I’ve got interesting news for you. As interesting as distressing, in the funny way though. A French game development team, consisting of three guys, is making an attempt at a legend, creating a game called TBT: The Black Tower, which is basically supposed to look like (be?) Final Fantasy VII.

Why do I find it funny? Well, first of all, despite a rather short video footage, I can already tell that the developers of TBT did not understand the phenomenon of FFVII. It wasn’t a game about a guy with a big sword. Nor about girls kicking armed men in slow-motion. Defending the planet? Na-a. The thing is, FFVII is a piece of art, somewhat abstract and unique. Also, it is clearly visible that TBT wants to bring the players of FFVII back as much as possible. Blue chat boxes, the aforementioned big sword, the 2.5D style of the maps and finally a planet-in-need-of-defense, Terra (opposed to FFVII’s Gaia). Kill me if one of the next trailers will not have some big, yellow birds in it. Ok, the game features great graphics, but the thing is if I want to play FFVII, I can go play FFVII.

As a fan of the FF series, I feel that TBT is doomed from the very beginning. It is not that I do not respect the work of the French guys. But one does not simply try to base their game on a legend and what they probably saw as a good way of promotion, will be most likely the project’s undoing. But I have been wrong before.

I may be too emotional here, I admit. What are your impressions on TBT?