For as long as I can remember in my gaming life, I've been saying that I have a love/hate relationship with Final Fantasy VII. And sometimes, I'm not even sure I remember why this is. It's a great game – you can't really argue that point. And it was a landmark release; one that completely revitalized the love of JRPG's in the US. You might even argue that this game alone is what popularized them in America, given that the earlier 8-bit and 16-bit Final Fantasy (and Dragon Quest) games were really a bit more of a niche.
Maybe that's part of my issue with Final Fantasy VII – the hype. Don't get me wrong. I understand why it was so loved upon its release. I even understand why it sold so well, as those commercials and all the magazine press really drove home the graphics and cutscenes, which may seem quaint today in 2023. But back then, they were leaps and bounds above what any other JRPG had ever done. This was an expensive game to make! And probably very expensive to promote as well. But my point is that over the years, all the hype the game has remained to hold onto – it's a bit much. As I write this, Final Fantasy holds a 92% on Metacritic, and ranks #258 of all time. Of all time! And technically, that should be higher if you subtract out all the duplicate entries for multiple platforms. Maybe #258 doesn't sound all that impressive, but I dare you to seek out any "best games of all time" list from any major outlet (IGN, Game Informer, etc) and you'll surely find Final Fantasy VII somewhere on that list. Maybe my plight has always been a technological one. A sort of reluctance of the changing of the guards. Maybe I had a hard time accepting or believing that a turn based JRPG could be as good when all polished up and put on a CD-ROM. Did we really need to get away from sprites? I mean the first Final Fantasy is a way more important game than Final Fantasy VII. And arguments could be made that the stories in IV and VI were possibly better than in VII. Or that the systems in V are way more interesting. Maybe I just had that sort of hipster backlash that if a game is this celebrated, then the mass media must be wrong. In fairness to myself, I also found that a bigger issue was that I'd often get bored in the Shinra Building. So there's that. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's rewind a bit. I didn't actually play Final Fantasy VII when it was first released. Instead, I played it in 2001. The store I worked at had some PlayStation 2 consoles and I was able to nab one with a 20% discount. This was a huge deal at the time because not only was I getting a cutting edge console, but also a DVD player. This was a hugely sought after commodity as a college student living in a studio apartment with no cable. Of course, after dropping roughly $240 on a console, I certainly couldn't afford any of these new PS2 games. And frankly, there weren’t many I was interested in anyway. So instead, I started looking at the budget line of re-released PS1 games. I vividly remember being torn between Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy VII. I chose the latter because it was multiple discs (so I must be getting more bang for my buck!), and to this day, I'm not sure if I made the right choice or not. At this point, I was living alone in that little apartment and I have fond memories of going to work in the day, school at night, and coming home to play Final Fantasy VII late in the evening. I was 20 at the time, and my buddy Garrett would buy me beer sometimes. This game reminds me of that cheap beer. My point is, there's plenty of care-free nostalgia attached to Final Fantasy VII for me. As much as I begrudge my love of this game, I've played it many times over the years. Probably once every five years or so really. I can talk all day about how I think so many of the games that came before it were better (though, definitely not Final Fantasy II), but here I am, once again diving back in. Upon booting the game up (this time, on Xbox) I'm instantly floored by that opening music. But it takes me back further than 2001. It takes me back further than 1997 when the game was originally released. It takes me way back to 1990 when the original Final Fantasy was released on the NES. That simple arpeggiated music has soothed my soul since I was 9 years old. It still gets me a little misty today. And I'm glad that all these years later, that simple theme still finds its way into modern Final Fantasy games. The whole opening to Final Fantasy VII is seriously classic. The whole little mission and the way the characters are introduced to you. It's just a great opener. It teaches you the basics, but doesn’t overstay its welcome. It's how JRPG's should begin. There's no kid sleeping and being woken up. There's no overly lengthy talk of some chosen hero. It just begins mid-action. It's good stuff, and iconic. And in fairness, the low-polygonal models aside, this game still feels old school. Square did a great job of taking the ideas from the classic run of 2D games and making them feel natural in this 3D world. In hindsight, you couldn't say the same about say Final Fantasy X, now could you? The other major keeper for me is the turn based combat. Don't get me wrong, future Final Fantasy games would experiment with all other sorts of mechanics. But I really do love turn based combat. Of course the Active Time Battle system is prevalent here, and it works well in this game, I do still love pure turn based systems with no timing whatsoever. But what works, works. It's funny, but having replayed this game so many times over the past 20+ years, it feels different this time. I feel like every time I fired it up in the past, it was to get a little hit of nostalgia, but also to validate my own hipster belief that the game was totally overrated. This time I'm just getting a feeling