about Last Order, the OAV received heavy fan criticism in Japan due to its retconning of key events, which prompted the team to ensure that the event was faithfully recreated in Crisis Core. [69] [89] [90] Before Crisis, due to remaining in Japan, has received limited attention in the west, but previews have been highly positive, with many praising the gameplay and graphics as being impressive for a mobile game. [34] [91] [92] Opinions for Dirge of Cerberus were decidedly mixed. While many praised the story and characters, especially the focus on Vincent's character and development, critics were mixed to negative about the graphics and gameplay. [4] [93] [94] [95] Japanese magazine Famitsu notably gave the game a delayed and highly critical review. [96] Crisis Core was generally praised, with many enjoying the story's intimate presentation of the characters and action-oriented gameplay, despite some criticism for it being aimed at fans of VII. [97] [98] [99] [100] Critics of the Compilation have generally cited Crisis Core as the best title of the series. [83] [84] [85]

The Final Fantasy VII remake had the highest average score in Metacritic, an 88/100. [81] Tom Marks of IGN calls the game a "complete reinvention", praising the combat system, its "story fleshed out with real emotional arcs" and its nostalgic feel, but criticized the game for having filler and sometimes convoluted new plot points and side missions. He opined that "Final Fantasy VII Remake's dull filler and convoluted additions can cause it to stumble, but it still breathes exciting new life into a classic while standing as a great RPG all its own". [101] Nahila Bonfiglio of The Daily Dot states that the "game's neo-noir, Blade Runner -esque setting perfectly marries with its gritty but heartfelt tone". She adds that it is matched by "the exquisite level design with seamless mechanics, addicting gameplay and rousing battles, and you have a recipe for perhaps one of the best games of the year". [102] Both IGN and GameSpot enjoyed the handling of Cloud due to his notable character arc despite starting as anti-hero. [101] [103]

Sales

Many of the titles have received strong sales. Through 2006, Advent Children met with high sales, with 1 million units sold in Japan, 1.3 million in North America, and 100,000 in Europe, making a total of 2.4 million copies sold worldwide. [104] The original version went on to sell four million copies worldwide by 2009. [30] Advent Children Complete also met with strong sales, selling 100,000 copies on its first day of release in Japan. [105] Advent Children Complete was cited as a reason for the increase in sales of the PlayStation 3 console. [106] [107] Before Crisis registered 200,000 users on launch day, making it the best-selling mobile game up until that time, and was accessed 1.6 million times by June 2006. [1] [108] Dirge of Cerberus shipped 392,000 units in its first week, and went on to sell 460,000 units in North America and 270,000 units in Europe. [109] [110] Crisis Core sold 350,000 copies in Japan on its release date, while it sold 301,600 copies in its first month of release in the United States. [111] [112] It went on to sell 2.1 million units worldwide. [113]

Legacy

The process of thought behind the Compilation would later inspire the creation of Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy , a subseries of games linked by a common mythos, and would use lessons learned from the Compilation production process. [114] On an individual level, Before Crisis's popularity would inspire the creation of another mobile title within the Fabula Nova Crystallis subseries: originally titled Final Fantasy Agito XIII, it would later change platforms and be renamed Final Fantasy Type-0 . [115] [116] [117] The battle sequences in Advent Children also served as inspiration for Motomu Toriyama when creating the battle system for Final Fantasy XIII . [118] Former staff members have blamed the Compilation, in conjunction with other extensions of titles like Final Fantasy X, for undermining the series' market presence and fan trust in the West. [60]

Worldwide, the remake shipped and sold over 3.5 million copies within three days. [119] This made it one of the biggest launches for a PlayStation 4 game and the fastest-selling PS4 exclusive in history, surpassing the launch sales of the two previous record holders, Marvel's Spider-Man (3.3 million) and God of War (3.1 million). [120] [121]

Further reading

Related Research Articles

<i>Final Fantasy VII</i> 1997 video game

Final Fantasy VII is a 1997 role-playing video game developed by Square for the PlayStation console and the seventh main installment in the Final Fantasy series. Square published the game in Japan, and it was released in other regions by Sony Computer Entertainment, becoming the first game in the main series to have a PAL release. The game's story follows Cloud Strife, a mercenary who joins an eco-terrorist organization to stop a world-controlling megacorporation from using the planet's life essence as an energy source. Events send Cloud and his allies in pursuit of Sephiroth, a superhuman who seeks to wound the planet and harness its healing power to be reborn as a god. During their journey, Cloud bonds with his party members, including Aerith Gainsborough, who holds the secret to saving their world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cloud Strife</span> Protagonist in Final Fantasy VII

