Final Fantasy VII

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Has anyone else had a profound experience with this or othe games in relation to Catholicism? excited about the remake? It’s still interesting to see Church and Spirituality in such a positive light in this medium.
 
Correct me if I’m wrong but in Final Fantasy do not the characters worship crystals?
 
I’m not sure that Final Fantasy in any of its incarnations bears any substantial relationship with Christianity or the Catholic Church.

Yes, there are vague allusions, but so to Buddhism, Shinto, Islam, various polytheistic mythologies. It’s very much a mash up in terms of synthesising their fantasy world.
 
They do not worship crystals, no. However the crystals are a part of a reincarnation cycle within that world. I wouldn’t call the metaphysics of the game particularly Christian. There are churches, but offhand I can’t remember if they belong to anything Christian-like.
 
Are we forgetting the treasure trove of goodness from Wisdom Tree for the NES? Ahem.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_Tree

I especially like this bit, especially as a longtime Zelda fan…

They also released Spiritual Warfare , an action-adventure title similar in style to albeit with the requisite religious theme (the player, as a foot soldier in the Lord’s army, is tasked with saving the souls of the heathen populace, using fruit of the spirit).
 
I’m not excited about the remake. How can you remake a game that was already fantastic to begin with? Wasn’t the original good enough?
 
NO!!!

But…

…there are basic eternal truths that pop up in popular literature without intentional design. I guess complex computer games might have the same phenomenon.

FYI, one of the best games ever.
 
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I remember hearing they intended the graphics to be better but they had such a nightmare with the game crashing every five minutes that when they finally succeeded they didn’t want to risk changing anything.
 
I enjoyed your comment. Thanks. I was in Japan’s college 20 years ago when Final Fantasy VII came out. The students were enthralled and I loved it. Other student got angry when I told what would happen to the story toward end, because he seriously wanted to find out by himself. I wasn’t a Christian then and had no idea that it contained something Christian. I was delighted to see about this game on this thread. Japanese games are I think continuously using pieces from Christian culture. But these days I am alarmed at many games making evil beings in the Bible as good or attractive Monsters to look for, obtain, and use to beat the difficult stages and strong opponents in PVP. The boys and girls have probably no idea they are real existent evils.
 
I like to play a handful of RPGs, but never gotten around to playing FFVll. Im going to have to put that one of my play to do list.
 
Dr_Meinheimer said:
Are we forgetting the treasure trove of goodness from Wisdom Tree for the NES? Ahem.
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Interestingly, Wisdom Tree wasn’t really Christian. They made unlicensed games for the NES, and when Nintendo used its power over the NES to encourage retailers to not do business with Wisdom Tree (at the time called Color Dreams), Wisdom Tree took to making Christian-themed games, which could then be put in Christian bookstores. The main advantage here is that Nintendo couldn’t threaten to pull its NES systems and games from those stores, since it wasn’t there in the first place.

So yes, Wisdom Tree was literally the stereotype of a pseudo-Christian company that only did to take advantage of Christians.
OKComputer said:
I’m not excited about the remake. How can you remake a game that was already fantastic to begin with? Wasn’t the original good enough?
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The Resident Evil 2 remake would like a word with you.

Hey! Some of us like having personal favorites re-released. It’s a lot more convenient than digging up an old console or dealing with emulation. Now please excuse me while I go back to playing Assassin’s Creed 3 on Switch.
 
I love a good remake. Been eyeing Link’s Awakening for Switch myself.
 
I recently completed it. I never finished the original, so now I’m wondering why everyone argues over whether Majora’s Mask or Twilight Princess is the darkest Zelda game. Yeah, they’re more aesthetically dark (which those taking the side of Majora’s Mask always claim isn’t important), but Link’s Awakening was so thematically twisted that you don’t even need the creepy fan theories that try to ruin your childhood.
 
PaladinSword said:
Has anyone else had a profound experience with this or othe games in relation to Catholicism? excited about the remake? It’s still interesting to see Church and Spirituality in such a positive light in this medium.
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I don’t know about “profound” experiences per say, but when I look at Sephiroth’s story, he really is very much like Lucifer: was the perfect super soldier whom everyone looked up to, but turned into a terrifying villain in the end…Granted I would be mad too if I found out I was the product of some crazy alien cloning experiments… but you get the point. He goes way over the top with the whole, “destroying the whole world and wanting to creating a new one” thing hehe

On the topic of Legend of Zelda since many have already mentioned, the story was originally going to feature Christianity as the religion of Hyrule. There is some old concept art of Link praying in a church with a crucifix and everything. Apparently in Link to the Past, there is a part where Link makes the sign of the cross (though they edited other Christian imagery from the western release)…https://zelda.fandom.com/wiki/Christianity

How about you, OP? Have you had an extraordinary experience with a videogame?
 
ZMystiCat said:
The Resident Evil 2 remake would like a word with you.

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RE 2 was a good game, FF7 was iconic.Big difference.
 
It’s the same way with movies. The remake of the movie Psycho was terrible. So was the remake of Halloween. It’s hard to make something that was already great better. It’s better to take a game that missed the mark in some ways and try to make that one better.
 
I don’t know that the thing about Majora’s Mask is fan theory. The idea that Link was already dead was overblown but it was based on things that really were there. The game is very obviously centered around loss. It is even confirmed that the locations were deliberately based around certain emotional themes. The five stages of grief may have only been used as inspiration rather than actual structure, but the pathos is still there.
 
LittleFlower378 said:
Correct me if I’m wrong but in Final Fantasy do not the characters worship crystals?
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“Final Fantasy” is more of a brand. Most of the Final Fantasy games have little connection to each other with a few exceptions (Final Fantasy X got two sequels, Finsl Fantasy VII got two prequels). You can almost always find characters named Vicks, Wedge, and Cid/Sid that are not the same person from one game to another. There usually something called Ragnarock and usually something dragon related named Bahamut (that might not be an actual dragon).

In the earlier Final Fantasy games there were 4 Crystal’s that were the essence of some “element” of nature (wind, fire, earth, and water usually. Sometimes light and dark also). Sometimes some force of evil would do something to the crystals that endangered the world and the playable characters would go on a quest to bring things back to balance.

In Final Fantasy VII you don’t have those forms of crystals. Instead the planet has a life stream within it. When people dies they return to this life stream. Sometimes the energy of this life stream was dense enough to form solid chunks (Materia) that had the essence of some element or ability within them. A corporation figured out how to suck the energy out of this livestream and use it to power material goods and weapons. A problem with this is that while energy naturally flows into and out of the lifestream when it is artificially forced out it is consumed and does not return. Using it that way long enough will kill the planet and all life on it.

There is much more to the plot of the game. But the Materia is the closest thing to crystals and I’ve only talked about that element. The characters of the game all have their own emotional challenges from conflicts that came from wars or the corporations pursuit of power.
 
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