Recently Square Enix announced their 25th Anniversary celebration for one of the most iconic J-RPGs in the video game industry and no surprise is Final Fantasy VII. Seeing as it has been 25 years since the game's release it is time to have a have a look back at one of the most genres defining titles of all time, learn about it and see if the original game still holds up.
So Final Fantasy VII came out on the original PlayStation console back in 1997 and when it first came out it became one of the most influential & popular games that would then go on to help popularize J-RPGs for the entire world and most importantly the western gaming markets. It still manages to create a large fan base and it is still arguably one of the best games ever made, not just for the PSOne but for video gaming in general. It became a well-loved title for the PSOne for the FMV quality cutscenes which were incredible for the time, engaging characters, a really cool storyline and most importantly it had a really enjoyable battle system and gameplay. The old 2D Final Fantasy games were still good but they never approached the big mass crowd of mainstream gamers unlike what FFVII would achieve. It was also the first Final Fantasy game to be released outside of Nintendo consoles after Square took the risk and moved their next game to PlayStation breaking their relationship with Nintendo. It also took other risks including It managed to help bring the Final Fantasy series into a main stream audience which would then allow other games and also later instalments to follow in its footsteps when the series was in its infancy and that's why Final Fantasy VII would help further popularize the series overseas.
I can remember me and my brother being around an old friend's house and my brother being impressed at the game and would get it himself. We never got the game when I got the PlayStation console as a kid but my brother would later get it only that it took us about three copies till, we finally found a copy of the game that would work properly. That's right, we bought a copy of Final Fantasy VII used years later when we were older enough to play it and yes one of the disks was bad that our consoles couldn't read it so we took it back to get another copy. When I tried it, it would pass the intro sequence and after I got off the train and about to enter the hideout it would crash and every time, I reloaded the game it would crash when I was about to enter again so we took the disc back again. Eventually third time's the charm and we did get a fully working copy of Final Fantasy VII and we were happy afterwards.
The big thing that changed the series was that Final Fantasy VII's setting was like modern time technology but with science-fiction elements rather than the traditional medieval setting but would still have plenty of fantasy in there. The storyline followed the Ex-Solider turned Mercenary Cloud Strife who has a very oversized sword alongside a spiky hairstyle, he teams up with the AVALANCHE resistance against the Shinra Corporation who are an organisation that's draining the planet's energy with their Mako Reactors. It starts out with Cloud the gang fighting against the Shinra Corporation and then it breaks into more deep stuff involving a dying race known as the Cetra, Shinra's elite dogs called the Turks, Cloud's memories as Soldier and also Sephiroth the game's antagonist.
Fighting alongside Cloud were Barret, Tifa, Aerith (who was translated as Aeris which was a translation error), Red XIII, Cait Sith and also Yuffie and Vincent and many of them are actually memorable including the villain Sephiroth. They each had their own unique traits and personalities and the dialogue while rough and had errors considering the age of early Japanese video game translations not being perfected, the dialogue and writing is still pretty good. Some of my all-time favourite characters in the game are Cloud, Vincent, the Turks Reno & Rude and of course Sephiroth.
One of the aspects that the developers really put a lot of focus on is the presentation, now for a PSOne game considering the limitations of the console and also the technology that Square was really trying to pull off for the time was really cool and the CGI cinematic cutscenes were absolutely incredible. Seeing that this was the first Final Fantasy game in 3D they utilized 3D models and while they do look very blocky especially for the time, they did look a lot better in the battle sequences. Speaking of which I really do enjoy the battle sequences, especially the animations of watching the characters and enemies attack and watching the camera pan in and out to give the battles a cool cinematic feel even if they do drag the fights out a bit.
The battles are somewhat turn-based but the game uses the Active Time Battle System where enemies can attack you at any given time as you are using the menus to give out commands to your party members telling them what to do. Thankfully the battle system is pretty easy to understand and the boss fights aren't too difficult save for the last few bosses and also optional challenges at the end of the game. The Active Time Battle System did help make turn-based RPGs more active allowing to time when to attack and when not to attack and focus on healing up and it worked really well till the later games butchered and ruined it by having enemies take a million hits to kill and made it active for the sake of making it active. Yeah, I'm looking at you Final Fantasy XIII.
