50 Years of Video Games: Final Fantasy VII (PS1)

Final Fantasy VII was a game changer not just for the series, not just for role-playing games, but for what people came to expect from video games. Prior to 1997, the adventures with character progression referred to as role-playing games were niche products outside of Japan, with the Final Fantasy series even only seeing three of its six mainline entries hit American shores before Final Fantasy VII hit the PlayStation. Many RPGs never even left Japan, and when they did, game companies sometimes had little faith in them such as when Nintendo bundled the actual strategy guide with Earthbound to make sure players didn’t get lost. RPGs were the place where longer and deeper stories could be told, but they were still struggling to find the right balance of action and plot and sometimes it was all bland action or the plot felt generic. There were definitely major hits and some are still touted as classics, but Final Fantasy VII took the usual medieval fantasy setting of its series and instead explored a futuristic technological one, it used impressive computer animated cutscenes to nail in the most emotionally impactful scenes, and it crafted a mature and complex plot full of rich characters that helped it not only appeal to those who already loved the genre, but made it into the second best-selling PS1 game of all time with over 10 million copies sold.

 

Despite its phenomenal importance not only to RPGs but even helping the PlayStation brand establish itself as having a unique experience realized only through its hardware, I had only barely played the game in the past. In fact, I’m sure the amount of time I spent with it was better measured in minutes instead of the 30+ hours this game’s entire narrative takes to unfold. This was not a condemnation on the game, it was simply the reality of not owning my own copy. In fact, my limited experience with the game had lead to me being a bit dismissive of it, primarily because public discussions of it seemed to outright ignore the depth the game’s cast has. This is a bit of a more personal lead-in than I normally go for, but I think it’s important to impress upon you that I came to Final Fantasy VII not only with no nostalgia but also predisposed to look down on it, and yet now I am ready to tell you that not only is its legacy well-earned, but it certainly sits among some of the best RPGs of all time.

 

Final Fantasy VII takes place first in a city known as Midgar, a place with the technological amenities you can expect in real life like cars and television sets but with its power coming from Mako, a special type of magical energy the Shinra Corporation extracts from the planet. The player assumes the role of Cloud Strife, a young man who at first is only out for himself and less interested in the goings-on of the world than he is striking back at the Shinra Corporation for personal reasons tied to his former employment under them. However, he’s part of a bombing raid to destroy a Mako Reactor, and after that plan is pulled off successfully, things begin to escalate as you face off not just with Shinra but start to mean new characters, learn more about the planet, and develop a party of adventurers all with their own histories, motivations, and goals that start to flesh out the world and its people.

 

One of the more interesting developments is the introduction of Sephiroth, a figure who is first discussed as the ultimate warrior but he’s not simply presented to the player as some powerhouse right off the bat. You start with whispers of his history, you later find the wake of a brutal massacre committed by him, and you get to see a flashback where Cloud fought alongside him and Sephiroth trivializes the foes Cloud can barely touch. However, the very same flashback shows that Sephiroth is not some mindless living weapon. He begins to develop into a megalomaniac not because of some straightforward lust for power but instead a revelation shakes his sense of self to the core and his fear of what he might be sends him down a path that he wasn’t mentally prepared to handle. Sephiroth was broken and came back together in a form that seeks to break everyone else and the world, and much of the game ends up chasing Sephiroth’s shadow as you try to prevent him from harming others with his apocalyptic mindset. In fact, because of Sephiroth’s introduction to the plot, your run-ins with Shinra begin to change shape. Sometimes you are forced to work towards a mutual goal but you still despise each other and might even turn against each other the second it’s possible to do so. Shinra are not the good guys but they have the tech and power to make pursuing Sephiroth possible as his power and influence grows and the constant weaving between two major antagonists in such a way allows the plot to explore new subjects and characters even when Sephiroth is a few too many steps ahead to keep you occupied.

The party who journeys with you and assists you in battle give this game even more excellent story to latch onto. Almost none of them are mere tag alongs, although of the two optional party members, Yuffie gets more focus than Vincent. Yuffie is an excitable young ninja with illusions of greatness who gets an entire section of the world map devoted to side quests related to her, that special attention not only doing some useful fleshing out of who she is and why she’s fighting alongside you but also allowing you to check in on a few other characters you encountered along the adventure such as members of Shinra’s Turks organization, the particular trio of the eager newbie Elena, the cool and laidback Reno, and the reserved but friendly Rude giving a more amicable air to some encounters with the planet-draining business and a good look that even within a sour company there are good people. Vincent has a backstory shown but perhaps leans a bit much into being the mysterious man who speaks little, but I’ve certainly lead with the characters with less focus and these are even just the ones you don’t even necessarily have to add to the team.

