RPGamers Network > Reviews > Game Reviews > Final Fantasy VII
After the Japanese success of Final Fantasy VI, the RPG market was dying down after 3 years of basic inactivity. The market needed something new, something big that would spark the RPG world once more. With the Nintendo 64 just being released and say, lacking in capability, Squaresoft decided to move to Sony. CD ROMs were cheaper to use and held more memory. Literally the day after the move, Squaresoft began plans for the 7th major installment to the Final Fantasy series, the first to have fully rendered 3D areas and battles. Although CDs held more memory, the game was too large to fit on just one CD, so it became the first PlayStation game to have three discs as well. The game took two and half years to make and was released in Japan on the 31st of January 1997. In the first 3 days it sold over 100 million copies, a world record which still stands today as the most successful video game released. It made similar records around the world and now has sold nearly 2 billion copies worldwide. But enough about history, on to the reasons why it is the most successful game ever.
The storyline is a good place to start. You take the role of an Ex-Soldier named Cloud, who starts off the game as the new member of a rebellion group called Avalanche. The group are rebelling against the evil corporation known as ShinRa Electric-Power Company, or SEC for short. Although for the first part of Disc 1, this might seem an ultimate goal, players of previous Final Fantasy games knew there would be more as no World Map had been seen yet and there were another two discs left. They were correct, and as the group leave the city they originated in, they gather more friends and the storyline really opens up to a world affecting crisis, revealing an evil being called Sephiroth's plan to gather the planet's energy all at once by destroying the inhabitants. Your characters then go on to a larger story to stop him. A magnificent storyline like the previous Final Fantasy games had before.
Squaresoft produced many surprises for gamers who were used to other Final Fantasy games. For instance, the fact that every character could use magic via the materia system. This was based around the fact that in Final Fantasy VII, each character could get orbs of mako energy that had various powers such as fire and cure. Now some gamers were disappointed because the limited magic added difficulty, but when Squaresoft try new things, they leave the difficulty factor until right at the end. The basic element factors were the same, Fire being weak against Ice etc...so the Gameplay had only really changed with materia and the new 3D experience gamers had to get used to. Speaking of which, the pixelated 3D graphics of the actual game were spectacular at the time, but nothing compared to the graphics of the Full Motion Videos (FMVs) that Squaresoft introduced to the Final Fantasy series at VII. These used the latest of 3D animation devices and make the game that extra bit special.
I think the main reason why Final Fantasy VII was such a great success was that it was so unbelievably different from previous games in the way of storyline, graphics, music quality, sound quality and even difficulty. It wasn't very hard, so it was easier and more fun to play. People were used to the pathetic two animations of comic book drawn monsters and the small characters who's best features were their 2D movements in a pixelated world. They then come into this huge 3D world with full moving characters and monsters, but with the same basics as what kept the series going so long up to that point.
Ah yes, speaking of music and sound...around about 1996, the game companies were given access to professional composing studios which had only been allowed to be used by actual music companies beforehand. This allowed the use of better quality music with better samples and sound effects to be inputted into the game. And thus, lead by Nobuo Uematsu, Squaresoft began a soundtrack that would better all those before it and challenge even current ones with creativity and liveliness. The sound effects were also impressive, with actual weapon sounds being recorded and used in the game for battle.
Along with the great storyline that first time players are usually encouraged to follow, the game also kept more experienced players busy for another 30 hours via the many side quests and leveling up of materia. Players could now raise their own chocobos and use them to get hidden items and whatnot. A thought not yet brought up in previous games. Of course, that was the main side quest of the game, but Squaresoft introduced something else new, which hasn't even appeared in newer Final Fantasy games; The two secret characters you could find. You could basically get them any time in the game and each had their own little side quests to do also, one a fair bit longer than the other but they were both their and they had their own lines that contribute to the storyline also.
Besides everything I've said above, people who had never played a Final Fantasy game also bought this for the fact that it was so original. This means that what they didn't like about the previous games could have been, and probably were removed in Final Fantasy VII, so the excitement of a new generation of games was reason enough to buy it to find out for themselves. Although I do think that Final Fantasy VII set the standards much too high for the following games to match, which is why it is the still the best one. If say, Final Fantasy VIII followed Final Fantasy VI, I'd be here talking about how great that game is instead of this one...it was mostly about timing and change which resulted in the greatness being shown here.
