The game known to many as “The One”. The game which countless fanboys would die for, whilst countless anti-fanboys would die trying to destroy. Today, faithful readers, we trek on a land remembered and cherished for thirteen years. The game which defined the RPG genre, if not the PS1 era. We shall poke the soft underbelly of Red XIII in order to see if Final Fantasy VII is truly the great game so many of us remember today.
Final Fantasy VII (PS1)
Developer: Square
Publisher: Sony
Released: September 3, 1997
When starting this game up for the first time, assuming you have bastardized the previous 13 years of your existence, there is the slightest feeling of a job well done. As if, upon pushing the New Game button, you have fulfilled the dying wish of your dad…or something.
Ok, let’s start over.
When starting this game up for the first time, Final Fantasy VII does a great job in making one not only interested in the immediate surroundings and the characters involved, but also in giving off a sense of familiarity. The presentation of this game, at both the time of release and now, still has that feeling of awe. Maybe it’s from hearing people boast about their triumphs in the game for thirteen years, or maybe it’s because you know that you are about to begin an epic adventure which will completely rock your world.
Whatever that feeling may be, upon starting this game up you are in for a treat. While graphics are definitely sub-par compared to today (And yes, I’m including the CGI cut scenes) I have trouble seeing any sufficient lack of gameplay, art direction, music, story, or things to do. Compared to some games, the dialogue IS lacking and the fighting MIGHT get a little repetitive. But frankly, those are the only two complaints anyone should have unless they are a graphics whore. Dialogue is occasionally a little too silly, or just plain awkward, giving off a feeling of pushed translations or the inability to efficiently portray character feelings through text.
If this game had voice acting, people would have probably hailed Final Fantasy X’s voice acting as the coming of Christ.
So these are the only problems that I found apparent during my play through. Let’s get on with the good stuff!
First of all, for those who will think I might be some sort of biased fanboy, fear not! This was my first time playing through Final Fantasy VII past Midgar. Also, this was the first Final Fantasy I have ever beaten. Yes, I know. I am amazing.
Final Fantasy VII is a fairly simple game that is able to trick you into thinking it’s pretty complex. While many people today complain about how the most recent Final Fantasy’s are too straight forward, especially with XIII’s fairly linear paths and leveling system, what most fail to realize is that VII is just as straight forward. The mission layout in VII is always set up to lead you to another city, town or dungeon. The writers of the game were able to disguise this linearity by giving the world map to the player. This world map is not useful at all until the weapons show up, or you receive a gold Chocobo. But surprisingly enough, those who complain that XIII is too linear are in love with the “open world” of VII.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I love linear RPG’s and wish there were more of them. While open ended RPG’s are a great way to convey a character, setting, or story, linear ones are normally able to tell a better crafted, more thought out story usually involving better developed characters and setting. For example, when playing VII you are able to know, in depth, the histories of Cloud and your fellow teammates. In Oblivion, there is absolutely no back story to your character, and no real intent behind his actions. While VII can create more realistic dialogue between characters, Oblivion is stuck with one sided conversations. Make sense?
For those that bitch about how linear XIII is, go back and play VII and tell me you really had the opportunity to explore before you had a gold Chocobo.
Final Fantasy is able to do something many games are not able to do. It is that rare title which invokes anger, happiness, excitement, jealousy and puberty in the player. When people play this game, they are proud to say whether or not they beat Ruby, if they were able to get Omnislash in the Battle Arena, or if they even knew about the W-item trick. While Final Fantasy VII is definitely a linear game, it offers this rare feature which enables the player to make slightly game changing choices which others might not have done. Whether someone knows about the Knights of the Round summon, for instance, can completely change the outcome of a players game. In this sense the ability for minor items or skills, to completely change someones play through, is pretty impressive. While the story never changes no matter how many times you play it, and the characters always repeat the same lines, these little elements/materia/chocobos/limits, are able to arouse only the most sacred of body parts.
While we can all debate whether or not the story is all that good, whether the fighting is well thought out (which I know now it is after realizing all the combinations I can put my materia in), or if the main character is a bitch or not, what we can’t debate is that constant little pull that has left us wanting for 13 years. This little tug at your pant leg, which reminds you every time you turn on a console that Final Fantasy VII is still waiting to wet your whistle. This game, which offers no variation in gameplay or story, is still able to pull people in for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours just to get a Desert Rose which is not useful at all since you probably already have a Gold Chocobo at this point but you just wanted to tell your friends that you beat Ruby and became a man. Whether or not that was a run on sentence is not my problem, the problem lays in those anti-fanboys who are unable to grasp the simple, yet complex , idea of Final Fantasy VII. A game which not only offers a challenging, and engaging, play through, but a social status as well.
