DirtyDan's Full Review: Final Fantasy VII for PlayStation 1
I got Final Fantasy VII from a friend of mine for five bucks right after I got my Playstation. At that time I didn't spend a great deal of time playing games, so I never really got very far. Grandia (check out my review!)was the first RPG that I played all the way through and it really showed me how cool RPGs are. So I finally played FFVII.
You are a guy named Cloud (kinda wussy if you ask me) working for a group of rebels that want to destroy Shinra, an all controlling corporation. The plot thickens from there, and it thickens big time. FFVII has a great story. Not only do you follow the main plot, but there are different optional sub-plots you can explore as well. The characters are fairly interesting, but development could have been improved a great deal.
The graphics are both the best and the worst part of the game.I'll start out with the bad. In the game the characters look absolutely ridiculous, the polygon count is way, way low, like seven. They also are mysteriously lacking mouths and hands (kinda important details if you ask me.) Pretty much everything else is great. The backgrounds are all in 2D and look perfect. But the best is by far the cut scenes and the battle animations. WOW! It is almost as if the animation team got better at animating as they worked on the game, because the cut scenes seem to get better as you get further along in the game.
The sound is pretty good, but could have been better. Most of the music sounded like generic MIDI files, but some of it was really great (just wait till you get to the final boss.) The battle sound effects were good but forgettable. I was disappointed that there were no voices, which really would have been cool.
The game play is pretty standard RPG style. The world of FFVII is pretty darn big and there is a lot to explore. The random battles can get annoying. Yeah, when you are working on getting your levels up they're okay, but when you are trying to get some where quickly they are just plain annoying. During battles you have a time limit bar that when full you can do what you wish. Of course there is the usual weapons and magic, but there are also limit breaks, a super move that you get after taking a set amount of punishment. Also there are summons, where your character summons some uber-powerful creature to kick some butt and take some names and boy do they ever look neat. These summons come by way of materia, which is also how you get all the magic. The more you use the materia the better the magic and the more you can use it.
Playing this game will take a couple of days out of your life. Most of the gameplay is pretty straight-forward and you don't have to spend a great deal of time working on you levels. There are, as mentioned before a few sub-plots and there are also a bunch of mini games that you can play. One whole area is completely devoted to these time consuming games. After you play all the way through there is a little incentive to play more.
Overall FFVII is on heckuva game, no scratch that, one heckuva experience. I didn't like it quite as well as Grandia, but to all two of you who haven't played it I would highly recommend it.
An epic adventure across 3 cd-roms. What begins as a rebelion against an evil corporation becomes much more. And what erupts goes beyond imagination. ...More at eBay
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