Hello, I’m going to talk to you today about one of my most beloved PlayStation 1 games and the game that sparked my love of JRPGs Final Fantasy VII. Allow me to set the stage for this trip down Nostalgia Avenue; the year was 2001, George W. Bush had recently been elected President of The United States, the PlayStation 2 had just been released the preceding October and was awaiting the many top-tier titles it would eventually receive, and I had just celebrated my fifteenth birthday and my mother had just married my stepfather. Packing my PlayStation up and knowing I needed entertainment my grandmother took me to Circuit City and told me to pick some games out to play. I saw all three PlayStation 1 Final Fantasy games and quickly grabbed them and was astounded that she bought them ALL, Little did I know that that summer would change my life in ways I couldn’t have imagined.
The Game
I started with Final Fantasy VII (figuring I would go in order) and was IMMEDIATELY hooked. The blend of Science Fiction and Fantasy captivated me and I loved it so much that as soon as I beat the final boss I started a new save file and played it through again…three more times. This was my first true JRPG experience and I was on the Final Fantasy VII bandwagon. Everything about this game resonated with me: the music, the tones of industrialization vs. environmentalism to their extremes, all the different quirks and nuances the characters had, all of it hit me like a ton of bricks and opened my eyes to many new gaming and literature horizons. Now, with the slight preamble out of the way let me tell you all about Final Fantasy VII.
As the name says this is the seventh numbered entry in the venerated Final Fantasy series. At the time it was only the FOURTH Final Fantasy title we had gotten in the U.S. It’s also the first on the PlayStation, AND the first Final Fantasy to be in real 3-D, Final Fantasy VI used the SNES’ Mode 7 capabilities to simulate a 3-D world map but it wasn’t ACTUALLY 3-D. Being released in the 1990’s this was a BIG DEAL to gamers, and changed the JRPG genre from then on. Personally, I LOVE sprite-based artwork and hand-drawn backgrounds, but seeing Cloud, Barret, and Tifa in 3-D looked absolutely STUNNING at the time and added a new layer of immersion to battles.
The Story
The game follows Ex-SOLDIER turned mercenary Cloud Strife as he joins with the Environmentalist group AVALANCHE, who are dedicated to stopping the ruthless Shinra Corporation from utterly killing their planet. As the story progresses Cloud meets others who join him and a MUCH bigger mystery opens up.
Without delving into spoilers, I enjoy Final Fantasy VII’s story more than other Final Fantasy and Non-Final Fantasy games. It does a good job of advancing the storyline and raising the stakes without going so fast it seems forced but also, with a few exceptions, so slow that it feels tedious. The translation was NOT the best, even for 1997 standards. This is one reason I am GLAD that the FF7 remake trilogy is happening. We can finally get one cohesive narrative about Zack, Cloud, and the gang while taking care not to step on the toes of the original.
Magic and Limit Breaks
I, for one, like the materia system for the same reasons most people don’t: it makes every character effectively the same. However, I see that as a good thing as I always created my party based on the character’s actual traits and personality, and, depending on boss fights, the character’s special move or “Limit Break”. Limit Breaks are a special move that, once the character takes enough damage, can inflict massive damage to either a single enemy or a group of them. In FF VII the characters aside from personality, are blank slates. The materia system allows you to mix and match and make any character any particular role. Limit Breaks are basically a call-back to older Final Fantasy job classes. Cid, for example, is the Dragoon of the game and his limit Breaks typically tie into using his lance or his airship in some way.
While the system was technically introduced in Final Fantasy Vi with the Desperation Attacks, it was very much refined here and in Final Fantasy VIII as the Limit Break system. In VI when a hidden damage gauge reached a certain point your character would pull out their exclusive Desperation Attack but it was completely random and you never really knew when it was going to happen. I really like just having a gauge that when it’s full you can store up that big attack for later if you so choose.
Visuals
Being released on the CD-Rom-based Sony PlayStation Final Fantasy VII was able to do something that no other Final Fantasy game, or JRPGs in general, had been able to do: Use High Fidelity Audio and Crisp Graphics to convey VISUAL storytelling. When you were in the slums of Midgar, for example, you FELT LIKE you were in the slums and contrast that with the Hi-Tech and pristine “fortress” that was Shinra Headquarters and you get a very clear idea of what these two very different places are with a word ever being spoken.
Also, for the first time, you could visually see what the different equipped weapons looked like on characters with actual detail. Gone were the days of generic sprites representing all types of a weapon class and now when you equipped Cloud’s Ultima Weapon you truly felt like you had something powerful in your arsenal. One aspect of the series that was dramatically improved due to the use of CD-Roms was the look of Magic and Summons. Gone were the days of a small character sprite or pixelated fire to show that you had used a particular type of attack, now you immediately see what element of magic you were using or have a small-ish cutscene to show what summoning a monster to help you actually looked like.
Conclusion
In closing Final Fantasy VII is THE GAME that got me into JRPG’s and I will be forever grateful for it. Thankfully, you can find it on a wide variety of consoles, some with added enhancements that allow you to experience the story at a much easier pace than the original PS1 version would allow. While I agree Final Fantasy VII is hyped to the extreme and is held on more than one undue pedestal, I will also say it deserves the accolades it has as well. Since Final Fantasy IV on the SNES, each game has told a singular narrative some better than others, but VII was the first to do it with cinematic panache. It was akin to watching Titanic in theatres when it was released.
Final Fantasy VII was a visual story as much as a written one, benefitting both it AND the genre as a whole. It is a game I urge everyone to experience at least once as I doubt you will be disappointed in it. As I stated earlier Final Fantasy VII can be found on a variety of consoles and at a very reasonable price, you can also import a Switch cart with both Final Fantasy VII and VII for double your pleasure.
