Now there are a lot of elements in Final Fantasy VII that push it past perfection in my eyes. This is a game long before the time of paid DLC, and it is packed to the brim with extra content. There’s a really fun motorcycle riding game, which you play for the first time when you escape Midgar. There’s a fort, that’s constantly being sieged by enemy forces, which you can aid by buying troops, and playing an RTS-style (or Tower Defense-style) mini game. There are two characters you could completely miss, with very long accompanying story quests. There’s a casino that has mini games for arm wrestling, critter raising, Chocobo (giant chicken) racing, rollercoaster riding, snowboarding, sub marine battling, and lots more. There are battle tournaments you can enter to get crazy items. There is an entire system for breeding Chocobos, where you have to catch them, feed them, level them up, race them, and breed them, to get Chocobos with powers to traverse mountains and oceans. There are secret Materia Caves, like one where you find the ultra-powerful Knights Of The Round Summon Materia, which can only be found on an island you can only get to if you have a golden Chocobo. There are ultimate limit breaks to find. There is an Ancient Forest to explore. There are two massive, legendarily difficult, optional bosses, called the Emerald and Ruby Weapons, that have crazy tactics like: start the battle with two of your characters dead, because the Ruby Weapon will eventually knock two of the characters out of the battle, and it’s better to choose who won’t get knocked out. There’s just so much to do near the end of the game! I’ve beaten it 4 times, and usually finish with 70-90 hours clocked, and I’ve never done everything. Well I’ve done pretty much everything except get every character to level 99 with every Master Materia…
Final Fantasy VII’s graphics were incredible for their time. Past Final Fantasy titles had 2D top down ¾ views with lots of pixels, and sprites (I love this aesthetic). Final Fantasy VII shifted to 3D polygons, with pre-rendered backgrounds. The backgrounds look phenomenal. They are detailed: lush environments are lush, and creepy environments are creepy. You get snowy peaks, harsh deserts, steampunk cities, bizarre caves, all in gorgeous, vibrant detail. The character models are a bit of a mixed bag. Inside of battle, the characters match their illustrations, with realistic proportions, in a stylized/ exaggerated way; they look great. The bosses and summons look epic!
Outside of battle, the characters look like chubby block people. I’m guessing this was done partly due to storage limitations (Final Fantasy VIII would fix this two years later), but also to bring a sense of nostalgia to the character design. The out-of-battle chub characters were reminiscent of the sprites of past Final Fantasies. The character designs for each game may look elegant, but the game sprites look like polygon-heavy Garbage Pail Kids. Maybe Square thought people would appreciate this aesthetic (they did return to a slicker version of chubby characters in Final Fantasy IX in 2000).
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“Final Fantasy VII’s graphics were incredible for their time. Past Final Fantasy titles had 2D top down ¾ views with lots of pixels, and sprites. Final Fantasy VII shifted to 3D polygons, with pre-rendered backgrounds.
Nothing was more impressive than the CG cutscenes found throughout the game. These scenes were used so heavily in the game’s advertising that I’m sure many people thought they’re what the gameplay would look like. But nobody cared when they found out it was all video footage in the commercials, because the game was amazing. The CG is not up to today’s standards, but it was on another level than anything seen in 1997. And that’s how the graphics are in a nutshell: phenomenal in 1997, and dated, but nostalgically appealing now.
The music for this game was composed by Nobuo Uematsu. It’s the best game soundtrack of all time. Uematsu has been the main composer for the entire Final Fantasy series, up until XIII. He has scored many videogames, and many of those have been Square titles. His crowning achievements are his scores for Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VI, and Chrono Trigger, all of which are among my favorite games of all time. This score is definitely a major reason for all the love this game receives, after so many years. It supports every moment, amplifies many emotions, and has you whistling tunes when you’re done playing. Catchy melodies and powerful emotions are the keys to this score. I love the score so much that I went to the Final Fantasy “Distant Worlds” concert the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra put on a few years ago. I cried twice, and both of those songs were from Final Fantasy VII. No shame! Choice cuts to check out are “Aeris’ Theme”, “The Prelude”, “Main Theme Of Final Fantasy VII”, and “One-Winged Angel”. There’s also a great symphonic heavy metal version of One-Winged Angel that was recorded by Uematsu for the Advent Children film. In the “making of” on the film’s DVD he says that an orchestra with heavy metal guitar is the best kind of music there is *wipes tear.
These articles will be released every month on COGconnected.com, and split up into 4 weekly parts: The Intro, The History, The Review, and The Verdict. So here ends The Review. Tune in next week for The Verdict!