Final Fantasy VII

Square moved the series from cartridge to CD and got room for what hadn't fit before: long staged scenes, dozens of locations, video sequences. The image is built from two layers: the background is drawn in advance and doesn't change, and the characters are rendered in polygons and walk on top of it. The technique made it possible to show a city with mismatched scales and angles while staying within the console's limits. Materia, which is slotted into weapons and armor, detached abilities from characters: a spell belongs to the stone, so the party is assembled for the task at hand. Combat runs on an active time gauge, and pausing to choose a command costs you tempo.

The very fact of its release meant more than any mechanic. A major Japanese RPG series left Nintendo's consoles for Sony, took up three discs and was promoted in Western markets as a big event. After that the genre stopped being considered niche outside Japan.