Video Game Hall of Fame: All 24 Inductees Ranked - Part I (24-13)

#18 Final Fantasy VII (inducted in 2018)

The story of Squaresoft's (Now Square Enix) Final Fantasy VII is actually a number of stories in one. It tells the story of one company losing its grip on an industry by refusing to change with the times. It's the story of the popularity of RPGs in America exploding virtually overnight. But, more importantly for our efforts here, it's the story of how one title showed how video games could tell an epic story, and create an epic experience, just as well as any other medium.

Just from the name alone, it's obvious that there were plenty of RPGs before Final Fantasy VII. In fact, it even wasn't the first RPG on the PlayStation hardware - Suikoden and Wild Arms were released earlier, for example. But, Final Fantasy VII was the first game in the genre to make real use of the compact disc format. It had per-rendered backgrounds, 3D environments, full CGI cut-scenes and had a story that spanned four discs.

Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII

This was also the first game by Square not to be released on a Nintendo system, after years of working with them exclusively.

Nintendo had settled on using a cartridge format for their next system, the Nintendo 64, which would have limited the ambition that Final Fantasy's developers wanted for the game.

It's just one example of how Nintendo's reluctance to move to a disc based format caused them to lose their dominance over the game industry.

But, most importantly, the game's ambition and presentation inspired developers from all over to not just make games, but experiences.

While there were plenty of games before it that were cultural sensations, Final Fantasy VII was arguably gaming's first blockbuster.