And for the record, I did beat Ruby and Emerald. I killed Sephiroth in basically two hits as well.
On to scoring…
For the lack of well written dialogue, mostly, throughout the game, there will be some points taken away. Although I mentioned how repetitive the fighting gets, I will refrain from retracting points for that since this is an RPG game and that’s basically how it goes.
Score: 93 out of 100
{ 25 comments… read them below or add one }
I liked this review a lot. You gave perfectly valid points to why people should appreciate this game. While I don’t agree about the linearity comment, I can see where you are coming from. Well done, Travis.
I actually just started a nostalgia run through the original Final Fantasy on the GBA and I must say that in doing so it’s even more clear how things have changed and remained the same in all of the final fantasy games. (With some obvious exceptions…) I can see things as more linear with 11 and 12 being obvious exceptions in the numerical titles (not including sequels or prequels.) We’re still the chosen ones starting out small saving the princess, then before we know it we’ve saved the world from the most impossible and ultimate destruction the developers can muster. A bridge is built and we slowly piece together the bigger puzzle town-by-town and random encounter and dungeon crawl ending in a boss battle. (Actually this makes me question the cliche: Why aren’t the bosses generally guarding the front of their cave with the treasure in the bottom level? They let you grind and come to them rather than unexpectedly crush you upon entering unprepared?)
Good and honest review. If we ever get that remake – it could be quite the masterpiece all over again because it is simple to come back to, especially when polished to today’s standards. We’ve also created such a universe solely around this game moreso than any other Final Fantasy (well, perhaps Brad was more immersed in FFT, can’t say I blame him!) We have so much backstory and personality, a movie, etc… Endless devotion from fans wanting more out of the jaggy pixelated characters drove it into such a massive and immersive world which other Final Fantasy games (and most JRPGs in general) try to match. It set the bar and will remain in history for that reason.
Back then, I found the materia system complex and the world of FFVII was seemingly too open-ended. Never really liked having so many things to do/explore. In the end, I never finished the game. Your review made me want to play it once more and see it through.
I played about 20+ hours of FFVII. I think I stopped on the second disk around some pyramid looking thing where some clock “puzzle” was. Haven’t felt like getting back to it for some reason. I didn’t outright hate it or anything it just didn’t scratch my JRPG itch. I’ve never finished any FF game ever though so maybe it’s something in the whole series. I’ve played 30 hours of Persona 3 and still going strong so it obviously isn’t the genre.
Review seemed fine, score is a bit higher than I thought after reading the text.
PS: Gawd it’s hard to produce decent foreign language when you’ve just woke up :argh:
Leaving out giant portions in the review really.
“i don’ts getz multiples choices!!?!?!? BULL SHIT!! SCREW THIS L-I-N-E-A-R GAME!!”
That kind of junk really comes off like you’ve been playing to many of the BioWare games. (Pick any since they’re all the same…)
“Pick any since they’re all the same” This is a good example of the pot calling the kettle black. Bioware games have more variety than FF games, and this is no lie.
Also, I’m pretty sure he said he was fine with the game having more story for the cost of non-linearity. Don’t get all butthurt because someone from 4PP called your favorite game “not perfect”.
Dude look at his score and the way he described this game. He isn’t faulting it for linearity
Nice, travis, Kazuki here, i beat the game recently too, What did u beat septh with? KOTR?
actually, he didn’t even need KOTR. He just died in 2 hits. It was pretty silly.
While I still love the game a lot, I struggle to understand what makes people think that it totally eclipses 8, 9, 10 and 12 in terms of overall quality. Though the game is still great in it’s own right, it’s ended up developing a fanbase of morons who consider the game the undisputed greatest thing ever made and will happily flip the fuck out and anybody who doesn’t agree
It’s a shame really, I think that puts a lot of people off the game before they even try it.
This being my first ever RPG and Final Fantasy game i ever played i was only 8 when i played and beat this game. I am aware of its many flaws yet the games intense story and constant ability to make the player change emotions from happy to sad in a matter of a simple cutscene made it quite easy for me to overlook them, i also want to add that it was the first time i ever saw a video game actually have a story. So in short…BEST.FINAL.FANTASY.EVER.
