I hate Final Fantasy VII. Whenever I think of all the video games in the world that everybody loves, I never seem to understand why FFVII is up there for most people. This game is garbage, folks. There is very little that is actually redeeming about it, other than the music. I will go as far as to say that if the soundtrack wasn’t great, then this game would rarely be as widely praised as it is today. In fact, if you’re considering playing the game, just buy the soundtrack and save yourself the 40+ hours that you are going to waste on this numbingly boring and utterly miserable heap of crap.
Let’s start with the worst part about this game: the graphics. I know that it’s 1997, but there is no reason for the graphics to be this bad. Guess what, folks? The graphics look as bad as they do because your beloved Square RUSHED THE GAME. How else do you explain the fact that the battle graphics look way better than the rest of the game? If you’re going to say that it was because of the time, explain how Mario 64 was released a year before, yet looks way better than the trash that is Final Fantasy VII. I am not a graphics whore by any means — Metal Gear Solid is another Playstation game with fairly shoddy graphics, but everything else was so great that it helped me overlook the visuals. With Final Fantasy VII, however, everything else is so bad that it’s even harder to take the game seriously when the sprites in the game look like physically deformed midgets.
Speaking of everything else, why is the game so highly acclaimed for its story? I know the translation was so bad that it makes it even more difficult to follow the needlessly convoluted and inane storyline, but even if you just read the story outline without playing the damn game, you will find that it is not very enjoyable at all. 80% of the game’s storyline can be summarized as your standard episode of “Tom and Jerry,” except replace “Tom and Jerry” with “Cloud and Sephiroth.” Then there’s some boring crap about a corrupt organization which is behind it all. Then there are some more horrible subplots about characters which I didn’t really care about. I wasn’t really paying attention, because while playing through the game, I was imagining how much better it would be if I could nail my testicles to the ceiling.
I don’t care about any of the characters, period. The game did not make me care. The main protagonist of any video game should be really cool and really admirable, but Cloud carries neither of these traits. Throughout the game, he just whines like a little girl (which explains why you even get to dress him as one at some point in the game). Most of his dialogue can be summarized as “The past, the past,” or “I love Aerith.” Aerith may be the worst character in the game. When she died, it was not anywhere near as emotional or dramatic as I thought it would be. It felt like some cheesy nightmare that Cloud was having. It was more laughable than anything else. Sephiroth, the main villain of the game, is a very one-dimensional character. He is interested in being an evil guy with power, and that’s hardly very original for a villain, which baffles me wonder even further why he is voted by many as THE GREATEST VILLAIN IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY. He has less personality than your standard comic book villain.
Barret is just your stereotypical big black guy with guns. He whines almost as much as Cloud does. “Oh, boo hoo, my daughter!” I will admit that the only two characters which I liked in the game were Cid and Tifa. Cid actually has a cool subplot about being a failed astronaut. His lousy temper and constant swearing served for the few interesting moments in the whole game. Tifa didn’t have much of a personality, but she was definitely the most normal character in the game. The main thing I found interesting about her was how in love with Cloud she was, which makes me hate Cloud even more. She was all over him, begging for him to take her to bed, and Cloud was either too busy being gay or crying about Aerith (who, as I already stated, was the worst character in the whole game).
The gameplay is almost non-existent, and almost a step down from even most RPGs for the Super Nintendo, a system which was supposedly inferior to the power that was the Playstation. You would think that after games like Chrono Trigger, Square would learn to make way more intriguing gameplay, but I guess not. Throughout most of the game, I just kept mindlessly pressing the circle button. The materia system sucked and I was bored to tears of it. The limit breaks, a gameplay element which let you use the characters’ “big moves” if they took enough damage, were the only good moments in the mostly dull battles.
As stated above, the soundtrack is amazing and probably the only reason people like the game. Enough said.
Oh, and guess what? I didn’t even beat the game. That’s right. I paid $50 for a used copy on Amazon (this was before it was released on the PS3 Network for way, way less) and wasted about 42 hours on it only to get to the last battle with Sephiroth and give up. I glimpsed at the last cut scene on YouTube and I was not impressed at all. I don’t think I’ll ever beat it, just out of spite.
I’m so pissed off right now that I’m just glad to finally be done with this review. I’m not even going to bother writing about the game’s cut scenes or the mini-games, because they are just as bad as everything else about the game. Stay away from this game. Anyone who likes it is either insane or just blinded by the fact that this was the first RPG they ever played when they were still in diapers.
