Pros: started the base for the future Final Fantasies
Cons: graphics are kind of blocky
The bottom line: Merry Christmas!!(Boy I must be a dork, writing a review on Christmas....Sheesh...oh well!)
I’d like to think ChromeKiller in advance for letting me join this W/O. This W/O is called "Games That Will Change The World," which are games that have or will change the way we play video games or how graphically enhanced we'll be in the future. So when I read this on Chromy's profile, I knew what I wanted to write about(and he had also listed it as a choice).

Check Out The Fine Writers Who Decided To Write On This Fine Christmas Day:
antsteverpgs
ChromeKiller
DCAST35
Gerper
jeremy1456
nscanuck
paulyoungotti
Pavona21
Pika312
Rock_On
Rufster
The_Wood
xeno3998
xxxxer
Yarrick



Plot/Story
When Final Fantasy VII arrived for the PlayStation;many, many people were anxious to get their hands on the first 3-D Final Fantasy. The first aspect of this game that has changed the way video games are made, is the plot, or story behind this wonder machine. I mean come on, you’ve got a cool, dark and sinister villain, most of the characters tie in with the story sooner or later, a guy with a gun-arm, what else could you want?

OK, so here’s the actual story. There’s this guy all right, he’s an ex-member of SOLDIER, a military like group led by a corporation called Shinra. This almighty warrior’s name is Cloud Strife. Cloud gets tired of SOLDIER and meets up with this rebel group named Avalanche, led by a man with a gun-arm named Barret. You decide to go on a mission with AVALANCHE to make a little money. Their mission is to blow up one of the Mako Reactors, which sucks Mako Energy out of the planet.

But of course once they finish this mission, it leads them to a string of events which then leads to stopping the Evil Shinra Corporation and Cloud’s old SOLDIER captain, Sephiroth, from taking over the world and destroying it by sucking all of the Mako Energy out of the planet.

Characters
What is a game without a variety of characters to use? None! I’ll list all the characters who I think are key to beating the game, or are just plain fun to use.

Cloud
A yellow haired boy who uses BIG swords to put the slice on the competition. Cloud is the strongest character out of the bunch of mis-fits.

Barret
Barret had a gun grafted into his arm which was blown off from an event that you learn of in the game. He can use some pretty strong gun attacks.

Tifa
Cloud’s old girlfriend, they grew up together in Nibelheim. Tifa uses her fists and legs to put the lock down on her enemies.

Cid
There has been some sort of Cid in every Final Fantasy whether he’s a playable character or a non-controllable character. On FFVII, he’s a playable character, and a darn good one too. He uses spears which leave the competition in the dust. He is also my favorite character to use because of his attitude.

Game Play
Once the story starts going, you’ll be moving from slums to Slums and then once you get out of Midgar, you’ll be moving from town to town, cave to cave.

When you are attacked by monsters, you can either attack with your characters weapon, magic, summon, or use an item like a Phoenix Down or Potion. Whenever you win, you’ll earn experience points, and AP(Ability Points). Whenever you fill up your experience bar, you’ll gain a level. As you grow in levels, you gain more HP(Hit Points), and MP(Magic Points).

Materia System
All magic and summons are inside little orbs called Materia. You can equip them to any characters weapon or armlet, as long as there are open slots. Almost all weapons and armlets have Materia slots to equip, but some of them don’t allow any growth. Meaning when you gain AP, those Materia won’t get any.

When Materia does gain AP, if the AP bar fills to a certain amount, that magic or summon attack will level up. When you level up a certain Materia up all the way, you’ll master it, and a new one splits from the Materia you’ve already mastered.

The thing I like about the Materia System is that you can make different combinations. There are some combinations that you can put together that at the start of a fight, when you start the combination, it’ll go on until the enemy is dead. This comes in handy when fighting the Underwater Monster.

The bad thing about Materia, is almost all of them take away a certain amount of stats, but then again, adds a couple points to certain stats. Materia is broken into different colors like Blue, Yellow, Purple, Red, and Green. The green orbs are the magic attacks like Comet and Fire3. Red ones are the GFs, or Summon spells in other words. Yellow orbs are commands like Steal or Deathblow or something. I think that purple Materia are status enhancers like HP Plus or MP Plus. You get what I’m saying, each orb will be a certain color, and each color has a certain attack to them.

