Developed by Square Soft
Published by Sony Computer Entertainment
* You can’t give up now! There ain’t no gettin’ off of this train we on! *
The Story:
You are Cloud a mercenary who formerly worked in a special task force named SOLDIER, the story starts with Cloud helping a rebel group named Avalanche to blow up a reactor that is controlled by the Shinra company who were the the company Cloud used to work for when he was in SOLDIER, soon Cloud meets Aerith A flower girl who is being followed by the Shinra company eventually Aerith is kidnapped by Shinra so Cloud and Avalanche attack Shinra HQ to save her it is here that Cloud learns that Sephiroth one of his commanding officers in SOLDIER has murdered the president of Shinra and is seeking to Summon a Magic known as Meteor to become a God and rule over the world so Cloud and Avalanche set forth on a journey to stop Sephiroth, thats all i’ll say about the story as it’s pretty long and has A bunch of twists. As an extra note something that bothers me about this game is the cast of characters I find myself not liking most of them especially Aerith and Vincent but on a plus side Cid is a great character and a funny one at that.
The Gameplay:
FFVII plays like a normal JRPG with an Active Time battle element where you have to wait for a characters bar to fill up before they can act, A great feature in this game is the Materia feature where you equip gems on pieces of equipment and they give you different abilities such as using magic or attacking four times in a row, Materia can also level up, by fighting battles and getting AP this can get you the higher tier spells and abilities. There is also a World map, airships and quite a few mini games.
The Sound:
FFVII has a great soundtrack all the battle themes are great and the World map theme is one of the best around the stand out tracks being The world map theme and One Winged Angel. There is no voice acting to speak of in this game so i’ll move on.
The Graphics:
FFVII is the first 3D game in the series and it does a decent job first time around there are things I dont like such as the characters having blocks for hands and simply how small they look I cant help but think that the character models could’ve been more lifelike than they are.The game uses Pre Rendered backgrounds for the environments and some look great and some don’t, one example of the environment looking great is the Temple of the ancients which is basically a hand drawn environment and it looks very unique.Finally the FMV cutscenes look decent and I approve of the amount of them in the game.
Lasting Appeal:
FFVII is a pretty long game taking me about 30 to 40 hours for the main story and god knows how many for all the extras and side quests you can do such as the super bosses in the game which to this day I still haven’t beaten them all.
Final Thoughts:
Overall FFVII is a great JRPG that is one of the best in the series The Gameplay, Soundtrack and Sheer amount of content is enough to merit a purchase, but the Cast of characters including the Villain Sephiroth bring down the enjoyability of the game a little.
My Score – 9/10
The Good:
The Bad:
So thats it for this edition of The Retro Corner but what did you think? Have you played Final Fantasy VII? Which FF character is your favorite? Who do you think is better; Cloud or Sephiroth? Be sure to let me know what you think in the comments section below and be sure to stay tuned to UGNN for all your gaming news and reviews and remember to follow us on WordPress, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn & YouTube. Until Next time, This is The Retro Corner.
]]>Article by Jonnie Dixon