First Reality VII

Final Fantasy VII (ファイナルファンタジーVII) is a Japanese role-playing game developed and published by Square (who later merged with Enix in 2003 to form Square Enix) for the PlayStation. It is notable for being the first game in the Final Fantasy series to be released on a non-Nintendo platform, as well as the first game by Square to be produced for a non-Nintendo platform. The PlayStation was chosen over the Nintendo 64 due the the Nintendo 64's hardware limitations, leading to Square's absence from Nintendo's band of third party supporters until 2002, however, it ended up being rereleased onto a Nintendo console anyway on the Nintendo Switch 22 years later in 2019. It is the second best selling original PlayStation game, best selling third-party game on said platform, best selling game in the Final Fantasy franchise, as well as the best selling Square Enix game of all time. It's also the first game in the Final Fantasy franchise to get a release outside of Japan and North America.

Plot
The game follows Cloud Strife, a mercenary who initially joins the eco-terrorist rebel organization AVALANCHE to stop the world-controlling megacorporation, Shinra, from draining the life of the planet for use as an energy source.

As the story progresses, Cloud and his allies become involved in a larger world-threatening conflict, facing off against Sephiroth, the game's main antagonist.

Why It Will Never Be A Memory

 * 1) Great plot, which goes for a more serious tone than previous games in the series (at least at the time). The game does have a few comic relief moments, however, especially the bannaclub and Cloud cross-dressing.
 * 2) The same turn-based gameplay you've come to know and love, with a few enhancements such as the Materia system (where you can attach Materia to weapons to make them stronger).
 * 3) Sephiroth is often regarded as one of the greatest and most iconic villains in gaming history. His popularity is rivaled only by Kefka of Final Fantasy VI.
 * 4) Excellent soundtrack, courtesy of Nobuo Uematsu. One of the most iconic themes from this game is "One Winged Angel", the final boss theme against Sephiroth.
 * 5) Many of the game's characters would later appear in other Square-Enix titles, including Ehrgeiz and  Kingdom Hearts, just to name a few. Most recently, Cloud himself has made an appearance as a playable fighter in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, while Sephiroth was joined in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
 * 6) The game was popular enough to spawn other games and supplementary material taking place in the same universe (such as Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core, Dirge of Cerberus, and Last Order, just to name a few), and even a CGI movie titled Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, which takes place two years after the events of the original game.
 * 7) The Yellow Enemy Skill Materia is recommended for people who don't want to take the time to level grind Green, Red, Yellow, Purple, Blue Materia points. You can use it to learn the best enemy skills including "Magic Hammer", "????", "Big Guard", "Matra Magic", "Beta", "Aqualung", "Trine", "White Wind", "Laser" are many of the useful skills.
 * 8) The All Materia can be mastered quickly and can be used to sell for 14,000,000 Gil a piece.
 * 9) The rune armlet can double equipped Materia AP points, Cloud's Apocalypse Sword, and Cid's Scimitar can triple equipped Materia AP points. The movers and Magic Pots in the Northern Crater can easily level up the Materia AP points.
 * 10) You can level up early on in Disc 1 at the best spots including setting off the alarm for high-level enemy encounters. Or you can wait until you get the airship to go to the Island of Mideel.
 * 11) You can use Aerith's Limit Break "Fury Brand" to fill up the party's limit break bars.
 * 12) The Enemy Lure can be used to get more random encounter battles.
 * 13) The Knights of the Round can hit entire groups of enemies thirteen times.
 * 14) Aerith's death, which is easily one of the saddest moments in video gaming history, due to the fact that it occurred unexpectedly.
 * 15) Some of the players, including Barrett and Yuffie and Vincent can use long-range weapons in the back row and attack flying enemies.
 * 16) The best limit breaks for players in the game are Cloud, Tifa, Barrett, Cid, Yuffie, and Red XIII.
 * 17) At the Gold Saucer, you can play the Bike Game, Submarine game, Race Chocobos for GP, and more.
 * 18) The Battle Arena gives you some of the best items early on in the game including Enemy Lure, Speed Plus, Pre-Emptive, W-Summon Materia, and other prizes.
 * 19) Some of the best Materia that many players use in the game includes "Enemy Lure", "Cover", "All Materia", "Final Attack", "Knights of the Round", "Steal", "Morph", "HP Plus", "MP Plus", "Added Effect", "Elemental", "Chocobo Lure", "EXP Plus", "Long Range", "Double Cut", "Mega All", "Mime", "Phoenix", "Restore", "Slash-all", "W-item", "W-summon", "Manipulate", and "Counter Attack"
 * 20) The Gold Chocobo allows you to cross the ocean in hard-to-reach caves that you can't get to by airship.
 * 21) The W-item trick in the PlayStation game can be used to duplicate items including Elixirs, Megaelixirs, and a Hero drink.
 * 22) You can steal many useful items from enemies during battle.
 * 23) Cloud riding a motorcycle is one of, if not, the best moment of the game.
 * 24) Some of the best accessories many players use to equip characters with are helpful including "Ribbon", "Sprint Shoes", "Safety Bit", "Tetra Elemental", etc.
 * 25) If it wasn't for this game, we wouldn't have TeamFourStars Final Fantasy VII machinabridged series, one of the best and funniest machinabridged series to watch on YouTube.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) While good for their time, the graphics have aged terribly.
 * 2) A very poor and rushed English translation similar to Mega Man 8, Mega Man X4 and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night that radically alters several of the characters personalities (particularly in regards to Aerith), Aerith bring called Aeris, muddles many major plot points (such as the fact that Sephiroth is really just a puppet for Jenova, whereas the English version depicts him as being more of an unhinged sociopath of his own accord) and has numerous grammatical errors and awkward sentences (i.e. "This guy are sick.", "Beacause you are...a puppet.") The original PC port offered a somewhat improved translation, though it still has a vastly inferior script to the Japanese version.
 * 3) Unskippable cutscenes.
 * 4) Every time you enter a random battle, it loads as you face your enemies.
 * 5) Some of the characters have useless Limit Breaks, including Cait Sith Dice and Slots, Aerith's healing Limit breaks are made obsolete by restore Materia and other healing items, Vincent's limit break turns him into an elemental monster that makes him go berserk.
 * 6) It can take time to acquire 2 optional characters (Yuffie, who can only be found in a random battle in the forest, and Vincent, who requires you to find the lock combo into the secret basement and fight an incredibly difficult boss).
 * 7) It can take a long time to master every single Green, Red, Yellow Materia for Master Materia and Purple and Blue Materia.
 * 8) Some of the minigames at the Gold Saucer are considered to be a pain to play including 3D Battler, the basketball game, Arm Wrestling, and Snowboarding.
 * 9) The Gold Chocobo Breeding Side quest game can take many hours to do including capturing the right Chocobos of the opposite sex for breeding (you may as well fight Ruby Weapon for a Gold Chocobo).
 * 10) The Save Crystal you find in the Northern Crater (this is at the end of the main story quest) can glitch your game if you decide to use it.
 * 11) The art style in battles clashes with the art style used outside of battle. Normally, characters look like blocky flat characters with blurry/no textures, while in battle, characters are very detailed for the original PlayStation and humans actually look like humans. The clashing art styles was a result of a conflict at Square where some people wanted the art style of the previous games in the series, while others wanted a more realistic art style.
 * 12) Cait Sith is very unlikable despite, Reese, the character controlling him being a much more interesting character.
 * 13) * He is also not good at battling either as he has very poor stats and has two very RNG based limit breaks which his second limit break has a chance to kill your whole party.
 * 14) The infamous Wutai side mission is a pain to complete because you need to fight a very hard boss without using your Materia and features one of the most disliked moments in the game where Yuffie steals your materia and temporarily leaves your party.

