Whether you’re vocal about how much you love it or how much you loathe it, numbers speak louder than words — and those numbers say that Final Fantasy VII is one of the most popular RPGs ever made. With the recent rerelease of the game on PSN for play on that as well as PSP, many gamers have taken this opportunity to give in to nostalgia and play the whole thing over again, including yours truly.
I love Final Fantasy VII on a simple, emotional level, but as a writer, I can’t help but wonder about just what it was about the game that affected so many gamers in such a profound way. Sure, it’s well written, its quirky and it’s fun to play, those are all no brainers, but I feel as if there’s much more that made it tick when you really get down to the details.
One of those details was the inclusion of the town called Wall Market. If you’d like to know more about why Wall Market raised the bar to a new level for the RPG town experience, hit the jump and I’ll tell you what I think.
Let’s just say that for some reason, you never played Final Fantasy VII. Maybe you hate RPGs, or never owned a Playstation, or maybe you grew up chained to the floor in an oubliette where an old man-servant brought you food once every few days. I’m sorry about that, but really, you should have played this game. If you never experienced Wall Market firsthand, I’ll give you a preview of what happens there in the video below.
Obviously, if you’ve played a lot of RPGs, you’ve been to a lot of towns. What’s the average town format? Well, it has an inn (usually near the town entrance), a weapon shop, an item shop, a magic shop, and a lot of people wandering around aimlessly who seem determined to block you from walking where you want to go. The latter Wall Market succeeds on, but beyond that, it totally turned the formula on its ass. Here are the things that made this little questionable niche of the universe one of the best towns in an RPG I have ever visited.
1. It’s downright shady.
RPG towns are kind of like safe havens (well, unless you end up in one of those sad towns that’s been burned to the ground by some evil deviant, and then of course you don’t stay long). If anything, Wall Market doesn’t offer you that type of comfort. There is an inn near the door, but there’s also some greaseball standing in the doorway pimping it as a love nest. There’s an item shop, but when you try to walk into it some rotating gun on the ceiling tries to shoot you. Even the music is … dubious. You’re not in a good old town, that’s for sure … but maybe that’s not such a bad thing. And have you even wandered south yet?
2. This town has a whorehouse.
Yeah. Head south and there’s the Honey Bee Inn, with a bunch of super questionable types milling around outside mumbling their moral conflicts aloud in regards to going inside. If you talk to the beefcake at the door, he’ll tell you that you need a “member’s card” to get in, which you don’t have just yet. Once you do get in, what a wonderland awaits you though! I’ll save the details for later, but let’s just say missionary-style humping is the last thing that’s happening at the ol’ Honey Bee.
3. In order to rescue Tifa, your hero needs to crossdress.
A little chatting at the Honey Bee reveals that Tifa, one of your party characters, has been captured and is being held at the mansion of some dude named “the Don”. If you head north, you can see the outside of the mansion, but according to yet another beefy bouncer, the Don only lets ladies in. Cloud is most certainly not a lady … but after following one of the most unique mini-quests in any RPG, you may be able to make him look enough like one to fool a few people.
4. Be prepared to go to the world’s weirdest gym.
After you talk the drunken clothing store owner into making a dress for the most masculine guy ever, you’ll decide that dress on its own isn’t enough. You need a wig. Someone tells you that you should go to the gym where there are “more people like you” who can help you. If you do go, you’ll have the chance to win the wig in a squats contest from a guy who’s so ambigiously weird about his sexuality you have no way of knowing if he likes to put on ladies’ panties once in a while or if he has a full recreation of the My Fair Lady stage set in his living room. At any rate, the sooner you finish your business and get out of this gym, the better.
5. You have the opportunity to help out a girl who has the shits.
There’s a few things Cloud can get to add to his drag ensemble that will work in his favor once he does make it into the Don’s mansion, but they are optional items. For example, if you go to the Wall Market bar, you’ll see a guy freaking out waiting to get into the bathroom because someone else is in there and won’t come out. Your quest is to get Digestive from a store in the town so you can seal the fury pouring from this girl’s butt and help the dude stop his pee pee dance. I have never had the opportunity to do any quest like it since, and while I’m not sure I enjoyed it, I sure remembered it.
6. A guy sends you to a vending machine for a suspicious object.
The joke here may have been missed by many an American gamer, which is a shame because it’s hilarious. In Japan, vending machine are everywhere. Sometimes, they contain items like soda. Other times, they contain treasure such as a schoolgirl’s panties … that have been worn. Of course, even though a machine of this type might be in plain sight, you wouldn’t necessaily want someone to see you getting a pair of used knickers out of it, would you? Maybe you’d ask a friend to help you. Or a total stranger. Or some guy who really needs your help to assemble a decent drag costume.
7. The Honey Bee experience
Going back to the Honey Bee is optional. If you go back, you have the chance to either get lingerie or bikini briefs to complete your costume, but the price of being mentally scarred for life may come with that choice. Before you choose your own room, make sure to peek into the two occupied rooms. You’ll learn that President Shinra apparently jacks it to girls in suits of armor if you do, which is disturbing enough on its own, but it’s once you get to choosing your room that the real terror begins.
You have two options here, the “$%#%” room and the group room. The “$%#%” room is pretty weird in its own way, but it doesn’t hold a candle to what goes on in the group room, which involves a group of men in their forties bathing with you and calling you Bubby. Sure, there’s no full frontal like in The Lost and The Damned, but what’s going on is so murky and undefinable that it would almost be a relief to see a real wang show up. At least then you’d know what you were in for and be able to react in kind.
8. You have to stand in a lineup of girls and possibly be chosen as a potential sex partner for the evening.
Whether or not the Don chooses you as his lady of the evening is based on how many of the special extra items you acquired. If you just went with the wig and dress, he won’t choose you, but if you tarted up with lingerie, cologne and makeup, he likely will choose you. Then you get to go to his bedroom and be pawed by an overweight, self-important douchebag who thinks you have a vagina. Hooray.
9. Your party threatens to cut a guy’s balls off.
Enough said.
10. Wall Market never failed to take you by surprise.
Sure, you might have curled your lips back from your teeth once or twice navigating your way through Wall Market, but the overall experience was pretty unforgettable. Because of it, it makes it that much harder every time I have to navigate my way through some ultra generic RPG town with the one dog that says “woof” and all the shops in the usual spots. Wall Market always kept me guessing as far as what would happen next, and all of its tongue-in-cheek humor and fearless attitude in regards to sexual proclivities easily elevate it above and beyond your usual RPG town experience.
Published: Jul 9, 2009 05:20 pm