Geekatana Review - Final Fantasy VII - Spiky hair mercenary joins Eco Warriors

Final Fantasy VII is a role playing game developed by Square for the playstation console. It started development back in 1994 and was originally planned to be released SNES. Its the first final fantasy title to use full motion 3D graphics. It marked the return of the series creator and producer Hironobu Sakaguchi, director Yoshinori Kitase and the composer Nobuo Uematsu.

Final Fantasy VII is certainly not the first JRPG I played for the PS1 but it is definitely one of the first Final Fantasy game in the series that I actually played since I got a playstation console. This review will have nothing to do with the Remake of said game as I feel that deserve its own separate review. Also minor spoilers are up for this one just in case.

Set in a fantasy sci fi world the game follows Cloud an ex Soldier mercenary with a mysterious past who joins a group of eco terrorist who fights against a megacorporation that is killing the planet. On his journey he encounters Sephiroth and Aerith who holds the key to both the planets destruction and its salvation.

Story wise Final Fantasy VII has very little to offer that hasn't been done and re done by other RPG and JRPG's before. Even the very first Final fantasy title of the series was already about saving the world from impending doom. Yet what very little Final fantasy VII offers to its gamers in term of story and plot it makes up for everything else.

Graphic wise is where the meat of what makes this game better than all those that came before it. Using 3D graphic models in a 2D environment is something Final fantasy did first in terms of JRPG. Sure the graphics hasn't aged well and is barely passable by game standards of today but back in the 90's this is something exciting and groundbreaking and everyone want to jump into the experience.

Assisted by a large promotional campaign, Final Fantasy VII received widespread commercial and critical success. It remains widely regarded as a landmark title, and as one of the most influential games of all time. The graphics is indeed impressive specially when you are playing it for the first time back in the 90's.

Character wise the characters look like Minecraft before Minecraft was even a thing. The character does have a decent amount of back story in them. And a lot of these story does tug on the feels if you let it. Sure each has their own play style and players will have their favorites
Jumping between Clouds pointy hair, barret's gun for an arm and Tifa's...assets.  

Unlocking each of their Limit Break and finding each of the characters final weapon adds to the replay value of the game. Not to mention a bunch of other side quest and hidden bosses you can find that will probably give you a lot of sleepless nights. There are even hidden characters you can get. Add that to a materia heavy gameplay system and some excellent theme and music the game is far from boring if anything.

Final Fantasy VII has set the benchmark for a lot of RPG games not just from its own series back in the 90's. Sure the graphics isn't as impressive as it was back then but still holds due to a decent story and decent characters. While other games in the Final fantasy series has better story and characters Final fantasy VII onto itself as a whole has a good balance of everything.

Final Fantasy VII is definitely not the best Final Fantasy series has to offer but it's a good starting point if you only have a playstation console and want to get into the Final fantasy train. The story and character development is decent and the music score is some of the best the series has done yet. A must play for anyone who is into JRPG and RPG as a whole.