ABSTRACT
Because the narrative aspects of the Japanese role-playing game (JRPG) are a feature of design as much as anything else in the game, we have to study them with an eye toward the practical necessities of design. The creation of characters is, and always has been, a facet of game design. Any examination of FFVII as a work of art must take into accounts the design of characters as an essential game design task. From a purely practical perspective, consider how well the motivations of the characters work to drive the plot. To keep the level interesting and fill it out with content, the designers do all manner of different things with those three elements. They combine them in every possible way, add and subtract things, and even change the shape of the level, but they never add a fourth element. The FFVII team practices the same kind of innovative iteration, except they do it with character design.
