I don’t know much about Final Fantasy games only the fact that there are 38947523489572 of them. But Final Fantasy is so big in Japan that they pretty much promote it in every imaginable way. So here’s a pretty rare DVD of cinematics of Final Fantasy VII which the seller states:
This special disc could only be obtained as a special promo for purchasing a Toshiba Vision Connect computer system in Japan in 1997. This item was never available to buy separately and will not be produced again.
This disc was included for the early adopters of a Toshiba all-in-one settop unit launched in 1997 called the Vision Connect. It was one of the first settop computers of its kind to have DVD playback capability. The price for this package was 240,000 yen, which equaled about $2,100 in USD using the May 1997 exchange rate. The Final Fantasy VII Original DVD High Quality CG Collection was an incentive bonus for buyers to adopt early. (Note that this is a standard Region 2 DVD and can be played back in any multiregion DVD player.) In fact, Toshiba still has the original 1997 press release (in English) on their website. I have heard that this DVD was only available to the first 500 purchasers of the Vision Connect, though I cannot find a source to confirm that. As you can see, this disc was both rare and expensive even upon initial release.
What makes this DVD special for Final Fantasy VII fans is that the Square Visual Works department remastered the game’s CG to full DVD resolution specifically for this limited disc. As you may know, the original PS1 had a fairly low native resolution, approximately 320 x 224. All movies on this disc have been mastered directly at 720 x 540. I have made multiple comparison shots below to demonstrate the dramatic difference in detail that you can see in the upgraded video.
One of the more interesting controversies that have been solved with newly-discovered high resolution footage from the game is the inscription upon Jenova’s helmet. It was blurry and unreadable in the original Playstation release. On this disc, the quality is good enough to read: you can read more about this topic on Final Fantasy VII Citadel.
See the listing for more comparison shots between the PS1 CG and the DVD
