| Final Fantasy VII - Retroview | |
A Good Game Chained To Its Stereotypes By: TheShroud13
Review Breakdown |
Battle System |
7 |
Interface |
6 |
Music/Sound |
8 |
Originality |
4 |
Plot |
6 |
Localization |
4 |
Replay Value |
8 |
Visuals |
8 |
Difficulty |
Easy |
Time to Complete |
30-50 hours | | Overall | |
Criteria |
Final Fantasy VII, the RPG that did what Mystic Quest never could,
welcomed newcomers into the world of RPGs. Seemingly designed for the
mainstream, Final Fantasy VII sold incredibly well. It started the
mutation of role-playing games from niche genre, to one of the premiere
genres. Final Fantasy VII proves that you have a fantasy game in a
futuristic setting. Final Fantasy VII is a wonderful game, but a few
flaws in the game really hold this game from being all that it could be.
Final Fantasy VII uses the Active Time Battle that has been around
since Final Fantasy IV. Polished greatly, VII's spin on the Active Time
system is much greater than its archaic counterpart, and adds a new
twist to the battle system, Limit Breaks. These new attacks would allow
you to use a devastating attack on your foes after you had taken enough
damage to fill up your limit bar. This new twist adds a bit to the
system, and makes the battles a little more tactical. The battle system
still suffers from the same ailments that the Active Time Battles of the
past had, battles using this system require very little thought.
Surviving the majority of the battles in this game is basically a matter
of hitting the X button until your foe is dead. There is never real any
sense of danger in battles, and while they are fun for a time, they
quickly grow boring.
Like most Final Fantasies after IV, Final Fantasy VII uses a unique
system that determines your skills. As opposed to having each character
being given predetermined abilities, you use Materia to assign your
character magic spells and abilities. You can fine-tune your characters
to mutilate your enemies in a number of ways. While the freedom of
customization is indeed new, having to rearrange your Materia every time
you get new Materia is frustrating. In addition to that, none of the
characters really has a "feel" to them in combat. You can design your
characters to be anything you want them to be, which is nice, to a
degree; however, it also makes it so your party will essentially consist
of the same members throughout the game, as there really is no reason to
use your other characters. A number of materia also have the ability to
imbalance an already easy game even more. While the materia system is a
good idea, and is fun at the beginning of the game, it quickly becomes
one of the game's biggest chores. Fortunately, everything else about
the game flows smoothly, and is easily accessible in a token Final
Fantasy menu.
| What a beautiful surrounding. | |
Final Fantasy VII does a pretty good job with its audio. The sounds
aren't really groundbreaking, but they show improvement from the SNES.
The musical score is not a masterpiece, but it is still a very good
selection of songs. There are few very exceptional songs, but the songs
are placed appropriately, and fit their environments nicely. The game
does, however, have a few stand out songs that help bolster this
soundtrack. There are also some pretty bad songs, but the majority of
the soundtrack fits perfectly with the story, and although not a
magnificent work, it does get the job done, as well as enhance the game.
One of the most important aspects of any RPG is the number of aspects
that affect the game's plot. While Final Fantasy VII does not have a
bad story, a number of aspects that would have contributed in making
Final Fantasy VII's plot more believable and understandable are not done
adequately enough to consider the game's plot good. One of the most
annoying things about the game is the way it moves from point to point.
As opposed to using dialogue and events to progress the story, it uses
awkward transition scenes to progress the story, making the game both
less believable, as well as more difficult to understand. Another major
weakness to Final Fantasy VII is its character development. While some
characters in the game are very well developed, the majority of them are
not, and even more are subject to terrible stereotypes. Grand dialogue
scenes are appropriate for developing some characters, however, others
are left with a few strings of, "@#&%*&!" to develop their personality.
The characters are very poorly done, and the characters are amazingly
unbelievable, even for a fantasy game. After spending enough time in
the game to realize the characters are so poorly developed, you begin
starting to simply not care what happens to them, and since the entire
plot is focused around them, the plot doesn't carry the kind of punch it
would if the characters were developed well. In addition, the world in
which the game takes place is not well developed either, making you
simply not care about it, and since the whole game is your typical save
the world game, the entire point of the game seems pointless in the eyes
of the gamer. While the story is well crafted and complex, you end up
just simply not caring due to the awful development by Square's part in
the characters, and the game's world. There is so much potential in
this game that has been squandered by the Square's poor execution.
| I'm not sure what they are, but they don't look nice. | |
The originality in Final Fantasy VII is a tough thing to judge. On one
hand, it is a groundbreaking game worthy of full originality marks, on
the other, it is a game filled with stereotypes. Final Fantasy VII is
one of the first games to set a fantasy game in a futuristic cyberpunk
world, and it does a marvelous job in doing it. It has a very original
plotline, and some very original aspects to it. The characters are a
different story. Bound in shackles to character stereotypes, you can
look at a character and already determine their personalities. It's a
real tight squeeze, but overall, the good original aspects outweigh the
bad, and make this game more original than most.
Final Fantasy VII doesn't sport the world's greatest localization, but
it doesn't fail miserably either. The grammatical errors are existent,
but never really get in the way of the understanding of the game. There
are also some awkward phrases and errors around that interfere with your
understanding of some speech, but that is mainly from minor characters,
which although still unacceptable, does not interfere with the game,
does not really impede your understanding of the game overall, so it is
more forgivable. While it still falls short of par, it isn't so
gloriously awful that you can't enjoy the game because of it.
If there is one thing you can do with Final Fantasy VII, it is playing
it over and over again. The abundance of minigames, if nothing else,
will keep you coming back. The mini-games are fun, and the battles are
fun enough to keep you through the game a second time. One of the
things this game does well is making sure the game doesn't sit on your
shelf forever, which is admirable.
| The people look like they're made of Legos. | |
Final Fantasy VII is also a very pretty game. While the character
models outside of combat and FMVs are relatively unimpressive and
blocky, the battle graphics are very good, and the FMV graphics are
amazing. Beyond that, the game has very good backgrounds, and the
landscapes look amazing. While the character models probably won't
impress you at first, the game does a brilliant job of painting the
world, and you will be amazed at what Square did with during the earlier
days of Playstation.
All in all, Final Fantasy VII is a relatively good game. It definitely
seems engineered toward the mainstream, and it has succeeded well.
Unfortunately, the game does not satisfy all the needs that I look for
in a game, and never really feels complete. While Final Fantasy VII
broke the plane of RPGs as a mainstream genre, and there could not have
been a better game to do it, few aside from mainstream gamers will ever
consider Final Fantasy VII a masterpiece. This is a good, long quest,
however the pieces of the puzzle to make this game a masterpiece are
missing.
TheShroud13's Final Word: While Final Fantasy VII is a good game, the
stereotypes and poor character development hurt this game more than I
ever thought it could. A worthwhile game to play, but don't believe the
hype.
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