As I mentioned in a previous post, I started playing the game Final Fantasy VII so that I can, as objectively as possible, review it. I reserved my judgement until I complete the game, and 6 months later, or about 60 hours of game play, I finished it.
To be as fair as possible, I won't compare it to any of its predecessors in the series or its contemporaries in the genre, to see if it can stand on its own merits. I'll be lenient to what could have been caused by the technical limitations of the time (PlayStation 1), and even the problems introduced in the PC port of the game.
Since the game makes its story front and centre of the experience, I'll start here.
It is difficult to summarize the story succinctly. On the one hand, it is a story of "eco-terrorists" that attempt to prevent this "evil corporation" from siphoning the "life energy" of the planet into power plants, for evil reasons. This is the same energy that is the source, in concentrated jewel form, of magical powers in the game, called "material". Of course, ecology + modern electrical technology + power plants + Japan = Godzilla. Also, for some evil reasons, the "bad guy" attempts to crash a comet on the planet so that he can harness all of that "life energy" to destroy the world or something.
On the other hand, it's the story of the immature man-children that compose that team of "rebels". It is mostly focused on the placeholder hero, Cloud, with a bad case of amnesia for anything other than his hate for the "bad guy".
It's bad. The characters are wholly unlikable, or laughably generic ("Aerith the flower girl" is an actual main character name in the game). The "amnesia" thing, which lasts almost the entire game, feels like a desperate mean to fill in plot holes in an otherwise uninteresting story. Character motivations are paper thin and selfish, surprising since that whole "comet will soon destroy all life" would have implied that the motivation could have been as simple as "saving the world", but no, it's only about revenge and selfish personal reasons. Twists and turns in the story are either caused by the characters complete emotional immaturity, or Deus Ex Machina that makes the plot of "Lost" well planned in comparison.
In any other medium except anime this story would be considered bad. But then, maybe this game is just some kind of anime with some RPG elements slapped on top of it.
This game tries its hardest to mesh modern-day technology with fantasy elements, and it simply doesn't mix well. It also doesn't make sense why there could be such a world with modern warfare weaponry (automatic rifles, tanks, helicopters, planes) while magical items that allow anyone to perform magic is so commonplace. It's like Blade Runner with Japanese mystical elements of spirits and magic. It sounds really cool, yet this game manages to make it not work at all.
Oh, and the game never attempts to explain the impractically oversized swords of the hero, especially in a world with guns and magical powers.
The sound elements are pretty bad in general.
The music has a few tracks that are quite good and memorable, but the rest of the time it's mostly a collection of fillers, even with repetition.
Let's start with the controls. In a battle, the camera's spinning makes it a challenge to properly target enemies. On the map, it feels like you're in a maze of invisible walls, with some that "slide along", and others that stop you in your tracks. Camera angles frequently change from one area to another, with little consistency in the controller directions, making simple movement difficult.
Before looking the RPG elements proper, let's look at the other "games": the puzzles, the "quick time events", and the mini-games. The puzzles are either too obtuse or easy. The "quick time events" are never good, in this game or elsewhere. The mini-games are completely different games than RPG, mostly racing, inserted into this game for some reason. You're forced to play each mini-game at least once, and each is horrible and would not stand on their own, so should be avoided as much as possible.
The RPG proper is fine, but not great. It is based around a "materia" system, those items that enable its wearer to perform magic. The materia items are placed into sockets in the weapon and armour of each character. Each materia has its own experience points, and when their reach higher levels they allow its wearer to perform more powerful attacks or at the highest level "spawn" a copy at level 1. Some materia can be paired with others to perform modifications.
Having only 3 characters in battles seems limited, and makes everything unbalanced if you lose a single one. This makes the game either a highly defensive one, or one when you want to defeat the opponent as quickly and safely as possible. You get a roster of up to 9 characters, but most of the time one of the 3 character choice is locked down to the "hero" Cloud, and there is little incentive to level up all the characters. At any rate, the characters are mostly interchangeable since their base stats and unique weapons are easily overwhelmed by the effects of the materia items. Given the emphasis on materia, setting up sets of materia on your characters takes a lot of time.
Speaking of time, the battles are too slow. Each attack takes several seconds to execute, and special attacks can take up to a minute. I avoided using the "summon materia" special attacks for that reason. Real-clock time became an important resource while playing this game, making "grinding" to level up characters take too much time.
Generally, the game as a lot of depth, but not enough to justify the 60+ hours of game time. Most of that time was stretched out from unnecessary long battle animations and unskippable cut scenes.
The game is fine, but not great. There are too many flaws and annoyances to merit playing it to the end. Its large budget is quite visible on screen, it has a lot of depth, but what was lacking was fun. The story was bad, the characters cliché and unlikeable, the battles slow, the controls poor, the mini-games horrendous, all atop of an average RPG.
Published on December 29, 2014 at 11:40 EST
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