Final Fantasy Challenge Home Page

Heavy story spoilers ahead

Introduction

It’s the start of a new trilogy. Leaving the SNES behind and moving boldly towards the PS1 means bigger, flashier Final Fantasy games. Final Fantasy VII released in 1997 for the PlayStation, and at the time, boasted absolutely revolutionary graphics. While the overworld polygonal characters were rudimentary, the in-battle models were more detailed, and during many of the most important moments, pre-rendered cutscenes captured the imagination of anyone who was lucky enough to experience this game before the turn of the century.

I was not one of those people. I was a Nintendo kid, so when Final Fantasy moved over to the Sony home consoles, I didn’t have the opportunity to play another Final Fantasy game until Final Fantasy Tactics: Advance came out for the Game Boy Advance in 2003. Final Fantasy VII became a cultural juggernaut, however. Even without playing the game myself, I became intimately familiar with many of the characters, from spiky-haired Cloud and his comically broad Buster Sword to antagonist Sephiroth and his comically long katana, the Masamune. Tifa, Aerith, and Vincent also seeped into my consciousness, including the big event that occurs at the end of Disc 1.

With that in mind, it’s weird playing Final Fantasy VII with so much of the story spoiled for me. Knowing what to expect robs the biggest moments of their emotional impact. Instead of an out-of-left-field surprise, I’m waiting with bated breath for the event that I know is looming on the horizon. And beyond losing the emotional weight, it seeps into the mechanics of the game, influencing and informing my choices because I know how some things end.

Mechanics

I think one of the biggest criticisms of Final Fantasy VI was the Magicite system. Yes, it was cool, but it was also tedious. You needed to constantly swap Magicite between all your characters so everyone could learn the magic you’d need to overcome any challenge. In Final Fantasy VII, they turn the system on its head. Instead of Magicite giving specific characters new abilities, the Materia itself is the ability, and the more a specific Materia is used in battle, the better it becomes. So if you manage to level up your Restore Materia to a higher level, then you can give that Cure3 spell to any of your party members. A huge improvement.

Further to that, you can swap Materia between any of your characters at any time, even if they’re not in your party. And the game is extra kind to you: when a character leaves the party, their Materia is automatically unequipped, so you can slot those skills onto whichever character replaces them. Hallelujah.

The Materia is more than just magic spells, too. Your weapon and armor will have a certain number of Materia slots, indicating how many of those precious gems that character can hold, and some of those slots will be linked. Some of the Materia offers enhancements to the linked slot, such as the All Materia, which makes the Materia ability connected to that slot affect all the characters on the field instead of just one. Some of the extra commands, such as Steal, Throw, Enemy Skills, and Summons that have been class abilities in the past are now achievable by any character via a specific Materia. It’s a pretty great evolution of the Magicite system.

The characters themselves are mechanically bland and interchangeable. Sure, some will have stats that lend them to being more of a spellcaster or summoner, but if I’m being really honest, any character can fill any role. Some characters such as Yuffie, Barret, and Vincent have long-range weapons, so they can be put into the back row for a defensive boost, but there is no clear ‘white mage’ or ‘black mage’ of the party. Everyone can do everything, it just depends on who you want to give the appropriate Materia to. In my game, Tifa ended up holding the All Cure and All Revive, so she was the one responsible for keeping the other characters alive. I suppose in theory she’s supposed to fill the Monk role, considering she pummels enemies with her fists, which she still did with aplomb. But in moments where Tifa wasn’t in my party, it was easy to give those skills to someone else.

Aside from the characters with long-range weapons being allowed to sit in the back row, they’re all totally interchangeable. The only thing that really makes them unique is their Limit Breaks, which, while having unique animations, all just do major damage. The exception to that is Aerith, whose Limit Breaks heal the party or inflict status conditions.

One big mechanical downside of Final Fantasy VII is just how damn slow the game can be. Like, some of the best and biggest attacks you can do are the Summons. But every summon has an unskippable animation that sometimes goes surprisingly long. This is even more frustrating when you’re in a time-limited section of a game, and you use a summon that just eats 45 seconds of your time with an unskippable animation.

Speaking of being slow, Final Fantasy VII employs pre-rendered backgrounds, which allow for an amazing level of detail and give every single location a unique and distinct aesthetic and vibe. Some of the dungeons, however, are zoomed way out, so Cloud is just a little speck on the screen, and you need to run across a wide expanse. Sometimes, it’s also nearly impossible to tell what is background detail and what is an interactive element. More than once, I found myself pressing against a wall mashing the action button, just looking for the magic spot that let me progress through an area.

The above screenshot is the worst, but not only offender in the game. To progress, you actually need to go down the girder on the right, go under the street tunnel, then walk onto the red tube going to the north end of the screen

Final Fantasy VII does have a lot of levity. There are plenty of cutscenes and mini-games to break up the flow and pacing of the generic run-around-and-have-encounters style of a traditional JRPG. It’s mildly frustrating when you come to a mini-game, though, you get a brief flash of the controls, and then you get one attempt to do well, like in the marching mini-game or snowboarding. If you want to practice or try for a higher score, you just need to reload your previous save and try again.

