I think everyone remembers their first time playing Final Fantasy VII, it is an iconic moment in any gamers’ life. As for me I was nine years old and was at my father’s apartment. It was so cold that going outside couldn’t have been feasible without the fear of frostbite; so I sat myself down to look through a small CD tower that he had. There was Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot and even Resident Evil, but I was drawn to the thick three-disc case with a man and a huge sword and with a shrug, I unknowingly thrust myself into the world of Final Fantasy VII and didn’t want to leave anytime soon.

With ports ranging from Mobile devices to the current generation of consoles, it was only a matter of time before Final Fantasy VII made its way over to Nintendo’s hybrid console. Due to the Switch’s portability, it is probably the best way to play this classic Squaresoft (Square Enix) RPG.

Final Fantasy VII at its core has a pretty straight forward narrative. You play as Cloud an ex-Shinra soldier turned mercenary. He teams up with AVALANCHE, an eco-terrorist group hellbent on destroying Shinra and its Mako reactors; which absorb the life force of the planet. Final Fantasy VII may be nearing 22 years old but it still dives into themes like global warming, animal experimentation, and government corruption that are all pretty relevant in the modern-day.

As is the normal Final Fantasy fare, you will be grinding to gain experience points to level up characters and abilities, fighting in turn-based battles, roaming a large world map that is full of powerful super bosses, opening chests and completing side quests. Now this all may sound quite par for the course for RPG’s at this point, so what is the secret that makes Final Fantasy VII not only one of the greatest RPG’s but one of the greatest games of all time?

Final Fantasy VII has one of the greatest core mechanics I have seen in an RPG; and that is its’ Materia system. Materia is Final Fantasy VII’s form of magic that you will equip into character’s weapon and armor slots. Depending on the materia you could raise one stat like health or defense but at the cost of lowering another stat. My favorite part of materia is how customizable it is. You can decide who can be your mage of the group and who will be the all-out muscle; this is extremely important with battle strategies as your team only consists of three party members. The more you use a spell or materia the stronger it becomes, so you always feel like you are progressing and becoming stronger with each fight.

Along with the iconic materia system, Final Fantasy VII also introduced us to limit breaks.  Limit breaks are characters’ ultimate ability that charges up the more damage your party takes. Each character has a few different limit breaks. For example, Aerith can heal the whole party and cure states ailments, Cloud can inflict heavy damage dealing sword attacks, and Barret can shoot a blast from his gun that drains enemies MP. The limit break system allows for the tides of battle to be turned if you’re in a little bit of a bind and in need of that extra little bit of help.

Final Fantasy VII also includes a strong narrative and a cast of 7 core party members (two of which are missable) as well as a menagerie of characters who at first don’t trust one another and all err on the side of caution. Throughout the course of the story all of them come closer together to create a very ragtag family that includes mercenaries, ninja, and even a vampire that all have their own backstories to dive into. This helps creates not only one of the most unique parties in Final Fantasy history but also in any RPG in general. Players will fall in love with each and every character, or at least I did.

Now since I have been a Final Fantasy VII fan for ages, I may have had some rose-tinted glasses but after nearly 22 years Final Fantasy VII still holds up graphically in some areas, but not so much in others. Final Fantasy VII made smart use of hand-drawn backgrounds that hold up beautifully, but its’ blocky in-game character models look awful when compared with the environment that they are put in. The battle models, on the other hand, do look quite good thanks to the HD port. Battles have a certain flair and charm even if some of the attack animations go on for way too long.

Final Fantasy has always had amazing music and Final Fantasy VII is no exception. Composer Nobu Uematsu created another iconic soundtrack that complements the game from its’ most poignant moments to its’ most dramatic battles and major story beats. Tracks like “One-Winged Angel” and “Aerith’s Theme” always make you feel the fear of the final boss or just sombre and thoughtful when you hear Aerith’s Theme play. When the soundtrack of a game gives you this much emotion it’s a sign of some amazingly well-crafted music.

Final Fantasy VII may suffer from poor in-game character models, a rough translation that makes some story beats a bit more convoluted then it needs to be and a few overly long battle animations (that can be sped up using the 3x cheat on the HD versions) but its strong cast of characters, fantastic world design, amazing soundtrack and an outright phenomenal level system are the secret that make Final Fantasy VII one of the greatest games of all time, that should be played by everyone.

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Final Fantasy VII

15.99 USD

9

Score

9.0/10

Pros

• Emotional Soundtrack
• Deep Characters
• Matiera System

Cons

• Poor story Translation at times