Also helping the battle system was the inclusion of the Materia system where characters can equip different types of Materia to grant different abilities like Magic Spells, Summons, Stealing Items and applying different attributes like resistances to certain magical elements. It was a nice way of customizing your characters loadout and being able to make them into a playstyle of your liking.
Characters also had limit breaks where when full they can use a powerful special attack to deal massive damage, new limit breaks can be learned by either taking down a number of enemies and also using the other ones a couple of times. Some of the most powerful ones like my personal favourite the Omnislash require completing a certain point in the story and doing different sidequests like clearing the Arena and getting a required number of points without stopping. Many of them are great and are fun to use while Cait Sith has to have one of the worst limit breaks in the entire game where he has a slot machine that produces random effects and one of them having a chance that it will kill you.
Speaking of Cait Sith two of my most hated characters in the game are Cait Sith for having the most worthless limit breaks in the game, his materia loadout including that Manipulation materia being absolutely worthless and lastly Yuffie with her constant obsession with materia and wanting them all to herself. There is even a sidequest where she steals your materia (unless you still have Aerith in the party at that point where Yuffie will only steal a few from you) and you have to chase after her. After completing all her sidequests I would usually punish Yuffie by deliberately ordering my other allies to attack and kill her before throwing her off the party.
The game is fairly well paced, you do spend 3 hours or so in the beginning inside Midgar until finally you then go into the overworld map. You get a balanced amount of story and combat sequences with also plenty of towns and other dungeons to explore, you have shops where you can buy all kinds of new gear, items and materia with Gil which is your in-game currency. It's unlike the Final Fantasy VII Remake we would get 23 years later where Square Enix chose to remake the whole Midgar portion of the original storyline and made it a full game by stretching and padding it out. You do also get minigames in between as well with the most enjoyable one of all which is a fan favorite is the G-Bike where you try to protect the truck from damage from incoming enemies, you can even spend time at the Gold Saucer where you enjoy a couple of minigames to take a break from your adventure including the aforementioned battle arena.
The original Final Fantasy VII game had plenty of enjoyable moments I can remember such as the boss fight against the Guard Scorpion where it did introduce the how the Active Battle System actually worked even if the translation during that fight was a mess. I can also remember the moment where we went into complete sadness when Sephiroth emerged and executed Aerith and we were fighting one of Jenova's cells whilst her theme was playing in the background which is then followed by Cloud placing Aerith's dead body into the oceans of the Forgotten City. I couldn't concentrate on the fight because of what happened with Aerith. After getting into a fair relationship with her, using her a party healer she would be a fantastic party member to have and it is ruined by that very moment which no doubt left many, many players upset and in tears. Because after all that build up you wouldn't they could just kill her off but they did and it then would become one of the most discussed moments in the entire game. I can also remember the moment where you finally learn of Cloud's true identity during his past involving a character named Zack. Lastly and most importantly and what I will never forget is the final showdown with Sephiroth in his final form with that iconic One-Winged Angel theme beating in the background and it was just incredible for me.
I enjoy the soundtrack of the game from the Final Fantasy prelude theme, the main battle theme is Those Who Fight and also the boss track Those Who Fight Further. I also really like the JENOVA boss battle theme and it is really incredible to listen to but obviously the One-Winged Angel theme is where it hits the fan. It's the kind of theme where you know that the big-bad has come and is going to give you despair. Those beats combined with the chants of the villain's name really made for an awesome and memorable theme.
Just when I thought I had beaten the final boss there is one more sequence where Cloud goes one on one with Sephiroth and as much as the sequence tries to be so epic it is massively underwhelming. This is mainly because Sephiroth takes one hit during that sequence before he's done and you don't even need to do anything to actually win the fight because Cloud counter attacks automatically and the limit break is instantly full for you to use Omnislash and win with no real effort.
