Welcome
to the world of Final Fantasy VII. One of the most anticipated
games around for quite some time, and although it has been
relased for more than two years now, it is still going strong.
Why is that you say? Well you're about to find out.
Final
Fantasy VII, a world full of excitement, entertainment,
love, laughter, and death. This twists and intertwines the
plot of Final Fantasy VII. But does it make the game excell,
yes it does.
Final
Fantasy VII is not your normal RPG. It has all the likely
elements of one, except it makes you fell as though you
are in the game itself. Final Fantasy VII excells in all
that other RPGs didn't. Many people believe this to be one
of the finest, if not best, RPG of all time. The CG scenes
are the best to date. The graphics are amazing except for
one minor flaw, the so called "chunky" state of the characters.
The gameplay is the most addictive yet and the storyline
is perfect. It has you fooled throughout the whole game.
The materia command is easy to use and learn, and most interesting
since it takes quite a big step from the "learn magic, use
magic" basics in other RPGs. The gameplay is excellent in
Final Fantasy VII. From learning new skills to mastering
your materia for better usage. The mastering of the materia
is the most interesting part of this game. While building
up levels, you also can build the level of your "materia".
Depending on the level of your materia depends on it's strength.
For example, the "Cure" materia is effective through the
beginning part of the game, but as you raise your levels,
you will need a "Cure" that adds more to your HP. In turn,
you need to raise your "Cure materia" to level 2, which
is "Cure 2" which heals twice as much as the last. Then
comes "Cure 3" and so on. The levels of the materia depend
on the kind of materia you have egupied to your armor or
weapons. There are five different types of "materia", red,
green, purple, blue, and yellow. Each one has it's own use.
Red is the summon materia, which is used to summon the monster
or "God" named to that materia. There is blue materia which
is support materia. Support materia basically makes the
materia linked to it twice as good. Purple materia is the
independant materia which has things such as "long range"
attack which lets some one with, say a sword, attack without
moving their position. The green materia is the magic materia,
all of your magic based attacks will be green materia. The
yellow materia is the command materia. The yellow materia
lets you cast special commands during battles to lend you
the upper hand. Any materia may be equipped, or linked,
in special slots on the players armor or weapon. Each weapon
has a specific number of linked materia slots and non-linked
materia slots. The battles of Final Fantasy VII are similar
to most other RPGs. The command list you can choose from
is the basic of Magic, Item, Summon, Attack, and Guard.
Other special selections become avaliable when special materia
is attached to the player. Also, there is the Active Battle
Time (ABT) which means you have a "time bar" at the bottom
of the screen which raises slowly. When the bar is full,
it is that characters turn to attack the chosen enemy. Each
character in Final Fantasy VII also as a special attack,
or a "Limit Break". Each character has four levels of Limit
Breaks. Each which can be learned from fighting continous
battles. There are two limit breaks with each level except
for level four. The level four limit break consists of the
most devastating attack that player can use. The level four
limit breaks can be accuired from that particular players
level 4 limit break item which can be found throughout the
game.
The
graphics, the only major section in Final Fantasy VII that
has a minor problem. All backgrounds and backdrops are rendered
in full CG (Computer Generated) form and the characters
are "pasted" onto the set, much like the Resident Evil games.
While you on the world map, everything is packed full of
polygon pumping power. The mountain ranges, towns, and the
sky. The battles are also polygonal along with the enemies,
summons monsters, and players. All the CG scenes are amazing.
There is over 60 minutes of CG sequences throughout the
game which helps make the story line a little bit easier
to follow. The magic attacks in Final Fantasy VII are the
most amazing things in the game besides the CG sequences.
Lightning attacks actually look like lighting and the ice
and fire actually look like fire. Now on to the minor problem,
characters. For one thing, which isn't bad, the characters
"enter" the main character. What I'm talking about is while
traveling in a group, you can only see one character. It
would have been nice to see all the characters interact
with each other and the people throughout the world. Now,
the big momma of bad things, the character design. What
the hell was Squaresoft thinking?! They could of had a perfect
game except for the "chunky" characters. The characters
could have been rendered in nice, eye-catching polygons,
but instead they are made out of blocks. For real. They
have a face with square eyes, no noses, and no mouths. This
makes you think that Square got lazy near the end of the
developement.
To
make the game even better, the music actually fits the mood
of the game. In a tense situation you have heart-beating
music, in a sad situation, such as the death of a certain
character you hear slow, but happy music. Even during a
particular battle is the music that goes along with that
particular battle scene. Sounds also range from the character
walking through the woods, bouncing around, and even running
and jumping. It would have been nice to see voice acting
in a RPG for once, but it was totally clear that Square
put all it could into that game.
The
level of difficulty is not hard at all unless you are a
beginner. For professional RPGers the game is easy and fun.
The only problem anyone might have is with the materia.
You might have trouble equpping the materia or even understanding
how to use it. You also might have trouble with battles
because certain enemies are immune and even absorb the players
magic and attacks. Which in turns make you lose the battle
because you are healing the enemy or take your time planning
out how to find your enemies weaknesses and strengths. This
makes the game a real pain when you want to get a battle
over with because it takes a while. But hey, what are RPGs
for?
The
next part of my 2 cents includes the fun of the game. Final
Fantasy VII is the most fun you can have with a game. You
have many objectives to complete. You can spend all day
building levels, gaining AP for your materia, and collecting
GIL (money) to buy special items. But the funnest part of
Final Fantasy VII is the side quests, or jobs, and the mini
games. There are literally about 40-60 mini games and side
quests. These mini games and side quests include, finding
secret characters, which there are two, finding a players
"Ultimate Weapon", finding a players level four limit break,
finding and defeating the "Weapons", playing arcade games
for GIL, and so on. Final Fantasy VII is packed with at
least 200 hours of gameplay for true fans and people who
want to explore every inch of the world, but for people
willing to get the game over with can only expect around
60-75 hours of sweet gameplay.
Well,
it has all lead up to this. The conclusion. Final Fantasy
VII is fabulous in all areas. It will have RPGers amazed.
Even if you're not a gamer or RPGer, you will still fall
in love with Final Fantasy VII. If you have not picked up
this game, go do it now. It definitely has my vote for the
#1 RPG of all time.
By:
SpawN
FF7 Main
