Now, before I start telling you how cool and awesome the Final Fantasy Franchise is, let me give you a trivia that every single Final Fantasy fan should know. The reason why it’s called Final Fantasy is because Hironobu Sakaguchi, the president of Square Co., Ltd. back then, considered the first installment to be the last game they would be making because the company was about to declare bankruptcy. What he didn’t count on at that time, was how great the game would turn out and how he it would enable to save the whole company. Of course, some of you might start asking why the first Final Fantasy (FF) became a hit with its 2D animation and monotone sounds. Well, people actually liked it a lot and we all know how famous these games became over the years. The game now has its 14th installment.
What we really wanna talk about here is the 7th game in the main series. According to Gamefaqs.com, it is the #1 Playstation game of the first generation. The reason for that being the game itself was considered a milestone in the world of Playstation games. It was the first FF game to be released for the Playstation and the first in the series to be in 3D. And if you’ve played the earlier games in the series, you’d notice that every single one of them took a medieval-ish theme with knights, wizards, dragons, etc. Final Fantasy VII was the first to use a modern or futuristic setting. Of all the FF games, this one sold around 10.5 million copies. Wow!
If you play a Final Fantasy game, you play it for its story. Every Final Fantasy fan knows that each new installment in the series has nothing to do with its predecessor… story-wise that is. So let us try to share with you what makes the Final Fantasy VII so great without giving away spoilers since by the end of this article, we’d be recommending that you play this game if you haven’t yet (even though it’s been out for about 14 years! Where have you people been?).
You start off with Cloud Strife, our spiky-haired protagonist, jumping out of a train while on a mission to help out an eco-terrorist group known as AVALANCHE. Cloud is a former member of SOLDIER, a group of elite warriors trained by Shinra, the evil corporation who has a monopoly on the world’s power source and the owners of the reactor that AVALANCHE wants to destroy. During the mission, Cloud is assisted by Barrett Wallace, a man with a gun for a hand. Cloud’s reasons for leaving SOLDIER are unclear at first but we learn shortly after that first mission that he was recommended to AVALANCHE by his childhood friend, Tifa Lockheart.
During one of Cloud’s misadventures, he meets Aerith (or Aeris), a young woman from the slums who makes a living selling flowers. Aerith tells our huge sword-wielding hero that the Shinra Company has been after her for some time for some reason, turning them from bad-guys to worse-guys. After some events, Cloud and his newfound friends make their way into the Shinra Building – all 70 floors of it. They get captured and detained at one point, but of course they still manage  to get out. Once our heroes get to the top floor to confront President Shinra, they find him dead at his desk – death-by-a ridiculously -huge sword to be exact. Cloud recognizes the sword and knows its owner to be a man named Sephiroth, a war hero thought to have been dead, and the main antagonist of the game. You know you’re a total bad-ass (can I say that here?) when you make one of the most epic entrances ever…without even actually being there!
After the events at the Shinra Building, Cloud’s group decides to leave Midgar (which has thus far been the setting of the story) and investigate the mystery behind Sephiroth’s apparent resurrection. From here on out, you embark on one of the most memorable stories of all time. Like I’ve mentioned earlier, Final Fantasy VII has everything. From off-beat humor, heart pinching drama, high-octane action, to M. Night Shyamalan-esque twists.
Game Play
For those of you who have yet to get your hands on a role-playing game, this is pretty much what the game play is like: To progress the game plot, you go through each town through dungeons. Within these dungeons (or when you’re travelling between towns via the world map), you have random encounters with monsters or enemies. This is where the battle system of the game is incorporated.
The Final Fantasy series is well-known for introducing a new system for each installment. For Final Fantasy VII, we get to use the Materia system. Materia is explained in the game as crystallized Mako, the substance utilized by the Shinra Company to produce power and electricity. Materia is fitted into slots found on a character’s weapons and armor. It affects their stats but more importantly, grants them abilities. The types of materia are color coded: yellow materia gives a character more command abilities, purple materia gives independent abilities, green is for magic spells, red is for summon spells, and blue provides support when paired with other materia.
Another feature utilized in Final Fantasy VII is the Limit Break system. Every time a character takes damage from an enemy, his or her Limit Gauge starts to fill. When the bar is full, that character is able to use a unique ability that can greatly affect the battle. The flow of these actions is determined by the Active Time Battle (ATB) gauge during an encounter. Each character has a gauge that fills over time and when it is full, it means that it is the character’s turn to take an action. Standard commands are Attack and Item. Additional commands such as Magic and Summon become available when the corresponding materia are equipped.
Summary
All in all, I would say that if you haven’t played Final Fantasy VII yet, go ahead and play it. Even if you’re not a fan of the genre or video games in general, you will enjoy it as long as you’re a fan of great stories. The battle system may sound a bit complicated, but it really isn’t once you get to try it for yourself. If you have played this game before, go ahead and play it again anyway. You know you want to. If you can access this article over the net I’m sure you can find a way to play this game. Next time, we hope to cover something newer in another video game genre I like – fighting games. The game we have in mind comes out this month and let’s just say that things can get a little “toasty†while playing.
