E3 2015: what Final Fantasy VII tells us about gaming’s obsession with its past

Nostalgia is so hot right now. It is the most powerful force firing the engines of contemporary entertainment. We are enjoying Jurassic World on the big screen, a tour by Nineties shoegazers Ride and TFI Friday is back on Channel 4. Not even video games, that most futuristic of media, have escaped the consumer’s melancholic urge to revisit the past. This was never more evident than during this week’s E3, the annual Los Angeles gathering where game publishers parade their forthcoming titles and promises. Many of those new titles are, in fact, old titles, either repackaged or remade for today. Midway through the rumble and flash of Sony’s press event (held in a vast LA arena on Monday evening), the company showed a trailer for a remake of Final Fantasy VII, the second best-selling game for Sony’s original PlayStation. Released in 1997, it’s also apocryphally known as the most returned video game of all time; players were reportedly lured in by the visuals then repelled by the mysteries of the Japanese role-playing genre. But no one in the Sony crowd was thinking about that as they hollered their approval. The short teaser film, accompanied by that familiar tinkling soundtrack, showed… Read full this story

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