Pros: Good game, great storyline, nice sounds, cool Character
Cons: Sometimes bad graphics
The bottom line: Very good game and you should really give it a try.
Final Fantasy 7 earns the number one spot on my list. This game is just ingenious, amazing, wicked and just WOW!! It is my favorite out of all of these and I
consider this to be the best FF ever. Nothing will ever beat it. Its story is incredible, the magic system unequaled to any other, and the characters are so well done. The graphics are not that good but that’s what make it a classic. FF7 started my craze for the Final Fantasy series. I never did pay to much interest in the others but the I decided to try FF7, and I’m glad that I did.

GamePlay
It’s just like most RPGs, you battle gain experience, raise levels and have limit breaks. But however they did it, FF7 really got my attention. You move around a city called Midgar first and then when you venture outside its a whole new world. You then travel from town to town looking for Sephiroth, an evil elite class soldier, believing he can destroy the world. Otherwise the game is just like other normal RPGs. You have HP, MP Dex, luck, strength etc.. You equip magic and summons, wield awesome weapons, and there is a bunch of mini-games.

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Story
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You are Cloud Strife, an Ex-Soldier, and you join a group called avalanche in order to earn some cash. You sneak into reactors with your fellow team members (Tifa and Barret) to set an explosive and stop the reactors. The reactors are sucking the earth of its spirit energy and Avalanche is trying to stop them. After destroying one reactor your are split up and now find yourself protecting a young flower merchant from the Turks. The want to
capture her and do experiment on her, due to the fact that she is last know living Ancient. Eventually your paths cross once again with Tifa and Barret, and you along with your found friends travel the world looking for others to join them in the quest to save the world.

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Characters
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There are nine playable characters. Some secret and some mandatory. There are only two secret character but that is the only FF that has secret character on my list. All character with there own separate weapons and limit breaks, each good in their own way.

Cloud Strife
Cloud is the main character in this epic game. He is a former soldier and is now joining an environmental group called Avalanche. Together they destroy maco reactor that are sucking the planet dry. He finds out that a renegade Soldier named Sephiroth. Some how Cloud is linked to Sephiroth and he finds out, to his dismay, later one. So eventually he gets caught up in a massive struggle for the life of the planet. Clouds enormous sword can cut through anything that gets in his way. His limit breaks consist of multi-slice and multi-enemy attacks. His last limit, Omnislash, is a force not to be reckoned with.

Aeris Gainsborough
Young, beautiful and somewhat mysterious, Aeris met cloud while selling flowers on the streets of Midgar. Aeris is the last known Ancient and is believed to hold incredible power and that is why the government wants to capture her. Aeris joins cloud in order for him to protect her at all times. Aeris uses a rod to fend of enemies and can use powerful magic. She hold a mysterious materia in her hair as an ornament but never uses it. Aeris can heal the whole party or hurt the enemies with her limit breaks. Her unusual abilities enable her to use magic but she seems more interested in the deepening love triangle between herself, Cloud and Tifa.

Tifa Lockheart
Bright and optimistic, Tifa always cheers up the others when they're down. But don't let her looks fool you, she can decimate almost any enemy with her fists. She prefers to wear extra strong gloves and smack her opponents, and show off her strength. Slots roll when you hit your limit break. Tifa uses slots to determine the strength and type of limit she deals out. She is one of the main members of Avalanche. She and Cloud were childhood friends, and although she has strong feelings for him, she would never admit it.

Barret Wallace
Barret is head of the underground resistance, Avalanche, Barret is fighting the mega-conglomerate Shinra, Inc. which has monopolized Mako energy by building special
reactors to suck it out of the planet. Barret depends on his brute strength and his “Gun-Arm” to see him through. He had a gun crafted to his arm after it was shot off while trying to save a comrade. He got sick of using a prosthetic arm so he had a special gun made just for him. Barret fires a big shot or multiple shots with his limit break. He fights for a better place for his daughter to live in. Barret’s friend died a long time ago because of him and it still haunts him today. Also, his wife died in an accident several; years ago, and now lives with his daughter Marlene.

Red XIII
Just as his name implies, he is an animal with fire-red fur. But under his fierce exterior is an intelligence surpassing that of any human’s. Red XIII is original from Cosmo Canyon, and lives with his grandfather. His grandfather is a real whiz when it comes to the stars
and the apocalypse. Red’s father was turned to stone protecting the village in which he guarded. Red’s ceremonial headdress is his only weapon but is quite effective. Other than that, not much is known about Red XIII, even his real name.

