What I have shown you is reality. What you remember, that is the illusion. (Final Fantasy 7 (PC))

Member Name: oodlenoodle9

Product:	Final Fantasy 7 (PC)
Date:	24/11/07 (176 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Immersive, huge, wide-ranging storyline. Sooo exciting!

Disadvantages: Dated graphics, expensive and can be difficult first time round. Does it matter? No.

Final Fantasy VII (FF7) is the only game from the series that I have played, and this is for two reasons. One is that not all of them have been made for PC, and the other is that FF7 is so utterly stunning as a game that I don't dare try and find something better. Despite its hefty length I must have played it from start to finish at least three times, and it never gets old.


A BRIGHT FUTURE! A HAPPY FUTURE!

Ok, I say it never gets old. The fact of the matter is that it IS old already - more than ten years old in fact being first released in January 1997. And it looks its age.

At the time it was state of the art - the first Final Fantasy to use 3D graphics, albeit 3D characters on pre-rendered backgrounds. These days though, it looks OLD. The characters (outside of the battle screen and cinematics) are effectively made up of coloured blocks, and don't look much like real people. The backgrounds, although beautifully drawn, are still grainy and pretty low quality. And the music at times sounds like it comes straight from a tin can.

But I'm being mean. When you come under attack you are sent to the battle screen, and the graphics there are perfectly passable - certainly enough to get you really into particularly difficult fights, with much sword swinging, magic lobbing and other dramatic special attacks. The music, although sometimes sounding very synthesized (thanks to the use of MIDI) is written by Japanese composer Nobuo Uematsu, and actually sounds brilliant. The music in the final battle against Sephiroth (the big baddie) is, at the risk of sounding corny, sublime.

And the graphics normally don't matter. When you are wandering around your surroundings you don't worry about the fact that people look funny - they're just cartoonish representations anyway. And the backgrounds look great.


IF THIS IS ALL A DREAM, DON'T WAKE ME UP

If I told you what the story was about, you would probably think that I was raving mad to consider it worthy of the praise that I heap upon it, plus it would spoil the surprise. But I will set the scene.

The world is controlled by the vast influence of a company known as Shinra Inc., who gain vast wealth and power through the exploitation of a mysterious resource known as Mako, which they suck out of the planet using Mako reactors. The game starts with the main character, Cloud Strife, joining a resistance movement known as AVALANCHE. He starts off, in classic fantasy style, by not wanting to have anything to do with saving the planet, but it is not long before he and a group of others are thrown headlong into the action and realise that Shinra is the least of their problems.

The story unravels over many hours, across three CDs and through many twists, mighty battles and incredible shocks. Take nothing for granted. Along the way you will meet interesting people, kill interesting beasts, and acquire new weapons, items and party members.

It is worth mentioning though that there is no voice acting at all - when people speak it is in the form of bubbles of text. Strangely perhaps, this deducts nothing from the story - making it more like reading a fast-paced book at times than playing a game (and allowing the characters to be how you want them). And the world you have to explore is vast - I've played the game for more hours than I would like to admit, but I'm certain that I haven't discovered everything. And although I have defeated Sephiroth and "completed" the game, despite my best gun-slinging, sword-swinging, magic blasting efforts I have still not beaten the hardest of hard bosses that are known as the Emerald and Ruby Weapons.


IT'S GONNA GET SO HOT IN THERE THAT THERE AIN'T GONNA BE @#&% LEFT WHEN WE BLAST OFF!

The battle screen is also worth a mention, since there are a lot of battles in FF7, mostly against some very weird enemies, and sometimes against some very dangerous ones.

You are allowed three members in your active party, who will fight as your team against whatever you bump into. You can equip them with a weapon, armour and accessory, as well as "Materia" which gives various magical effects when allocated to a slot in a character's weapon or armour.

In battle you have meters on the right that fill up to indicate when it's a character's "turn" to attack. Then a menu will appear and you can choose what you want them to do. Combinations of materia, weapons, experience and items will make different characters better at magic or fighting, and grant them special abilities. Some fight with close combat weapons, some with guns, and even one with a highly dangerous megaphone.

One of the most dramatic and powerful ways to win battles is to use "Summons" which call on god-like beasts to do your dirty work for you. They arrive in dramatic fashion, pulverise your enemies and exit, leaving you heavily drained of magic power, but with a crazy grin on your face.

After the dust settles you nick any items your opponents were carrying, and collect your EXP (experience) and AP (experience for materia) points. The more AP materia gains, the more powerful it becomes.


QUIT SLAPPING ME YOU OLD WENCH!!!

And that is not all! Just in case there wasn't enough to do what with saving the world and all, there are also a number of mini games and side plots - perhaps the best of which is the ability to breed and race "Chocobos" (giant crosses between ostriches and chickens), but others include snowboarding, submarining, fighting, going on rollercoasters...

The list goes on. The game is almost boundless, as I believe I mentioned before.

Ok, so what's wrong with it, other than the dated graphics? Well, three things that I can think of.

The first is the fact that you are forced to save only on the world map or at "save points," which means you can end up dying and losing a good chunk of progress.

And the second exacerbates the first, because, at least on the first time I played it, the game was very hard at times. The evil chap at Cosmo Canyon was particularly difficult as he required a long slog past dangerous enemies and traps with no saves. My advice is to spend a bit of time fighting the randomly occurring monsters to give your team some training, although the time I tried this the game became (almost) too easy.

And the final problem is that the game is so vast, with such a complicated story, that you may well miss parts - at least the parts told in flashbacks that can be only accessed by visiting certain places at certain times.

Oh, and one more moan: it can be difficult to know where to go next at times. A walkthrough always alleviates frustration though if this should happen to you.

And a word of warning: the Wikipedia article on FF7, should you go on it, has a seriously glaring spoiler (one of the most important and shocking moments in the game) in one of the pictures. I would avoid it like the plague until you've played the game!


ALL RIGHT, EVERYONE, LET'S MOSEY!

Well, there you have it. A game that everyone should own with minimum specifications that a pocket calculator could meet (although you need a patch to make it work on XP). Want a sublime story - possibly the best that video games have ever seen? Look no further.

There is one tiny problem though, and that is that the game is no longer being produced, so the only way you'll get your hands on a copy is second hand - and they don't tend to be cheap. I was lucky enough to be given a copy for Christmas once.

But I would pay a lot to own it - the replayability and longevity and general feel-good factor is huge. Almost as big as Cloud's implausibly big sword.

Summary: If you buy one game this century, buy Final Fantasy VII