2025-08-01

Final Fantasy VII

It’s been like 12 years since I played Final Fantasy VII to completion. I’ve tried replaying it since, but I would always stop a few hours in. So it was really nice to see all these scenes I had vaguely remembered, especially with a fresh adult perspective. I was thinking I would be more critical, but for once I don’t at all disagree with consensus, the game is fantastic. Even after playing a whole lot of other “better” JRPGs, there is no question that FF7 belongs near the top of GOAT lists. PS1 has a very interesting library: games from its first year have this immature grasp of 3D gameplay, then at some point around 1997 everyone starting figuring things out. FF7 kinda sits in this weird halfway point, they’re carrying over a lot of habits from 2D games while experimenting in 3D. The screenplay is written like characters are actors on a stage rather than belonging to a part of the environment. Which was never a bad paradigm, that’s just how 2D games worked, and it required some imagination to fill in the gaps.
The superdeformed map models are my best example, they’re like sprites but way easier to animate and scale around the screen. Prerendered backgrounds were nothing new, but using them for camera angles, or FMV transitions look really really nice. You’d expect these eye-catching tricks to mostly happen at the start and end, but it’s pretty evenly spread out, each arc of the story has at least one cool visual sequence. The story pacing is nice too. Everyone loves the in medias res intro, but it does slow down and open up, which I still enjoyed. The first disc takes its time establishing the plot and expanding the characters, and that’s where it’s easy to get bored and stop playing.

This could be the part where I say it has “aged”, but that criticism should be directed at the audience. You gotta be okay with bumbling around different villages and peeking into corners if you want to enjoy it without a guide. That’s why I’ll always be fine with people using guides, save states, or even cheats to some degree. It’s not the most “authentic” but I never really cared about authenticity, I just want the game to be good. So, peek at a guide, save scum minigames, grind with speedups if you really need to, use any opportunity to keep enjoying the game. Not like you really need that much help, FF7 is easy. I could always just kill bosses with raw damage, I only died when I was drastically unprepared. Juggling materia was way more fun than I remembered, it’s a lot of menuing but there’s so much freedom. I’ll always equip a weaker weapon just to get double growth, even for skills that I never use. Just in case, you know?

I guess I didn’t talk about the story, I think everyone already knows what happens and if you don’t, playing the game is a really good way to find out. The characters all rock and the tone effortlessly shifts between lighthearted and serious. It stands on its own, though there are a lot of spinoffs, none of which I’ve played. I’ll probably check out the remakes once they’re all out, but for now just the PS1 game is all I need.

Score: yeah easy 3/3. Everyone should play this game. There are more enjoyable and less flawed JRPGs, but none are as significant as Final Fantasy VII