Cid Highwind
Cid is a tough-talking, warm-hearted old pilot who can’t let go of his dreams. There is no better pilot by sea or air. He believes someday he’ll fly to the end of the universe with is old rusted rocket ship. He has a great knowledge of machinery and applies it through is
continues effort to fix is old rocket. Cid wields a handmade spear with a great rock tip, sharpened to perfection. When Cid reaches his Special he dives at the enemy with great speed and power, in order to obliterate them. He throws himself into attack regardless of
the danger and consequences.

Yuffie Kisaragi
Although you’d never know it by looking at her, Yuffie comes from a long line of Ninjas. Yuffie is a secret character, found by continuously searching through forests, you eventually meet up with her and must battle. When you win she will eventually join you. You must be careful with Yuffie on your party. Her real goal by joining you is to steal some of your materia. She throws a knife type boomerang with blades on it, at the enemies. She’s sneaky, arrogant and “way” selfish. Yuffie is not really an important or necessary character to beat the game.

Cait Sith
Cait Sith rides around on the back of a huge stuffed mog he magically brought to life. Megaphone in hand, he's always shouting orders and creating dopey attacks. His hobby is fortune telling, but just like his personality, it's pretty unreliable. His limit break is rolling
dice. The number he rolls is how much damage he does multiplied by 1000

Vincent Valentine
A mystical man, stern and upright while at the same time dark and mysterious. His past connection with Shinra Inc. is what made him join Cloud and the others. He may seem
frail at first glance but inside his body lurks a fearsome power. His weapon of choice is a gun. Also, his limit breaks makes him turn into a berserk demon which eliminates the competition.

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Materia
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Materia is the most unique magic system in all of the Final Fantasies. Materia are small round orbs, that contain powerful magic that can be used in battle. You equip the materia to your weapons and accessories. When the materia is equipped it can have its positives
and negatives. Let’s say that you equipped a summon materia and when you do you look at the stats. It will say stuff like; -STR +HP +Luck, so equipping isn’t just throw it on and go, you must look at how it will affect your characters. You can also link materia and make it stronger. When you gain AP the level of your materia increase. These levels are recorded by stars. The higher the level the more effective and more powerful the materia
will be. Some may even change into something else. Also, if you level them up to full stars another materia of that same type is created. For example, if I was to level my lighting materia to full stars, then it would reproduce another so I would then have 2. There are five different types of materia, Summon, Magic, Independent, Command, and Support Materia, and all of these have a different color that represents it (I had to look these up because being somewhat color blind like I am it can cause problems if I am wrong about the color). These five types can be mixed and matched in order to create great Materia Combos.

Summon Materia
Summon materia glows red. With this materia you can summon great monsters to attack the enemy, but they cost more MP than normal magic. There is a handful of secret summon materia. You must venture on sometimes long side quest to get the most powerful of summons. But each one is strong in its own way. Each one has a different element, like Ice, Fire, Lighting, Dark, and even water. There are many more and I shall go into more detail. Here is a list of all Summon Materia

Alexander
Alexander is of the Holy element and he uses is Holy Judgment attack in order to eliminate his foes. Best used against enemies weak against Holy. Alexander is a immense machine that comes down and fires its attack out of his many canons.

Bahamut
Bahamut has no element but does a great deal of damage with his Mega Flare. There are three types of Bahamut, just normal Bahamut, Neo-Bahamut, and Bahamut Zero.
Bahamut zero being the strongest and rarest were normal Bahamut is the weakest. Neo-Bahamut does Giga Flare and Bahamut Zero does Terra Flare. All three are good but
not as good as Zero.

Choco/Mog
Choco mog consists of a Mog riding on a Chocobo’s back into a speedy tackle. This does wind damage and is the first summon you get. It is very weak, but is useful when you first receive it. Occasionally out of nowhere a gigantic Fat Chocobo will fall from the sky flattening the enemy when used. Not really a necessary summon, but a giant fat Chocobo falling out of the sky is pretty funny.

Hades
Hades is a very unique summon. This summon, when used, causes all status affects on the enemy. The enemy is poisoned, paralyzed, confused and stuff like that. Hades also does a nice bit of damage besides that. Hades makes his magic potion spew out of his Black Cauldron onto the enemies. Also, Hades is a secret summon found in an under water plane.

Ifrit
Ifrit is a fire based summon. He turns into a big fireball and hurls himself at the enemy with great power. This attack is called Hellfire. Ifrit is obtained early in the game but is a very useful summon. He is a demon from the underworld, that deals with fire.

