Final Fantasy VII is the installment of the series that majority of the people are the most familiar with. It was very ground-breaking at the time, introduced many new ways to tell a story and broke sale records. And being often hailed as one of the best - if not THE best - games of all time you just have try it just out of curiosity at least in some point of your life. The review is based on the PC version of the game.
The story about a mercenary named Cloud and his search for his own identity while he and his group of friends are looking for the murderous psychopath elite soldier named Sephiroth and trying to stop his mad schemes while the evil Shinra company is chasing them both is still touching, suspenseful, and entertaining even today. Although at first it's quite hard to follow which even the game acknowledges by occasionally letting Cloud summarize the plot to the new members of the team. Also at couple of times the translation has made the dialog quite clumsy and it doesn't always feel natural (and sometimes leaves important plot points too ambiguous).
The good characters are part of the reason why the story is engaging. Escpecially the main hero and villain are interesting and quite well built complex characters. The rest of the characters are likable personalities as well (exept the ninja-wannabe Yuffie who is just annoying and the cat-like being Cait Sith who is just too odd to describe) but problem is they just have some nice personality traits but the story is too busy on focusing in Cloud and Sephiroth (and occasionally Cloud's childhood friend Tifa) so the rest of the cast gets very little development. This is especially notable with the Shinra resistant leader Barret and the cougar/wolf warrior animal Red XIII. At one point of the game the tragic event of their past is introduced and almost immediately resolved in which after the contribute nothing more to the story.
The graphics have been bitten heavily by time. On the plus side the surroundings look nice, cinematic videos are stunning and the effects and character models in battle look personal, colorful and authentic. But when the characters are not in battle they look hideous in today's standards. Seriously, they look like deformed playmobil figures. Music once again great like in so many Final Fantasies, the touching world map theme and simple yet utterly terrifying Those Chosen by the Planet. The music's full power somewhat suffers from midi-sound but at least its quality is better than in the Playstation version. The character building and battle systems aren't anything too complicated are is fun to master.
Even though Final Fantasy VII isn't the greatest video game ever created by the humankind it is still touching, engaging, entertaining and many other adjectives I've used so far. Time hasn't been friendly to it in some things but the Final Fantasy charm can still be felt.
The story about a mercenary named Cloud and his search for his own identity while he and his group of friends are looking for the murderous psychopath elite soldier named Sephiroth and trying to stop his mad schemes while the evil Shinra company is chasing them both is still touching, suspenseful, and entertaining even today. Although at first it's quite hard to follow which even the game acknowledges by occasionally letting Cloud summarize the plot to the new members of the team. Also at couple of times the translation has made the dialog quite clumsy and it doesn't always feel natural (and sometimes leaves important plot points too ambiguous).
The good characters are part of the reason why the story is engaging. Escpecially the main hero and villain are interesting and quite well built complex characters. The rest of the characters are likable personalities as well (exept the ninja-wannabe Yuffie who is just annoying and the cat-like being Cait Sith who is just too odd to describe) but problem is they just have some nice personality traits but the story is too busy on focusing in Cloud and Sephiroth (and occasionally Cloud's childhood friend Tifa) so the rest of the cast gets very little development. This is especially notable with the Shinra resistant leader Barret and the cougar/wolf warrior animal Red XIII. At one point of the game the tragic event of their past is introduced and almost immediately resolved in which after the contribute nothing more to the story.
The graphics have been bitten heavily by time. On the plus side the surroundings look nice, cinematic videos are stunning and the effects and character models in battle look personal, colorful and authentic. But when the characters are not in battle they look hideous in today's standards. Seriously, they look like deformed playmobil figures. Music once again great like in so many Final Fantasies, the touching world map theme and simple yet utterly terrifying Those Chosen by the Planet. The music's full power somewhat suffers from midi-sound but at least its quality is better than in the Playstation version. The character building and battle systems aren't anything too complicated are is fun to master.
Even though Final Fantasy VII isn't the greatest video game ever created by the humankind it is still touching, engaging, entertaining and many other adjectives I've used so far. Time hasn't been friendly to it in some things but the Final Fantasy charm can still be felt.