Omnislashed

Final Fantasy VII is complete! Unfortunately, I was dumb and played the game without using Big Picture Mode on Steam. Because of this, none of my screenshots actually took since not using BPM uses different screenshot hotkeys than using it. I guess you'll just have to take my word for it this time. There isn't a fancy The End screen anyway.

Final Fantasy VII is a grand foray into the brave new world that is 3D gaming but like most early pioneers, it's flawed in many ways. I've mentioned the character sprites many times but I feel I have neglected to mention how gorgeous the rest of the graphics are. The environments are wonderfully drawn and have many little details scattered throughout. Sure, some of the finer details are extremely pixelated and thus, hard to see, but it all comes together to make a great whole. It's too bad that the sprites are such low quality. They stand in stark contrast to the world around them and diminish the picture overall. The eyes that look drawn on, their blank or cheesy expressions and the lack of hands all grate your nerves throughout and prevent you from fully immersing yourself in the dramatic storyline unfolding. Further evidence that the fifth generation of gaming consoles was a necessary but ugly stepping stone in gaming history.

The storyline as a whole is very impressive and marks some serious steps forward for the franchise. It's unfortunate that poor localization and incoherent dialogue mars several of the finer points. The characters often wander into overdramatization and psycho-babble when staying clear and concise would have been a stronger option. While the details can be nit-picked forever as I did with describing the characters a couple posts ago, the story has an interesting point and does feel relatable and personal.

The materia system is a great experiment from a franchise known for it's experimentation but it never quite adds up to Final Fantasy VI. Instead of furthering the trend of using the battle system to further flesh out characters, VII tries to go the way of V by making all characters more or less the same in battle but make them definable in the storyline instead. They take the limit breaks idea from VI but otherwise make characters all the same. Unfortunately, this loses the strengths of VI without ever feeling as exciting and involved as V and thus strikes an odd middle-ground between the two that simply feels as though it failed at both.

Still, the gameplay is fun and despite some antiquated gaming standards of the time, battles are interesting and there are plenty of places to explore and things to do, adding up to several hours of fun. The minigames are hit and miss which is fine because the ones that hit are great. Chocobo Racing was the highlight for me but snowboarding was quite fun as well. It's too bad that the camera can't often keep up, something common in that era of 3D gaming.

Ultimately, Final Fantasy VII's reputation has long since surpassed the actual experience but to judge it for this isn't fair to the game and overlooks many strong, positive traits that the game passed on to future games for years to come. Even if the game isn't as good as it's legacy, the legacy has provided an always raising bar that game developers can strive for and having a lofty goal is always good for the industry as a whole.

Game Rankings:
... Final Fantasy V < Final Fantasy VII < Final Fantasy VI

Game on!