I have tried many times to write a review on Final Fantasy 7 (FF7), but I have found it so hard because to review a game this good I feel that I really need to make a review that isn't just another boring review that doesn't live up to the game. FF7 was the first of the final fantasys to be brought out in England. It was released in 1997 and in England it was quite unknown, the public had only heard of final fantasy from other reviews from Japan, raving about this series of fantastic games. Originally they were quite weiry to buy it, but then as more games were purchased people found out just how good this game was and critics started giving it very high marks such as 97% from the official playstation magazine. Though of course there are many games that everyone jumps of the bandwagon and starts buying them in large numbers. Most of them are, of course, not classics, take Fifa 2006 most recently, many were sold, but in my opinion the game is terrible. But FF7 was not like this, it really took some time for it to gain respect through the fact that not many people had heard of it. The reason it gained this respect was because of a fabulous mix of gameplay and storyline which really kept people compelled in the game, and made people want to come back and play it again and again.
The characters were also brilliantly made, each added its own spark to the game and each gave something for people to enjoy using them as characters or start to like them overall. The main character is Cloud a young rebel fighter formerly of the army known as SOLDIER who were part of the largest corporation in the world Shinra. He had left Shinra after many traumatic experiances and had started working under contract for other groups. The group he begins the game in is a group called AVALANCHE, they hate shinra because they are destroying the world due to sucking up the lifes energy through the substance mako. The members of AVANLANCHE are Barret a large man with a gun to replace his arm which had been damaged earlier on in his life, Biggs, Wedge and Jessie, familiar names for the final fantasy series lovers. After the first attack on Shinra, Cloud and AVALANCHE return to base where they meet up with Cloud's old school friend Tifa. Cloud begins to leave after he gets his money, but Tifa pleads with him to stay for the next attack on Shinra. He agrees and they destroy a reactor. Though AVANLANCHE had gained a name for their rebel acts against Shinra and the leader of Shinra meets them as they exit the reactor, he attacks them and Cloud falls from the reactor into a church below as Barret and Tifa escape. In the church he meets Aeris. A flower girl seen earlier in the game. He falls for her over the next few scenes as they escape from the specialist shinra group the turks.
The reason the turks are attacking them is not because of what cloud and AVANLANCHE had done, but because of Aeris, she is a special women, with a hidden secret unknown to the world, but what scientists believe to be a group of people called The Ancients who originally came to the earth only to move through to the promised land, though the lazy ancients stayed behind and began to populate the earth. Shinra wanted to gather these people back up so that they could find the promised land.
Cloud wants to return to Tifa as he is worried what might have happened to them. He tries to leave Aeris behind so he doesnt have her as a burden, but she follows him. They return only to find Tifa being taken away, she tries to find out about Shinra undercover as a model through a manager of a sector in Midgar the town run by Shinra. Cloud finds her and they return only to find their sector under attack by Shinra, Barret and AVALANCHE are defending it, and Cloud goes to help. The huge pillar holding the sector up is destoryed and sector 7 is left in crumbles. The only survivers are Tifa, Barret and Cloud, and to add insult to injury Aeris and Barret's daughter Marlene are kidnapped. Cloud now has a reason to fight, the three of them go up to Shinra headquarters. They make their way to the top only to get kidnapped. They meet a new character Red XI, a beast captured by Shinra as he is believed to have some connection to promised land. They are taken to the prison in the Shinra tower, and sleep over night. When they awake, they find the doors open and the guards slaughtered. Cloud and Red search through the building until they come upon Shinra, the head of Shinra Inc. with a huge sword through his stoumach. Cloud immediatly knows who this is.
Sephiroth is the main villain in FF7, he is a legend in the world for his heroic performances for Shinra in the war about 10 years before FF7 was set, he then, as explained in the game, went mad, as he found a reactor with beasts being grown. He asks questions of himself, if he is one of them. He then walks up to the top of the reactor where he takes Jenova, who he believes to be his mother, more of a monstrosity, who is thought to be an ancient. He then attacks the world, he thinks he owns the world because he is an ancient. Cloud thought he had killed Sephiroth years before the setting of the game.
