Final Fantasy VII

Guide Note

Final Fantasy VII is a role-playing game developed by Square Enix. It is the seventh installment in the long-running Final Fantasy series, and is widely considered to be one of the greatest games of all time.

Fast Facts

Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Square Enix
Platforms: PlayStation, PC
Genre: Role-Playing
Mode: Single Player
ESRB Rating: Teen
Release Date: September 7, 1997
Units Sold: Approximately 9.8 million

Story

You play as Cloud, an ex-soldier that now works as a mercenary and joins up with 9 other characters including Tifa, Aeris, Barret, Red XIII, Yuffie, Cid, Cait Sith, and Vincent. With these party members, you must stop Sephiroth from destroying the Promised Land and protect the entire human race from destruction by the WEAPON. On the way you learn of Cloud and Sephiroth's true past as well as their involvement with the experiments of Shinra.

Gameplay

At 40+ hours, this was the longest RPG to come out in its time in 1997. Like it's predecessors, FF VII consists of three gameplay modes: an overworld map, town and dungeon field maps, and a battle screen. The combat is turn-based and allows only three characters to fight during the battles. You can customize your characters skills through the use of materia and increase your magic spells, summons, and special abilities. Unfortunately, the materia is a double-edged sword. The more materia a character has, the weaker they are physically. Materia can also be used to supplement character attributes. Besides the character skills, each character also has a limit break. As the characters take more damage, the limit break meter fills up. When it's completely full you can unleash a powerful attack on your enemies. It can therefore be strategic to take a certain amount of damage in order to unleash the limit break.