Trivia

 * Coincidentally, as Final Fantasy VII was originally released on the original PlayStation in 1997 and first release on a Nintendo platform, the Nintendo Switch in 2019, is the same timespan between the release of Don Bluth's mh:greatestmovies:Anastasia and Anastasia being acquired by mh:greatestmovies:Disney as part of Disney's acquisition of mh:greatestmovies:20th Century Fox, which opens the possibility of the film's title character being added to the Disney Princess franchise sometime in the future.
 * This is the first game in the Final Fantasy series since the original game to have the same title in all regions when it was first released, this is because mh:crappygames:Final Fantasy II, III and V were not originally released outside Japan (II and III were not localized due to the first game being localized late in the NES' lifecycle, and V, was not localized for the same reasons why mh:crappygames:Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels is believed to have not been localized, so Nintendo retitled Final Fantasy IV as Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy VI was retitled Final Fantasy III, but when SquareSoft turned to PlayStation, they were free to drop the old North American way of numbering the games in favor of the Japanese way of numbering them, leading to years of confusion in North America over the numbering of the titles, and even more confusion in Europe as this was the first mainline Final Fantasy game to be released there, as Europeans pondered where Final Fantasy I to VI were at the time.

Reception
Final Fantasy VII is one of the most important JRPGs and is considered heavily responsible for popularizing the genre in North America.

The success of the game also led Square to release a number of sequels, prequels, and spin-offs set in the same universe, known as Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, of which most have received mixed to negative reviews except for one.

In 2015, a remake was announced and was released in April 2020.

Videos
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