Cloud is amazed as he sees Sephiroth's sword. He gathers the group and they escape Midgar, not before he is attacked by Shinra's son, Rufus, who now owns Shinra Inc.
From here on the story mainly consists of Cloud and the group chasing Sephiroth down, I won't mention much more because it would spoil one of the best game storylines ever, if not the best.
Other Characters to mention are ; Yuffie, a young warrior from Wutai, obsessed with materia (mentioned later), you have to say all the right words to aquire her services, once you do she is a good fighter, but is troublesome later on in the game Vincent, a former Turk found in Cloud's home town, he was banished to eternel sleep by Hojo, (mentioned later) who he hates, he is a gunman, but different to Barret. Cait Sith, another troublesome character, aquired at the Gold Saucer, he a stuffed cat on top of a big white children's toy, he forces himself into the group, but watch out for this one! Cid, older then the rest, 40 something, he is obsessed with space, meet him when he is waiting for Shinra as he thinks they are coming to restart the space program, in fact they want his plane, who the group also want, so they escape on it , but it get shot down and only works in the water, Cid jumps on as he doesn't want to lose his plane. Hojo, the head of science at Shinra, he leaves as he wants to continue with independant science work. He made Sephiroth and if he is to be believed, he also made Cloud.
The gameplay is very good, throughout the game weapons and armour can be bought or found after fights, each weapon has a certain amount of slots on it, these slots can have materia equiped onto it. Materia is another word for magic, you can equip many different types of magic, the main four are Ice, Fire, Lightning and Cure, which can be bought early in the game. There are also other types of magic such as all, which has to be equiped in and joined slot so that that materia can be used on all opponents. Summons are also in materia, they can be brought into the battle to use a powerful attack on the opponent. The best of these being Knights of the Round a summon materia that attacks the opponent about 14 times with 7000 hit points, thats a lot. Some materia can also be used to improve basic attacks, for example you can attack the opponent twice instead of the usual singular hit. There are also some materia that can improve the stats of the characters. HP Plus improves the characters HP (Hit points, or health) or MP Plus improving the MP (Magic points). Each materia uses a certain amount of MP, for example fire magic uses 4 mp. Each materia can be levelled up as well as the character after a fight. Fire can be levelled up to Fire2 and finally Fire3, the higher the level of the materia the more mp has to be used. Another way to use powerful attacks is an attack called a limit break, these are when the character have been hit by opponents enough that a bar fills up and they can use a more powerful attack than a normal hit. All final fantasy games have these just in different forms, and similarly to final fantasy 8 the main character has the best limit break to use. Cloud's best limit break is called omnislash, it attacks the opponent over 20 times with around 5000 hit point each.
The music in all final fantasy games is very good, the creator of final fantasy actually has a band that made most of the music for this game, music to look out for is the jenova battle, a great bit of fast music that sounds very good. But most if not all final fantasy fans will agree with me that the best song in FF7 is One Winged Angel, the song for sephiroth, its classical music but is fantastic.
The final fantasy series have been fantastic, the series are called final fantasy because the creator had made many games before, but they had all been unsuccesful, so he said to himself that this would be the last game he would make unless the series did well, as it turns out FF1 did very well, but finalf fantasy didn't explode into world acknowledgement until FF7 was brought out, and what a game! Since FF7 they have made 5 more final fantasys my personal favourite is FF8, in my opinion the creators have gone off track recently, they are trying too hard on graphics and not concentrating on gameplay and storyline, in fact they are having to return to FF7 with Advent Children the movie and a new game concentrating on Vincent and there have also been very strong rumours that they are going to create FF7 again, but with the graphics that we saw in advent children of spirits within. In my opinion I'm pleased, because then we will have the perfect game (if they don't mess around with it) but they are going backwards to go forwards, which they really shouldn't be, they should be making games with the ability of FF7, not having to return to it.
I hope you enjoyed my review please leave some messages to tell me what you think Cheers
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Good value
Longevity/Expected Longevity
ongoing
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