[Minor spoilers included]

When I was younger, I never had the experience of playing through FF7. The only memory I had was never escaping the power plant explosion in the very beginning because I was very young and couldn't read English. But I remember playing that section over and over trying to beat it, although I never got to experience anything beyond that part I had a fond memory playing through that beginning over and over. As I got older, I went back to play all the classic Final Fantasy on the GameBoy Advanced and loved it. My favourite being 4 since I love character driven game and seeing Cecil develop was one of the best part of the game.

Recently, FF7 is now on steam and I finally get to play through that game and get past the beginning. I usually don't like older games because of the awful textures and the weird unexplained game play system. But playing through this game made me realize why people loved this game and continue to love it till even now. The way the environment is designed before the game play is one of the coolest thing that I haven't seen the new final fantasy do. The part where you have to climb the tall pole to get over to Shinra corp, you don't know what is decoration and what is an actual platform. The different perspective you have in every room is also amazing. When it zooms out all the way to show you the sense of scale, when it goes top-down view in Nibelheim mansion on the spiral stairway, or when you jump from building to building with Aeris show that FF7 can also use the camera to tell the story.

The story and the narrative of FF7 is also very well developed. Although I haven't finish the story yet, I love how much I play of it. It never goes into detail of what is Midgar nor what the upper-class regions of Midgar looks like but you feel like you are in Midgar as you play. The slum, the trains, the church it feel very human. Unlike FF13 where it looks all pretty and cool but very cold and alien, FF7 slightly tweaked the real world and added in some fantasy elements where it looks dirty and ugly but very human and inviting. The character Cloud is something that we can also relate to since Cloud has never been to a lot of these places we are dragged into so we feel like we are exploring Midgar with Cloud. The fact that Cloud is also someone who was dragged into this whole mess in the first place is something else we can relate with to him. Everyone has a objective and everyone has personality, unlike Lightning in FF13 who is an edgelord9000 every time she comes on screen, Cloud shows us he can be a goofy guy at times. Tifa, Barret, Aeris has different personality to him. Even Wedge, Biggs, and Jessie is characters you'll come to miss. Especially when Barrett breaks down after he survives the pillar destruction. Barrett is probably one of the driving force of the story and his two serious and goofy personality really made you want to follow him on his struggle to bring Shinra down. When I was playing this game, I cared more about Barrett and the struggles of the resistance than the survival of the planet. Although where I am at the Shinra seem to be a very weak villian storywise but I hope that changes with Sephiroth.

The gameplay feels very good since it is just the old Final Fantasy system but with a time meter. At first I thought Limit was a rare thing that only happens every blue moon, because it can be used often made the game play interesting. Since everyone has mana, it doesn't feel punishing to always use magic. In previous Final Fantasy there are character that has such a small mana bar that they could only cast 1-2 spell made casting magic punishing. This game made casting magic fun and with the Materia system I love how you can level them up too and customize who has which spells.

Overall, I can't believe how much I enjoyed playing this game since I never liked older games. It has really stood the test of time and have mechanics that trumps over even the newer games. I hope FF7 remake can offer as much as the original game did and I hope Final Fantasy as a whole franchise would learn more from this game. I enjoyed playing it and I will be playing more of it later.

Do you agree with my opinions and what did you like about FF7, leave me a comment so we can talk about this game more and I thank you guys for reading this.

I think FFVII is a great game. It gets a lot of flak these days (which is probably an effect of the insane amount of praise it used to get) but I think it stands as one of the greatest JRPGs of all time and I would have little trouble playing it again. The only issue I usually run into when playing old JRPGs is that he encounter rate is really high so the combat tends to get tedious.

I also think it should never be remade and that doing so is a mistake. Especially with Nomura and Kitase at the helm.

@yujinred: Judging from the content of your post, you're not very far into the game. Less than 20% complete I would say. The story goes places and the game has heart, but I wouldn't say it necessarily holds up. Not all of it anyway. There's some super weird story elements like oh hey our beloved party member and the last surviving Ancient just got turned into shish kebab by the main villain......eh, fuck it, let's go snowboarding. The characterization of Barrett being probably the most obvious thing wouldn't be ok today and probably only was acceptable at the time because Japan. There's a lot of sexist overtones to the dialog from Don Corneo's mansion and, um, "things" happening at the Honey Bee Inn to the way Cid treats Sherry (?) to the "who would you do" type dialog from the Turks talking about the female characters in the game. At the same time though, the story does some more interesting things than the trendy backlashers give it credit for. Cloud doesn't have amnesia, I'll just leave it at that since you haven't played it yet. His psychosis suggests something deeper and more interesting than the cliche of the lead character having amnesia.