Cloud Strife is the protagonist of Square's 1997 role-playing video game Final Fantasy VII, its high-definition remake, and several of its sequels and spinoffs. In Final Fantasy VII, Cloud is a mercenary who wields a large broadsword and claims to have formerly been part of SOLDIER, a group of elite supersoldiers employed by the Shinra Electric Power Company, a megacorporation responsible for draining life from the planet. He later defected from SOLDIER after becoming disillusioned with Shinra, and in an attempt to get paid, he joins the resistance group AVALANCHE in the fight against Shinra and his former superior, the primary antagonist Sephiroth, who aims to annihilate the world. Over the course of the story, it is eventually revealed that Cloud is a mentally-scarred individual who adopted the skill and personality of an actual SOLDIER, the deceased Zack Fair, and is actually little more than a Shinra foot soldier, but learns to accept his troubled past and his own identity in order to defeat Sephiroth and save the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Midgar</span> Fictional city in Final Fantasy VII

Midgar is a fictional city from the Final Fantasy media franchise. It first appears in the 1997 video game Final Fantasy VII, and is depicted as a bustling metropolis built, occupied, and controlled by the megacorporation Shinra Electric Power Company. The city is powered by electricity drawn from reactors which run on Mako, the processed form of spiritual energy extracted by Shinra from beneath the surface of the planet on which the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII takes place. Shinra's activities drain the world of its life force, the "Lifestream", threatening the existence of all life as the planet weakens. In spin-offs of the game, the city spanned a town named Edge.

Sephiroth (<i>Final Fantasy</i>) Fictional character from Final Fantasy VII

Sephiroth is a character in the Final Fantasy series and the main antagonist of the video game Final Fantasy VII developed by Square. A former soldier of the megacorporation Shinra and the coworker of Zack Fair as well as the superior of main protagonist Cloud Strife, he possesses superhuman physiology as a result of an experiment in which Shinra injected him with cells from the extraterrestrial lifeform Jenova when he was still a fetus. Upon discovering this, Sephiroth becomes consumed by rage and decides to take control of the Planet by harnessing its life force and annihilating all life on it in order to become a god amidst the destruction. Sephiroth's background and role in the story are expanded upon in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII. Additionally, he appears as a guest character in other video games and media, such as a recurring boss in the Kingdom Hearts series and as a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

<i>Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children</i> 2005 film by Tetsuya Nomura

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children is a 2005 Japanese computer-animated film directed by Tetsuya Nomura, written by Kazushige Nojima, and produced by Yoshinori Kitase and Shinji Hashimoto. Developed by Visual Works and Square Enix, Advent Children is part of the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII series of media, which is based in the world and continuity of the 1997 role-playing video game Final Fantasy VII. Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children was released on DVD and Universal Media Discs with Japanese voice acting in Japan on September 14, 2005, and on April 25, 2006 with English voice acting in North America and the UK.

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<i>Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII</i> 2004 video game

Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII is an action role-playing video game developed by Square Enix and originally released for the FOMA mobile service on September 24, 2004. It was later released for SoftBank Mobile and EZweb in 2007. Before Crisis is a prequel to the 1997 video game Final Fantasy VII and forms part of the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, a metaseries expanding on and continuing the story established in Final Fantasy VII. It takes place six years prior to the events of Final Fantasy VII and focuses on the adventures of the Turks, a group of covert operatives working for the Shinra Electric Power Company, and their fights against both rebel group AVALANCHE and their corrupt employers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barret Wallace</span> Fictional character

Barret Wallace is a character in Square Enix's role-playing video game Final Fantasy VII. He was created by character designer Tetsuya Nomura, and has since appeared in the CGI film sequel, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children as well as other games and media in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII series. As of Advent Children, Barret is voiced by Masahiro Kobayashi in Japanese and Beau Billingslea in English.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tifa Lockhart</span> Video game character

Tifa Lockhart is a character who debuted in Square's 1997 role-playing video game Final Fantasy VII. She was created as a foil to her teammate Aerith Gainsborough by members of the development team, including director Yoshinori Kitase and writers Kazushige Nojima and Tetsuya Nomura, who also contributed to her visual design. She has since appeared as a playable fighter in Ehrgeiz and the Dissidia Final Fantasy series and made cameo appearances in several other titles, such as Kingdom Hearts II and Itadaki Street. Beginning in 2005, she has been featured in sequels and spin-offs as part of the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII series, including the animated film Advent Children and Final Fantasy VII Remake.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yuffie Kisaragi</span> Character in Final Fantasy

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aerith Gainsborough</span> Character in Final Fantasy VII

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zack Fair</span> Character in Final Fantasy

Zack Fair is a character in the Final Fantasy role-playing video game series by Square Enix. He is first introduced as a non-player character in Final Fantasy VII (1997) and later appears in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII works Before Crisis, Last Order, Advent Children and, most prominently, Crisis Core, a prequel to the original game which focuses on him and expands on his backstory.

