The world of Final Fantasy VII has so many different locations, I thought it’d be fun to take a tour and show some of them off!
Transcript:
Welcome to Video Game World Tours, where we journey to fantastical lands and just… hang out. I’m Pretzel, your tour guide, and today’s trip will take us to the world of Final Fantasy VII. Gaia.
Final Fantasy VII has a lot of interesting locations, and I can’t wait to show you some of my favorites. But I have one quick thing to say before we get into it. There’s gonna be parts of the video where I hold back on commentary and just let the game speak for itself. You might feel the urge to skip ahead, but I really want you to try and immerse yourself during those moments. Soak in the music, observe all the different parts of the scene, place yourself into the world of Gaia.
Are you ready?
Let’s begin.
Our first stop is the sunny shores of Costa Del Sol. Costa Del Sol is a resort town that has all you’d need on a vacation. An inn, a bar, and of course, plenty of beach towels and chairs to catch a tan.
The music perfectly captures the vibe of lounging around on a sunny day. People swimming in the ocean, waves flowing in the background, and the warm sun illuminating the sand. This is paradise.
(Interlude)
The world of Gaia is in no shortage of dark and dreary locations, but Costa del Sol is one you can count on to make you appreciate the smaller things in life.
Our next stop has a bit more going on.
We’re going to Midgar. Allow me to set the stage.
Quite a contrast from Costa del Sol, Midgar is a place that’s hard to find a lot of happiness in. Rundown buildings, crime, income inequality. You get the vibe of the town the second you look at a screenshot of it. Sector 6 is just like any other section of Midgar. People are just trying to make it through each day and it seems like a hard place to be happy in.
Then you discover Aerith’s house.
As soon as you enter the screen, the mood immediately changes. There’s flowing water, flowers all over the place, and music that soothes the ears. You entered a portal from the dingy Sector 6 Slums into an area that almost doesn’t make sense for being where it is. How is there so much flowing water in the middle of a city? How are flowers growing in what I can only assume is the worst quality soil imaginable? How is so much sunlight shining down from beneath Midgar’s plates above?
So many questions, but they all just kinda fade into the background. The vibes of the place are what matter here, not the practicality.
Something else I think is charming about this scene in particular, is the waterfall. It’s already bizarre enough seeing so much flowing water in the middle of a city, but it’s also interesting that you can kinda see how the waterfall works on a technical level. It’s not actually moving, but the layers are fading in and out really quickly to give the illusion of motion.
It’s almost endearing, seeing how the artists worked with the medium of pre-rendered still backgrounds to create the illusion of a flowing waterfall.
(Interlude)
And that’s all before you even go inside the house. The interior contrasts even more with the other living spaces in the sector. Where other houses have broken windows and trash strewn all over, here we have neatly placed flower pots, wood grain shelves, and a hexagonal rug in the center. They all really bring this house together into a home.
(Interlude)
Our last stop before we leave Midgar is in an area where the beauty of nature and desolation of humanity come together.
The Church.
It’s falling apart like most buildings in the slums, but there’s also a little patch of flowers. The framing of the shot really sells this. The flowers are center frame and whichever direction you look after that features decay. Pews thrown about on the ground, torn banners on the wall, and sunlight coming from above, implying a massive hole in the ceiling.
It’s like nature is taking over, in a way. The building will continue to fall apart as the decades go on and flowers will take its place.
(Interlude)
We’ll finally leave Midgar and head North. All the way to the Forgotten City.
There’s a lot I could get into regarding spoilers for this area, but I’ll keep it simple. The Forgotten City was the capital of an ancient civilization. You can find and enter houses of those that lived over 2,000 years ago. It’s elegiac in a way. You’re able to go into the homes of people long gone and see everything as it was back then. In stark contrast to the homes of Midgar, these are almost perfectly preserved.
Decorations are neatly placed, tables are adorned with dinnerware, pictures are framed, and beds are like they were just made this morning.
The artistic direction of the location is interesting as well. There’s a lot of flourishes and design elements you usually see underwater. There’s coral all over the place and some buildings are designed like sea shells? It’s bizarre.