Unlike Final Fantasy VI and more like Final Fantasy IV, this game has a distinct main character, Cloud. The other main storyline characters (Barret, Tifa, Red XIII, Aerith, Cid, and Cait Sith) all get varying amounts of screen time and character development, while the two optional characters have optional side quests you can undertake to develop their stories more. And while these other characters do develop, the focus of the story is on Cloud and Sephiroth.

The Story

The story of Final Fantasy VII starts with a train. Eco-terrorist group AVALANCHE burst out of the train, followed closely by a back-flipping Cloud. They storm the train station, slaying guards, and rushing into the Mako reactor, hacking past doors, and descending into the heart of the machinery. Barret and Cloud plant a bomb, defeat a robot scorpion, then escape just as the whole reactor explodes into flames.

Back at the hideout, you learn that Mako is the lifeblood of the planet, and a mega corporation called Shinra is extracting that lifeblood through the reactors to create energy and wealth for themselves. AVALANCHE, lead by Barrett from the slums of Midgar, wants to stop them. Cloud, an ex-SOLDIER, a decorated military veteran, is a mercenary, not interested in saving the planet, but only sticking around long enough until he gets paid.

What’s immediately apparent is the tone shift the Final Fantasy series has undergone. Moving beyond the high fantasy aesthetic of the past 6 games, FInal Fantasy VII is rooted in science fiction. Sure, Cloud still wields a sword, but the Shinra soldiers come at you with rifles, Barrett has a gun attached to his arm, and instead of a castle casting a shadow across a quaint village, a massive building stands in the centre, surrounded by 8 mako reactors, and massive plates hold homes for wealthy citizens to reside in, while leaving the dirty ground below for the slums. Midgar casts an impressive profile, and by putting the players in the slums, instantly creates a feeling of inequity. AVALANCHE are justified in their quest to destroy the Mako reactors, they are the sympathetic Robin Hood of this world.

Avalanche is using the basement of a bar as it’s hideout, and as Cloud shows up to get paid, the bar’s owner, and Cloud’s childhood friend, Tifa, convinces him to join in on another reactor raid. During that next excursion, however, things go awry. They plant the bomb, but are cornered by the president of Shinra, who sicks a robot soldier after the party. They defeat it, but it explodes, destroying the catwalk the party was standing on, and leaving Cloud hanging. After the bomb AVALANCE planted explodes, Cloud loses his grip, and missing Tifa’s outstretched hand, falls from the upper plate to the depths below. He crashes through a church ceiling and wakes up to Aerith looking over him, as he lays amongst her flowerbed.

Tangent, in the original Final Fantasy VII, the in-game default name for this character is Aeris, but the intended name was supposed to be Aerith. The manual says Aerith, all subsequent media refers to her as Aerith, but I just stuck with the game default Aeris for my play through.

Aerith is soon visited by Reno, a Turk (think the FBI of this world), and Cloud helps her escape. She and Cloud eventually meet up with Tifa and Barrett and learn that the Shina’s response to AVALANCHE destroying the Mako reactors is to collapse the plate that sits above the slums they call home. They race to stop it, but are moments too late. In addition to this, Aerith is captured by the Turks. Cloud, Tifa, and Barrett narrowly escape the Sector 7 Slums as the plate comes crashing down, killing untold numbers of people.

Cloud and the party stage a raid on Shinra HQ in an effort to save Aerith. On their way, they’re captured and come face to face with the Shinra president who tells them only the last surviving Ancient (Aerith), can lead them to the promised land, a mythical land of limitless potential. He plans on finding the promise land and building another city on top of it, harvesting the Mako for even more wealth and power. He then imprisons the party. Cloud wakes up after some time has passed to find his cell door mysteriously open and the guard at the end of the hallway dead. The party follows the trail of blood up to the Shinra presidents office, and find him also murdered, with Sephiroth’s iconic sword lodged in his back.

The president’s son, Rufus appears on scene and vows to rule the company and the people who depend on it via fear. Cloud and the Party manage to escape Shinra, and the city of Midgar all together. And thus begins Final Fantasy VII

All of that takes about 5 or 6 hours of gameplay. But it really sets the stage and tone for the rest of the game. What follows is a mystery of Grand proportions. Aeris is the last surviving Ancient, which Shinra is chasing. Sephiroth has gone rogue, causing death and chaos, and Cloud’s singular ambition is to chase him down. Unlike previous games where there was a singular antagonist, Final Fantasy VII is more nuanced in the characters roles.

Shortly after leaving Midgar, Cloud tells his tale. He recounts the events of 5 years ago, when he was in SOLDIER, and he and Sephiroth were dispatched to his and Tifa’s hometown of Nibelheim. Tifa is hired as their guide as they make their way to the local Mako reactor. Inside the reactor, they find pods containing monsters. It’s revealed that Shinra creates SOLDIERS via inhumane experiments on humans, by injecting cells of Jenova into people and exposing them to Mako energy. Sephiroth finds records of the experiments done to him, and goes mad. He burns Nibelheim, townspeople slain. Cloud and Tifa confront Sephiroth at the reactor, who easily overpowers them, and then pulls Jenova from its pod.

