This game is great in all areas, epsecially in music, story and gameplay. Do yourself a favour and buy this classic now!

User Rating: 9.6 | Final Fantasy VII PS
By nirvanaphoenix | Review Date:
It's been almost ten years since Final Fantasy VII was first released for the PlayStation. It was the first 3D Final Fanatsy and was groundbreaking in so many ways. This title still holds up today and many sequel and spin-off continue to tell the deep, detailed story of Cloud and his friends. One of the things Final Fantasy VII is most famous for is its story. The story is confusing and is a lot to take in, but the game spans 3 Discs and the story is explained at a great pace, never overloading you with information and will have you on the edge of your seat more than once. The story's pacing is so good that you will have absorbed one piece of the story before you fidn the next big event. You meet many interesting characters (some are interesting in a bad way, eg. Mukki.....) and go to lots of very different towns and citites, each with their own tale to tell. Final Fantasy VII is the series' first graphical leap to 3D. This is quite an accomplishment and in the day the graphics were the dogs danglies in CGI cutscenes and battles. The character models follow the super-deformed style of FF games past and characters have two dots for eyes, sometime a mouth and squares replacing hands. On the field the character models aren't all that great, even for then. The fact characters may not have a mouth and no hand graphics were a bit of a letdown. In battle and cutscenes the graphics were immensly improved and were top notch for the day. The pre-rendered backgrounds are superb and can't be faulted, plus exits are clearly marked by the "Here" Icon and arrows. The sounds is gorgeous. I cannot fault this game's musical score at all. Nobou Uematsu's compositions are amazing. Every song fits the scene and is blended in beautifully. Battle themes like the Boss Battle, One Wiged Angel and JENOVA are pure brilliance, while somber music such as Aerith's Theme and amazing pieces. You'll find yourself humming to the songs and will have your favorites no doubt, the music is that good. Even the sound effects are pretty good. So, the music for Final Fantasy VII gets a perfect 10.

The gameplay is still the turn based battle system where you stand around patiently until the monster decides what to use. Okay, it's more of an Active Time Battle but not like Final Fantasy X-2's ATB system. Your time gauge fills up and then you pick on of your moves and then you launch it. If an enemy picks a move before you do, the enemy will execute theirs first. Its pretty simple, yet things like Poison and Haste shake things up. The best thing about the battle system is the Materia system. You find or buy Materia, give it to a character and the character can use the move (or moves that come with it). Depending on your weapon or armour, you can either have lots of Materia slots to put Materia in, or a few. Materia slots can also be linked allowing for devasting or protecting combinations. These are fun to figure out and some combos are supremly useful. Materia also grows by gaining AP in battle and by putting it on a Double or Triple or Zero growth weapon, your magic spheres will grow faster, slower or not at all. Its simple but utter genius, my hats of Square for that. Another great thing about the Gameplay is the minigames. They are a great diversion from the main game, add loads of replay value and the controls for them are just like a proper game of that genre, like the motorbike game, for example. There are loads of minigames, thrown into the story and later playable at the Gold Saucer. The best minigame is Chocobo Racing and Breeding. This is a very detailed sidequest which I won't cover here except that it involves racing, breeding and yields a very powerful Summon at the end.

There is so much to see, do and interact with in Final Fantasy VII, its perfect in almost everyway and is one of the best RPGs and Final Fantasy titles out there (along with Final Fantasy IX). You'll laugh, cry and be frustrated because of challenging bosses. There is loads to do like maxing out Materia, getting Summons and weapons and the enviroments are gorgeous. This is one game you want to get and if you've got it then it's one you you definatly want to complete. Any RPG, Final Fantasy or gaming fan needs Final Fantasy VII in their collection.

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