that maybe my whole love/hate stance has been completely off base. Maybe, just maybe I am one of the mass who does totally love this game. I mean, I'm no longer a twenty year old drinking ill-gotten beer and playing in the wee hours while dodging homework. I'm no longer in my late 20's and playing through an English translation of the weird Famicom bootleg version of the game because it seems hardcore to do so. I'm no longer a thirty-something with a whole game room to myself and lots of disposable income because we only have to take care of cats. The current version of me is "over the hill" as they say, and viewed through these eyes, Final Fantasy VII is such a cool transitional moment in JRPG's and the Final Fantasy series itself. Sure, it's not the sprite based glory of the NES and SNES games. But it's also not the full on 3D they'd we'd see on PS2. There's no voice acting. No action mechanics. In a strange way, even those pre-rendered backgrounds feel absolutely quaint. And here's the thing, you can't argue with the fact that Final Fantasy VII is completely iconic. The whole opening of Midgar is just a comfort food setting at this point. And yeah, Cloud is beyond well-known thanks to Smash Bros, but what about the rest of the cast? Barret, Tifa, Aeris? All great. But let's also be fair and recognize that this is not a perfect game. It took some great strides in transitioning from the 16-bit consoles to the 32-bit consoles, and it definitely succeeded in a lot of ways. But there's no doubt that there's growing pains in such a transition. Certainly the CD format meant a hell of a lot more info and this is used wonderfully in the audio and the cinematics, no doubt. But I'm not a fan of the look of the game if I'm being completely honest. Not to be mean, but those blocky polygons against pre-rendered backgrounds really don't look great now. Especially when you compare them to something like Final Fantasy Tactics from the same era. In the grand scheme, I'd prefer sprites or the modern HD 3D graphics that came later. And let us not overlook how completely linear this game really is. You're not so much questing as you are following a very deliberate story and path. It's also hard to talk about Final Fantasy VII's missteps without at least mentioning that one quest. Y'know the one I'm talking about. I remember first playing Final Fantasy VII when I was twenty years old, and even then I thought the cross-dressing thing seemed a little weird. At the time, I'm guessing the way I took it was Square trying to have a certain sense of humor that didn't land – and keep in mind, this game was released the same year that South Park first aired. But couple all that with implied rape and... well, the quest is definitely an awkward one. I'd have to chalk it up to being a product of its time. I actually have no idea how the remake handled this section, as again, I don't have a Sony console in my house and given the state of Sony/Square, it doesn't seem like FF7 Remake will be hitting my console of choice any time soon. I should also point out that as linear as the game is, I often find myself confused where to go. Not because my goal is ambiguous, but because of those pre-rendered backgrounds. It can be damn confusing to look at a screen and figure out what's something you can traverse and what's background. As far as technological advances go, sure this game was a huge step in JRPG's. For all the strides that the game made in the genre, I think it's also a fair stance to call it a step back from Final Fantasy VI in many ways. Going back to my original stance that I both love and hate this game – as both can be true – there's many things I applaud and many things I think fail. But perhaps that's exactly why I find it so interesting. Like a certain cat in a box, Final Fantasy VII is often two extremely different things at the very same time. Take the Active Time Battle system for example. It's fine. I don't hate it. It works. But I'd definitely prefer a pure turn based battle system any day of the week. And oddly, I'd also take a pure action battle system over this. I don't dislike the ATB. But it's far from my first choice in an RPG. The Materia system is fun, though. There's no doubt in that. Which Materia do you give to which party members? How do you use them in tandem with each other? How do you prioritize them to level them up? It's obviously not the same depth and complexity of Final Fantasy V's job system... but it's right up there. It's close. It's fun to play with and look for ways to exploit. The story also has its ups and downs. The beats range from silly to oddly dark, and they flip without a moment's notice. At times the whole ecology thing can be so heavy handed, but then you've got moments like the ceiling falling on Sector 7. It's a horrifyingly sad visual metaphor for the whole big fish eating little fish in the economic food chain. It's also viscerally bleak. Sector 7 is a literal slum that exists in underground, living in the actual shadow of those who live a life above them. And then the sky falls and crushes them all. Yikes. Heavy. For the record, the Shinra Building is usually where my playthroughs on this game burn out. Going way back to 2001 when I first played this game, it was after getting through the building and realizing I was still on the first disk when I decided it was time to buy another PS1 game. When I decided to tackle the Famicom bootleg around 2011 it was during this section that I had a bad save-state that forced me to rage-quit. So in some ways, even though I've reattempted this game many times over twenty years, I tend to get antsy when I get to Shinra Building. And then there's the old question... do I bust in, or do I sneak in? I feel like I've always snuck in. Not so much out of fear, but because I wanted to try to do it in a way that felt