FINAL FANTASY VII (Long-Overdue) First Impressions

It's fairly sad, really, me professing to be pretty into the JRPG scene, but I haven't ever had the chance to play FINAL FANTASY VII. I had an N64 back in the day, and while I'd still go with it if given the chance again, I did miss out on some awesome stuff. Thankfully now that I have a PS3, I get the chance to give some of these missed classics a spin. None was higher on the list than FFVII.

I turned it on, and my first thought was 'Yesh... this is a PlayStation title all right.' It's still pretty hilarious how amazing we used to think these graphics were. While antiquated 3D graphics don't usually grate on me, Square had the excellent foresight to pre-render goddamn nearly everything. Say hello to pointless wandering around because you can't tell if that's a doorway or just a lightbulb on a wall, beckoning you ever so sweetly with it's light, and then bam into a wall. It's also pretty silly because then the character models look even more horrendous than they would otherwise. Seriously... I want to call this game Lego FINAL FANTASY sometimes, because of how blocky the people are.

Story-wise the game is pretty slick, in that 'vague-because-our-translation-sucks' kinda way. It's all about Cloud, who I think has lost his memory or something. He runs around with some group called AVALANCHE and they blow stuff up for some reason. After that he meets some magic chick named Aeris/Aerith and she's the Chosen One or something. Then they follow around after Cloud's boyfriend Sephiroth because Sephiroth is like FINAL FANTASY's Moses, leading the people to the Promised Land.

The battle system is pretty standard FF ATB fare. Only real addition is the LIMIT BREAK. Your characters all have a gauge that fills up while you battle. When it's full, the character will scream LIMIT BREAK! Well... at least that's what they do in my imagination. After that you pick an attack and devestate some little bouncing snake thing. Pretty cool.

The other system that should be mentioned is Materia. Now this is a really cool system. Every weapon and piece of armor has slots in it, which you fill with these stones called Materia. Materia grant you all kinds of things, from magic attacks to stat augmentation to summons to new abilities. It's a really interesting and open-ended system which allows you to craft your characters in any way you want. Easily my favorite part of the game so far has been messing with Materia.

I also want to mention the soundtrack, which despite being all fake-astrated, is pretty great. I love the battle themes. The main one doesn't get old, the boss one is fantastic, and I heart JENOVA's battle theme. The area themes are pretty cool as well, though not particularly memoriable. And of course, at the end we get One-Winged Angel.

One last thing: I. Hate. Quicktime events. That is all.

Overall I'm enjoying FINAL FANTASY VII immensly. I don't think its the greatest JRPG ever yet, but it's incredibly good and has stood the test of time in everything except graphics. Definitely looking forward to the rest of Cloud's adventures.