I absolutely agree with the linearity comments. The only times I explored the world map, before getting the airship, was when I got lost. That was especially bad after leaving the Gold Saucer, I had absolutely no idea where to go, so I just explored anything I could find. >_>
I’ve been playing FFVII, and I like it a lot. FFX was my first Final Fantasy though, and I really like the combat system in it a lot more. I like to be strategic about how I attack and the bar at the side which shows when who will attack really made that easier. I also think the voice acting helped people get more interested in the story, even though the voice acting wasn’t the best in the world. But compared to VII, the story is nothing. But from what I have played, I honestly do think that FFVII is a bit overrated. Maybe I’m just not that far in the game yet, but everyone keeps telling me it’s the best game ever and I just don’t see that..
Travis.
I disagree with the linearity comparison. Why?
Aside from Midgar, which you revisit later in game, Final Fantasy VII gives you OPPORTUNITIES TO GO BACKWARDS. The world of FFVII may be linear in telling a story, but I’m not referring to the forced/scripted choices that you pick off a menu like Mass Effect. I’m referring to the freedom to explore at your own choosing, and not when prompted by the game via a menu selection.
Example 1. At any time after Junon, you can go back to Costa Del Sol, and I think even once you have the Dune Buggy, you can bring that back across the ocean to Junon area, and explore there? Like revisit Fort Condor to help the guys out there, or visit that dude who gives you Mythril in the cave North of Junon. You can just ride the cargo ship back to do this.
When you get the Tiny Bronco, you can explore even further! The world doesn’t have to be 100% open to explore as soon as you can “explore”. What made Final Fantasy VIIs world so much more open and large in scale was that as you progressed through the game, the area that became explorable opened up too. IE, you had the ability to visit Wutai if you so chose, but it was never ever forced upon you. In fact, you could completly be ignorant of it.
Acquiring a Gold Chocobo to explore even further is optional as well. Final Fantasy VII I would say has a great balance between freedom and linearity, as there are definitely linear sections of the game, pretty much half or most of Disc 2 is a linear rollercoaster, but never to the extent that Final Fantasy XIII took. No Final Fantasy ever was as severe as XIII was with linearity. Even Final Fantasy X which you spent the most of the your time on foot could be navigated backwards. You just had to walk the other way and you could revisit areas you had left. That doesn’t even work in XIII.
Example 2. At no point in time short of a guide or too much knowledge prior to playing would you know that Yuffie is acquirable by randomly seeing her in a battle in a forest at the Junon area. Same with Vincent in the Nibelheim mansion. You wouldn’t know he was a recruitable character without some knowledge beforehand. A person can have a very different playthrough experience just missing out on little details like final limit breaks and things, but even in Disc 1 of the game, you have access to ACQUIRE these if you so choose. You can choose not to fight Lost Number till Disc 3. IE, Red XIII and Aerith’s L4 Limits are acquirable in Disc 1, easily, rather than Disc 2 when you might start to look for the Limit Breaks of the other characters.
FFXIII says, “No. You do that after the game is over”. I recently tried to fight an Adamantoise in FFXIII to acquire some ore to upgrade Lightning’s Axis Blade weapon to it’s next form. Forget it. The game caps your levels so you have no chance of refining the next Axis Blade form until AFTER THE GAME ENDS.
To say that FFXIII is as linear as FFVII means you just played the game the way you were told. Next time I’d advise you play a game like this this off the feed, ignore chatters and others who are telling you to “go do this” and just play.
Like I said before in a comment I posted when you spoke of Strategy Guides. My experience with a guide was that it told me what I could do, what I should do, and I said, “Well, let’s see what else there is to do that you didn’t figure out.”, and I found plenty of it.
Also, my edition of the guide was first print. They didn’t teach you how to breed a Gold Chocobo. That was actually appended in a later revision by BradyGames.
He did play off the feed, dummy.
I think it is partially about who you are. You only explore if you leave the town and go “hmm I wonder what else I can do.” and not everyone does that. Especially with a strategy guide. Also, going backwards isn’t really exploring. But like another commenter said, he’s not taking off for linearity, so that doesn’t even matter when it comes to the review. What did you expect? a perfect score?
Also, on my first play through about 10 years ago, I had no idea who Yuffie and Vincent were and beat the game *or at least got to Sephiroth and never won* without them. You can imagine my surprise when I find out there were 2 more characters. I definitely had a very different experience with the game.
Oreo,
I have no issues with what Travis thinks of FFVII, I also feel his review is mostly spot on.
I do think however that the extent of linearity comparison to the horrible-ness of FFXIII… I kinda want to see Travis write a FFXIII review right after this so that he can compare both as he’d be fresh off each game.
