>>3829231
>They had a well oiled machine back then
Lmao, I wouldn't call Square of the late 90s/early 00s a "well-oiled machine". Especially given the fact that they were one of the driving forces behind the "big budget moviefication" of video games. Basically, FF7's success in the west was largely attributed to its cinematic appeal—if you're old enough, you'll remember pretty much all the advertising material only used pre-rendered shots or FMV footage. The commercials were specifically edited like movie trailers, and they literally showed them in movie theaters. It was an advertising push the likes of which the genre had not seen before, especially in the west.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDz9A4ByHIQ

Following that success, Square immediately began to re-structure itself. They expanded their graphics/art department exponentially and even opened a second studio in Hawaii. What they didn't expand nearly enough was their actual development staff. The FF team was split into two, and simultaneously started work on VIII and IX. The visuals in Square games of this era are some of the best the PS1 ever saw, and the FMVs themselves still hold up today. What doesn't hold up is the gameplay. VIII is blatantly unfinished and full of low-effort content created just to kill time and move you through the environments (which are all gorgeous). This is even lampshaded in the Shumi Village where the only quest you have is to find rocks; one on each screen. When completed, the village elder specifically says the point of this was for you to "appreciate their village because they worked very hard on it"—essentially a plea directly from the over-funded art department. Other games of the era like Chrono Cross and Xenogears were infamously unfinished as well, and this is attributed to all the internal buttfuckery and staff-shuffling that happened just to get these games out the door.

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