Final Fantasy 7
PC
(1 Player)
Squaresoft
(Once again) You must control a group of rebels to save the planet from an evil Empire (or
in this case an evil corperation) and the “true villain” that lies beyond. Quite a few
loss characters than the previous Final Fantasy (FF6 duh), and the first time a Final
Fantasy game has had true FMV cutscenes. This game is quite a change for the series. Also
it’s the first time a Final Fantasy game has been made for a non Nintendo system (the PSX)
and the first time there’s been one playable on the PC (emulation excluded).
Graphics (8/10)
The series makes the transition from 2D overhead with sprites to 3D very well. Instead of
always looking straight down you’ll sometimes walk towards or away from the screen down
halways, or have to wind around spiraling paths that cross over above one another, or
climb up walls and fallen wreckage to get where you’re going. This is all done by adding
3D polygon ‘sprites’ over pre rendered backgrounds. The backgrounds look great, but some
people may be turned off by the “popeye” look of the map sprites, that is, they are short
with huge forearms and legs and heads. The battles however use more realisticly shapped
characters and move about in three dimensions as you cast spells or attack very nicely.
Your characters still lin up together facing the enemy, but now the camera changes through
out the battle and they jump right up to the enmies when nessesary to attack them. The
magic effects are pretty flashy most of the time, but sometimes got old really fast when
cast in large numbers. The “Knights of Round” summon takes a good couple of minutes each
time you cast it, whcih looks cool the first few times but later tends to make the game
drag on. The FMV CG is occasionally blended intot the actual game play, but often times
it is shown with a scene jump. The FMV CG looks nice however.
Sound (5/10)
Eh, what’s that? what did you say? I didn’t hear you, oh, you didn’t say anything did
you? So why are we still using text boxes when it’s so easy to add voice? Even if it
were just for crutial scenes ala Lunar (which is a game that also prooves it’s not hard
to find GOOD voice actors for games). That’s about the biggest kiler of the sound
category. The midic is pretty nice I suppose, but unless you can manage to get it
configured properly you’ll just get really ugly midi sound. In fact, you’ll get midi
anyway, but if you have a good soundcard you get some sythesis action (or whatever it’s
called) where the midi actually sounds like something other than computer blips. The
sound effects are pretty mediocre, just standard sword jabs and what not. the FMV sound
is ok, just not realy enough. The game also lacks any sort of ambiant noise really.
Which is something that can really give some nice mood setting.
Game Play (9/10)
Whee, fun fun fun, I don’t think I stopped playing this game when I finally got it for PC,
and I’d already beeten it once already on my frinds PSX version. Also as for non stop
playing, I played this game like 2 days straight ( I mean straight, no sleep, nothing)
till I beat it when I borrowed my friends PSX and FF7. Though I guess that may make you
thing it’s short, but I was hurring so I could give my friend back his PSX. Anyway, the
plot is pretty good, though can be sort of confusing if you miss a few points. I’ve seen
some really wierd questions about th eplot that made me thing “how’d they get to THAT
conclusion?” Anyway, the story is good, so that’s a plus. Also it’s fun to play. The
battles are pretty fast paced as long as you lay off the heavy summon spells. There are
several mini games you play to advanced th eplot then can replay in the game’s casino
area. Though I don’t care for mini games much, they are still varied enough to be fun
if you like that sort of thing. Also there are things like Chocobo raising to give some
added play.
Overall (7.4/10)
Pretty fun. I’d say the PSX version is definitely a bit more stable, though extended play
can cause errors in overheating the PSX and causeing ht egam to lock up. But the PC
version has trouble lining up the FMV visuals and sounds for some reason. also whe I
switched to a higher standard resolution I got some ugly lines on the map. Plus the PC
version is highly prone to freezing up and sometimes has inverted FMV for some reason.
Basically it’s full of bugs. I’d still recomend this game. It is fun o play with a wide
cast of charcters.
