3. Shadow of the Colossus
Ico is one of the most beautiful games ever made, but it was considered too risky a title for it to have an especially extensive print run. When I heard about Team Ico’s next game I was certainly excited, but I never expected Shadow of the Colossus to succeed in the way that it did. Ico was a commercially underrated classic, whereas SotC has become a pin up for the games as art movement. Its potentially difficult to market ideas and subject matter made it a bizarre title to see soaring to the fore of gaming culture. It could’ve gone under the radar, but it succeeded enough to see Ico get another print run and it saw gaming get a lot more credibility in a wider context of media.
2. Final Fantasy 7
This is going to seem like an odd entry to all of you as Final Fantasy 7 is a title that was in no way expected to do poorly. It was, however, a major gamble within the European market. Back in 1997 as a kid living in England, I was seriously craving deeper strategy and stories within games, a craving that often went unsatisfied due to the severe lack of RPGs that were released in Europe at the time. For some odd reason, publishers had the idea in their heads that Europe didn’t want RPG titles. A risk was taken though, with Square’s first foray into disc-based gaming in the form of FF7 getting a tentative release worldwide. It then became one of the biggest and best selling PS1 games in Europe, resulting in the myth that RPGs sell badly in the west dissipating slowly. It was set up for a fall in Europe, but it managed to overcome this adversity and changed the gaming landscape for good.
1. Final Fantasy
Squaresoft weren’t always the mega corporation they are today, and in 1987 they had a rocky road ahead of them. Many rumours state that they were threatened with bankruptcy at the time, and one of their leading designers, Hironobu Sakaguchi, was considering quitting the industry altogether. That was until he came up with an idea for a game called Final Fantasy, designed to be his final farewell to game design. Though initially envisioned to see him off from his occupation, Final Fantasy turned out to be a huge success, selling well and gaining enough acclaim to become the worldwide phenomenon it is today. Good thing Sakaguchi didn’t quite earlier eh?
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