Final Fantasy VII

First published in GRIND Ediția Definitivă, pages 16–23.

PLAYED ON NINTENDO SWITCH · RELEASE DATE 31 JANUARY 1997 · PUBLISHER SQUARE · DEVELOPER SQUARE

The most emblematic title in the series...

Eight hours have passed since I started the game. I’m inside the building of the evil Shinra corporation, making my way through robotic employees on the 65th floor. Maybe the company offers jobs and helps families pay bills and ballet lessons, but the people in charge are morally responsible for the bombing of the outlying neighbourhoods and for destroying the planet through megalomaniacal mining operations. More than that, some of the employees seem to hate their job and reveal suspiciously accurate information about the next levels of the building, as if they wanted to get rid of the whole management hierarchy. Something is rotten at the core, and the reek in the corridors isn’t just mako energy or gunpowder.

Still, it’s my duty to press on and put an end to this oligarchic, opaque tyranny. And what follows will avenge all my friends and partners who died because of bored bureaucrats ordering destruction and executions during the tea break between 5pm and 5.15pm. I keep climbing the stairs… I reach the director general’s office. They arrest me, I escape, and I get one last confrontation. The battle isn’t hard, but it puts my timing and teamwork to the test. And to get out of the building once the mission is done, I use a motorbike that looks like it’s been ripped straight from Dennis Hopper’s most beautiful hallucinations in Easy Rider.

I beat the corporation, ride my chrome steed to the end of the elevated motorway and admire the explosions behind me. Most game stories would have ended here – eight hours later, after the main character has managed to defeat the enemy. But we’re not talking about just any adventure here, but a title from the Final Fantasy series. So the place where most games end becomes barely the beginning of the adventure for the members of the eco-terrorist organisation AVALANCHE: Cloud, Tifa, Barret, Aerith, Red XIII (and later Vincent Valentine, Yuffie, Cait Sith and Cid). A whole world opens up to be explored, and the battles with corporate soldiers from the past turn into long, complex fights with all sorts of mythical creatures from the lands of Gaia.

That’s roughly how I’d describe Final Fantasy VII: the game that opens spectacularly and keeps you hooked for 50–60 hours without ever getting boring or repetitive. Immersion in a cyberpunk world where magic and technology combine to give birth to a captivating story about good intentions and destruction.

And the introduction above covers only a sixth of what the game has to offer. Remember PlayStation games? Yes, the ones you play off a CD. Well, Final Fantasy VII is a game released in 1997 that takes up not one, not two, but THREE CDs. Throughout the adventure I often tried to picture myself in another country in the second half of the 1990s, being given as a present the console that offered the most generous storage space for games, and ending up with an experience that invited me to swap 3 discs as I went along. Even in 2004, installing 2 CDs to play GTA Vice City seemed enormous to me.

Final Fantasy VII is the most emblematic title in the series for several reasons.

First of all, it’s the first to be officially released in Europe and the first to appear on PlayStation.

The technological leap from the Super Nintendo is enormous, with a much larger world at your disposal to explore on foot, by off-road vehicle, on the surface of the water (by boat), over the cities (by aircraft), under the water (by submarine) and even from outer space. Secondly,

VII marks the moment when Square released the same game on every continent and gave it the same name – for example, Final Fantasy VI was known as Final Fantasy III in the United States precisely because releases happened selectively. And thirdly, we’re dealing with a story of enduring relevance, blessed with memorable characters and gameplay tricks far more ambitious than anything I’ve played since 1997.

Final Fantasy VII is the kind of game you’d get for Christmas and that had enough content to keep you busy for the whole year – because beyond the main story there’s always a side quest offering meaningful bonuses. And the fact that Square (which became Square Enix after 2003) kept being asked for an updated remake (and eventually did make one recently for PlayStation 5) says a lot about this title’s cultural impact.

It’s effectively the JRPG that popularised the whole genre outside Japan.

J-Point & Click, J-Action, J-RTS, J-Snowboarding Sim, J-Flight Sim Despite the statement above, I have serious reservations about classifying Final Fantasy VII as a JRPG. True, it has all the emblematic features of the genre. Yes, it takes quite a lot of GRIND to face every enemy with aplomb and to unlock extra abilities or items.

