Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

40 to 100 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Instant classic"

Don't get me wrong, I love Final Fantasy, especially Final Fantasy 7. This story is impossible to get over, and you will force your children to play it, even after virtual reality comes out.
Here's my score breakdown.

Story [10/10]
Playability [6/10]
Graphics [7/10]
Replayability [7/10]

Story:
I think it says it by itself. Final Fantasy 7. It was, and still is, their best story.
For those of you who haven't played this game... (who?) I can give you this as a review. This is one of the few games that combine solid RPG story progression with standard characters, and a psychotic backstory that leaves you guessing at each turn. Combine that with the most evil villain (jenova) of all time, and most wicked arch nemesis (Sephiroth), and you're looking at one heck of a story. The characters (except for barret) are all quite 3 dimensional and ascend beyond stereotype, even after we've seen so many copies made of these characters over the last decade, they still aren't cliche.

Playability:
If Final Fantasy 7 (PC) has a weak point (it does), this is it. The game before you inevitably mod it, is 640*480 at max resolution, making things cluttered and gross on your screen. The controls are set on the numpad, and will have you searching for keys occasionally. Plus, if you have an old keyboard (I don't!) you may find certain key combo's cause your computer to beep annoyingly. This doesn't break the game, but it can lessen the story's impact, if you have to work hard to get to the story.
Also, playing on a laptop is impossible before modding.

Graphics:
Ah, the age old debate of story versus graphics... (How long is an age?) This is what many people say is the worst part of this game. I say, look at it as a game from 1998. Ten years ago. Every 13 months, we've doubled our computing power. This game was made with 8-bit textures, and 40 poly characters. Yes, it looks gross when compared to mass effect. (Doesn't everything?) But the story is more important than what you see. (I wish it was a book!) Plus, with new mods for the pc game, you can get the resolution into 1280*960, with new high res and retextured models. These don't make the graphics awesome, but they are decent enough to play with.
Here is the url for the mods:
http://fem1.uniag.sk/Miroslav.Jezik/ff7ncopam.html
and this is the url for the mod forum:
http://forums.qhimm.com/

Replayability:
I wanted to replay this game, after seeing the movie, just to recap the story. It was ok. The midgar portion makes me sad though. It's just long, and you don't want to play it twice. After that, things get better. It's ok to go through more than once, but if you're a 100% kinda guy (like me) then you really have no reason to.


All in all, the PC has some shortcomings from the ps1 version, but the mods make it all the better. Totally recommended for playing, again!
Overall
[8/10]

-Hollis