Regardless though the game ended, the lifestream from the white materia prevents complete destruction of the planet and everybody gets out safe and sound. Final Fantasy VII despite the blocky graphics and the somewhat messy translation in some areas it is still one of the franchises' best entries and it still manages to hold itself well as a retro old school game. It helped shape the PlayStation as a platform for timeless RPGs that would later follow in it's footsteps and also would help inspire many developers to create deep and more compiling storylines.
Now the best way to experience Final Fantasy VII in all its glory is the original PlayStation version with the actual disc and console, either the original PSOne console, PS2 or PS3 with the option of getting it digitally from the PlayStation Store. There was later a PC version in 1998 but while I heard it fixes the translation errors the PC port is terrible for the lowered down quality and resolution of the graphics compared to the PSOne original and also it would use midi sound remix which sounds really terrible, it would be even worse on the version they released for Steam. The original game did also make it to the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and also the Nintendo Switch and iOS/Android devices and while the quality of the game is upscaled to 1080p resolution does keep the translation errors and also would add a turbo speed function for fast grinding and turning off encounters at any time. The version would however add an easy to access cheats menu with a press of a button that enables invisibility and instant limit breaks which honestly is stupid to include and just ruins the fun factor of the game.
The storyline of Final Fantasy VII would continue on and also get expanded in other media as well as a couple of other games. Firstly, there was Final Fantasy VII Advent Children which although better than Final Fantasy The Spirits Within it was mostly nonsensical with a lot of stupid plot devices. Mostly it involves the essence of Sephiroth and the geo-stigma but the final battle with Sephiroth at the end of the movie was not short of excellence and it had arguably one of the best remixes of One Winged Angel ever. Some of the other fights were cool and it is nice to see everyone from the game making a return including the Turks Reno & Rude but nearly the whole movie's storyline just didn't make all that much sense and it was the Sephiroth fight at the end was really what made the movie at least watchable and about the most redeemable aspect of it. There was a Final Fantasy VII animation called Last Order Final Fantasy VII which really wasn't all that interesting.
There was the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII that would have numerous different games expanding on the storyline of FFVII but the majority of them weren't really all that good. First was the unreleased outside of Japan mobile phone game Before Crisis Final Fantasy VII which expanded on the Lore of the Turks, we did get Dirge of Cerberus Final Fantasy VII on PS2 followed Vincent and it was a below average Third Person Shooter with a poor storyline that followed from Advent Children, weak gunplay and terrible new characters even with some improvements made before the English release. There was also Crisis Core Final Fantasy VII on PSP an Action RPG prequel that showed what really happened at the Nibelheim incident in the Final Fantasy VII story following Zack. There is also the ongoing Final Fantasy VII Remake which is rebuilding the entire original Final Fantasy VII game and storyline from the ground up with the exception that it will be in separate parts instead of a full game. We already have part one but announcements of part two on the way. Then there was Final Fantasy VII First Soldier which was an iOS/Android which was a Battle Royale game that tried to capitalize on the Fortnite Battle Royale money. Lastly is the upcoming Final Fantasy Ever Crisis which aims to bring together the entire storyline of Final Fantasy VII together from the original game, Crisis Core, Dirge of Cerberus and also the Before Crisis which will bring that storyline to the west for the first time.
Arguably though the best Final Fantasy VII experience we will all get is the original PSOne game. It still remains one of the best considering that it is still an enjoyable game and it is always good to go back to, especially with the overabundance of Action RPGs in today's market and people wanting some turn-based RPGs. Even the graphics and the translation may not have aged gracefully but the gameplay, the cinematics and the technology at the time still makes one of those kinds of games where people can look back at it and see what made it a masterpiece all those years ago.
Sometime soon I would like to make a list of games in the Final Fantasy VII Universe from worst to best and see how the games all stack up. If you have not played Final Fantasy VII before or it has been a long while now is the best time as ever to look back at where Square made their Final Fantasy games mainstream and check out one of the PSOne's masterpieces of all time.
Long Live Final Fantasy VII, Happy 25 Years.
Written by Anthony Hayball (AQWBlaZer91)
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