If this all sounds confusing, it’s because it is. A lot of Final Fantasy VII is about unravelling the murky history of Cloud and the events that happened 5 years ago. Much closer to the end of the game, it’s revealed that Cloud’s retelling of Nibelheim isn’t accurate. Cloud never made it into the elite SOLDIER, he failed. He was a common Shinra goon for a while, and Zack was the SOLDIER partnered with Sephiroth, although Cloud was there at the events. Cloud was a failed Shina experiment, where Sephiroth was a successful one. The Mako energy fractured Cloud’s psyche, and all those who underwent the Jenova experiment do experience some connection with one another. A calling, a voice, something drawing them all to a ‘reunion’. Aerith asserts that she’s the only one who can stop Sephiroth. She goes to the city of the Ancients, and when Cloud follows her, he’s overcome with an urge to pick up his sword and slay her. When he successfully resists, Sephiroth depends from the ceiling, and does it himself.

Except was it actually Sephiroth? In a much later flashback, it’s revealed that Cloud managed to throw Sephiroth into the life stream 5 years ago, so, how is Sephiroth back and causing troubles? How does he keep getting his iconic Masamune back if he left it impaled in the Shinras presidents back? These questions do have answers, but they require a bit of research to find them.

The second half of the story is unwravelling the mystery of Jenova, Shina, Hojo, alien calamities, and shape-shifting villains, and how Cloud fits into the whole story. Cloud eventually regains his mental state and memories, the crew destroy some WEAPONS, they jump into a rocket ship and fly into space in a futile attempt to divert the incoming Meteor, and eventually descend into the northern crater to the centre of the planet to confront Jenova and Sephiroth. They succeed, and Cloud asserts that now it’s up to the power of Holy to save the planet. In the final cutscene, it’s shown that the Meteor is pressing down on Midgar, and the Holy barrier is failing. As the city begins to crumble however, green energy rushes forward, pushing meteor back. Aerith’s face is briefly shown bathed in green light, and the credits roll. Post credits, 500 years later, Red XIII is seen running through the plains with two cubs. They jump up some cliffs and reveal a abandoned and ruined Midgar, overgrown with greenery.

Experience

I think I’ve said it before, but I’ve never really played Final Fantasy VII. At the very least, I’ve never gotten very far in any of my past attempts, barely out of Midgar, if at all.

The story was quite convoluted, and a lot of the nuance of the mystery is easily missed and is found in optional areas or hidden text boxes if you check a character’s desk or something. As this was my first time playing FFVII, I did spend more than an hour after the final credits rolled just Googling some of my questions. Why was Sephiroth frozen in the Northern Crater? Who actually killed Aerith if Sephiroth was thrown into the Lifestream five years earlier? Why didn’t Tifa speak up when Cloud recounted the Nibelheim event? A lot of the game could have been avoided if Tifa spoke up and addressed Cloud’s schizophrenic episodes.

I have to say that for a 1997, first 3D game, Final Fantasy VII would have been absolutely earth-shattering to all those who played it back in the day. But for someone playing it for the first time in 2025, I think it’s a little overhyped. Considering it’s capped many best-game-of-all-time lists, it’s literally impossible to call it underhyped. The 3D graphics were astounding in 1997, but in the modern day, the visuals haven’t aged well, which is a shame.

I also don’t get the fandom for Sephiroth. He was present in Cloud’s flashbacks, and he killed Aerith, but he was largely missing from most of the game. This is probably a byproduct of Final Fantasy VII employing several antagonistic parties. Sephiroth was more of an ethereal threat and less of a foil to the party or someone pushing events forward. It’s a stark contrast to Final Fantasy VI‘s Kefka, who was constantly in your face, causing death and destruction, foiling your plans, while Sephiroth is just someone you’re chasing.

Some of the characters are bland or one-note in Final Fantasy VII. Cait Sith joins your party and is barely a character other than to spy on you for Shinra, and then, for that same person to grow a conscience and be a part of the final battle. Red XIII’s whole character arc is just, he’s young and brash and he learns to warm up to humans. Yuffie is a jerk who steals your Materia at least twice, after which the party just shrugs and lets her keep tagging along. I know a lot of these characters receive a lot more characterization in plenty of the content that followed the original release, but in the original game, they’re quite one-note. The story really revolves around Cloud, Tifa, Barret, and Aerith, with the rest of the team having much smaller roles.

I think taking into account all of the content that has come out for Final Fantasy VII, especially the remake, I think it eventually becomes a really amazing series. But taking Final Fantasy VII for the PS1 on it’s own, I don’t think it’s a particularly amazing game. At the very least at this point on my Final Fantasy pilgrimage, I’d say I prefer all 3 of the SNES games over this one. It may be sacrilege to say so, but hey, this is a subjective blog. My opinions are what they are. And I will concede that now that I’ve played this game, I can see the influence it had on several of my favourite games that came after it. It was a groundbreaking achievement, I’m just terribly late to the party.

I will say that seeing how some of the iconic cutscenes have been rendered in the remake, makes me really want to play the Remake series. When I do, I will come back and revise my opinion here.