Final Fantasy VII is an RPG made by Squaresoft that was released in the USA in 1997. The game's main characters include Cloud Strife (a mercenary and ex-member of SOLDIER), Aeris Gainsborough (flower merchant), Tifa Lockheart (AVALANCHE member), Barret Wallace (leader of AVALANCHE), Red XIII (an intellingent cat-like creature with fire-red fur), Cid Highwind (pilot), Sephiroth (top ranking SOLDIER officer), Yuffie Kisaragi (materis hunter, ninja), Cait Sith (Toysaurus), and Vincent Valentine (unemployed). It takes place in a somewhat futuristic setting and differs from most of the previous Final Fantasy's which were set usually in a medieval style. The battle system is pretty much the same as the other FF's, but the magic system is different. Magic spells are learned through Materia which are equipped in slots on your weapons. After each battle, you gain AP, EXP, and Gil (money). After gaining so much AP while having a materia equipped it will gain a level and a new spell will be available. For example if you equip a "fire" materia, when it levels up you will be able to cast fire 2, and after it levels up again, fire 3, etc. After a long time and much AP, when a materia is at it's highest level and gets enough AP, it splits forming two of the materia. The game is not in the traditional 2-dimensional style of most of the RPG's that had preceded this one, so you can walk or run in any direction. Another way this RPG is somewhat groundbreaking is that there are other fun things to do besides level up, collect gil, buy weapons and materia, level up, collect gil, by better weapons and materia... which include snowboarding, riding on a motorcycle while protecting another vehicle by knocking the "bad guys" off their cycles with your sword, arm wrestling, and other stuff. You'll find most of these at the fun yet oh-so-expensive Gold Saucer (also the place where Cait Sith joins your party). Not to mention a nice story line that makes you laugh and cry, and make you feel like you know the characters. And (if you are insane) you might even meet Cloud or Aeris in real life... who knows???
In my opinion, this game is a little bit too long, I got bored with it because before I finished it, Final Fantasy Tactics came out and I was busy playing that. Lots of people, however, enjoyed it. If you have played any of the other Final Fantasy games, be forewarned that it is not as much like FF3(6) or FF2 as you'd expect. When they brought it over to the U.S. from Japan, they made it much easier than the Japanese version, as this game was to introduce more people in the U.S. to the RPG genre, because as we all know, everyone here is obsessed with blowing stuff up virtually or beating the crap out of some polygons... but in Japan people know a good video game when they see one (RPG's). One piece of advice, do NOT use a gameshark on this game, because you will get bored with it very quickly if you do. Actually, you should never use a gameshark on any RPG, it's like sacrilege (=
Ratings Scale, 1-5
Graphics=4 Great cinema's, nice visual effects with the spells, but walking around the graphics aren't that good.
Gameplay=3.7 Pretty fun at first, but gameplay slows down.
Control=4.5 Pretty much the same as the other FF's.
Sound=5 Beautiful soundtrack and nice sound effects.
All in all this is a fun game, but I was VERY disappointed it didn't take place in a medieval setting. That's what probably made me give it up for Final Fantasy Tactics.
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