Knights of The Round Table
This in my mind is the best summon there is. All the knights of the round attack the selected enemy all at the same time. One after each other, hitting them or casting magic, each doing a tremendous amount of damage after every hit. After all of the knights have shown their powers by inflicting great damage onto there foes, the king hacks the remaining opponents to bits completing this onslaught called Ultimate End. The summon can easily kill any enemy, with every attack doing 9999, then multiply that by how many knights and wizards attack, you have an awfully high damage rate. Knights of the Round, is the hardest summon to obtain. You must raise chocobos, breed them with certain other chocobos, and use certain nuts, in order to create a Golden Chocobo. With the Golden Chocobo you can walk on the ocean to the island in which the materia is found, climb the mountains that surround the island and enter the cave. All of this for this wonderful
materia that can dish out probably over 20,000 damage.

Kjata
Kjata is a giant bull that uses the elements Fire, Ice, and Lighting. His attack is called Tri-Disaster and stomps the ground when executing it. Great fire engulfs the enemy, it then turns to ice, then smashing into a strong electrical shock. The Kjata materia is found floating around a forest and unless you have good eyes its hard to find.

Leviathan
The word “Leviathan”, means giant sea mammal or beast, which describes him well. Leviathan is a huge Snake-like sea god that uses the power of water to annihilate his
challengers. His move Tital Wave is just that. He sends a tremendous tital wave that barrels down onto the enemy from a grand height. Leviathan can only be obtained after
you encounter Yuffie and she joins you.

Odin
Odin a great warrior that ride a six legged horse. He has two attacks. One is where he throws is large spear into the clouds, and then it rains down onto the enemy. The other is him doing a fly by slicing. He cuts all the enemies into two, killing them instantly. If it is a
boss or a tough enemy that cannot be killed in one hit he uses his lance. Otherwise his most commonly used is the fly by slicing.

Phoenix
Phoenix is a special summon, it not only can attack but it can also resurrect your fallen allies. Phoenix is another fire type summon. This big Fire Bird blows fire onto the
opponents and help the downed party members. This is a very useful summon, and can come in handy in some tough situations. Phoenix can be acquired by playing a little
mini-game at Fort Condor.

Ramuh
Ramuh is an old mage that relies on the magic of Lighting to flatten what ever stands in his way. You don’t exactly get Ramuh at the beginning but he is one of the first summons you get. He is easily missed though if your not lucky because when in a certain room the materia is like in the corner of the room.

Shiva
Shiva is the only female summon. She is an ice goddess that will freeze her foes with her powerful Diamond Dust attack. Shiva is a key summon and is very good against fire
monsters. It is received after saving a little girls life

Titan
Titan is a.... ummm.... Titan! He is a big ogre type monster that uses the power of the earth in order to get his way. He lifts the very earth that they are standing on and flips them over, crushing and grinding them into the ground. Titan materia is found in an old abandoned reactor.

Others
There are other that I probably never found out or can’t remember but there is one more summon materia. W-Summon. W-Summon is a materia that contains every summon ever. If you equip it to your character then you will be able to call upon any Summon you desire. This is very rare and hard to find, but definitely worth trying to find.

Magic Materia
The Magic Materia glows green. This materia contains the power to cast a number of attack and curative magic. The Offensive materia usually has an element like fire and the
defensive usually just heals or brings people back to life.

Offensive
Offensive magic does damage or lowers the enemies health in one way or another. There are many different element but some have none at all. The ones with element include; Fire; catches the enemies on fire, Ice; freezes what ever gets in your way, Lighting; send lighting bolt to rain onto your opponents, Gravity; depending on the level take of a fraction of the current health ex.1/4, Earth; tremendous earth pillars or earth quakes devastate the battle arena, Meteor; sends comets all over the place, Contain; annihilates opponents with flares and tornadoes, and Ultima; a great light which mysteriously deals a
great amount of damage. Each is very powerful if leveled to the max. Fire, Ice, and Lightning are the basic ones, kinda like a must have, and Gravity, meteor and Ultima you
have to pretty much earn or find. Also there are status inflicting ones like Poison, which slowly kills of anything that it touches.

Defensive
Defensive Materia is stuff like Cure, Life, and Transform. This kind of stuff doesn’t do damage but it does help out the party. For example if you use transform on the enemy you can make them super small so they do less damage, or if you are low on health you can use cure to restore yourself back to normal. You can also use a curative magic in order to cure poison and such.

Others
The other materia types include Independent (Purple), Support (Blue), and Command (Yellow). Each one is different but at the same time useful.

Independent: This enhances the characters’ Status, such as maximum HP and strength.

Support: This materia shows full effect when used in conjunction with other Materia, such as “All” or “HP Plus”. You must insert the materia in linked slots when equipping this Materia in a weapon or armor. The effect of these materia will be enhanced with Support
Materia

Command: This will increase the number of commands you have in your command box in battle. These abilities can be used during battle and include “Steal” or “Throw”.