 

Barret is your first addition, a hothead with a big heart who has an adoptive daughter he wants to protect but knows the planet needs saving. He’s smart enough to know he often can’t think up the best approach for an issue but so emotional he sometimes dives in anyway, and his frankness can help pull others out of a funk as the story hits people with revelation after revelation. Cloud in particular begins as a detached individual who starts to soften and grow attached to his team only to start learning about himself and finding many of the answers are earth-shattering, the game spending a lot of time diving into just how its protagonist became who he is. Alongside him is his childhood friend Tifa as a stalwart supporter for her often anguished friend, but despite her brave face she has heartbreak in her past and can’t always be as strong as she likes. Interestingly enough, a woman named Aeris join the group and while many speak of her as some pure Ingenue in retrospect, this young flower girl actually has incredible zeal and isn’t afraid to cut right to the point. While she does need protection at points, Aeris can be fiery when she wants to be even though she has her moments of deeper contemplation and reservedness. Similarly Red XIII joins the group, the lion who was a specimen in the despicable scientist Hojo’s laboratory turning out not to be some feral beast but a character who talks with proper politeness but later shows he’s practically a teenager still coming to grips with who he is and bringing a youthful naivety to the party.

 

Cait Sith and Cid are the two party members who start on uneasy ground and linger there for a while, but the game does make sure to start delving deeper into them as the adventure goes on. For a long time Cait Sith does just seem like the weird cat stuffed animal fortune telling machine he’s introduced as, and the engineer Cid comes in swearing like a sailor and being exceptionally rude with most people he speaks with. However, you eventually learn the truth of Cait Sith’s identity that adds an interesting wrinkle to the continued conflicts that weave together in the plot and Cid’s attitude starts to become easier to understand as you learn there is a warm heart behind that rough exterior. As you start to explore areas outside of Midgar, more and more your party comes together not only in terms of who is there to help in battle but who these people are, their personalities shifting them into a wonderful cast whose fates and futures you become invested in. A few bumpy translation moments, usually in specific word choices, can’t dampen the efficacy of a story that spends so much time exploring this compelling batch of characters. There is definitely one scene in particular most come back to, a twist so impactful it’s become not only perhaps the most famous video game cutscene of all time and one few can enter the game without knowledge of this spoiler these days, but the game offers many more dramatic and meaningful moments that make you empathize with the layered heroes of this journey.

 

Because of a phenomenal plot with constant exciting escalation of stakes that manage not to lose sight of the heart of the experience with its core cast and their complex interactions with each other and their enemies, Final Fantasy VII isn’t even harmed that much by it’s visual direction despite its sometimes rudimentary appearance. During most of the exploration of areas characters are rendered as flat-shaded heavily polygonal forms. These blocky models are still recognizable for who they are even if their arms are shaped like juggling clubs and exaggerated animations can sometimes fill in for the simple faces not being able to emote too much, but when the game does want to ensure a moment hits well it will switch to higher fidelity models that are properly proportioned and are able to move and react in more realistic ways. In battle characters are also depicted with fairly good character models so the graphical restrictions rarely feel like they hold things back. In fact, a clever choice was made to ensure the world maintains a higher level of detail, areas often highly detailed images that give a good sense of space and setting in a fantastical world but don’t tax the system’s graphical capabilities. By taking images of these areas rather than actually rendering them and giving the illusion you’re exploring that space the game can make some impressive sights with the only really drawback being that sometimes it can be hard to notice small treasures or realize you can walk into a certain part of the screen since the image can’t be rotated or moved as it would reveal the visual trick.

 

Musically the game is superb though, a good sense for catchy composition for songs that play often like the battle theme but the game does an excellent job adding to the emotional tone of certain situations as well. Ominous bells ring as you look up at the daunting works of the Shinra Corporation, the Gold Saucer’s theme park of minigames is an excited invitation to come gamble, and a sinister anxiety to the quiet music helps with moments leading up to the dark history surrounding people like Sephiroth and the more twisted works of Hojo. Calm and beautiful tunes like Aeris’s theme can put you at ease while the final boss battle features a song that helps to further push that foe to something that feels insurmountably grand. The game will take you to many locations outside of the walls of Midgar with places like Cosmo Canyon having their detachment from technology emphasized with a mystical and natural sound while an ethereal forest can have a mysterious energy to its backing track. These places also look striking or outright gorgeous at times thanks to the graphical trick and at the same time a grimy or disturbing place is built up well with fitting color and sound.