If, by any stroke of bad luck on your part, you have yet to play this game for a relatively long period of time, it's so cheap to buy now and so worth your time that you should already be out the door now. In my opinion, you're not a Role Playing Game person until you'd played this game. A complete masterpiece.
| Game Stats | |
|---|---|
| Genre | RPG |
| Platform | PlayStation |
| Format | CD-ROM |
| # of Players | 1 |
| Released Jap | 01.31.1997 |
| Released US | 09.03.1997 |
| Released EU | 11.17.1997 |
| Aprox. Length | 30-60 hrs. |
| Reviewer Rankings | |
| Battle System | 10.0 |
| Gameplay | 10.0 |
| Music | 11.0 |
| Originality | 9.0 |
| Plot | 11.0 |
| Replay Value | 9.0 |
| Sound | 9.0 |
| Visuals | 10.0 |
| Difficulty | Medium |
| Overall | |
| 9.9 | |
Final Fantasy VII
By: SquaresoftReviewed By: Kie
So I was sitting here, wondering what to review next, and I was looking at the Final Fantasy reviews, and to my amaze, the greatest one wasn't there. So here it is, for your enjoyment, Final Fantasy VII.After the Japanese success of Final Fantasy VI, the RPG market was dying down after 3 years of basic inactivity. The market needed something new, something big that would spark the RPG world once more. With the Nintendo 64 just being released and say, lacking in capability, Squaresoft decided to move to Sony. CD ROMs were cheaper to use and held more memory. Literally the day after the move, Squaresoft began plans for the 7th major installment to the Final Fantasy series, the first to have fully rendered 3D areas and battles. Although CDs held more memory, the game was too large to fit on just one CD, so it became the first PlayStation game to have three discs as well. The game took two and half years to make and was released in Japan on the 31st of January 1997. In the first 3 days it sold over 100 million copies, a world record which still stands today as the most successful video game released. It made similar records around the world and now has sold nearly 2 billion copies worldwide. But enough about history, on to the reasons why it is the most successful game ever.
The storyline is a good place to start. You take the role of an Ex-Soldier named Cloud, who starts off the game as the new member of a rebellion group called Avalanche. The group are rebelling against the evil corporation known as ShinRa Electric-Power Company, or SEC for short. Although for the first part of Disc 1, this might seem an ultimate goal, players of previous Final Fantasy games knew there would be more as no World Map had been seen yet and there were another two discs left. They were correct, and as the group leave the city they originated in, they gather more friends and the storyline really opens up to a world affecting crisis, revealing an evil being called Sephiroth's plan to gather the planet's energy all at once by destroying the inhabitants. Your characters then go on to a larger story to stop him. A magnificent storyline like the previous Final Fantasy games had before.
Squaresoft produced many surprises for gamers who were used to other Final Fantasy games. For instance, the fact that every character could use magic via the materia system. This was based around the fact that in Final Fantasy VII, each character could get orbs of mako energy that had various powers such as fire and cure. Now some gamers were disappointed because the limited magic added difficulty, but when Squaresoft try new things, they leave the difficulty factor until right at the end. The basic element factors were the same, Fire being weak against Ice etc...so the Gameplay had only really changed with materia and the new 3D experience gamers had to get used to. Speaking of which, the pixelated 3D graphics of the actual game were spectacular at the time, but nothing compared to the graphics of the Full Motion Videos (FMVs) that Squaresoft introduced to the Final Fantasy series at VII. These used the latest of 3D animation devices and make the game that extra bit special.
I think the main reason why Final Fantasy VII was such a great success was that it was so unbelievably different from previous games in the way of storyline, graphics, music quality, sound quality and even difficulty. It wasn't very hard, so it was easier and more fun to play. People were used to the pathetic two animations of comic book drawn monsters and the small characters who's best features were their 2D movements in a pixelated world. They then come into this huge 3D world with full moving characters and monsters, but with the same basics as what kept the series going so long up to that point.
Ah yes, speaking of music and sound...around about 1996, the game companies were given access to professional composing studios which had only been allowed to be used by actual music companies beforehand. This allowed the use of better quality music with better samples and sound effects to be inputted into the game. And thus, lead by Nobuo Uematsu, Squaresoft began a soundtrack that would better all those before it and challenge even current ones with creativity and liveliness. The sound effects were also impressive, with actual weapon sounds being recorded and used in the game for battle.
Along with the great storyline that first time players are usually encouraged to follow, the game also kept more experienced players busy for another 30 hours via the many side quests and leveling up of materia. Players could now raise their own chocobos and use them to get hidden items and whatnot. A thought not yet brought up in previous games. Of course, that was the main side quest of the game, but Squaresoft introduced something else new, which hasn't even appeared in newer Final Fantasy games; The two secret characters you could find. You could basically get them any time in the game and each had their own little side quests to do also, one a fair bit longer than the other but they were both their and they had their own lines that contribute to the storyline also.
Besides everything I've said above, people who had never played a Final Fantasy game also bought this for the fact that it was so original. This means that what they didn't like about the previous games could have been, and probably were removed in Final Fantasy VII, so the excitement of a new generation of games was reason enough to buy it to find out for themselves. Although I do think that Final Fantasy VII set the standards much too high for the following games to match, which is why it is the still the best one. If say, Final Fantasy VIII followed Final Fantasy VI, I'd be here talking about how great that game is instead of this one...it was mostly about timing and change which resulted in the greatness being shown here.
If, by any stroke of bad luck on your part, you have yet to play this game for a relatively long period of time, it's so cheap to buy now and so worth your time that you should already be out the door now. In my opinion, you're not a Role Playing Game person until you'd played this game. A complete masterpiece.
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