Final Fantasy VII Review

Final Fantasy VII at the time of its release may have been the most anticipated video game release in history. Final Fantasy VI was widely regarded as one of the greatest video games of all time, and there had been a long time since its release. Square fans were anxious to see what the next video game in the series was going to be like and the fact that it would be not only the first Final Fantasy game to be released on the new generation of hardware, but the first to be released outside of a Nintendo console period.  What we got was a departure from the previous games in the series by far. Did it live up to the expectations? Does the version, never having received an update still hold up today? Let's take a look.

While Final Fantasy VI dabbled outside of a typical medeival setting, Final Fantasy VII is the first to completely go outside of it. The world of Final Fantasy VII is set in a Steampunk setting. The ShinRa power company has developed a way to use the energy contained within the planet to generate electricity. One day, monsters began emanating from one of the companies mako reactors. So, members of the power company's personal army, SOLDIER were sent to investigate. Inside the reactor, they found an ancient parasitic alien lifeform named JENOVA. One of the investigating members of SOLDIER, Sephiroth deduces that this is his mother, and takes off on a mission to reclaim the planet from humanity... by destroying it and consuming all the planet's energy to evolve into some higher form.

Five years later, Cloud joins with AVALANCHE, a terrorist group trying to keep ShinRa from destroying the planet through its reactors. After destroying a couple reactors, they head to the headquarters, where they find the president has been killed by Sephiroth who had not been seen since the incidents five years ago. The group thinks that Sephiroth is looking for The Promised Land, a mythical land supposedly filled with the energy of the planet. ShinRa is also searching for this land to harness its energy. In reality, Sephiroth is searching for the Black Materia, a materia capable of calling a meteor to destroy the planet. The materia was hidden by a race called the Cetra, of which one of our party members Aeris is the last surviving members. The group is able to claim the black materia, but Sephiroth is able to control Cloud to give it to him. Aeris leaves the group and is killed by Sephiroth in an ancient city, upon her death, White Materia disappears into the sea. Eventually, the group finds the promised land. Which is an area where the planet itself has been scarred. The lifestream has emerged here to heal the planet. Here they find the body of Sephiroth, who in reality has been dead for five years, but his spirit has refused to be brought into the lifestream. Sephiroth is once again able to control Cloud and the two disappear into the lifestream.

Cloud is found later, and we discover that he is the one who killed Sephiroth in the reactor incident. He was then experimented on by Professor Hojo, as part of a series of experiments where SOLDIERs were injected with cells from Jenova in an attempt to clone Sephiroth. He had amnesia after the expermients and had created a personality based on a combination of his friend Tifa's memories and of another member of SOLDIER named Zack who was present at the reactor as well, and killed by Sephiroth. We find that Sephiroth was able to activate the Black Materia and Meteor heads towards the earth. At this time, the planet releases ancient beasts called WEAPON in an attempt to protect itself. We find the only way to stop the Black Materia is through the White Materia which requires a Cetra to activate it. This is what Aeris was doing when she was killed. She was successful, but Sephiroth is suppressing it at the planet's core.

So, as you can see, we have quite the involved story. It's a very good story, but the pacing could be much better. The first five hours of the game are spent setting up the conflict, and then once we actually have a purpose we have a 30 minute+ flashback of exposition. Most of the actual plot happens in big bursts, while most of the gameplay involves just chasing Sephiroth around and fending off ShinRa's attempts to get in our way.

Now let's talk about the mechanics of the game. The game features nine characters, and this is one of those games where there really is very little differences from a gameplay standpoint between them. The only difference is the weapons they can equip and their Limit Breaks. Limit breaks are special moves that can be activated after you take enough damage. Magic and abilites can be equipped by anyone through Materia. Materia are basically stones that are inserted into your weapon or armor, and can level up through AP gained after each battle. There are many different types of Materia... Green for Magic, Yellow for abilities, Red for Summons, Pink for Independent, and Blue for Support.

I'm very mixed on the Materia system. In one respect it kind of allows you to play a game in your own style. Beginner players will be drawn to using Magic and Summons which are the same classic spells and summons that people know through the series... more advanced players will tend towards the ability materia. Especially the Enemy Skill materia which is the "Blue Magic" of the game. If you know how to use this materia, it can basically replace ALL the Green and Red materia of the game until the very end. Possibly the most abusive use of Blue Magic in the series ever. As you move through the game you'll collect the Blue Materia which can be "combined" with other materia to produce different effects. For example, to cure everyone in your party you'll need to combine a Green Restore Materia with a Blue All materia. Or you can combine a green poison materia with a blue Added Effect materia in your weapon to poison your enemy on a hit. As I said previously, your equipped materia gains experience, and when it levels up it gains new abilities... for example a Fire materia will gain new levels of the Fire spell as it levels up... Fire, Fire2, Fire3... Summons can only be used a number of times equal to their level per battle... same with some of the Blue Materia. Finally we have Pink materia which are basically passive power ups... They can be used to gain stats, HP, tanking, etc. These just get more powerful as you level them up... giving more stats, more HP, more chance to cover a physical attack, etc.

There are a few sidequests in the game. The most known one is the Chocobo Breeding sidequest. You can catch cohocobos in the game by defeating enemies they appear with before the chocobos run away. You can then feed them to increase stats, race them and breed them. Breeding specific combinations will give you special chocobos that are different colors. Green ones can climb mountains, Blue ones can go through shallow water, Black ones can do both. Gold ones can go anywhere. The reason to get these is to get some of the most powerful Materia in the game, as well as access to some rare items through the Chocobo Races.

There is no postgame in Final Fantasy VII, but there are 2 super bosses. Emerald Weapon and Ruby Weapon. Emerald Weapon is basically a gear check Super boss. You had better have most of your stats maxed out to take him on as he is as powerful and fast as can be. While there are many ways to beat him, they really all require having lots of very powerful materia and very high stats. Beating him is very satisfying, though takes a long long time. You get access to special materia for beating him that give you all spells, commands or summons in a single materia slot. The second boss, Ruby Weapon is one where the challenge is in concocting a strategy to beat him. He has the ability to remove party members from the battle and while not as powerful as Emerald Weapon is still quite strong with hundreds of thousands of Hit Points. Once you figure out the method of beating him, he's certainly easier than Emerald Weapon... and for beating him you get a gold chocobo, which is a bit silly, because I can hardly imagine a scenario where I'd take him out before breeding one myself.

Next, lets talk about the Graphics and Sound, I have a bit more to talk about here than usual. The reason Square left Nintendo was because they wanted to use a new technology called Full Motion Video in their games. Well, technically capable of displaying this technology, Nintendo's cartridges did not have the storage capacity needed to house this. So, Square turned to the optical disc based format being used by Sony and the Playstation. The FMVs are a huge part of this game from the very start. They are of great quality and used in almost every major plot moment. The quality of these movies would be ingrained to Square's legacy from here forward. That's the upnote. The downnote, is that this is also the first game in which Square decided to use a 3D engine... and this was still in this technology's infancy. The characters are very undetailed and blocky. At the time, this was fine, it was so new it was refreshing, but now, it just does not hold up. I will say, that recently the game was re-released on the PC for Steam and fans have created mods that allow for more detailed character sprites which is certainly a welcome addition.

Square had certainly developed its most fully fleshed out story to date. Love stories, characters dying. Some truly villanous moments and heroic as well. For such a diverse plot, they would need one of their best soundtracks ever. As always, Nobuo Uematsu pulled through. You can pretty much say that any of the Final Fantasy soundtracks hold up today, and this one is no different. From the playfulness of the Gold Saucer theme, to the beautiful theme used for Aeris which only becomes more heartwrenching as the game goes on, the soundtrack is used to play your emotions to the max, and I could not envision playing this game with the sound turned off. Of course, this game used a CD format which allowed for much higher-quality sound than the NES or SNES was ever able to offer. This of course comes through most of all in the operatic final boss theme, One Winged Angel.

In conclusion, I've come to rethink my ranking on this game after replaying it. It certainly is not a perfect game. The dated graphics and plot pacing stand out as its most obvious problems. The quality of the story, music, and gameplay cannot be overlooked. You also just have to consider its place in history. This was certainly the most anticipated Final Fantasy game of all time, and it lived up to the hype, something that can be rarely said in game development. I, along with most of the JRPG community of the world would love to see what Square would do with a remake of this game... something that sadly will probably never happen. Do I recommend a newcomer play this game... yes, I do... maybe pick it up on Steam and try a mod out to update the graphics. While I personally did not do this, I do think the outdated graphics would cause a newcomer to lose something. They really should experience the game though.