Even pseudo-freedom is still a degree off freedom. A single line doesn’t offer much freedom.
Thank you for emphasizing that VII is actually pretty linear in terms of storyline. I just would like to point out that there’s two distinct problems people had with XIII in terms of linearity which may have caused a confusion as to what people didn’t like.
The first is the one that you’ve dealt with already. In both VII and XIII, you are always lead to the next destination (for the most part of the game anyways), and you have to go there to move on with the story.
The second problem, which bothered me way more than the first, was the “hallway” feeling of the paths. What I mean is for the first half of XIII, all you do was, basically, go straight. All occasional branches are almost always for treasure chests. I think what people wanted in XIII was the deceptive feeling of freedom which we had in VII, where there was more space for movement, branches and optional places to go to.
Recently playing through Final Fantasy 7, I can properly say that this review is spot on, the graphics do not harm the game, the weird dialogue does not hurt the game, but the sense of shit to do later on, makes up for every single fault in this game, and there is a TON of shit to do in this game, besides the main story, Sephiroth and Cloud’s emo self.
very nice
FF7 is probably one of the J-rpgs that I loved back in the day. The thing I didn’t like about FF7 is the die-hard uber fans of that series. It bugs me when a new Final Fantasy comes out, those die hard fans would complain that it’s “nothing like FF7, blah blah blah.” They want something that is similar to FF7, yet Square is always changing its approach in every Final Fantasy. I appreciate the differences in every Final Fantasy, since it’s usually a challenge to overcome them.
If there’s a FF7 HD for the PS3 (which might not happen) I just wish that there’s no voice acting, because it loses certain factors that you might miss if you didn’t play the original version. Plus, who gives a fuck about upgrading graphics? FF7′s graphics are still amazing regardless.
Never had the luck the play this game. But I’ll always have a soft spot for FF4
It’s great to see that someones actually writing a review for a game old as this.
Ive heard many people say “FFVII its so over rated and it wont hold up today”
and i was wondering why are people bashing this game so much…
So i did something what should have done long time ago.
I borrowed the game and played through it in 1 week… This happened about a month ago and let me tell you i enjoyed every single moment in that game.
As ashamed as i am it was the first Final Fantasy that ive played. Ever.
And after i beated VII i thought “wow that was amazing! But it’s kinda over… I Know lets buy XIII” And i bought it the next day… And after playing XII i respected VII even more.
Overall, very well written review!
I think people who are “fans” of a certain final fantasy game are really only super fans because that’s the first one they played. Look at the age of the person and see which FF is their favorite. I would say that honestly 80% of the people who said “this is best,” well, it was really just the first one they played and it was just soooo good that the other ones don’t hold up. they were more or less the same game, so the first one was better. I say replay them all and then pick which one you like the most. If it’s, “I still like 10 the most” or, “I still like 7 the most,” then good for you.
Fanboys aside, nice review and I’m proud of you for beating a Final Fantasy. Finally.
I played 8 first and played 7, 9 and 10 afterward. . . still like 8 the most even though everyone says it’s the shittiest. Most of the reason is probably nostalgia. The other reason is how damn easy it is to kill shit when I struggled with the materia system, and I like that. But now that I’m not 10 years old, maybe I could play them all and get a better perspective on each. I think writing a review yourself can make you more likely to see openly which one is more fun, better characters, stronger story, more of an open world, etc.
But honestly, who cares? It’s FF and it’s always going to be an intriguing world, even if it is 13′s shit. I ride along for the stories.
“For those that bitch about how linear XIII is, go back and play VII and tell me you really had the opportunity to explore before you had a gold Chocobo.”
^ I cannot help but feel you’re missing the point with the FF 13 complaints.
1. “Level-building” is locked until post-game.
2. Backtracking is limited to CH. 11.
3. Few NPC to talk to or towns to visit limit the variety of things to do/see.
4. Copy/Paste monsters abound.
“Whether or not that was a run on sentence is not my problem, the problem lays in those anti-fanboys who are unable to grasp the simple, yet complex , idea of Final Fantasy VII.”
^ Seriously, this made me laugh. If people dismiss FF 7 it’s usually because of the fanboys(girls) who are obsessed with the game and will lambaste anyone who doesn’t share their view 100%. Way to being someone over to your side, right?
From what I’ve seen, many FF 7 fans have problems with communication and will whine, scream, and curse out people whose favorite FF ends with a roman numeral or word outside of 7. It’s a freaking video game with fake characters. I don’t understand why people go crazy over such things.