FINAL FANTASY VII Reviews

Honestly, I didn't think that this game was going to live up to the immense amount of hype surrounding it, but it absolutely did. If you are able to look past all of the old-school jank and general clumsiness of a game released in 1997, you'll be met with a truly amazing piece of storytelling with FF7. The narrative tension in the main story is amazing, the music is out of this world, and most of the playable characters have really interesting character arcs that they go through over the course of the game. I'm really glad that I was able to get myself to play this game before jumping into the remake, because I think there's a certain charm in the presentation of this one that seems absent in the remakes. (9/10)

the best final fantasy game. second best ps1 game. great story, characters, world. gearing (materia) system and classic open world (exploration and side quest/ stories) (10/10) turn based jrpg. granted "one of the best" seal, in my humble opinion. :)

it's a classic if you can get over the low resolution of the graphics it's an amazing game if you enjoy the ff series . VII, IX, XIV are all solid

As someone who have never experienced this game growing up, there are a lot of things I can say about this game, both good and bad. But in short, if you are a JRPG lover, you might as well play this game before delving into FF7 Remake. I do think it will help to enrich your experience on playing the remakes later on. Pros: + Timeless amazing story. + Extraordinary storytelling, especially if you remember that this game came from the 90s. + Memorable characters. + Amazing soundtracks. + Perfected the old-style battle system of FF. The implementation of materia revolutionized the game. Opening up countless possibilities with your creativity. Cons: - You might want some mods as Square don't really care about improving user experience and just port this game as is. Low frame rate might be quite jarring. Mods can do that for you and then some. - The game might hide or never explain some stuff and you got to figure it out by your own. You might even miss something and never know about it even after finishing the game. Some would argue that's the characteristics of JRPG, but I would say it's just the old game design as every other game from that era would also do the same thing. - General jankiness. You might experienced jankiness here and there. As example, the game was designed with d-pad movement in mind, so you might find movement awkward if you are not used to it. - Especially in minigames, they are doing a poor job on explaining things to you on what you are actually doing. The good news is, there's only a few of them in your entire playthrough. Even with all of the small hiccups, I don't think you should skip this game. It's worth the effort to experience this game at least once.

Best final fantasy game story wise. Top 5 gameplay wise.

Decided to play this game instead of rebirth since that game's characters and activities made me want to commit sudoku and holy what a difference. The way this game is portrayed and written is league's above what was shown in the remakes (specifically rebirth). During this game you don't see Sephiroth AT ALL until a FLASHBACK so just the weight of him appearing is insane. The way that characters are treated in this game as well feels completely different compared to the remakes. Cloud is actually written like a character that is capable of showing some emotion and is actually capable of completing tasks even though he is struggling with his existence and not written like he can't do anything without Tifa by his side, Barrett's personality is much more pronounced since you go certain sections of the game with just him, and Tifa and Aerith's frienship isn't the forefront of the entire game and feels like it was grown organically as you just naturally see them just wander off and chill with each other. The fact that this game from 20 years ago knows how to write proper characters without bringing down OTHER MEMBERS of the team is astounding to me considering it came out MORE THAN 20 YEARS AGO. Another huge thing that I should mention is that the story actually makes sense in this game as well. From what I played the story of this and the remakes are completely different, the new games have tons of new sub plots and confusing new story beats that quite frankly don't make any sense to me at all, this game though is very straightforward with what it wants to portray. I also think the biggest plus for me is that fact that the minigames aren't shoved in the front of my face and when they are there you don't HAVE TO DO THEM TO PROGRESS THE STORY, one insane difference to me was that the bike minigame you play when you escape midgar actually controls insanely well compared to the remake to the point where it that bike section actually controls better than the remake since it controls so snappy. Obviously the game isn't perfect like the game looks like ass, the controls are unintuitive, since there's less bloat minigames the game is shorter than the remakes but in my opinion I think that even with those negatives this is probably the best way to experience the game rather than play the newer ones. TL;DR: This game is how people were meant to play and experience ff7. I would recommend this game over the remakes and day of the week. I already plan on modding this game to look sharper when I run it back for a second playthrough.

How is the current console version you can buy on PSN better than this? Controller support is broken and the DRM check in the beginning is a bit much for a game this old. Don't even think i'm going to bother with the 7th heaven mod.

