Final Fantasy VII(PSX)

**midgarmako** · 08-06-2006, 07:38 AM

The story to Final Fantasy is legendary, its a unique one with lots of plots and twists along the way, you play as Cloud Strife, a 21 year old mercenary who will do any kind of job to get gil(money), sound simple enough right? That's what Cloud thinks too but eventually he gets sucked into much more than just blowing up Reactors, he somehow someway gets the role of saving the planet and killing Sephiroth(the villain). There's much much more to the story but I wont give it away because I will be completely ruining the game.

The graphics used in Final Fantasy VII arent exactly "the best", the characters have weird shaped arms, there hands look almost square and very blocky as does the rest of there body. The CG Backgrounds are really nice to look at though as you go through the game. Sometimes there are items which stand out compared to the backgrounds and stuff as they seem a lot more colourful and make it easy to realise there's an item/chest to pick up and/or open which is always a good thing. The battle graphics are great, for example when Barret shoots an enemy, you can see the sparks and whatever comes from a gun hit them, another example is when Tifa punches and kicks her enemy, there head goes back a little giving the impression of her actually punching it, very nice. The FMV sequences are beautiful to watch, everything is so sharp and generally nice to view, the opening sequence with Aeris is amazing and set's the game off perfectly. Overall the graphics are great but there are some downsides but nothing bad.

Gameplay is stunning and is obviously the best thing in Final Fantasy VII, as you walk/run around you can interact with other characters, items, objects etc. The main gameplay element in FFVII is the battle system, you start off battle with your three characters and there is some information at the bottom of the screen displaying there HP, MP, Barrier Bar, Limit Break Bar and finally there name so you always know whats going on in the battle, there's also a bar which fills up eventually as your in the battle and when it is full you decide what to do, for example you can "attack", "magic", "item", "summon" etc depending on what Materia you have equipped, we'll talk about Materia in a while. If you choose "attack" you will perform a basic attack which deals some nice damage if you have a good weapon equipped, if you choose "magic" you will be taken to the magic selection menu and you can choose what spell you cast, spells vary from cure spells to extreme spells such as Ultima and Comet, selecting the "summon" command will again take you to a list of Summons instead of magic and you will be able to choose the summon you want out of the ones you have equipped. If you ever manage to obtain the "Knights of the Round" summon, then always use it on the tough enemies/bosses, its an extremely useful summon to have. Ok, now Materia, Materia is what contains your magic spells, summons etc, in order to use these spells and stuff you need to equip different Materia to your weapon or armor but there's a maximum of how many Materia you equip depending on what weapon or armor you have on, for example if you have a low damaging weapon you will only have a few Materia slots whereas if you have the best weapon on the game, you will have tons of Materia slots allowing more spells and summons, there is more to spells and summons, you can also equip Materia such as HP Plus which when equipped gives you more maximum HP, there is a Materia called Sense which when used on an enemy displays all of that enemies stats so you know what its weak against and how much HP its got and basic stuff like that. Thats all for the battle side of the gameplay, another cool part of the gameplay is a place named The Gold Saucer which you can go play in the arcades and stuff, you can play some nice little mini-games which makes the game a lot of fun sometimes when you just cant be bothered to battle, the best mini-game for me personally was the Chocobo Racing because you always get cool prizes and GP(GP is money you can only use at the Gold Saucer), some other mini-games are the Bike GP game, thats a nice little game which puts you on a Bike and must make sure the "bad guys" dont destroy the car your protecting, there's loads more games to try too. Overall, the gameplay is simply amazing, cant say anything bad about it.

The music involved with FFVII was composed by Nobuo Uematsu, the guy responsible for tons of famous video game music. A very famous song from FFVII is one named "One Winged Angel", its a gloomy sounding song but when it's played, it fits the scene(s) perfectly and the lyrics are very good. The battle music is also very great and memorable because it just makes you ready to fight some enemies. The music is stunning and very memorable and I guarantee after playing FFVII for about 10hours you will be singing the theme songs out loud without noticing. Thats always a good thing right?

A bit about the characters in Final Fantasy VII now, well as you know you play as Cloud Strife but to help him along his story is: Barret, Tifa, Aeris, Red XIII, Yuffie, Vincent, Cid, and Cait Sith. Each character has there own little background story and often interfeers with Cloud's journey but this makes the game more interesting and more in-depth.

Overall, Final Fantasy VII is in my eyes the best game in the world, if not that, its easily the best RPG game in the world. You may think im over-rating this game but I assure you im not, its a fact FFVII is an amazing unique game which no other RPG can do. If you dont own this game in your collection. BUY IT NOW!

-midgarmako-