A role-playing game can succeed on story alone, but Final Fantasy VII also has some strong ideas for how to handle its fighting system. In a fight, whether it be with randomly appearing monsters or bosses tied to the story progression, three of your party members will be present to go up against whatever has appeared. You can swap your party at certain areas like save points or the world map and the ones you aren’t using will level up and grow in strength as you do albeit it at a reduced rate, but if you do need to swap them in either because you’re finding who you like or the story requires their presence they will usually be pretty equal in strength. In a fight the game uses a system known as active time battles where a bar will fill up to indicate when it is a character’s turn. After selecting your attack from a small menu of options the bar empties and starts refilling again for their next turn, the idea being this determines things like attack priority and thus you must make sure you remember to do things like heal or buff your party when the chance arises or you can suffer for it. Regular enemies in Final Fantasy VII are surprisingly decent challenges, often requiring a bit of attention to safely eliminate but not being so difficult that taking on every one you encounter will be too demanding. In fact, the magic power used for special abilities is fairly generous so you can not only cast the recovery magic necessary to offset the damage they’re dealing but also utilize your attacking magics to make for more textured battles even with the weaker enemies.

 

There is definitely a point where your power will start to outpace regular battles but as you get nearer to the end the game makes sure to accommodate this by giving regular monsters more dangerous moves like ones that inflict statuses or can even kill a party member in one hit. Luckily the ride is mostly smooth but not a breeze, the player needing to be smart in a regular fight and the strength curve for player and enemies handled fairly well provided you don’t run from battle often, equip your party reasonably well, and dabble in the game’s more interesting side content. When Summon magic becomes more abundant and powerful you do admittedly get an easy way to wipe out enemies or deal heavy damage to bosses, but the high magic cost means you often will wait to use it or need to make sure you still have power for your other spells lest you be left high and dry when you end up in fights you can’t just blast away with a powerful summoned creature’s attack.

 

The most interesting aspect of Final Fantasy VII’s battle system though would have to be the Materia system. Rather than having characters harness unique skills, as you adventure you can find, buy, or even create Materia, these each having an assigned characteristic to them. Equipping Lightning Materia will grant a character access to the offensive spell Bolt, a Steal materia gives them a unique ability to take items from enemies, and an HP UP Materia will give the holder more life. By distributing your Materia as you please among the cast you are able to give them particular strengths as you see fit, able to turn anyone into a devoted healer or powerhouse or, more realistically, spreading powers across the cast and shifting them around so they have different roles in a fight without being bogged down by overspecialization. These are only the basics of the Materia system, and the customization gets even richer thanks to a few more aspects involved in equipping it. Materia levels up while equipped, granting you additional abilities and associated stat boosts as you win battles, this meaning you can go from a simple healing Cure spell to eventually the more powerful versions like Cure2 and Cure3 as well as Regen that applies a status where characters heal over time instead of needing to cast it repeatedly. Leveled up Materia expands your options, but you can also link together Materia to provide additional benefits. You can attach an All Materia to a spell so it hits all enemies or allies instead of just one, you can attach an Elemental one to make your weapon hit with a particular spell’s effects, or you can even attach the ability to drain life to an attack to get more out of it. On top of all of this customization potential and variability you also have the fact that Materia must be placed in equipment slots. Your weapon and armor already will provide bonuses to stats like attack and defense, but picking what a character should wear will also involve considerations on how many Materia slots it has. A stronger weapon might limit the Materia you can use, or a weaker piece of equipment might make up for it by being overly generous with slots. While shuffling it around when the game wants you to use a character for plot reasons can be a bit fiddly, otherwise it adds a great way to not only allow players to fight with who they like but also make them into the kind of warrior you want them to be.

 

Characters do pack one major thing to set them apart in combat though, those being Limit Breaks. When they’ve taken enough damage in a fight, your basic attack command is replaced with the Limit Break. These special moves are unique to a character and even come in different varieties for that character as the game goes on. These are often strong attacks that execute almost immediately, a useful aspect for something like Aeris’s healing-focused Limit Break that can get you out of a bind faster than the slower casting magic would, but something like Barret’s rapid assault from his machine gun arm can deal huge damage, especially if the Materia he has equipped makes each shot pack an extra punch. Vincent’s can turn him into monsters you lose control of but the attacks they execute deal incredible damage while someone like Tifa or Cait Sith have slot machines to pick how effective their attacks are with the risk of plain results to offset the potential for ridiculously powerful outcomes. On top of characters having specific reactions in scenes they’re in if they’re part of the party this is the main way the game tries to influence you to choose favorites, but the Materia system makes sure you rarely feel stuck with someone because power is variable and customizable rather than tied to limited circumstances.