And the music plays no small part in that. It’s wistful. Dreamlike. You get the feeling this isn’t a place you should be, but it’s also welcoming. The Forgotten City is a place that makes you nostalgic for a time long before yours.
(Interlude)
Our next stop is a place with a similar vibe. The Sleeping Forest.
What does this screen evoke in you? Do you feel unease? Or do you feel welcome? Is it an area that brings comfort or discomfort? I believe this is a true liminal space.
You enter the screen close to the camera and your destination is at the far end of the path, where the light pours through the trees. This area is a threshold from where you came, the known, to your destination, the unknown. The entire point of this screen, how it’s drawn and how it’s framed, it pulls you into this mysterious white light in the distance
And there’s this weird effect with the light. Even in editing, I still can’t quite tell if it’s actually animated to glow very faintly of if it’s just a visual illusion. It looks like the light is fading in and out a bit, but either way, it creates this sense of unease. Where you question if what you’re seeing is actually real.
(Interlude)
The Sleeping Forest is one of my favorite areas in the game. The music, the design, the part it plays in the story, it all comes together to be extremely memorable.
Our penultimate stop takes us to quite a peculiar place. Labeled by the game as three question marks, this cave is pretty striking.
The first thing to hit you as you enter is that there’s no music. Most places in the game have some backing track, but this particular cave does not. Once I checked my TV volume to make sure I didn’t mute it on accident, I was struck with this weird sense of dread. Since most locations have that background music, this cave having none makes me feel like something’s off.
And it’s not just that. This is such a weird scene to be hiding out in some random cave. There’s these structures going out surprisingly deep into the distance. And from where the player is, you can’t see the top or bottom of them. You don’t know what they’re for.
That’s to say nothing of the landmark of this cave. The altar/throne/whatever is raised from the circular platform you’re standing on. The flashing in the middle makes it hard to tell what it actually is, but either way, it’s eye-catching.
This is all around an alien place. And while a future game in the Final Fantasy VII world does feature this cave a bit more, in this game, we’re left with a room that doesn’t make a lot of sense. And I love it for that.
(Interlude)
On the way to the last location on the itinerary, let’s take a few layovers at some places that are interesting, but there’s also not much to say about.
First, there’s the 2nd floor of the Inn in Kalm. The party takes a break at this inn, and I could imagine myself staying a night or two here, it feels really comfy. It also kinda reminds me of the inn from the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring, so there’s that.
(Interlude)
Then we have this plain cave underwater. I don’t know what it is about it, but I feel drawn to this area. There’s a very long tunnel leading here, and when you get through it, you can rise up to reach the surface, but I also kinda like just hanging out down here below the surface.
(Interlude)
Lastly, we have the empty Event Square in the Gold Saucer. This reminds me of the times where you get to some event early and you get to really sprawl out before the hoards of people arrive and you’re packed in like sardines.
(Interlude)
With that, we arrive at our final stop for the day. And it’s a doozy.
Enter. The Eastern Materia Cave.
This cave is a simple place with a complicated aura. I don’t even know how to begin to describe what this cave does for me, but I love it. It’s really hard to get to and it’s only purpose to house a materia you just pick up off the ground.
But beyond that, something pulls me to this cave. It’s warm and welcoming in a way that’s hard to put into words. Is it the ripples in the sand? Is it the moss growing on the rocks in the background and foreground? Is it solely the music?
It’s probably a combination of all three. It also feels like an area no human has ever stepped in. It’s almost like the Forgotten City in that way, but even there, there were traces of sentient life. This cave feels untouched by life of any kind.
(Interlude)
Thus concludes our tour of Gaia. We’ve seen remnants of ancient civilizations to a sunny vacation spot and everything in between. Final Fantasy VII really has the gamut of interesting locations, and I hope both those of you that have and haven’t played the game got something out of this tour.
That’s all I have for you today. If you have any suggestions for worlds to tour through, leave a comment, and maybe I’ll explore it out next episode. I hope you check back in and book another trip with Video Game World Tours. See you next time.