Final Fantasy VII

I just got done beating Final Fantasy VII for the first time. There's a lot to say about this game, especially given all I'd played of it had been up to the first time you visit the Gold Saucer.

Let's start with Midgar - that city is fantastic, easily one of the best in the series, and probably the best, at least of the ones I've played a good chunk of (I, III, IV, V, VI, VII, IX, X, and XIII). It has very tight design, and looks great as well which is quite a feat considering the majority of the game uses pre-rendered backgrounds, Midgar included. The music in Midgar is great, too, and for the most part (battle themes and Cosmo Canyon aside) the music takes a nosedive once you leave Midgar (when the music from Midgar comes back around the endgame is where the music picks back up). The setpieces within Midgar are pretty cool, too - my favorite being breaking into the Shinra building itself just before you leave Midgar for pretty much the rest of the game.

Once you leave Midgar, the game sort of settles down from the cool setpieces immediately followed by cool setpiece that it had been up to that point. The pace slows down and you're able to explore the world, and start the quest, if you will. As for the plot... I enjoyed it, but there are a few problems, which I will detail while not going into the good stuff too much, since the majority of the plot is pretty neat (and I love to bitch). The rest of this post has spoilers for FF7, so beware.

So, Aeris! As everyone knows, she dies in this game. I have known this for years, and never got to the end of disc 1 where this happens to actually see it within the context of the game (I had seen the famous scene where Sephiroth drops at about 3 MPH from a hundred feet up and stabs her many times, though). It was definitely interesting, because I know how many people were absolutely blown away by her death. I understand, partially, because it really kind of comes out of nowhere - there isn't much foreshadowing besides Sephiroth threatening her right after she leaves your party for the last time. Mostly, though, my guess is people were blown away by it because they may have invested a bunch of time leveling her up, only to have her permanently gone unexpectedly.

Or, and I think this is more likely, her death was kind of dumb. I mean I get what she was doing (which would have been a complaint if the game didn't explain what she was doing at the end - she just kind of dies, your party shrugs, and they move on, really), but why didn't she explain everything to Cloud or anybody else? Maybe she should have waited for the others and gone safely, rather than just wander off with Sephiroth running around killing people like a maniac. She just peaced out and when Cloud is standing right in front of her, sword raised (which is the next plot point I'll discuss), she just opens her eyes, smiles, and without a word, Sephiroth drops down and kills her. So I can see people being a bit upset by that, since it isn't exactly satisfying to see a party member die without a word.

Now, my favorite character in Final Fantasy VII is Cloud, and that is because I really enjoy his character arc. He was the biggest surprise in the game, to be honest, since I had always heard that he was a mopey asshole who didn't really care about anyone but himself. This is largely untrue! He comes off that way at the beginning of the game, but pretty quickly starts to change as he learns more about himself and those around him (and Aeris seems to loosen him up a little bit as well). His confusion between his own memories and Zack's was a neat little internal struggle, and I thought Square did a good job doling out information little by little about the little purple guy. Particularly, the part where Cloud and Tifa are in the lifestream and are trying to sort through Cloud's memories together - pretty poignant, neat, and nicely symbolic, I think. Not really any complaints there, besides wanting to know a little more about Zack, although Crisis Core exists so that takes care of that!

With regards to Sephiroth... let me put it this way. I would like to see a remake of Final Fantasy VII (for many reasons beside this as well), and I hope if they ever did it, they might add in some bonus content or something that explores his character and motivations a bit more. I mean he's supposed to be this badass supersoldier (and he is!) but he loses his mind and decides to destroy the world when he finds out he was basically created (which apparently, he isn't, Hojo just injected Jenova cells into his body when he was born or a fetus or something). His character art is pretty cool, but to be honest, the coolest moment with him is the final battle with him, where it's just him and Cloud squaring off in a one on one battle, where Cloud omnislashes him and kills him. God damn if he doesn't have some of the best battle songs in the series, though.

One of the reasons I'd like to see a remake of this game is because of the graphics. Not necessarily the pre-rendered backgrounds, which still look alright, but the low-poly enemies and summons and the like. Also, the overworld models for the party look really bad and could use an update, especially for the cutscenes the little guys are in. The localization needs an almost complete overhaul, at least to get rid of the copious spelling errors throughout the game (would you like to continue? Choose between "off-course!" and "no, way!" That guy are sick, etc. etc.). I'd also like to see some plot points expanded upon - Cait Sith being the big one. What the hell was up with that thing? He betrays the party, and they get mad at him, let him tag around, then get sad when he sacrifices himself only to come back a minute later. Apparently some dude at Shinra is controlling him, but it's only vaguely alluded to who it is, and when you do find out, it's some random guy you've never met? Very odd. I thought maybe something was lost in translation but I think it just wasn't handled very well.

The Materia system was alright, although it became a little tedious near the end when I had a million slots to manage. I think I like just managing individual spells and abilities for each character, rather than leveling up what is essentially an item that can be moved around. I really would have liked the ability to unequip my inactive party members of Materia at any time, because switching them in, taking off their Materia, then switching them back out got a little tedious.

I have to praise the battle system of VII, though, because it runs very well - I'm not sure if that's a result of me playing on a Vita with high speed loading or not, but there were only a few times that I got annoyed because battles were taking too long (the final battle against Sephiroth being the most fragrant offender - that stupid animation that plays of his attack DESTROYING PLUTO, SATURN, JUPITER, THE SUN, MERCURY, AND VENUS literally takes just over a minute to watch, and he does it over and over again in the battle and it cannot be skipped. URGHHH). Also Final Fantasy VII has the best Regen, which I think might be the first time that spell is worth using.

Let's see, what else... Final Fantasy VII Cid is my favorite Cid, and I'm a big Final Fantasy IV Cid fan, so that says a lot. He certainly beats out Final Fantasy VI Cid, who's notable accomplishment was looking like a candy corn.

The music, as stated before, is pretty good. The songs that are good are fantastic, the final boss music (all three songs, when you fight Jenova, and Sephiroth 1 and 2), Cosmo Canyon, the regular battle music, the boss battle music, and anything associated with Midgar are really good. Demerits go to the overworld music, which is supposed to be oppressive, I suppose, but I just hated it. The music is another place where a remake would improve upon the original game, to maybe get rid of those midis.

I'm not sure where VII is going to go on my personal list of the best Final Fantasies, but I will say this: I enjoyed myself, and despite people hating on the game, I think it holds up pretty well, aside from what I bitched about above, which is less about the game itself and more just a product of a sloppy translation (well done, SCEA) and the limited technology of the time. I can totally see why people lost their minds over this game and consider it to be one of the best games of all time (I do not, but I get what those people are saying now).

I guess I'll end this post with a troll: Final Fantasy VI is better. :)