Final Fantasy VII – Metacritic Score: 92/100
The first Final Fantasy title to make the jump to 3D, Final Fantasy VII, was revolutionary in more ways than one. The game offered a massive world to explore full of people to meet, monsters to fight, and a number of dungeons to explore for hidden secrets and power. This was in addition to the game’s story, which saw the now iconic Cloud Strife joined by a cast of rag-tag freedom fighters in a quest to topple the evil corporation Shinra, and stop the world-ending ambitions of the villain Sephiroth. All of this was rendered in graphics that were, for the time, an exceptional leap forward with 3D character models and cut scenes, something fans had never seen from the series before.
Such an endeavor had a high toll for developer Square Soft, now Square Enix, who sunk $40 million into the total development costs of the title, with as much as $100 million of which spent on marketing. When adjusted to account for inflation, this comes to a grand total of $221 million, leaving fans to wonder what would have happened if the game hadn’t ended up being the hit that it was and, frankly, needed to be.
