Great game, which has alot to offer trust me it does!! Best FF so far...
Story: The story of this game is about 21 year old Cloud Strife, who was an ex-member of Shinra's elite squad known as soldier, now Cloud has joined a rebel group called Avalanche. The leader is called Barret a man who lost his arm and has a machine gun replacing his missing hand (I can't tell you how he lost his arm because it will mess up part of the story.) Clouds first mission in Avalanche is to go blow up a mako reactor. That's when the he starts his adventure and you go through a whole bunch of awesome events. This game probably has the BEST storyline ever. I just hope they do a remake for the PS3.
Gameplay: The gameplay is awesome; it's cool, too cool. You walk around cool areas just like any other final fantasy (hold x to run.) Also when walking around random battle appears and you have to defeat an enemy, once you do you gain exp just like any other rpg. The fighting style is similar to the other final fantasies, attack, magic, etc. But there is a new system where you have to use materia. Materia are some orbs or balls of magic (made of mako.) Each materia has its own power, skill or magic. You have to equip materia to your weapon or armor and you will get the power of the materia you equipped to your weapon/armor. Each weapon and armor contain a number of slots were you can put materia on, you could also train your materia making it stronger and making you get new skills or magic. Also when you are in battle there is a small bar that goes up every time you attack or every time you receive damage. When the bar gets full you get a chance to do a special attack called limit break. There are 4 levels of limit break each one does something different; they take a huge amount of damage to the enemy some heal your opponents. Each character has different limit break attacks. There are a total of 9 characters in this final fantasy, each one with their own specialty. 2 of the characters are secret and one………….. You will have to find out by yourself if you play the game. Each character has different weapons and armors. Some characters are special for close range combat others are not. In this game there is also a whole bunch of cool challenging bosses and enemies. Also the views or towns you go to are spectacular. There are millions of secrets, sub-missions, side-areas, mini-games, tournaments, trust me there is a lot!!! It takes about 50 hrs to beat the game about 60 or over to complete everything. In my opinion FF7 is the BEST final fantasy of all time, so far.
Graphics: Great, even though we are in 2006 that game had great graphics for its time, trust me I have plenty of games from that time and the graphics were horrible. The cut scene movies or whatever you call them were great for its years. The battles have awesome effects, like when you do fire (not fire 1 that magic is crap when you train your fire materia it will turn to fire 2 than fire 3, once you get to fire 3 you will see it's awesome effects, this also goes for thunder, earth, etc.) Also the towns, places you go are like I said before, they are spectacular. The graphics overall are great.
Sound: I don't know what to say except the words great, awesome, perfect, and superb. This game has awesome music, probably the best music of any game out there, maybe. Even though there are no voice-overs the dialogue is fine, there is a few mistake throughout the game though. The sound effects are great too such as when you cast a spell. The music as well is perfect.
This game is awesome I really, really recommend you to buy it or at least borrow it from a friend and play it all the way through, because this game has a lot to offer trust me its great! In my opinion once again this is the best FINAL FANTASY of all!!! So far.
P.S. Any kid that says this game does not deserve a 9 or higher is pretty much dumb, no offense. I know its 2006, and there are games out there with way better graphics, but I reviewed its graphics like if I were in the time this game came out. I graded its graphics in the standards of 1997. Just to make it clear to some of the fools out there, no offense.