Final Fantasy VII released on Nintendo Switch and Xbox One

Final Fantasy VII retells its epic story on Switch and Xbox One

There are more than fifteen major Final Fantasy titles and innumerable spin-offs but the most famous one of all is probably Final Fantasy VII with its iconic characters that have seen more than one incarnation in other games. The first in the franchise to jump ship from Nintendo to Sony, FF7 is almost ironically making its way back home with the release of the game on the Nintendo Switch but is also setting foot for the first time on Microsoft’s Xbox One system.

It was almost a perfect mix of elements that led to Final Fantasy VII’s historic success. It was the first of the Final Fantasy games to use 3D computer graphics and full motion videos (FMVs) to accentuate its already gripping story. It switched from the regular fantasy theme of the first six games to a science fantasy one. Along with heavy marketing, the game and its characters have seen multiple incarnations over its 20-year career. All except, perhaps, for the photorealistic 3D remake that’s yet to come.

While biding its time, Square Enix is making the original game at least more accessible to a new generation of gamers who may have only heard about the game in pop culture and media. In 2015, it was launched on iOS, followed by Android the year later. And now it comes to two current gen consoles to spread the experience even further.

Thoe expecting more polygons on Cloud and Sephiroth will, of course, be disappointed. It’s pretty much the same original game that launched on the PlayStation but with some small added features. There’s a 3x speed mode that lets you breeze through the repetitive gameplay that JRPGs were notorious for. If that weren’t enough, though, you can even turn off enemy encounters, leaving only the necessary event battles. You might not gain enough experience to level up for those, though. Fortunately, there’s a Max Stats god mode for that too.

Final Fantasy VII costs $15.99 both on the Nintendo eShop and the Microsoft Store. As for the Remake, there’s still no hard date for that one, even for the first part of the multi-game release. Fans can only hope it won’t become a never-ending fantasy instead.

How many times has FF VII been re-released now?

Never played this, I'll get it sometime.

@Jag85:

Pffft! I can already play this on my ps vita and smartphone! Why would I want it a 4th time?

Neat, but I'll wait for the re4 bundle for next gen.

The news is that it's coming to Xbox and Nintendo consoles for the first time.

EDIT:

That, and the fact that it took 22 years for FFVII to finally release on a Nintendo console, after the N64 got snubbed.

C'mon gimme 8. Always the ones I'm not interested in.

Love this game. Played through it a few times when it first came out on the PlayStation. Will definitely get this on the Xbox One and play through it again.

Think I bought this game enough times already:)

It's a great game but I've played FFVII countless times before on other systems. I have other games I'm more interested in playing at the moment. Don't let the graphics stop you from playing this classic you guys. At the time, the CGI cutscenes were incredible and still holds charm to it in my opinion.

Played it back then. I'll probably buy a remake but not this release.

Exactly

Play it again.

For the first time.

They can't because Square was stupid enough to not make any backup copy of FFVIII, but it's not too late to tell SE to cancel VII remake and focus on FFVIII remake

Not a whole lot...

This is the same thing people said about Bethesda and Skyrim, but the winner of how many times you re-release a game is Capcom with Street Fighter II.

It just sucks that these are poor ports which continue to hold bugs from previous iterations. One of the most annoying was the lack of analogue movement in FF9... As it was only 8-direction like a d-pad, due to being a mobile port. At least a mod could fix it on PC and gave original PS1 movement controls.

I might buy it but I really wanted 8 :(

This is one of those turn-based anime games, right?

One of the very best game ever created! Of course I'll buy it again!

IMO, once you get past the boring parts at the beginning of the game, this game is the best in the FF series and my second favorite game ever made.

One of my favorite RPG games back in the day, finished it 2-3 times at least. I have no time to replay it though, and would prefer to leave it locked in my memories of the past....nice for the people who never played it, classic

Meh

I've given FFVII a chance too many times, can never get into it, though I wouldn't mind trying XII when that releases and maybe after a sale.

Like just the originanl? No remaster?

Honestly I've never really felt a need to deal with these since often I just played/have the original....

Backwards compatability used to be the way to deal with all this... wonder why they gave up...

They forgot to make a backup copy of FFVIII, because FFVIII sucks. Worst game in the series (almost tied with 13 and 15).

Square Enix is looking more like Capcom before things all went to shit for them. Seems short of desparate. They seem to be asking for a lot too, considering these are late arrivals on non-Playstation systems. The FFX/X-2 re-release is going for like $50, same with FFXII, fuuck that noise.

This will be the last Switch port I trust, ever.

Team Cherry and Hollow Knight have made me give the benefit of the doubt that publishers actually care about port quality on the Switch. Portable mode doesn’t use like 40% of the screen and an audio bug has been reintroduced that was patched YEARS ago (how do you even do that?). It’s bad enough to play this at sub par resolution, but on a tiny screen with an already fixed (but not) bug as well. And if I’m going to play it on the TV, there are far better alternatives to do so with better features, mods, and recent support.

I’m genuinely surprised this isn’t being charged $49 or $59 for. When a simple two man team can bring a beautiful, 60 FPS port to the Switch such as Hollow Knight yet a massive company like Square Enix can’t be bothered to do the bare minimum....yea, no more. Last mistake I make with this system.

FFS Square just give us FF8 on the PS4. I know Square have lost the code for it, but come on get a grip will ya!

If the FF8 source code has been lost, then Square could just release with emulation.

@MirkoS77: seems like you should be mad at SE for their crap, and not the Switch platform or ports in a general sense. You just listed any example of a great port

I am, I just don't know why Switch is such a target for poor ports. Publishers seem to take advantage of the portable aspect to excuse their laziness.

@MirkoS77: oh ok. Yeah give them an inch...

@xantufrog: you get it, see?

Yes, turn based and random enemy battles every 10 steps..Which is why i never got into these types of RPG's

Nah, they should just remake FF8

I'm so glad that it came out for the switch, i've been playing it non stop. I also have it for ps4, but for some reason, i rather play indie and JRPG on the switch. it just feels better in handheld mode.

Yes, please. Even given the many shortfalls, I still love the shit out of that game.

As well as make some improvements from the Junction System

The junction system was nice to just "power-level" the shit out of characters, but yeah, it was severely wonky.

Ok, I might buy it

@FinalFighters: Ugh, they’re not only boring - they’re stupid.

It's the 8-bit RPGs which had high random encounter rates like that. In comparison, the random encounter rate in FFVII is okay.

It's the Draw system that ruined FFVIII for me. They need to fix that shit.