It's been 10 years since one of the most famous RPGs of all time was released, and as such I've decided to do this retrospective review. For many people, this was their first experience of the RPG genre (especially in PAL territories, where RPGs were few and far between until the release of this game), and it certainly left an impression. It spawned a number of sequels and prequels- not just video games, but books, anime and even a film.
The Planet is almost completely controlled by a sinister corporation known as Shinra. Their capital is a giant city known as Midgar, which is divided into an upper layer where Shinra employees and the wealthy live, and a lower layer where the poor live in slums. Using reactors Shinra harvests "mako" from the Planet, enabling them to supply the people with energy and also allowing them to create small magic stones known as materia. Shinra have also created an elite unit of mako-enhanced troops known as SOLDIER. Unfortunately, the mako extraction process has the side effect of damaging the Planet's "life force". A small group of eco-terrorists known as AVALANCHE aims to put a stop to this, and hires Cloud, a former member of SOLDIER. With his help they aim to destroy Midgar's mako reactors. But when one mission goes awry, Cloud ends up separated from the others and meets with a girl named Aeris, whom Shinra has a special interest in. After reuniting with the AVALANCHE Aeris is kidnapped, and our heroes set out to rescue her. But during the mission things are complicated by the sudden reappearance of a powerful warrior from Cloud's past named Sephiroth.
The story is quite complex and interesting, but unfortunately flawed. The game is riddled with clichés (not as badly as most other RPGs though), it suffers from some terrible translation, and there's plot holes all over the place. The characters are varied enough to be interesting, but they could perhaps have been given more depth. Tifa, for example, barely seems to serve any function beyond being a love interest for Cloud. Main villain Sephiroth gets more character development than most of the party by the end of the game. Alright, the whole "powerful misunderstood psychopath" thing has been done to death nowadays, but it's still deeper than many video game antagonists. The absolutely insane Kefka from Final Fantasy VI was a better villain in my opinion, but Sephiroth isn't bad.
Battles are essentially turn-based, but like other titles in the series it's a little more complex than that. Each party member has an ATB (Active Time Battle) bar, which is depleted after that character performs an action. It gradually fills up (at a speed depending on the character's stats) and once it's full they can perform another action. Each character also has a "limit bar" which fills as they are attacked by enemies. Once it is full, the player can execute a "limit break", a special ability that is better than normal ones. There are four levels of limit break- the first three are earned when a character gains a certain amount of experience, while each character's level four limit break must be found somewhere in the world. The limit breaks are cool, but it can be annoying if the bar fills up in a battle with a minor enemy, because after the battle it goes back to zero regardless of whether you used a limit break or not. Random battles are the norm, as is to be expected from Japanese RPGs, but thankfully they occur less frequently than in some games (e.g. Skies of Arcadia).
Abilities are enabled by equipping materia, which are found all over the world and can be bought in shops. There are five types of materia: magic (allowing different magic spells), command (enabling special commands for a character to use), independent (causes some effect) support (have no effect on their own, but are able to boost other materia to which they are linked) and summon (summons a giant creature to attack the enemy). Like your characters, materia have EXP points, and some of them grant new powers when leveled-up. Materia are equipped to "slots" on your weapons and armour, and only a limited number can be assigned to each. Also, some slots are linked, so that a support materia can be equipped together with an another to boost its effect. It's a clever system that forces the player to choose their abilities wisely, yet gives plenty of flexibility. Some RPG veterans have complained about the lack of character classes, and to some extent I'm inclined to agree. Part of the individuality of RPG characters comes from their expertise- Final Fantasy IX for example, uses its character's classes to great effect in its story. But on the plus side, the materia system does allow greater flexibility, and allows you to use abilities where another RPG might have taken them away because a character is temporarily unavailable.
The graphics are something of a mixed bag. The pre-rendered backgrounds are absolutely stunning and full of detail. Unfortunately, the characters who inhabit them are not, looking ugly and disproportionate due to a lack of polygons. However, they do look much better in combat mode, but it seems the backgrounds for this mode were mostly made bland and uninteresting (except for a few set-pieces) to balance things out. There's also a few nice looking FMVs too. There's no major problems with the graphics overall, but they could have done with a little more work.
Final Fantasy series music composer Nobuo Uematsu outdid himself to create the music for this game, producing one of the most memorable soundtracks in video game history. There's the occasional clunker (e.g. the Turk's theme), but there are also a few classics (e.g. Jenova's theme) and overall it's quite respectable. Even after 10 years the music remains surprisingly recognisable. The sound effects can be a little annoying, but there's nothing especially bad.
There's plenty to see and do in Final Fantasy VII. The main quest should take the average gamer about 40 hours of gameplay to complete, and there's a few secrets to find and side quests and mini-games to keep the player busy as well. A lesser game might have simply have stuck any old rubbish in as a mini-game, but the ones here are actually quite addictive and a few of them could rival proper full games of the time. Most of them are found in a location known as the Gold Saucer, which you could find yourself spending a lo of time in, especially if you intend to breed and race chocobos (breeding a gold chocobo will enable you to reach a certain very powerful materia).
Final Fantasy VII introduced many gamers to the RPG genre, probably more than any other game, but is it as revolutionary as has been claimed in the past? I would have to say no. It's by no means a terrible game, but Final Fantasy VII does little that previous Final Fantasy games, and other RPGs, didn't already do. It just does them in 3D. Problem is, after playing the game many newcomers expected all other RPGs to be exactly the same and would complain when they deviated from the formula, such as how a lot people moan about Final Fantasy XII changing the series' battle system (personally, I don't think it went far enough). But I digress, that was not the game's fault.
This is a great game, and stands the test of time well despite having an "unfinished" feeling about it. The story could have been better, but in terms of gameplay it's a brilliant game and an example to others. Fans without rose-tinted spectacles will tell you this is not the best game ever, or even the best Final Fantasy, but it's still highly enjoyable and ranks among the top games of it's kind.
Graphics: 7/10
Sound: 8/10
Gameplay: 9/10
Lifespan: 9/10
Rating: 8/10