But the narrative elements and the exploration-friendly gameplay remind me more of Point & Click adventures like Broken Sword, Sam & Max and Syberia. The character interactions, though built on text boxes, managed to move me and amuse me in equal measure – but never to leave me completely indifferent. And the music is so good that I’ve been listening to it for a week in various YouTube playlists. I even bought the soundtrack on CD for when I’m in the car!

Final Fantasy VII offers a great deal of variety in its gameplay, so the experience never stays linear for too long. During the invasion of the Shinra corporation building there are somewhat primitive stealth sections… but ones that surely influenced series like Hitman and Splinter Cell. After you escape the building, you get a memorable motorbike chase that combines the madness of Road Rash with tower defence mechanics.

And since I’ve brought up the phrase “tower defence”, in Fort Condor you can play a sort of RTS and tower defence hybrid: you position your defence units on the map, then wait for the invasion and coordinate your infantry to minimise the damage. It’s a sequence that seems ripped from Warcraft, but adapted to Final Fantasy VII’s polygonal universe. And the surprise of discovering this bit of variety is extremely pleasant.

But once you start the action on the second CD, you’re faced with a snowboarding section that predates the first SSX game by 3 years and isn’t nearly as rudimentary as I’d have expected. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the Japanese really do make the best games, and their attention to detail is hard to match.

And once you reach Gold Saucer, you’ll find loads of ways to spend your money in a fun way. There’s an arena where fierce one-on-one fights can be staged to test the survival skills of Cloud Strife, the main character. But there’s also a short FPS section that involves shooting at objects from a rollercoaster, a primitive fighting game that reminds me of the classic Karateka, and the chance to bet money on Chocobo ostrich races.

I think I lost a few hours straying from the main story, just to try to discover everything this chunk of the game could offer me. And I had no trouble imagining a Square shareholders’ meeting in the mid-1990s, when someone asked “But why does it have to be just an RPG?” and the whole room applauded the idea of putting out a game “with everything”, one you buy to satisfy all sorts of other needs and curiosities. Let’s not forget, though, that video games were, until recently, quite expensive and out of reach for a good part of the world’s population. And when a parent shelled out $60 on a new game, they expected the child not to ask for anything else for a few months.

And if all of the above doesn’t sound too impressive, then I should point out that the main story offers a genuine “bitch slapping” sequence between two female characters: Tifa and Scarlet will have something to settle, and the blows will be coordinated by the player themselves.

Utilitarianism, cynicism and nihilism, from several perspectives. The story of Final Fantasy VII is centred on the idea of saving the planet. And the factions involved have different interests, approaches and means of reaching the same point. In places there are moments when we’ll sympathise with the protagonists and believe they are the ones doing what’s right – but towards the end of the game the decisions become ambiguous, and the question even comes up: “do your good intentions justify killing a few thousand innocent people?”

The first missions in Final Fantasy VII involve destroying mako reactors – a kind of power plant that runs on atomic energy to generate electricity, except that the game steps into rather more mystical territory to suggest the energy is drawn straight from the planet's spirit. The eco-terrorist organisation AVALANCHE is worried about the way the Shinra corporation has come to hold an energy monopoly over the whole land of Midgar and plots to reduce the scale of the exploitation, convinced that the planet is dying… and that they're the only ones who can save it.

At the same time, over the course of the game you'll come across an abandoned mining town whose residents complain that their work became unprofitable the moment Shinra found a more efficient way of producing electricity. And this is one of the first moments when you start asking yourself whether you're really on the good side – burning coal is less efficient and worse for the environment, isn't it? So Shinra's plans to give the whole planet energy independence no longer look quite so evil… except the corrupt means by which the corporation extends its influence will help you hold on to your sense of justice.

And that carries on until a greater threat shows up and, thanks to a corporate spy embedded in your team, you actually end up making common cause with the mega-corporation energy giant. That's also when an exchange of lines questions the utilitarianism of both sides: Shinra produced technological progress and made life easier for an entire planet, but did damage to the environment; at the same time, AVALANCHE destroyed several mako power plants and ended the lives of innocent people. Who's right, and who's acting correctly?

Are human lives the most important thing?

Is the survival of the planet a more important goal than the existence and progress of humanity?

The answer to these questions arrives through two nihilistic approaches. The first of them is embodied by the game's antagonist himself, Sephiroth. The silver-haired swordsman is an accelerationist who wants revenge by destroying the entire planet. To him the situation is inevitable, and so he prefers the quickest route to an apparently obvious ending. The second nihilistic approach comes at the end of the game, which effectively makes you realise that our human concerns are insignificant on a planetary and cosmic scale… because nature has its own means of healing itself. I don't want to go into too much detail about the story, precisely because I want to encourage you to play through it.

