To start it all, Final Fantasy 7 is a product of Square Enix and it went out in 1998 in North America. It's one of the most popular game ever from one of the most famous company in the video-game industry. The numbers are speaking, in fact, more than 2.3 million copy of the game were sold after only 2 days when it went out in Japan.
Let's review that legend of the RPG Style!
First of all, you start as Cloud Strife, a blond haired ex-SOLDIER who joined the Avalanche, a group of so called "terrorists". They're much like hardcore greenpeace, because they breach, they sometimes kill and they bomb reactors, oh yeah they bomb!
They accuse Shinra, the leading industry of the planet of killing the mother-earth, by using it's "lifestream" to produce energy.
That's were it all begins, you don't know much about the protagonist, but you'll soon enough be washed away by the originality of this game.
Epic battles, original characters, superb music by Nobuo Uematsu and a storyline that is way behond what you would expect and I mean it.
Graphics: Backgrounds, videos and battle graphics are awesome and colorful. For a 1998 game, the graphics are kinda good, but they haven't aged very well. In fact, outside battles, characters are very square-shaped and.. well even when I was a kid I wasn't thinking that it was beautiful. I would give a 3.8 out of 5 for the graphics, because if it wasn't of these square-shaped characters, the graphics would be a work of art.
3.8 out of 5 for the graphics
Longevity: The main story is kinda long, in fact, to get through it the first time you'll probably have to play it for 60 hours. Good news! There's a LOT of side quests, chocobos, ultimate weapons, optional characters name it! I easily played over 150 hours to get through it completely.
5 out of 5 for the longevity.
Storyline: The story is what makes a good RPG, it's all about dialogues, intrigue and plot twists. In my opinion, Final Fantasy 7 has a fabulous storyline, while playing it there's an unexplicable feeling that makes you to play more and more. Plus! you'll never get bored playing that game if you're a RPG fan, in fact... that game made me a fan of that genre ;)
5 out of 5 for the Storyline
Music: Nobuo Uematsu made a fine job as usual. The ost is completely magical, every songs is cooler than the one that presedes. Battle themes are awesome, especially the boss themes. The last boss has the honor to have an Orchestra to play it's theme, imagine! The soundtrack is awesome, I just cannot say anything bad about it.
5 out of 5 for the music
Characters: Each one has a story, even the optionnal characters give you the opportunity to learn a lot about them. Everything is complete, you'll learn to love them, hate them or you'll be mad at them sometimes. They complete the game with a touch of emotion, the magical touch that makes FF7 as legendary as it is.
5 out of 5 for the characters
Total: 23.8 out of 25 (95%)
That game really deserves every good comments you heard about it. This is one of my favorite, my first RPG ever and it has a place in my gamer heart hahaha :P
I'm proud to have it in my collection, it's a must-own!
Oh, did I mention the game was so popular they made 2 movies about it, prequels and sequels game too!
Movies:
FF7: Advent Children (2005)
FF7: Last order (Anime,2005)
Videogames:
FF7: Dirge of cerberus (ps2 2006)
FF7: Before Crisis (JAP only, cellphone)
FF7: Crisis Core (PSP)
Cloud also appeared in other video game like Dissidia Final Fantasy and many other characters (including Cloud of course) appeared in the battle game Ehrgeiz.
Final Fantasy VII is a ps1 game and there's also a PC version of it. You can easily buy it on eBay.com, it's price is usualy between 40 and 50 bucks for a used game.
All right reserved to Square Enix
I do not own any images I'm just reviewing ;)
Thanks to Square Enix, IMDB, eBay, wikipedia and my personnal experience :)
