Final Fantasy 7 Review
Back in it’s day, 1997 FF7 was the ultimate video game. It had it all. Pre-rendered CG cutscenes, an epic story, amazing art style, a dashing villian, unlikely heroes, tons of mini games, and open world and more. And in time for the New Final Fantasy 7 remake I will review Final Fantasy 7. Has it aged well? Let’s find out.
STORY
Final Fantasy 7 has a epic story but with slow pacing. You are Cloud Strife, a leader of the terrorist group “AVALANCHE”. Environmentalist extremists who will stop at nothing to save the world from the evil corporation “Shinra”. Cloud who worked for SOLDIER cannot stand Shinra taking the Earth’s energy and harnessing it for power. But it’s not just for power and pollution. Turns out Sephiroth is an Alien who wants to bring back a race of humans and his mother.
Beyond that, in between that, we have many unlikely heroes
a flower girl named Areith, (healer)
Tifa Lockhart- Cloud’s wife and Boxer/bartender.
Barret- A black man with a gun for an arm.
Red XIII- An experiment who is basically a Lion
Cid- An ace pilot
Cait Sith- A magic kitten and giant moogle that summon magic though a microphone
Sephiroth- An ambitious swordsman boss from an oppressed race.
All of these characters have amazing backstories that are tragic at the same time
GAMEPLAY
The Gameplay in FF7 is good but frustrating and outdated at the same time. You see we are dealing with the first fully 3D JRPG and with that there are some flaws to be expected.
Let’s start with the good.
You have this big open world to explore and many dungeons and towns. Each town is unique and kind.
Your party will get several weapons and Materia also magic to fight off beasts. You will feel powerful much later in the game. A little too powerful but creatures are more fierce in some areas more than others. Look I don’t play JRPGs for long periods of time but this game makes me feel like a God in what I can do.
Speaking of Gods you can summon different deities from different religions like Odinism, Greek mythology, Satanism, Mayan beliefs, to eliminate enemies by margins.
You can get different levels of powers. Fire 1,2, and 3. Ice 1,2, and 3. You will feel accomplished.
The side quests are also fun.
The mini games are too die for. You can drive motorcycles, shoot hoops, and more.
Riding Cute Chocobos will help you dodge enemies but for some reason the horrible game designers decided that driving a car would be too much.
Stealth minigames can be cumbersome.
Random encounters ruin the flow of the game. I really HATE when I walk into a random location when I am trying to get somewhere and unwittingly attacked by monsters in a battle. This happens on pipes and scaffolding. I am not even fucking kidding you. There is no sense of immersion that this game breaks more than these random fights.
The camera is very annoying. It’s usually top down and very far away when it should be fixed in different perspectives.
Applying Bangles will make you you hold more materia slots.
The pacing of FF7 is very slow but sure. It won’t hold you until 10 hours in when you get into it.
Overall FF7 is a very good game. Buy it on PSN or Steam.
GRAPHICS
The graphics in FF7 are rather nice or where. I do enjoy these complex 3D CGI backgrounds but they look terrible on an LCD television set. There is a PS4 version but these need serious upscaling. Beyond that they have a nice atmospheric style as do the high budget cutscenes.
The art style looks great! Many locations have a Victorian air to them.
The worst thing about Final Fantasy 7’s aesthetic is the inconsistencies in models. In game the models look terrible. They are absolutely blocky and chibi sized. The animations of these characters are quite terrible too. They don’t even have any hands and just twitch around. It doesn’t fit that they do these very serious scenes and look like they belong in a 3D platformer.
On the other hand the models in the fight scene look GREAT. They are these highly detailed untextured polygons with PROPER proportions. As does all the enemies. It made me wonder why they spent all that money just too look like 1992 garbage? Come on the PS1 isn’t that weak. And in the following 2 years we got FF8 which had good looking models.
There are many dazzling charming locations like Gold Saucer.
SOUND
FF7 has great sound. Some very memorable music. Though some SFX are very cartoony anime sounding. But there are a lot that are good sounding to.
I do love all the fitting songs. There is no voice acting it’s all text boxes and leaves it up to you imagination.
OVERALL
FF7 is an awkward transition between what was acceptable in the 4th generation to the 5th generation of gaming. Choosing what’s old and what’s new and keeping them both. It’s ambitious as ever. FF7 is still worth playing and will make you feel like a God half way though the discs. If you are dissapointed. Choose FF9. It’s way better.
