Final Fantasy VII
Even if you’ve never played the original or the 2020 remake, any game-liker of a certain vintage knows the introductory sequence to FF7. A young woman walks with a basket of flowers, and suddenly the camera pulls sharply skyward, revealing a sprawling mechanical metropolis gleaming with eerie lime-green vapor. Even if people goof on the polygonal block-monster character models now, the 1997 PS1 game was a dramatic visual leap forward from Final Fantasy’s stint on the Super Nintendo. Looks aside, its narrative ambition and memorable characters are the reason its legacy endures to this day. The adventures of Cloud Strife elevated role-playing games from niche to mainstream in the West—and contributed to a broader ‘90s fascination with Japanese pop culture that endures to this day. — JG