That said, part of Final Fantasy VII's success is certainly down to this topical story. Plenty of players surely felt justified in bombing the mako generators. But those who had the patience to reach the end of the game went through a whole process of exposure to the ramifications of such actions. In the end, how will humanity get past its post-industrial challenges: through more technological progress, through regression to a more primitive way of life, or through total destruction?

The love triangle formed by Cloud – Tifa – Aerith Before Geralt, Ciri and Yennefer, players were fascinated by the dynamic between Cloud, Tifa and Aerith. The characters tease each other relentlessly and get some funny, sometimes barbed exchanges. But the lads at Square did everything in their power to make Aerith stand out, to the point where players fall in love with her. And we're talking about the PlayStation era here, when polygons were jagged and beauty couldn't be conveyed all that well through graphics.

But Aerith stands out through her personality. At the start of the game she's just a simple flower seller. But once she's caught up in the action, she shows exemplary strength of character.

Cloud offers to walk her home after saving her – but instead of accepting her lot as a damsel in distress, she wants to see the adventure through to the end and help the team. Aerith is unexpectedly realistic and direct when she has to face the harsh realities of the world she lives in, yet at the same time she keeps her purity and her gentleness. Although the world around her is largely hostile, she isn't corrupted by it and never tips into resignation or cynicism.

Tifa, on the other hand, is more emotional and sensitive. She's known Cloud since childhood, she falls in love with him, but she never has the courage to say so. She feels a little threatened when Aerith turns up, and even gets a few lines that hint at jealousy. And unlike the gentle flower seller, Tifa does actually have her moment as the damsel in distress who needs rescuing.

But over the course of the game she grows stronger and shows balanced helpings of compassion and courage. Emotional and insecure as she is, the adventure she goes through unlocks her full potential. So we end up with a character who grows both in level and in her ability to face the world around her.

I won't tell you how this love triangle ends, but I can tell you about the scene where Tifa is kidnapped by a pimp and Aerith helps Cloud get an elegant dress, giving him the kind of disguise that gets him into the Don's mansion. Cross-dressing is a recurring theme in Japanese games, and I've run into it in StarTropics (one of the temples bars men, so you have to disguise yourself to get in) and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Gerudo Town is a settlement inhabited only by women, where the guards only let you in once you've got a specific veil). But in Final Fantasy VII this fashion trend matters more than the protagonist's comic emasculation – Cloud manages to get past his initial cynicism, showing Aerith and Tifa that he cares about the fate of the whole team and can make sacrifices for a greater purpose.

The characters and their alternation…

For the best part of the game, Cloud is the main character. There are moments, though, when he's temporarily unavailable – either because he's going through a crisis, or because the story needs to be told through someone else. And those sequences are a real delight, bringing out the narrative complexity of the whole universe. Because Final Fantasy VII isn't just Cloud's story: it's a whole chain of phenomena and events that have brought the planet to crisis point.

Cloud is just the most convenient little Plasticine man for putting the biggest events in the spotlight. But after some 40 hours, Barret and Tifa take centre stage.

And 2–3 hours later, Cid becomes the team's temporary captain, and we get to learn more about his ambitions to explore outer space aboard his own rocket.

Nor should we overlook the vampire Vincent Valentine, who holds valuable information about the birth of the antagonist Sephiroth.

And in a few of the action's quieter moments, even the apparently malevolent employees of the Shinra corporation are humanised, exposing their weaknesses or voicing their grievances.

Oh, and we also have Yuffie, a young mercenary with kleptomaniac tendencies. She attacks team members several times over the course of the game – she never manages to win, but each time she relieves the team of money or items. Get the dialogue sequence right and Yuffie can join the team, and you'll get a side mission that puts her front and centre.

And since I've mentioned Sephiroth, I should point out that he's a playable character during the telling of a story from the past. And I find the mechanism fascinating: dozens of hours before you get the chance to face your ultimate enemy, you get to observe his powers. You'll know what kind of battle to prepare for, and you'll marvel as he takes down any enemy with a single blow. The game prepares you for what's to come, but scatters enough surprises along the way to strip out any hint of predictability.

