How do you follow the biggest role-playing game of all time? How do you look at Final Fantasy VII and make something even better? If you're Square in the 1990s, the answer is simple: You break everything.

Before I played Final Fantasy VII, I didn't think it was going to be very good. I don't remember how I was introduced to the game -- maybe it was a store ad, or a magazine, or that wild 1997 TV commercial -- but I do remember hating it.

In the first few minutes of Final Fantasy 6, just when you think you've got a sense of the game's rhythm, everything changes. Your amnesiac hero Terra, who you've been controlling for half an hour and are probably assuming will be your protagonist for the long haul, falls down a hole and passes out. And then you meet this guy.

Final Fantasy V, a video game about four warriors who get together and beat up a giant tree, doesn't try particularly hard to be innovative. In fact, it doesn't try at all. Final Fantasy V is essentially an enhanced version of Final Fantasy III, proving rather definitively that Final Fantasy games don't have to be original to be great.

When you first open up Final Fantasy II, you're asked to name four characters. Seconds later, those characters are stuck in an unwinnable battle, and you're forced to watch them die.