500 Years Later: An Oral History of Final Fantasy VII

500 Years Later is a very peculiar and possibly quite divisive approach to the form, but that’s part of why we really like it. Chronicling the story behind the making of Final Fantasy VII with the developers who made it, this book has been the passion project of Matt Leone for around three years, gathering and translating the interviews. It’s been made by Polygon in collaboration with Read-only Memory, whose previous excellent book publishing work includes The Bitmap Brothers: Universe and Sega Mega Drive/genesis: Collected Works.

500 Years Later plays with the format well with some wonderful portraits and illustrations of the key figures and events in the making of FFVII and even some fun twists. A code-breaking key in the book helps you unlock a secret Easter egg in the margins of the pages, for instance. With its mixture of large font on some pages, neon pink on others, it’s a strange format, but one that keeps surprising and the access is second to none.

Price: £30 From: readonlymemory.vg