 

Final Fantasy VII also includes a surprising amount of other amusements beyond just taking in the story or fighting monsters and bosses. At different times you might find yourself snowboarding, trying to blend in by imitating the fancy maneuvers of a military parade, or racing on the back of a giant bird as it runs through oddly surreal sights. Some of these are purely for fun or failure won’t have a bad outcome while others are vital to advancing the story, and even within the context of just exploring areas you’ll sometimes encounter navigation gimmicks to make it more interesting than just walking around fighting random battles and collecting any treasures you can see. You might fight against a snowstorm or have to escape a place before it explodes with the timer even ticking in a fight, and some segments of the game even focus solely on a task like trying to figure out a way to sneak into a crime boss’s mansion or simply having fun with your party members at the Golden Saucer. While not every idea is a winner, Fort Condor’s little minigame involving placing a small army to defend the place from monsters feeling half-baked and rather slow, they don’t often demand high engagement save more serious ones that add some extra spice to the exploration rather than dragging it down.

THE VERDICT: Final Fantasy VII’s characters not only make for a fantastic emotional plot with interesting developments both in the twists it takes and how the characters grow but their incredible customization options thanks to the complex Materia system ensures the battle side of the affair is just as rich. Regular enemies and bosses put up a good fight that encourages the player to pay attention to the depth of the Materia system to keep up while minigames and specific navigational gimmicks ensure the exploration of the world changes often to avoid stagnation. The story is certainly the crown jewel of the experience, with a compelling main villain and a cast who can provide levity, serious drama, heartbreak, and endearing moments of humanity for an experience with tonal breadth and varying focuses that flesh out the heroes and villains of the world vividly. Some small ideas may not be as superb as the rest of the experience, but Final Fantasy VII still provides a captivating setting and cast that is supported well by a layered fighting system.

 

And so, I give Final Fantasy VII for PlayStation…

A FANTASTIC rating. I do have my little quibbles with Final Fantasy VII like targeting an enemy in combat is sometimes a little finicky and some of the word choices in the translation could have been done better, but those tiny concerns did not weaken the impact of the experience at all. Your main cast is a collection of characters who can be delightful in one moment yet tragic at another, and while I wasn’t too heavily affected by the major cutscene the game is known for even by those who haven’t played it, the strength of the rest of the crew meant I had many moments I was happy for their successes or fascinated by the extra layers revealed when the story put a spotlight on them. Sephiroth is built up to magnificently as are other villains like Hojo while the game also grants you more amicable adversaries like the Turks who add to the complexity this plot to save the world in a literal way. Spirited characters like Aeris, larger than life personalities like Cid, and even surprise developments from characters like Cait Sith give you something to latch onto so that the pursuit of Sephiroth isn’t a story line that becomes too dry, and the battle system with ever-changing world navigation continue to provide action and considerations to ensure there’s a hearty and entertaining substance to the experience as well. Materia really packs in a lot of potential for turning characters into the fighters you want them to be and the extra layers it adds to things like how you choose your equipment leads to a rewarding degree of customization despite having to make hard choices at times. The battles never being too easy or too hard definitely plays a part in ensuring this Materia system gets to shine and even when enemies start packing instant kill moves regularly it’s to offset the fact you can just as easily wipe them out, statuses in particular used to great effect to even the power difference so that fights don’t just boil down to holding down attack and waiting for things to end. The freedom to use special abilities and battles that ask for them make Final Fantasy VII’s combat more than a way to add activities between story developments, the game able to become more of a full package of enjoyable experiences for it.

 

I feel a bit foolish in retrospect for underestimating Final Fantasy VII and I’m even a little bothered by how the public perception of characters like Cloud and Aeris have been warped beyond the more textured personalities depicted in the game. Such incredible effort was made to make the characters and world complex and compelling, but I suppose when over 10 million people buy your game and some don’t even make it too far into it they might be left with the same assumptions I had back when I only had briefly experienced it. Final Fantasy VII devotes time to every aspect of the experience, trying to make sure something as simple as exploring an area can be interesting while also making sure it’s plot engrosses you as it has so much interesting ground to cover. The battle system is enhanced by the incredible potential of Materia and the music not only does an excellent job in conveying tone but can sound beautiful or exciting as required. When everything in the game is considered, it’s no surprise this was the breakthrough role-playing game that opened the Western world’s heart to the genre. This was not just a case of it being the first to get people’s attention, Final Fantasy VII is an excellent experience that put incredible effort and thought into every element and was suitably rewarded for doing so.