Game is 100% achievable on a single playthrough within about 70hrs (casual). Considerably faster (about 10-20hrs faster) than the ps1(emulator) version too, which I also replayed recently to compare. Battle load times are nearly instant here, loading them faster than the spinning sound effect can finish(lol), likely saving many grinding hours. Chocobo racing prizes are considerably easier to get now too, with rare items and materia winnable in the first common slot, rather than only in the rarest last slot like on ps1, which also saves grinding hours. The fix to the armor's missing mdef bug is a very welcome improvement over the original too! The game can also be fullscreened without any black borders, which is very nice. All of the game's other known useful exploitable bugs and glitches (w-item duplication, chocobo stamina refill) are still there intact as well. Save for some sound effects missing during limits (ie omnislash) and some cutscene scores playing just a tad differently than on ps1, this version is recommended for the gameplay's many quality of life improvements! Much better than the old pc port from 1998 too, the discs which I still have in storage but hadn't played in over 20yrs...so this version is definitely an upgrade. The only thing is that I had to swap my controller's X and A buttons to get the game back into a familiar playstation layout. For some reason the game defaults the 'switch' button (square equivalent on ps1) to steam's bottom A button's position, and the 'cancel' button (bottom X on playstation) is mapped to steam's far-left X button, leading to some awkward controls, since you still need to hold 'cancel' for your characters to run on-screen without mods. But swapping these 2 buttons solved the problem for me. Also steam's materia mastering achievements were a little finicky; mastering one required the final points to be on 'normal' ap growth equipment, since mastering several on double growth weapons didn't seem to register. So later when mastering ALL (and yes they mean -ALL- the materias, even the rare ones you might never normally use, like the hp-mp swap one) I played it safe and swapped them to normal growth gear on their last points too. Just be aware that trading your materias in for a master set at Cosmo Canyon removes them from your inventory, so you'll have to re-master them all over again to be active in your inventory for the materia overload achievement to unlock (and be careful about exceeding the 200 limit when grinding alls for the max gil achievement too!) So as long as you're aware of that, and know about the missable enemy skills (like Trine and Pandora's Box, which the first dragon zombie I encountered spammed Shadow Flare on my party, draining its mp rendering it unable to cast upon its defeat, but still using up the game's only cast trigger, forcing me to restart to a save before I entered the final dungeon)....then you're good to go! Have fun all over again with this beloved classic game.

Without a doubt this is the best version of Final Fantasy Vii you can play (yes way better than remakes), im in shock and awe how a game from 20+ years ago is this good and engaging, gameplay was smooth, story was amazing & soundtrack was literal orgasm (i'm looking at you Aerith, Vincent, Cid & Sephiroth). trying to learn Sephiroths One-Winged Angel on guitar atm. in og you have option to recruite Vincent & Yuffie which are easter egg characters but in Rebirth for some reason they force these characters on everyone which loses the feeling of it being earned & on top of that Vincent in Rebirth is a joke, he's literally holding a psp in his tombstone when he wakes up for some reason which is a parody of him being a tragic, dark & earie character from original. another thing og shines compared to remakes is summons, i have no idea how they screwed summons look and style this badly compared to og, Bahamut & Alexander look so so much cuter and more intimidating compared to tiny boring looking things you see in remake. i'm pretty sure they're gonna screw Bahamut Zero (my fave summon ever), Hades & Knights of the round as well for part 3 so i'm just not gonna be optimistic about it. and speaking of summons, way you get them is so cool and badass & you actually feel like you achieve something important! exmaple, for Alexander you literally need to go around in a snowy forest, near ancients & Aeriths hometown & go through some of the most confusing parts of the game just to find your way through a tiny cave and then there it is, the summon. for Knight of the round, which is best summon ever you need gold chocobo, and since i wanted it really badly i went through the whole gold chocobo farm which took me hours just to get my Knights summon. point is in og trying to achieve stuff is hard & you feel earned once you have them. i dont usually like grindy games but i lovvved griding in og, it never felt boring to me. i'm so so so thankful to my girlfriend Maiju for introducing me to world of FF7 and i'm even more glad she bullied me into playing og after saying how many times remake was a disappointment & how bad changes in it are(currently watching her stream of Rebirth while we both make fun of how bad it is compared to og!). overall, this game is a masterpiece & forever my favorite game of all time ♥

Never vibed with FF series ever. I even tried FF7 Remake but quickly dipped. Last year I made a resolution to try games outside of my usual normal types, so gave FF7 original a shot after picking it up on sale. If you are reading this , I recommend going in blind as this game will hit you like a truck on all levels be it music, story, characters and even the world itself. Came to complete a resolution, left as a fan, cant wait to try Remake, and Rebirth now that I have played this gem. Do yourself a favor and pick this game up.