I have plaed FF VII to completion after, oh I don't know, 16 years after I have played it on a PS1? And it was fun, so... yeah, it kinda does!

So I have talked a lot on this website about my experience with FFVII. I finished it for the first time this past summer and I really enjoyed the game. I think it was on the Beastcast that they explained it as probably the easiest JRPG battle system to get into, and I agree. There are a lot of gameplay changes in JRPGs but the combat in FFVI and FFVII probably have the most "standard" battle system.

I had a blast with the actual gameplay. But, as you pointed out, the story is incredibly flawed. I was surprised that there was almost no reaction to the death which is supposed to really set the plot in motion. Like, seriously. They have that quick funeral scene and she is almost never mentioned again by the characters. The end of the game felt rushed, and I was surprised at how short the game was.

Although, I do disagree with what you believe to be sexist. The Turk dialogue is just realistic in the way some people talk.

@hippie_genocide: The characterize of Barrett is lovable. I don't see how it could be offence, although capturing that goofy big guy in NOT anime form might be hard. I really hope they don't change how they portrait Barrett since he has this goofy and also serious side to him that made me love him. The sexist overtone is something that is in-universe though. It's never the intention of the creators to be sexist but more they use sexism to portrait the character Don Corneo. I feel like in the slum of Midgar, there are going to be obvious sexist and nasty people and without them it wouldn't be a slum. It's like the graffiti on the walls looks nasty and ugly but it makes you believe that you are actually in the slum (the worst part of the city). I mean without Don Corneo, there wouldn't be that Dick cutting scene that actually made me laugh out loud. The goofy anime comedy of this game is also why this story is infinitely better than FF13.

@yujinred: There are ways to portray characters as over the top or like a "goofy big guy" as you say without resorting to broken english and ebonics every sentence. That's either laziness or not understanding American culture.

@hippie_genocide: Barrett isn't American.

It's cool that you're enjoying all the big moments like I did. Like you bring up, they made a lot of parts to this game (screens, camera angles, set pieces even early on). It opens up even more later too. There are a bunch of minigames that I had fun with and just a lot to see. At the time it was mindblowing in scale.

I am excited for the reboot. I have thought of replaying VII and I think I would enjoy it but like @hassun I experience some tedium with older JRPG systems and battle frequency. But that's a taste thing. I like the approach that the VII Remake has shown so far.

@wlleiotl: you don't think the creators patterned him after an African American? Of course they did, c'mon now.

@hippie_genocide:I agree qith you on some of the story being handly a bit poorly, but I don't see the sexism at all. The example you named just seem like character traits/flaws. Cid is supposed to be a hard ass, foul mouth, bitter scientist that had his dream stolen from him. If Shera had been a male assistant, Cid would have treated him the same. Don Corneo is a cartoony pig headed love hotel/brothel owner. Need I say more about him? And that Turks conversation is a real ass conversation men might have about the woman they know, if left to their own devices. If men cant have a "Who would you do" conversation, I don't want to live in this country anymore.

@blackichigo: I don't want to seem down on FF7, its one of my favorite games of all time, and none of this stuff (not even the snowboarding) bothered me at the time. I agree with most of what you said, I don't think Cid would have told a male assistant to get in the $#&* kitchen and make my !#&* tea, though. It's whatever, if that stuff is in the Remake I'm not gonna care really. I honestly just wish that project wasn't happening, though. FF7 is best left to the era it came out in.

@hippie_genocide: I'm right there with you. I played FF7 last year. For a game that came out almost two decades ago, FF7 is still pretty good. I just don't get all the backlash/hate that game has gotten as of late. I'm not say you do.

