Hello everyone and welcome to my classic game review! Today I'll be talking about Final Fantasy 7, a game that has become legendary over the years. Some people consider it the pinnacle of the series, while others see it as very overrated. I suppose your own personal history with this game, or just games in general, will sway your opinion quite a bit. If you played this as a kid, you'll probably hold it with the highest regards. If you're young right now and have been exposed to everything modern consoles have to offer, and then go back and play this for the first time, you might find it frustrating and outdated. Either way you cut it, there's no denying that this is the most popular, well known Final Fantasy, that put the series into the mainstream.
Final Fantasy 7 came out in 1997, developed by Square, for the Playstation 1. It uses the classic rpg turn based battle system. The graphics, cutting edge for their time, are a little hard on the eyes for today's standards, although the cgi cutscenes, are still pretty cool. Where this game really shines though, is in it's characters, story, and the length and quality of the journey. When I first got this game as a kid, it came with three disks, something I'd never seen before. You would play through for hours, until you get far enough into the story, where a prompt would come on the screen, and tell you to insert the next disc to continue. The game was so much fun though, figuring out the battle system, leveling up, getting new party members, that even though it is a very long game, it never got tedious. As a kid there was nothing else quite like this game, and I put in a lot of hours into my play through. It was my introduction into turn based rpgs.
Final Fantasy 7 tells the story of protagonist, Cloud Strife. He's become iconic over the years, with his spiky yellow hair, and his giant bastard sword. Cloud joins a eco-terrorist organization, Avalanche, that works together to try and stop megacorporation Shinra. Shinra is out to use the worlds natural life force, Mako, as a source of fuel for it's power plants. This is a process that depletes the Planet, and pollutes the air. The headquarters of Shinra is located in the city of Midgar. This is where the game begins, as you execute an attack on Shinra. After the attack you explore the city, and pick up the main members of your party, Barret, Tifa, and Aerith. Once you leave Midgar, you are free to roam the world map. Although you don't have many options at first. There are random encounters every few steps you take, bringing you into a battle and slowing progression through the world map. This can be very annoying.
Along the way as you journey through the world, you meet and gain additional party members, some are even optional. You can only have three party members at a time, so you get to choose who goes with you and who remains on the bench. This is good for strategizing, or for just bringing your favorites with you. One of the best parts of Final Fantasy 7, is the abilities called summons. In this game you get materia, basically colored rocks that you can equip that give you different magic powers. Most are Fire, Thunder, Cure, different magics to use. But some of the materia give you summons, magical creatures that you call into battle. They perform a powerful attack then go away. There are many summons you can get throughout the game, some are elemental, some are basic, and some are rare and hard to find. This gives you a good reason to go exploring every corner of the map.
Final Fantasy 7 also has one of the most iconic antagonists of the series, Sephiroth. He's a godlike person, thought to be dead, but reappears working with Shinra. Cloud and his team know they must take him down, but his strength is unmatched and they can't stop him. Sephiroth uses a materia called meteor, that will literally call down a meteor that will devastate the Planet. You track him down all over the globe, leveling up and gaining strength along the way, eventually leading to an epic showdown at the end of the game. He still remains my favorite Final Fantasy villain, with the long silver hair, all black clothes, and his signature sword the Masamune.
This was the first game I ever played in the Final Fantasy series, but it's still one of my favorites. There was recently a ported version that was released on modern consoles. In it you got the option to turn off random encounters, as well as move in 5x speed, and a god mode option. These new additions make the game much more user friendly, and remove all of the more tedious and outdated parts of the game. Playing through it like this was a lot of fun, especially since I hadn't played it in about ten years. If you haven't played Final Fantasy 7 and are a fan of turn based rpgs, you should definitely check out the port. This remains a legendary game that put Final Fantasy into the mainstream and solidified it's place is video game history. I give Final Fantasy 7 an:
A+++