<i>Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII</i> 2006 video game

Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII is a 2006 action role-playing third-person shooter video game developed and published by Square Enix for the PlayStation 2. It is part of the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII metaseries, a multimedia collection set within the universe of Final Fantasy VII. The game is set three years after the events of the original game and focuses on one of the game's playable characters, Vincent Valentine. In the story, Vincent is targeted by Deepground, a mysterious organization that plans to awaken a creature known as Omega, with the ability to destroy the Planet.

<i>Last Order: Final Fantasy VII</i> 2005 anime film by Morio Asaka

Last Order: Final Fantasy VII, also abbreviated as Last Order or LO, is a 2005 Japanese anime original video animation produced by Madhouse and released by Square Enix. It was directed by Morio Asaka, and produced by Masao Maruyama, Jungo Maruta and Akio Ofuji. Tetsuya Nomura served as supervising director. The OVA is an alternate rendition of two flashbacks used for the video game Final Fantasy VII. Last Order was released in Japan with Advent Pieces: Limited, a special edition release of the film Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, and as a bonus feature in the North American "Limited Edition Collector's Set" release.

Final Fantasy VII is a role-playing video game by Square as the seventh installment in the Final Fantasy series. Released in 1997, the game sparked the release of a collection of media centered on the game entitled the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII. The music of the Final Fantasy VII series includes not only the soundtrack to the original game and its associated albums, but also the soundtracks and music albums released for the other titles in the collection. The first album produced was Final Fantasy VII Original Soundtrack, a compilation of all the music in the game. It was released as a soundtrack album on four CDs by DigiCube in 1997. A selection of tracks from the album was released in the single-disc Reunion Tracks by DigiCube the same year. Piano Collections Final Fantasy VII, an album featuring piano arrangements of pieces from the soundtrack, was released in 2003 by DigiCube, and Square Enix began reprinting all three albums in 2004. To date, these are the only released albums based on the original game's soundtrack, and were solely composed by regular series composer Nobuo Uematsu; his role for the majority of subsequent albums has been filled by Masashi Hamauzu and Takeharu Ishimoto.

Characters of the <i>Final Fantasy VII</i> series

Final Fantasy VII, a role-playing video game developed by Square, now Square Enix, and originally released in 1997, features many fictional characters in both major and minor roles. VII has been followed by multiple sequels and prequels, grouped into the multimedia series Compilation of Final Fantasy VII. These include the 2004 mobile game prequel Before Crisis, the 2005 movie sequel Advent Children, the 2006 shooter spin-off sequel Dirge of Cerberus, and the 2007 action game prequel Crisis Core. Other media include spin-off books and the original video animation Last Order. The setting of Final Fantasy VII has been described as industrial or post-industrial science fiction. It is referred to as "the Planet" in most games, and was retroactively named "Gaia" in some Square Enix promotional material.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yoshinori Kitase</span> Japanese game director (born 1966)

Yoshinori Kitase is a Japanese game director and producer working for Square Enix. He is known as the director of Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII and Final Fantasy X, and the producer of the Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy XIII series.

<i>Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII</i> 2007 video game

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII is an action role-playing game developed and published by Square Enix for the PlayStation Portable. The game was first released in 2007, and serves as a prequel to the 1997 video game Final Fantasy VII. It is part of the metaseries Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, which includes other products related to the original game.

Tetsuya Nomura is a Japanese video game artist, designer, producer, and director working for Square Enix. He was hired by Square initially as a monster designer for Final Fantasy V (1992), before being shifted towards secondary character designer alongside Yoshitaka Amano for Final Fantasy VI (1994). Final Fantasy VII (1997) had him working in the original story alongside Hironobu Sakaguchi, and marked his debut as the lead character designer, a capacity he would retain for several future installments of the series, as well as other Square Enix titles such as The Bouncer and The World Ends with You.

<i>Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis</i> 2023 video game

Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis is a role-playing video game developed by Applibot and Square Enix, who also publishes it for Android, iOS and Windows. It forms part of the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, a series of media spin-offs from the 1997 video game Final Fantasy VII.

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