Final Fantasy VII Review Playstation (may contain spoilers)
Final Fantasy VII Review
After listening to Final Fantasy XIII's demo soundtrack I started looking more into other Final Fantasy music, hence I've been getting really into Final Fantasy these past weeks. I've had Final Fantasy VII on my PSN for a little while now and I just never started it. . So I figured I'd give it a go. Now, most of you know the humungous life altering game that is Final Fantasy VII. Within this review, all you "FFVII lovers" will probably hate what I'm going to say. But I don't really care because I'm gonna say it anyways because it deserves to be said. Also people who think Final Fantasy VII is terrible and havn't played it just because of all the hype that is around this game will come to learn its not that bad, but not life altering.
Gameplay:
I figure I'd start out with the part of the game ull be experiencing the most, the gameplay. Of course Square takes full advantage of the active battle system here and its actually pretty nice most of the time. There are some parts where your wondering how the enemy did 3 attacks in a row.....but its nothing too major and you'll become a pro within the first 20 battles. There are some gripes about the attack button positions and the item positions. If you don't want to go and customize your items, then you're not going to beat some of the ending bosses. As an active battle system you always have to predict your enemies moves and always be thinking one step ahead of what your current plan of action is, whether its meleeing an enemy or using a summon, you always have to keep your eyes open for quick 1-2 second changes in your attacks. Again, customization is the key, although once you've gained over 30-40 items its a real pain in the ass to realize u have no tents or hi potions and once you buy them, scrolling down to the end of your items and all the way up is pretty time consuming. But in the end its very much worth it
One other problem I see which isn't too major is the summon times. Most normal summons take about 20-25 seconds. But there is one summon later in the game that you'll need to sit and watch almost 2 minutes for one attack, and don't think this boss uses it once, no no no it uses it constantly and its quite a pain to sit and watch when you've seen it about 15 times already. Other than those problems, the interface is nice and fluent, easily grasping to your own options. Limit Breaks are quite helpful if your defeating a boss, but unless your gonna plan on grinding, don't look forward to your main party having all 4 sets of limit breaks by the end. I went through the game without grinding and got one characters final limit break and the others were on set 3. Now if you WANT to grind then thats a big difference, but I'm not a huge fan of grinding.
Other things that add a little fun to the game to keep you away from the main storyline are little minigames you can play at The Golden Saucer. Snowboarding, Motorcycle fighting, Chocobo riding. theres a whole lot more if you've got the gil. Also I'd like to point out that there are moments in the game that give you certain things to do outside of the main story. Theres a whole lot of sidequests also. A couple summons are side-quests that I advise getting just because they help out a LOT. and then there are some that give your characters better weapons which I also advice since the better the weapons, the better your attacks are gonna be obviously.
Story:
This is the Cou de' gra (correct spelling and usage????) of Final Fantasy VII. The story is what drove me to complete this game, although some things I already knew what happened because nobody can keep there mouth shut about spoilers........But still its quite enjoyable to see some of the cutscenes and see how they play out. In a nutshell the main story is you play as Cloud Strife, a mercenary looking to find out about his past, and once upon joining AVALANCHE he does so. Cloud takes a job to help AVALANCHE destroy one of the Mako Reactors built by Shin-Ra Corp. Shinra is a big corporation in Midgar that was originally a weapons manufacturer, but once realizing Mako can be used as a power source, they began sucking it from the planet. And with doing so, They are slowly Draining the Lifestream, a stream in the middle of the planet that is the source of all life. AVALANCHE seeks to destroy Shinra to save the planet.
But things happen, and twists and turns follow every corner. Theres one part though that I'm deeply deeply DEEPLY dissapointed in. This is a spoiler so don't read if you don't want to know. Aeris dies..........and her death scene is one of the worst I've EVER seen in any game. not THE worst, but I think its pretty bad. if I could describe that scene with as many words as possible all I can say is..........She dies...........and thats it..............no dialogue................no "OH NO CLOUD"............no "YOU CAN SAVE THE PLANET CLOUD"..............................just.......... .................she.........dies...........and I rage.............just kidding I didn't rage, I just felt awkward. Yeah sure, some people say its dramatic that nothing else happens, but that makes it kinda dull for me. if someone important dies, I dont want to just see them die and thats it.........I've seen 500 enemies die like that and I'm not crying for them. But anyways END OF SPOILER.
All I can say is this is a great story and if you enjoy it, I highly suggest watching Advent Children since it also explains a little bit more detail into what happens next.
Music/Sound:
Musically, this is one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard for an old first generation console. Nobuo Uematsu really did a great job on the soundtrack to this game. I personally love the boss battle music for bringing something that makes you feel like your gonna win without even starting the battle. Also Aeriths theme is just gorgeously played. Other great tracks are the theme of Cosmo Canyon, great sounds and choice of instrument, One-Winged Angel, just an awesome villain theme, the Beginning song/Main theme of the game is just great to listen to. I don't really know how much detail I can get because you really have to experience this music for yourself to understand. But just know that Final Fantasy VII has great music and great sound effects.
Graphics:
J ust some quick stuff to say, I really don't like talking about how it looks since its kind of an old game, but amazing for its time nonetheless. The CG Cutscenes are awesome and
Overall:
Gameplay: 8.7
Story: 9.2
Music: 9.5
Graphics: 8.6
Overall Score: (I'd piss off everyone by putting 8.9) so I'm putting 9.0 because of the fact that Square has been rediculous on sequels and prequels and movies for this game.
Comments: Thanks for reading, I'm happy for making another Review and I do suggest playing this game. Its not the Best game ever, but its still pretty good. I plan on playing through more Final Fantasy games soon so look out for reviews on them in the near but not TOO near future.
Oh, I'd also like to note that this is $9.99 on the PSN in case you didn't know. And available on the Xbox 360 December 32nd, 2000-Never............ENJOY.