I don't care all that much that the remake is being made. I was never one of those guys that held up that remake flag. It just seems like a fool's errand. I just don't know how well that thing will do. I feel in my gut, no matter how well made the remake is, is will not please people the way Square-Enix wants it to. It seems like the "cool guy" thing to do is hate anything Japanese recently. People are either so dismissive of them or try and find any reason to hate them. "Oh just another Japanese guy with spiky hair and a big sword. Is it a man or a woman? That woman has large breasts. SEXISM!!! That over the top black man, based on a over the top black man, is over the top. Racism. They made a joke about a main character who identifies as a male being uncomfortable dressing as a woman. Trans-phobia!!!

I feel no matter what they do, they will not please fans nor the people they are trying to bring in. I will probably still buy the game though..

@blackichigo: The internet seem to be divided over 2 different concepts atm. One of the complaining about sexism on women and racism in video games and the other one complaining about the feminist and the reverse-sexism. To be honest, I really hate going to a video game forum and see people talking about politics instead of the game itself. I want developers and designers to work on a game they want to make instead of constricting themselves to censorship and overt political correctness. TotalBiscuit talked about how the developers of Ubisoft was tricked by Kotaku into a talk about feminism in their video games instead of talking about the game itself and I feel this is really restricting of the creation of art. Video game is art and creators should be given the freedom to express anything they want to convey in their game and not be pressured to change for the sake of pleasing everyone.

Tbh the backlash/hate is over-shadowed by the love and adoration for the game. Look at every video game board, everyone is excited about this game finally coming out. The reason you probably think there is so much backlash is because how popular this game is. Sean Penn talked about how this over-sensitive in our society where he said that people criticize every inane thing because "if I criticize it I would have a lot of friends on twitter... for a minute." There are a lot of people looking for attention and many sites like Kotaku strive on making these idiotic claims to get viewership and attention.

Also Japanese game isn't that hated. Just listen to the 8-4 cast, they talk about how awesome Japanese games are. I think mainly Giantbomb doesn't have any affection towards Japanese video games that you are getting this overtly biased opinion about Japanese games. Also you are living in an English speaking country. In Japan, most gamers wouldn't care about Halo or Witcher same thing with Japanese games even if it is popular in Japan.

@socurtoxanarosa: This is bait.

Why is this a bait? The game has cringeworthy writing and cutscenes, gained it's fame because it was launched in a time when kids were discovering "rpgs".

Nah. Replayed through VII last year and as much as I liked it when I was a kid, that's a lame Final Fantasy.

@socurtoxanarosa: no disrespect here but; wouldn't kids always be discovering rpg's? It's not like FF7 was the only rpg at the time and more kids haven't been born and later discovering other rpg's.

Just popping in to say FF9 is better in every way and then heading out.

I played through the first disc upon release, then played the whole thing a dozen years later. And you know what? It was super fun and memorable. I had a damn good time with it, and in recent years it's hard to keep me engaged through a whole RPG.

I'm hoping they keep as much of the original tone intact as possible, but I'm curious about some of the problems people have been mentioning about that. Such as:

- What the hell's wrong with Barrett? Dude wanted to stay with his daughter but decided he needed to save the planet. He's a god damn hero that loves his friends. Is it the look and speech that people dislike? He's got more nuance and personality than Augustus Cole, that's for sure.

- As far as the Honey Bee Inn, aren't we supposed to be more comfortable with sexuality in 2015? There might be some dialogue or jokes that might not be high art and can change, but does that whole scenario really need to be swept under the rug? I dunno, maybe visiting brothels in The Witcher games made me think this wasn't a big deal.

That part of the game is completely fine. Hearing people talk about how they should change those things is just crazy. If prostitution/strip clubs/sex dungeons(?) makes someone so uncomfortable that they think no one should be allowed to portray it, then that person needs to work some shit out on their own.

Really? I think it looks rough, had terrible writing, god awful translation and one of the worst battle systems of any final fantasy game and the only reason it was held in such high regard was because of its scope of which we had never been seen before. A game full of ambition that dazzled us with its cutscenes and sheer scale.

FF9 on the other hand has aged incredibly well.