Materia Combos
On the weapons or armor there are slots that you can equip materia into. Combined slot look like this o-o then, depending on the type of materia placed in them one can help the other. For example if on your sword you had linking slots then in one you could put an Ice materia and in the other corresponding slot, an “All” materia can be placed. This will makes the Ice magic hurt all enemies. There is also alot more then this about materia combos but you must play the game and experiment for yourself.

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Mini-Games
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Can’t beat that certain boss or if you just want to blow off some steam then try playing a mini-game. If you travel to Corel Village you’ll eventually find the Golden Saucer (Heavenly Music) and this is were you can blow all your money away earning GP (game points), BP (Battle Points), or just having fun. There are games like the motorcycle game or the snowboarding game. There is even a submarine game, and all of these mini games
are based on real games experiences. Or maybe you want to virtually arm wrestle a sumo or shoot hops. Why don’t you play the claw game while your at it. Each game awards you with GP which you can trade in for items, or to just to keep saving until something special is within your range. Also you can earn BPs from the Battle Arena. You, alone, must fight a set number of monsters and after each win slots roll at the bottom of the screen. What
you roll can affect you in your next battle. You could loose half of your health or even turn small, but there are ones that can heal you and can be beneficial. With these BPs you can trade them in for special items, like Cloud’s Lvl 4 Limit.

Chocobos
You can breed and raise chocobos at a farm near a big field with a gigantic snake lurking in it. You catch certain chocobos and mate them you can produce other chocobos. Mating certain chocobos can make special chocobos. Each special Chocobo has a different colors
and abilities.

Blue: Blue chocobos can run across rivers and shallow water. Useful for going to secret areas

Green: Green chocobos are even more useful. You can obtain greater secrets my running over mountain tops or just for fun. You never know if your running around you
might discover something new.

Black: Black can do both; walk in shallow water AND run around on mountains. Black Chocobos are even more fun then Blue and Green. Even More secret items and materia can be found.

Golden:Golden Chocobos are the best out of all of them. They can walk on mountains, in shallow water and even deep water. You must use a golden Chocobo to get
some of the most powerful materia.

Racing
You can race your chocobos in the Chocobo races at the Golden Saucer. If you win you earn GP or items. Also, depending on the type of Chocobo you might have an easier time going up hills or through water. Also the stats of you Chocobo like it’s speed and stamina are determined by what Greens you feed it and what class it is. It is always fun just taking you your best Chocobo and racing against the other chocobos, just to see if they are even
competition at all.

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Graphics
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I have to admit the graphics are pretty bad. The characters can be blocky and sometimes the environments are blocky too. But FF7 started the whole 3-D Final Fantasy Saga. The ones after are far better but each can be improved just like FF7. It’s kind of like a trial and error kinda thing. The graphics can only be improved not perfected.

The FMVs are amazing for its time. In them the characters are very realistic looking but there are only like 4 in the whole game. Also the battle animations, monsters and
characters are so much better than world map graphics. They are not blocky and the environment actually looks good. It is definitely a good try.

Graphics are not the most important aspect of the game so you can just ignore them. There not actually not that bad if you like classics, but all of the good points definitely
cancel out the one bad one.

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Sounds
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The tunes this game has to offer are pretty well done. The music changes from town to town depending on the current events. Like the music when you are setting a bomb and
must escape is very fast pace and keeps you alert, where entering a quite town soothes and calms you just by the type of music. There are also depressing songs for old run down villages and lively music for battles.

Each character has a different theme music. The theme music varies from happy and cheerful to depressing and demonic. Also the boos battle music has to be the best. I love it. Its so cool and when you hear it you know your in for a challenge. The only down fall is that the music after maybe a few days can get old but nothing really to complain about.

The sound effects a pretty good and they range from battle to world map. For example the swift sound of an enemy meeting his fate, or a bolt of electricity raining from the sky, and even squeaks in floor boards that give you away when trying to sneak out.

If you play this game for few hours, you'll most likely be humming several tunes over and over again subconsciously. They are so catchy and very well orchestrated. A very good
job done on the music and sounds.

Overall
This game is a must buy. I bet you it can be bought for at least 20 bucks. Worth a try, RPG fan or not. FF7 is definitely a classic must play game. This earns the top spot on my list of Final Fantasy top 5 games and the only thing left to say about this game is WOW!

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The End
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Almost the end just a few more words. So you have read through my review and rite now you have probably read around 4500 odd words, but who’s counting, and you owe it to yourself to rest those eyes and go take a nap or something.

CrimsonBeast