quicker to me because I wasn't slowed down by battles. But y'know what? Today I don't want the burden of sneaking, nor do I want the tedium of climbing SO MANY flights of stairs. So, this time I'm going in with guns and swords blazing. Going into Shinra loud is definitely the more fun way to play it. Sure, there's some sneaking sections, but It's far from Metal Gear Solid level. I will say this, it's weird playing this game yet again. I've played it multiple times over the past twenty years. It's enough that I remember all the major beats, and battles. And yet, it's as if some of the darker stuff had completely escaped me. Take for example Hojo's plan for Aeris and Red XIII. I mean... we're talking about bestiality basically, right? That's not really something you expect to see broached in a mainstream JRPG. Certainly not one that was translated and approved for a wide western release in 1997, anyway. It's also interesting for me to continue on from here. As I've said, this is usually the point in the game where I grow fatigued. At least in the past. It's funny because getting out of Midgar is where Final Fantasy VII Remake ends. So I guess for all those years I naturally stopped after the first part of the FF7 trilogy. But I have to admit that for all my complaints and critiques, Final Fantasy VII does still stand up even 25 years later. It's not perfect – I've said that many times now. But it is damn good, compelling, and fun. It's weird replaying a game that you've played numerous times over such a long period of time. There's tinges of nostalgia, moments of déjà vu, and then other times where you're completely caught off guard by just how much you don't remember. Some of the real darkness had slipped my mind. The flashback where Sephoroth swipes his sword at Tifa and she falls in slow motion down a flight of stairs? I mean, the polygons look bad, but the feeling there is real. It's shocking and sad. At the eight or nine hour mark I had caught a Chocobo and made my way to the mines. I have to say that as a lifelong Final Fantasy fan starting back in the early 90s, I'm still not much of a sucker for Chocobos. I know there's lots of fans that love those things, but I don't really get it. Moogles I get. Chocobos, not so much. But I will say that it was around this mark in the game where I had an epiphany. Sure, I've talked for years about my love/hate relationship with Final Fantasy VII. Yet I keep coming back to it. I've talked forever about how overrated it is. And maybe that's true to an extent. Like, there's lots of JRPG fans who rank it as the best of all time. That's not me. But, is it worthy of its praise? Well, sure. I think it is. It was ahead of its time. There's no denying that. Given that I didn't play it until 2001, and it already felt slightly dated by that time given that Final Fantasy X was on the horizon, well that didn't help me I guess. But Final Fantasy VII is a decently solid transitional piece. It successfully bridges the gap between the more traditional 8bit/16bit JRPG's that came before it with the more immersive and cinematic games that would follow. It's got its awkward moments, and it doesn't look great now. And the story is kind of a mess. But it all remains very compelling with its satisfying battle system, wonderful musical score, and mesh of Ultima, Lord Of The Rings, Wizardry, and Blade Runner and Akira. It'd be fair to say that my love/hate relationship with it comes from a place of mostly love. I do have nostalgia for it. And I do enjoy playing it. The hate only comes from the fact that well, I do actually have a serious fondness for the series as a whole and as such, I think that this one does have its issues, and wish that it didn't have exactly the level of praise that it does. But I get why it does. I should also admit that I'm a pretty weird Final Fantasy fan in general. I think that the original game is a lot more important than it's given credit for. I've defended games like XIII and such odd spinoffs as Mystic Quest, Type-0 and even Strangers Of Paradise. The truth is that I'm just such a lifer fan of this series, that some degree I think I'm overly harsh on the celebrated entries, and overly forgiving of the hated ones. It was around the twelve hour mark that I realized something. This so-called love/hate relationship I've had with Final Fantasy VII? It's blown out of proportion. Sure, I think that it gets a bit more love than it deserves. But y'know what? It is one of the really good games in a series full of good games. As many complaints and frustrations that I can throw at it, I am compelled to keep playing it. Take for example the mandatory Chocobo race. I normally hate stuff like that being thrown into an RPG. But I buckled down and beat it on my third attempt. Because the game is good enough that I should continue onward instead of bailing because of a stupid mini-game. The truth is, I enjoy the story beats. I enjoy the darkness of it all. I enjoy the battle system, mostly. Sure the ATB isn't my ideal, but it's still turn based, and the Materia system is fun enough. I also generally like my party member options and making new combinations with them. The materia system is so fun in fact, that I find myself actually thinking about it when I'm not even playing the game. "What if I tried combining THIS Materia with THAT one?" Or, "woah, I wonder how cool it would be to combine THIS one with All?" There's other ways that I can tell how much Final Fantasy VII has been growing on me lately. The biggest just being how long I've been sticking with it and not being distracted by some other game I could be playing instead. Given that I haven't exactly had a ton of time for gaming lately, it's really a testament that I have been able to focus on just this one game for weeks. Remember when I said the Materia system was interesting? I