What amused me most was the moment when the choleric Barret tried to become the team leader… only to realise quickly enough that he's far too impulsive and lacks the skills needed to coordinate the operation. It's an important bit of storytelling that reminds us that, in life as in games, every character plays an essential role. And while many of us want to be in charge, in most cases the success of the mission matters more than the egos of the people involved. And yes, Final Fantasy VII has plenty of characters who express their individuality at certain key moments. The game would certainly have been just as good without Vincent Valentine, Yuffie and Cait Sith. But beyond the small contributions they make to expanding the story, we have to remember that in 1997 kids didn't have all that much else to do.

So adding a few extra characters who can be levelled up to gain unique abilities is one of those elements that stretches out the number of hours you can spend in the game exploring all of its content (a very popular activity before the internet era, when $60 was a bigger slice of your monthly income and players could happily spend a good few months with a single title).

The grind we need?

I have to admit, I'm generally not a fan of the idea of GRIND. I'd take something compact any day, something that helps you get through the whole story and delivers a message that doesn't lose its impact and emotional weight to hours spent in repetitive battles. But through a combination of gameplay and music, Final Fantasy VII got me to spend a good few hours exploring the map and throwing myself into random battles with all sorts of creatures.

I ended up finishing the game at level 72/99, an average performance for a Final Fantasy player, but one that still exceeds my usual level of engagement with repetitive mechanics. There were times when I was grinding for relaxation, during a 10–15-minute break. The fact that the remastered version let me triple the action speed at the push of a single button encouraged me to get into more battles and rack up more experience points. And when I had to face Sephiroth, I was a little less nervous… but I still was, because the final battle is built to give you trouble no matter how well prepared you are.

Final Fantasy VII relies on a “materia” system – the equivalent of Diablo's gems, which can be slotted into whatever sockets are available in each character's weapon and armour. The story behind these crystals is that they're created by exploiting mako energy through the Shinra Corporation's power plants. So anyone who slots in the materia called “Lightning” can strike with bolts of lightning, and anyone carrying the “Counter” materia will automatically launch a counter-attack on the enemy that hits them.

In other words, materia crystals unlock spells and special abilities. And their beauty is that any character can use them, regardless of how their ability points happen to be assigned. You can turn the sword-swinging warrior into a healer (for the Romglish lovers out there) or make the wizard a formidable attack-blocker (a tank, for those same jargon lovers). There are also materia combinations, and ways in which spell effects are transferred onto artefacts: for example, the combination of “Meteor” and “All” materia will help the character unleash a fiery at- tack on all enemy units; at the same time, a “Thunder” materia inserted into the slot in the sword alongside the “Element” materia will guarantee that all physical attacks come with electric shocks too. In the same way, the same “Thunder” materia inserted into armour alongside “Element” will guarantee protection from electrical attacks.

The possibilities are limited only by the player's imagination. And I say that after watching a few YouTube clips in which people are still discovering all sorts of combinations and adapting them for various encounters in the game… because the beauty of the magic gem system is that you can pull them out and slot them back in any time, in any combination. That opens up a whole host of tactical possibilities, letting players who understand the enemy's abilities finish certain important battles far quicker. As Sun Tzu said in the favourite book of finance corporate types, if you know yourself and you know your enemy, then all you need is the materia with the right element and victory is guaranteed.

Final Fantasy VII in 2021 (and 2024)?

The question “should I still play Final Fantasy VII in 2021?” is much like the question “should I still watch Casablanca or Gone with the Wind?”

We're talking about an absolute classic, and probably the most beloved JRPG ever released.

If you can look past the dated graphics, a string of delightful surprises awaits you.

But if the graphics are an obstacle for you, then your best bet is to pick up a PlayStation 5 and enjoy the experience fully rebuilt by the lads at Square Enix. I do have to issue a warning, though, when it comes to the story: the remake takes certain narrative liberties that were probably put in as surprises for the most ardent fans of the original. As a result, the newest version is marked by revisionism and plot twists that don't exist in the 1997 game.

Still, I find it hard not to recommend Final Fantasy VII. Especially now, when the game is available on every imaginable platform, from consoles to PC (at the time of writing, it's on Steam for €13)

and mobile phones. Yes, the graphics are dated. But if you can handle a title from the Lego Star Wars series, then you'll definitely love Final Fantasy VII and everything it has to offer. Just be careful not to get emotionally attached to certain characters — they might have tragic endings exactly when you least expect it. And don't cry at the end, it's only a game.