Limit Breaks
Limit Breaks are sort of like a special attack, whenever you can use them, they’ll beat the crap out of the monsters. To use a Limit Break, you have to fill up a Limit Bar. This bar fills up every time you get hit. Depending on how much damage the attack does, determines how much more the bar will fill.

You learn Limit Breaks by leveling up and using a certain Limit Break a certain amount of times to gain a new one. You only have two limit breaks per level, whether it be Level 1,2, or 3. The fourth level only has one and you must find or earn your last Limit Break. But I guarantee that you won’t be disappointed.

Fourth Level Limit Breaks like Cloud’s Omni-Slash, which is an onslaught of sword swipes on the foes, and Cid’s Highwind, which shoots up to 12 missiles and each doing almost maximum damage, beating the game should be easy to beat, right?

Mini-Games
If you’ve been stuck somewhere for a while and you’re about to give up, then try going to the Gold Saucer to play some arcade games, or the snowboarding, or the famous Motorcycle game. You could literally spend a week or two trying to win enough points in the Battle Square to get Cloud’s Omni-Slash or a certain Materia you want or just playing the different games.

Chocobos
Chocobo’s have been around for almost all of the Final Fantasies, and each time their role in the game gets bigger and bigger. Now, you can catch them and then keep them at the Chocobo Farm if you’ve boughten a stall, or two, or three, or all six. When you breed two certain kinds of Chocobos, you could get a colored Chocobo. When you get a green and blue Chocobo together, and ones male and the other one’s a female, you can breed a Black Chocobo. Then when you breed a Black Chocobo with a certain regular Chocobo, a Gold Chocobo will be born.

Each Chocobo can do a certain task like the Blue one can walk on shallow water, the Green one can walk over mountains, Black can walk on mountains and in shallow water, and the Gold one can go ANYWHERE. You can get the strongest Summon attack by using a Gold Chocobo.

You can also race Chocobos at the Gold Saucer to win prizes and stuff. To strengthen up your Chocobos, you can feed them greens to make them go faster, obey you better, or have better stamina. When you win a certain amount of races, you also move up in rider ranks.

Breeding and Racing Chocobos could probably take you just as long to complete as most of the game will take you to complete.

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Graphics
I know now that Final Fantasy 8 and 9 are out and the graphics on FF7 may seem outdated, but remember that this way the first Final Fantasy in 3-D, and there is always going to be improvements(usually) when it comes to a series like this.

The characters on here are kind of blocky, but I never paid any attention to the in-game graphics, so it really doesn’t matter. During the battle and FMVs, your characters are tall and realistic like. The environments are also on the Blocky side, but nothing that detracts from Game Play.

Control
This is an RPG, so there’s not much control to learn. It’s just the test of learning to navigate the menus if you’re a newbie. “X” is the confirm command, and the D-Pad is what you use to direct yourself. The other buttons are pretty self-explanatory.

SINCE this is an RPG and there’s not much controls to learn like I said above, just pressing the command button through the game will pass you through it, unless you’re on the puzzles where you have to sometimes use all the buttons to open a door or something. The menus were easy to navigate and even easier once I beat the game the first hundred times.

Sound
The med cave music, a different tune between each town, the sound is varied throughout the game. Every characters “theme” music varies form happy and cheery, to dark and sinister.

Overall
Right now, FF7 is one of the Play Station’s greatest hits, and is selling for under 30 dollars right now. If you liked FF8, FF9, any of the other FF’s, the new Final Fantasy 10 on PS2, or are trying to decide which to get, go with this game, you’ll thank me later. Then I suggest getting FF8,9, and 10(if you’ve got a PS2) after you’ve played this and you want more. Final Fantasy X also comes out tomorrow, Yay(at least that’s when I get it)!

~Happy Gaming

(Look for my Final Fantasy VII Strategy Guide Review coming out soon! for anybody who cares:))

HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!