had no idea. It's embarrassing to say, but it took me like 18 hours to realize that there was a downside to some Materia. Take the green ones for example, which are generally the elemental attacks. So apparently having those equipt can do things like lower your HP. I was just dense and not paying enough attention. So in some ways, I was playing through much of the game while handicapping myself, because my inclination was to just throw as much Materia as I could on everyone. Dumb. All of this came to light around the end of disc one, while I had to go up against the Red Dragon and Demon Gate back to back. After a few attempts, I googled to see what I was doing wrong and it turned out the best bet was to just remove any Materia that you didn't need. But why? Oh! I see... because I'm stupidly lowering my HP on pretty much my entire party. And then I got to thee part in the game. Yes, Aeris' death has been a spoiler that had been spoiled for me years ago. At this point, Aeris' death is part of the gamer collective unconscious. You don't have to have played this game to know about this scene. You've read about or you've seen screenshots or videos. And for good reason. The death of Aeris is a big deal in the maturing of video games as a storytelling medium. Unless you know it's coming (which you wouldn't have in 1997) then there's no way to see it coming. Games just didn't do that to you back then. Not mainstream ones, anyway. I mean, sure Phantasy Star II did it before Final Fantasy VII. But Phantasy Star II didn't have the same sales. But even being prepared for what was going to happen, I still wasn't really prepared. Aeris' death is still shocking, brutal, and sad. She dies in cold blood, while revealing Cloud to be an unreliable narrator. And maybe more importantly, while cementing Sepheroth as a stone cold psychopath. In good storytelling you must show, not tell. It's not enough to just have NPC's tell you how bad Sepheroth is, you have to show. And the way his sword pierces, it really just drives home some serious evil. Back in the day, there were rumblings and rumors that there were ways to perhaps prevent Aeris from dying. Or maybe there was some super secret way to bring her back. It was of course all just hopeful optimism. Aeris had to die, because that was part of the story. But gamers accustomed to games like Final Fantasy IV where party members seemed to die, only to show up in Act III unscathed thought that maybe they were missing something. They weren't. And because of that, I have to think that Final Fantasy VII is a game about fate. And actually, maybe that's what the entire series has been about all along. Not that long ago I played through Stranger Of Paradise, the kinda sorta prequel to Final Fantasy I. Even if it was intended as an alternate reality (I think), it mirrors the original game's conceit that this evil is going to just keep showing up, no matter what. And in that sense, it feels like Final Fantasy VII echoes these ideas. There's a certain fate to these games and these stories. And nothing is going to change the inevitable. It probably sounds incredibly cliche to be a gamer who grew up in the 80s and 90s and is talking now about Final Fantasy VII in such high regard. But at this point the game has totally earned its praise from me. I cut my teeth on the NES and Game Boy spin-offs. My introduction to the world of RPG's was the original Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest entries. So maybe I felt suspicious of the genre moving away from its 8-bit and 16-bit roots. But after many, many years I've completely come around on Final Fantasy VII and see it for the beautiful masterpiece that it is. In these past few weeks, it has easily creeped up into my top tier of the series. Having said all that, I've got to come clean and say that I decided to call it quits after 21 hours. It's not that I haven't loved it, because I have. Rather, I think some small part of me was more concerned with actually seeing my way through Aeris' death more so than seeing the game beat. It felt like that scene was so important to the entirety of JRPG as a genre, that I needed to experience it for myself rather than just read about it another time. I had every intention of getting through the whole game, but I've just dragged it out too much. Not that 21 hours is "a lot" for a JRPG. But that was over like three weeks. I haven't had as much time for gaming lately. I've just been pretty tired lately with work and a toddler (who happens to be sick this week) and it just feels like the few hours that I can put into gaming in a week lately means that no one game can hold my attention for too long before I start to feel the need for something else to stay fresh and mix things up. That said, given the precious time, Final Fantasy VII did a commendable job of holding my attention over a span of three weeks. Most games can only keep my interest for about a week lately, so that's really saying something. The truth is, somewhere in the second disc I encountered a cave where there's on random battle with a scorpion looking thing that can wipe my party out in one hit if it attacks from behind. Which happened a lot - like five or six times in a row. And that then meant a bunch of replaying from my last checkpoint, which was annoying. If I could save anywhere, I might have trudged on. But this is the first time in the entire game I ever felt underleveled and I just don't feel like grinding right now. But at the end of the day, I can now say that I've spent twenty-something hours on a Final Fantasy VII playthrough and seen a large portion of what it offers. More importantly, I can finally say that I get it. This is a great game - one worthy of its reputation. I'm really glad that I gave it yet another chance.
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