Books that analyze or document Final Fantasy VII

cold_spirit

cold_spirit

he/him
AKA
Alex T
I recently received and read through the physical version of 500 Years Later: An Oral History of Final Fantasy VII. This has put me in that VII mood. What other books exist that seek to critically analyze or document the original game or the Compilation? Here are the ones I know of:

THE LEGEND OF FINAL FANTASY VII (link)
500 Years Later: An Oral History of Final Fantasy VII (link)
Reverse Design: Final Fantasy VII (link)

I'd also like to give a mini-review to the books I've read above:

THE LEGEND OF FINAL FANTASY VII - Amateur-level writing. Begins with a chronological retelling of the entire VII canon, which does neither the book nor the games any favors. Features a section on VII's "secrets" including, for example, the Gold Saucer cable car propellers being inconsistent, which all seem frivolous and not worthy of dissection. Repetitive sentence structure ("During ..., Cloud ... As ..., Cloud ..."). Would not recommend.

500 Years Later: An Oral History of Final Fantasy VII - Professional-level writing. Possibly the best documentary we'll get on VII's development, considering it consists of direct quotes from the developers. Content is laid out as if developing a story. Asks interesting questions such as whether Square was ready for the success of VII by following the decisions made in the aftermath of the game's release. Would highly recommend.
 
Last edited:
Ite

Ite

Save your valediction (she/her)
AKA
Ite
Final Fantasy and Philosophy: The Ultimate Walkthrough is a collection of essays from different writers, many of which draw from various titles in the series but a few which focus solely on FFVII:

-The Spiky-Haired Mercenary vs. the French Narrative Theorist: Final Fantasy VII and the Writerly Text (Benjamin Chandler)
-The Lifestream, Mako, and Gaia Theory (Jay Foster)
-Shinto and Alien Influences in Final Fantasy VII (Jonah Mitropoulos)
-Human, All Too Human: Cloud’s Existential Quest for Authenticity (Christopher R. Wood)

I will say that I actually don't like this book, but it bears mentioning simply because its existence is an achievement. At times I wonder if the writers actually played the games or just mined Wikipedia for points to make. You'd think something so spoiler-laden would take a more intimate approach to the source material, but nerds like us will find the essayists' knowledge of the canon wanting. And if you aren't already familiar with the philosophers, they don't do you the courtesy of catching you up. If you are intimate with both the philosophers and FF, well the essays are so shallow that you don't even need to read them. You'd be better off making a thread on TLS with the essay's title -- you'll get a deeper dive, at least.
 
Mage

Mage

She/They
AKA
Mage
I'm reading Reverse Design ATM (should have finished already but life got in the way), I don't recommend it for the same reasons Ite has mentioned, plus the writing is kinda lazy, the sources are a bit iffy, far too much of the writing is opinion-laden stuff which would get destroyed in a discussion thread here. There's also far too much of 'If you've read X book in this series, you'll know that', which is shitty because each one analyses a different game and should be written independently of other titles in the series. I didn't buy a book to read plugs for other books. Also there's a section on textual analysis which draws comparisons with The Great Gatsby and I'm struggling to see why it was chosen despite it being explained at the start of the section.
Also somewhat more trivial but the e-book version contains more statistics than the book version which is a fucking gyp and a half considering it's a lot cheaper too.

I think if I was going to throw money at an analytical text again, I'd probably go for 500 Years Later.
 
Theozilla

Theozilla

Kaiju Member
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom