Ever since receiving my first computer, a ZX Spectrum, I have played countless video games across pretty much every genre.
But I had to wait until my late teenage years to realise that RPGs were right up my street. And you know what? It’s not even about the gameplay. Playing an RPG is like turning myself into an active character in a novel, and there are no games in which I have felt this level of immersion more strongly than the Final Fantasy (FF) titles.
I played FFVIII and FFX back in the late 90s and 2001, respectively, and absolutely loved them. FFVII was next on my list, but I decided to postpone it (as I irritatingly tend to do). No more! With the aim of completing all the Final Fantasy games to date (much to the chagrin of my wife), I embarked on a gaming journey I knew I would love.
I’m so glad I wasn’t proved wrong with this one.
Review
In Final Fantasy VII, we take the helm of Cloud, a mercenary hired by the eco-terrorist group “Avalanche” to oppose the corrupt Shinra Electric Power Company, which is harvesting the planet’s life energy (the Lifestream) to increase its profits. As the story progresses, Cloud becomes acquainted with other characters sympathetic to the cause: Tifa, Aeris, Red XIII, Cait Sith and Cid, as well as Yuffie and Vincent (the last two being optional characters). Beyond this central conflict, Cloud and his companions come face to face with Sephiroth, Cloud’s former team leader, and the story’s main antagonist. Sephiroth seeks to become a god by draining all of the Lifestream for himself. On a goose chase to capture Sephiroth before he destroys the planet, Cloud comes to terms with his true identity.
Good Points
Aaaaahhh!
Sometimes I feel that computer games were invented for this very moment, and I think that moment is Final Fantasy. Once again, Square did not disappoint. This game is a wonder to behold.
The materia system is so ingenious that I doubt there will be anything like it in subsequent FF games. Frankly, at first, I thought some of the Materia were a bit useless: why the heck would I ever use Steal, Sense, Chocobo, Enemy Skill, Morph or Throw? Yet, even if it is not obvious at first, each Materia has its use, although you’d probably need to be a completionist to realise it.
But it is not the independent Materia that makes this system great, but the fact that you can (and should) often combine the different kinds of Materia in order to augment your stats. In fact, in some cases, it is almost mandatory that you master the Materia and understand the intricacies of these combinations in order to defeat the most cumbersome enemies. For example, I spent most of the game not caring about the Mime Command Materia, until I had to face the Weapons (Ruby and Emerald): Knights of the Round (KoTR) + Mime all the way!
Having played for about 40 hours and nearing the end, I thought I had trained my characters sufficiently well, bought cutting-edge weaponry and items, and collected most of the Materia. Of course, there were a few challenges: the Materia Keeper in Mt. Nibel, the battle with Yuffie’s dad, and Carry Armor in the Underwater Reactor were tough, but mostly because they often used Cure or some other means to heal themselves. However, even these bosses were quickly brushed aside after one or two attempts.
So, here I was, thinking I had mastered another FF game, and scoffing at how easy it was to beat the game. My hubris was shattered when I came to the final battle with the final boss.
I have read accounts from some gamers claiming they were at level 40, ill-equipped and without much in the way of Materia, weapons, armour and limits, and still managed to win without any major issue. Ignore all that – the final boss will rip your arse off if you fight him unprepared. Look, my Cloud was at level 54 with over 3000 HP. I had Comet2, Ultima, Bahamut Zero, Wall, Cure3, Regen, Ribbon and Limit 3. The boss easily killed him with one single spell that took over 6000 HP! That, coupled with the fact that he’s able to fully recover from time to time, can break your barriers and nullify other spells, and is quite fast to attack, makes him almost impossible to defeat without proper preparation.
After many failed attempts, I resigned myself to it and restarted the game from outside the Northern Cave. I did some grinding, brought my party to level 90+, developed all their limits and got all the important Materia. I even bred a Golden Chocobo, acquired KotR and trained most of the Enemy Skills. After all that, I was ready to face the notoriously difficult bosses Ruby and Emerald, and came out victorious. And if you can defeat Ruby and Emerald, the final boss is indeed child’s play. But only after – ahem – over 140 hours of gameplay!
It was a marathon, but well worth it!
The backstories of every character are a bit basic but nonetheless charming. Every character except Cloud, that is. Even though Cloud’s personality was somehow inconsistent – sometimes he is very cold, sometimes very emotional – I thought the character was surprisingly fleshed out. Cloud’s relationship with Aeris was also touching (but not as much as Squall and Rinoa’s in FFVIII). I particularly liked their “date” at the Golden Saucer, although the theatre scene was possibly one of the most ridiculous in the entire game. Tifa Lockhart was one of my favourite characters not only for her protective and motherly nature (and super-dooper limit), but also because she never showed a hint of sadness or jealousy about Cloud and Aeris.
One of the characters being a spy caught me completely off-guard, as did the loss of a major character in the middle of the game. On the one hand, it was a departure from cliché-based stories where boy and girl live happily ever after; but it was also sad because I was enjoying the development of the character.
The story is very complex; some might even say convoluted. Partly, this is because for half of the game you are meant to believe certain events to be true, which turn out not to be. At some point, a revelation turns everything upside-down, so much so that it will make your head spin.
Finally, let’s analyse the graphics and sound design. Looking back at contemporary games, FF7 seems like a major overhaul compared to its predecessors. Sure, the character models look blocky even for 1997, but the battle models were pretty good for the time. The pre-rendered graphics were (and still are) astonishing (see images above), as were the spectacular pre-rendered summon animations (surely, you can’t be indifferent to Ramuh and Hades – they’re dope!). Even more impressive are the full-motion videos (FMVs), such as the famous opening which seamlessly integrates into the actual gameplay. Nowadays, it is easy to disparage this feat, but imagine seeing this back in 1997, when most games were still mostly based solely on 2D sprites… FF7’s FMVs essentially blurred the line between animated cinema and video games – it was revolutionary.
Music was pretty good as well. The tunes were simple but very memorable. My 3-year-old daughter caught me once playing the game while I was fighting Sephiroth, and absolutely loved his theme, later humming the “Sephiroth” choir while doing puzzles or watching the tellie. Gosh, I hope that will have no lasting effects… :p
The Not-So-Good Points
With a game as perfect as FF7, it becomes really difficult to find valid criticisms. So, the list that follows does not really contain “bad” points, but rather game quirks that did not have any impact on my enjoyment of the game.
While most enemies were fun to fight against, some were very strange, to say the least. I still don’t get the point of Ghirofelgo – here is a guy standing on a hanging half-moon, rarely attacking and then falling to the floor struggling to get up. What about Palmer, the devious executive director of the Shinra Electric Power Company, who teases you by showing his butt? LOL.
The mechanics of the mini-games were a bit clunky, definitely not on par with contemporary games, such as Mario Kart 64 (Chocobo race), 1080° Snowboarding (snowboard mini-game), and Age of Empires (Fort Condor mini-game). The slapping contest between Tifa and Scarlet was also bizarre. What was that all about?!? One exception was the Gold Saucer Battle Square – it was interesting to see how my characters fended for themselves once several Materia, weapons and armour were removed.
Perhaps the most critical comment I have is that I wish there had been some explanation of what the Materia actually do. I spent half of the game not really knowing what Transform, Elemental, Gravity, Manipulate, Enemy Skill, etc. were all about, let alone how to combine them. The brief one-line explanations are, in most cases, unhelpful, and you sort of need to piece things together by experimenting (or simply googling it, as normal people would do). I also did not understand the decision to make Yuffie and Vincent optional characters. In the other FF games I played, every main party member joined automatically through the story, and I found that preferable.
Also, note that FF7 pushes you towards completion, although it is extremely unlikely that you will be able to complete all of it on your own. I hate having to look things up to progress in a game, but I have to admit that I couldn’t complete certain tasks without looking them up online. For example, I had no idea I had to play the piano to get the item for Tifa’s last limit break, let alone which melody I was supposed to play. Also, I found the cave where KotR was located, but I had no idea I needed a Golden Chocobo to get there (had to google this one as well). And speaking of Golden Chocobos, this entire side quest requires that you know which types of Chocobo to breed, which nuts to give them, how many races to win, and have a bit of luck when mating. There are simply too many details that would have become extremely tedious and unfun to figure out by myself.
Thus, if you play this game, do it with the thought that you’ll likely need to resort to walkthroughs if you don’t want to waste a couple of hundred hours rummaging through every nook and cranny (I would be very interested in knowing what your experiences were back in the day, without the amount of resources we have at our disposal now).
Star rating
Even when playing the original FFVII, with its pixelated, blocky and ludicrous rectangular hands, I can only say that I am in awe. This game is a masterpiece! Great multi-layered storytelling, relatable characters, memorable villains, an amazing soundtrack, and genuinely funny moments.
The bosses are appropriately hard, so much so that they will make you want to complete the game, leveling everyone up, and acquiring all limits and Materia. Sadly, once you defeat the Weapons, the final boss is a walk in the park.
But does it really matter? The journey to the end was so much fun!
The only (tiny) negative was the fact that some of the game’s mechanics felt a bit random at times (e.g., Chocobo breeding, Enemy Skills, limits), but, let’s be honest, who cares when everything else is just perfect!
Those fellows at Square really know how to make video games, and FFVII is possibly their most cherished work. You will chastise me for saying this, but, to me, FFVIII still takes the edge, albeit only by a small margin; both games are in a league of their own. My slightly more critical points were certainly minor enough that they did not stop me from missing the game whenever I was away from home. Man, what a geek thing to say…
Here at Mindlybiz, FFVII receives a well-deserved rating of 5 stars.
Bizarrometer
The story starts at a gentle pace, with information gradually being delivered as to what is happening in the world. As we begin to uncover Cloud’s past, however, things take a distorted turn. At one point, we travel to Cloud’s subconscious, and the environment leans heavily towards the surreal. The mysterious Lifestream and everything it contains, the revelation of the Ancients and Jenova, the making of Sephiroth and his madness, are all bizarre elements of the story whose roles I have not fully comprehended.
The ending scenes are also ambiguous. Aeris’s face appearing at the very end caught me completely by surprise: is she dead, is she alive, is she neither? What about the part where we see an older Red XIII seemingly roaming a fragile ecosystem devoid of humans? You did wait for the credits to finish, didn’t you? Well, if you didn’t, go and check, because that certainly adds an extra layer of weirdness to the story.
FF7 receives a bizarrometer score of 3.
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