Story & Characters
As with all the Final Fantasy's, a crew has to save the world. However, there is just so much extra that saving the
world is just a perk. The main character (and unremovable party member) is Cloud Strife, whose memory is filled with
more holes than a guy that has just been unloaded with an army of 200 men with machine guns and gattling guns. Most of
his memories are simulated by the ideals of his late friend and party members previous love, Zack. Tifa is Cloud's
childhood friend, and most overly stacked female in game-dom. Barret is Square's bad attempt of a black man with a
machine-gun for a right hand. Aeris is Tifa's rival when it comes to love and the last Cetra/Ancient. Cid is a
typical angry American white man (he curses the most in games, funniest excerpt is "Shut up! Sit in your God****
chair and drink your God**** tea!" Ahhh...Classic). Cait Sith is a stuffed doll riding a stuffed doll.
R-i-i-g-g-g-h-h-h-t. Red XIII/Nanaki is a red dog/wolf with a flaming tail, and it 48 human years old (only about 15 or
16 in [whatever he is] years) And the two extras, Vincent and Yuffie. Vincent is the cool, silent, and enigmatic ex-Turk
that beats Cloud when it comes to being cool as ice. Yuffie is a ninja that's only real skill is stealing and
running.
And the villains! Round of applause for the biggest bad@$$ that ever walked the planet, Sephiroth! This guy beats James
Bond's butt 1,000,000 times over when it comes to being cool. His clothing has this...effect. I can't put it
into words, but its cool. He kicks so much @$$ in one scene (which will be highlighted later).
Also, the evil guys is a company that is killing the planet, like humans with the earth (what with pollution and
greenhouse gases). Rufus is a cheap copy of Sephiroth, Scarlet is an evil b*tch, put bluntly, Palmer is a fat man that
makes Fat Albert seem underweight, and Heidgecher (can't spell his name) is an idiot. They even put in what it
takes to run a company (put a bunch of idiots as executives, enjoy).
Basically, the party tries to stop Shinra Corp., then the attention shifts to Sephiroth.
Wow...
Rating: 10
Art
<b>Field Art</b>
The field art is okay nowadays, but back then, it was the best they could do. Its okay, really.
<b>Battle Art</b>
The battle art is pretty good. All the creatures are kept proportional to their actual size, unlike the field art. The
summons rock! When summons like the fabled Knights of the Round and Bahamut ZERO are used, prepare for total
annihilation of the enemy and awesome graphics, even today (I still think Bahamut ZERO beats Final Fantasy X's
Bahamut by a mile, six wings! super-breathe from space! huge as Hell!). And when the upper tiers of limits are used,
same goes with the summons, annihilation and a feast to eyes. In particular, Cid's "Highwind,"
Barret's "Catastrophe," and the all-famous "Omnislash" puts all the other Final Fantasy Limits
to shame!
<b>Cut-Scenes</b>
The cut-scenes are done in psuedo 3-D anime, like Star Ocean: Till the End of Time. However, in the scene with the
Diamond WEAPON and Sister Ray, they look AWESOME. Diamond is probably the best-looking of the WEAPON's.
The ALMIGHTY highlight scenes are when Cloud is riding on his motorcycle onto the road in Midger and Sephiroth and the
burning of Nebelheim. The latter ROCKS! I cannot stress this enough.
(German 101, "heim" means "home," and "nebel" means "horn" or "fog")
Rating: 8
Sound
There's no voice acting. Sad.
The music is probably the pinnicle of Uematsu's career, around Final Fantasy VI. FFVIII's Liberi Fatali, of
coarse, is awesome, but this is overall. Final Fantasy VI wins when it comes to full symphony music and some others.
However, VII has the most of the best music that's not almost entirely symphonic-style. "Fighting" is a
good standard battle music. "Still More Fighting" has an addictive beat and serves as a really good boss
theme. I listen to it over and over and over and still don't get sick of it. "Aeris/Aerith's Theme"
is probably the most famous of the slow music pieces. It sounds tragic and beautiful, especially the orcestrated
version. The "Main Theme of Final Fantasy VII," or the world map theme before a certain event is majestic,
both the synth version and the orcestrated version. "Electric de Chocobo" is the most upbeat of the "de
Chocobo's." (If anyone hasn't figured this part out, the word before the "de Chocobo" is the
style). "On the Other Side of the Mountain" sounds peaceful and serene. "A Full Scale Attack" has a
military-ish feel to it in "march" form and sounds great. "Send a Dream into the Universe" is a
version of "Cid's Theme," and it is very dramatic.
Of coarse, it would be a sin not to mention "One Winged Angel." This piece is awesome. It has a latin chorus,
and a gothic feel to it, along with some awesome music besides the choir. "Burning inside with violent
anger..." The orchestral version on the "Reunion" track is somewhat more haunting feel, but is just as
good.
I could write on forever, but I'll stop here.
Rating: 10
Presentation
This games "Materia" system is the most innovative system of the Final Fantasy's. Some combinations are
simple, like "All" with "Cure" for "Cure-All." Others are more complicated, such as
putting Final Attack-Revive, Counter-Cure lvl. 3, Mega All to cast revive when fatal strike hits, cast cure when
attacked, which then affects the entire party. There are hundreds upon thousands upon millions of combinations and
experimenting to find the good ones. Some combinations are cheap, others are necessary.
Some of the jokes get weird. There is a place early in the game, called the "Wall Market,"
where there are a lot of homosexual weirdos and tons of sexually-slanted jokes. Probably the most memorable moment is
when you dress up Cloud like a girl (Sweet mother in Heaven, I am not joking about this; it is
<b>required</b> that you dress Cloud up as a girl in order to go forward in the game.)
The graphics may suck, but the story completely negates that! If anyone hasn't played FFVII, they are depriving
themselves of an awesome game. <i><b>Very highly recommended</i></b>
Rating: 10
Final Verdict
9.6667 (excellent)
Reviewed by AtmaCashino, Sep 28, 2005