Actually, I think that when you remove FFVII from the context surrounding its release, it is a bad JRPG. The equipment system is woefully simplistic, the skill system generifies the entire cast and makes min/maxing the most braindead endeavor, combat is extremely basic and mindless, and while I have no problem with Cloud (unlike most FFVII detractors), the remainder of the cast is completely underdeveloped and forgettable. Even VIII had a better supporting cast and I haaaaaaaaate that game.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you like it, but lining it up against against the dozens of JRPGs I have played in my lifetime sets it squarely near the bottom. It's an unimaginably important and influential game that every one should respect from a historical standpoint, but no one should be playing it for any reasons outside of nostalgia.

To be completely honest, that makes it a fairly accessible RPG and why it hit such a big audience. When I originally played it, I never really played an RPG but was able to jump right in.

Look, I love my Valkyrie Profiles and Vagrant Stories, but the complexity your asking for is why a lot of JRPG's don't find a mainstream audience.

@csl316: Sure, I can see that. But in my mind, those are the things that give JRPGs their "JRPG-ness", which is what makes FFVII such a disappointment because it honestly feels like so much time and effort went into the graphics and asset generation that the absolute minimum of development time went into making the part of the game that's actually a game. Not every game has to be Xenoblade Chronicles X in complexity, but FFVII is sitting way far on the other end of the spectrum next to Mystic Quest.

FF8 is better than both of those.

@pyrodactyl: to be honest I never hear anything about 8 or 9. I only hear people talk about the original 6 and 7 then 10. 8 or 9 seemed to be only for a niche audience.

Girlfriend bought this on PS4 few days ago, and we sat down to play it...but man, I couldn't get to far. That game has aged super poorly in my opinion, in writing, look, game play systems, what have you. That parts we did play I played with the X3 speed modifier on, and it was the only way to make it bearable. Everything is so slow, from combat, to animations, to dialog...painfully slow. It still sounds amazing though. I think I'm gonna wait to play the remake, whatever the heck that thing ends up being.

So now we are playing the FFX remake. That was my favorite one but I played that a long, long time ago so I'm curious to see how my opinion changes. Already I am finding the dialog pretty wacky, more so then I remember. Auron is still a badass though.

This is like a month old but for what it's worth Barret doesn't talk like that at all in the Japanese version, he just talks normally like the other characters. It's something the translators added in, in general the FFVII translation is pretty poor. I'm hopeful that stuff will be excised completely from the remake because outside of shitty way all his dialog is phrased he's a pretty likable character.

I'm currently re-playing it on the vita. Its still as great as I remember it. It has the best characters (playable and NPC), soundtrack and story of any FF.Its got an insane amount of mini games in it that I completely forgot about.

There are some plot holes though, like how Shera ruins the launch cos she'll get burnt to a crisp where the oxygen tanks are. Hole #1 is why are the oxygen tanks situated where there's gonna be high temperatures surrounding it, and hole #2 is later in the game when the rocket launches they are in the same area and not getting burnt to a crisp.

One thing that really bothers me are the complaints about the translation. There are more or less 6-8 words/phrases that are either spelled incorrectly or exhibit poor grammar. There's a lot of dialog but 6-8 mistakes equals poor translation. Gimme a break. I think certain parts where characters are speaking phonetically is being mistaken as poor translation as there is a lot of that, especially in the beginning. Its almost like people have read this complaint on the internet and just gone with it because of that one screenshot showing "This guy are sick".

I'm happy to see an opinion like this so recently and not a jaded answer about this game. Things about it are plenty dated but it was a great RPG for its time and is still a good one.

Can't wait for the remake. It's so exciting to know this awesome story and characters is getting an updated version in a multiple game format

A lot of what people refer to when they talk about mistranslation is stuff like story important dialog being translated incorrectly, that you wouldn't know was translated wrong unless you'd played the Japanese version. An example off the top of my head is Elena accusing Cloud of killing Tseng, when the original dialogue just had her accusing him of beating him up. Mistranslating a character as having died when really they just got roughed up is pretty bad, and this led people to think Advent Children retconned his death when really it was just the English translation fucking something up.

There's also the guy in Costa Del Sol who in the English version says he was childhood friends with Cloud, but was actually calling him Tifa's friend. My understanding is that there's tons of errors like that all over the game where the translator either misinterpreted or just straight up mistranslated lines. The Guard Scorpion is another infamous example.

@TechnoSyndrome: It also falls for the classic Japanese -> English trap of having swearing that wasn't really in the Japanese version.