Final Fantasy VII

[Shadow Fire]

<div align="center"><img src="http://core.the-gcn.com/reviews/FFVII.png" border="0" class="linked-image" /></div><br /><br /><b>Director:</b> Yoshinori Kitase<br /><br /><b>Producers:</b> Hironobu Sakaguchi, Tetsuo Mizuno, Tomoyuki Takechi<br /><br /><b>Music:</b> Nobuo Uematsu<br /><br /><b>Rating:</b> <img src="http://core.the-gcn.com/reviews/rating/4-5stars.png" /><br /><br /><br /><u><b>Plot</b></u><br />As a young woman walks around the gigantic underground slums, a train approaches the entrance to the Mako reactor, where two Shinra guards are standing watch. Suddenly, people jump down from the train and take out the two guards. After some more people jump down, another person jumps down, that person being Cloud Strife, a young man with spiky golden hair. Proclaiming himself to be a former member of the Shinra elite forces known to all as SOLDIER, Cloud has offered this mystery terrorist group, known as AVALANCHE, to help destroy the Shinra Mako Reactor in exchange for money. However, even after the first reactor is destroyed, he finds himself pulled into a quest to save the Planet from total annihilation.<br /><br /><br /><u><b>Review</b></u><br />Without a doubt, it is Final Fantasy VII which gave the franchise its current day fame. It's not hard to see why, either. A vast storyline, with an even bigger world make this game one of the largest games of the Final Fantasy series.<br /><br />I remember first trying Final Fantasy VII. I had first watched Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, the movie based two years after the events of the game. I loved how the movie panned out, and seeing the fight between Sephiroth and Cloud only fuelled my desire to play the game. My boyfriend gave me a copy of the game for PC, which I quickly installed and began playing. At first, I was extremely confused, but thanks to some guesswork and a little bit of help from his Official Final Fantasy VII Strategy Guide, I managed to make my way through the game.<br /><br />Final Fantasy VII uses the Active Time Battle system. This system has a gauge fill up for each character, and when the gauge is completely filled, that character can make their move. However, when one character/enemy attacks, everyone else freezes until the attack is over, before the next character can make their move. Thankfully, for beginners, the battle mode can be modified, so that whenever selecting a move during battle, the enemy won't be able to make a move. However, in regards to ATB systems, I prefer the system used in Final Fantasy X-2. As is common for Final Fantasy games, whenever the main battle characters are wiped out, or unable to make a move (ie petrified), the game ends, and you must continue from where you last saved.<br /><br />Character levelling uses the standard level-up system. When a character gains enough experience, their level increases, as do their base stats. In order to power up the characters so they may use certain abilities, Materia is used. Put bluntly, Materia are magical balls that are fitted into weapons and armour to boost their abilities. Quite frankly, it's quite confusing, and this is probably the only reason I lower the game's rating.<br /><br />Graphics are quite impressive, considering when the game was released. When compared to today's graphical capabilities, you'd most likely laugh, but bear in mind, it's an old game, but still maintains the most respect within the Final Fantasy series.<br /><br />Music is composed by Nobuo Uematsu, who successfully captured the mood of the game. You can feel the emotion emanating from the music. However, the PC version of the game has a distinctive disadvantage when compared to the PSX version of the game... MIDIs. That's right. The PC version uses MIDIs in place of the wonderfully synthesized music of the PSX version. However, it doesn't suffer much from this drawback. In fact, the only track to suffer greatly is The One-Winged Angel, as on the PSX version, it contains words, but in the PC version, as it's merely a MIDI, it contains no words. Still, the music does this game great justice.<br /><br /><br /><u><b>Overall</b></u><br />If you've never played Final Fantasy VII, you can't call yourself a fan of the series. It's this game which produced all the hype. I had to lower the rating due to the confusing as anything materia system the game uses... but overall, it's a wonderful game that should definitely be played through all the way. Now, if only Squaresoft had translated the game properly. =P