A game that spans a huge story with a team of characters FF7 is considered the one of the most iconic JRPGs of all time. Gameplay wise the battle system is intuitive enough, although a bit stressful as even though it is turn-based there is a timer for each attack. The open world can be difficult to navigate if you’re uncertain of your objective but is sufficient. A nice streamlined option is that magic and skills are equipped to a character’s weapon and level up as you use them, so swapping abilities between characters is no problem. There are a lot of events/minigames in FF7 (like the parade and CPR) which help make memorable moments and breakup the gameplay. The plot starts off very strong in the middle of a train heist and pulls you into the action of the first act, unfortunately the momentum isn’t consistent and after you leave the city the plot slows down notably. The story is a mixed bag, the overall theme of restorative nature vs destructive nature is told very well without being environmentalist while some parts of the game take such an extremely bizarre tone shift and some primary plot points are convolutedly explained. Each character in your party has a unique backstory that unravels alongside the main story which takes you across a large map and many hours.

This is genuinely one of the most baffling blind spots I've had as a huge fan of JRPGs. I've heard time and time again about how revolutionary this game was for the genre, and I kept trying to pick it up and failing each time. I think initially, nothing really grabbed me about the game save for its' setting. Don't get me wrong; the opening isn't bad, but I have attention problems when it comes to games, if I'm not drawn in instantly, I have to really push myself to get to a point where playing comes naturally. Very glad that I ended up doing that this time around.

For reference, I played this game LOCKED IN this time around; I was playing in a pitch black room off my CRT with no background noise, save for a space heater because landlords are useless parasites. The atmosphere of this game is addicting, which is something I never noticed until I played this way. Midgar's oppressive, looming city contrasted with the dismal and cozy slums that lie underneath are such fascinating settings for the first segment of the game. You really start to get a sense for this world that you're in, you start to get immersed in this setting, almost in a way that you start to believe nothing is outside of this place. Which is why when you finally leave after a half-dozen hours, it's overwhelming. You can go anywhere in this colorful, lively world that starkly contrasts the setting you just got so comfortable knowing. This is genius, because you would think that the characters would react to this in an awestuck way, oohing and aahing at the new scenery, but instead they barely react at all, and instead the burden of those emotions is placed onto you, the player. This is how masterfully the world of FF7 is crafted and woven into the story, it almost makes you forget it's a PS1 game.

The gameplay is rather interesting too. It ranges from really easy, to extremely frustrating depending entirely on one thing; materia. Materia, no pun intended, is the lifeblood of FF7's systems, as it replaces skills and classes from other more traditional RPGs and turns FF7 into a wildly customizable experience. How you use materia what dictates how well things go for you in FF7, and I would argue is what defines it in the genre. Every spell/ability that is commonplace for other RPGs is squished into these slottable gems, meaning you can mix and match playstyles, meaning characters don't fall into one niche and that's all there is to say about them; rather you can choose whatever the hell you want them to be. For instance, I opted for Cloud to be a melee attack bruiser, giving him materia that allowed him to take hits for frailer party members, but he would also launch a counterattack when he endured these hits, allowing him to dish out more melee damage, regardless of if it's "his turn" or not. I gave Tifa a good mix of support abilities and healing, while still allowing her to hit pretty hard, making her kind of like a war monk in other games. My last party member was a pure caster, I gave him plenty of powerful spells and summons to empower him from the backline, whereas some other people opt to make him a physical bruiser. You really can do whatever you want, and it will usually work out pretty well, as long as you have a plan.

The soundtrack is superb, I really don't have much more to say about it than that. There is such an insanely wide variety of tracks that you would be hard pressed to not find something you absolutely adore from this game. The main theme is so fucking spectacular, too. I never got tired of hearing it.

In terms of critiques I have for this game, I would say that I was getting a little frustrated by the gimmicky stuff. If you've played, you know what I mean. Some dungeons are pretty straightforward, but other have some weird shit that kind of just draws you out of the game for a little bit. Nothing that really took away from my experience, but just frustrating to have to learn a new minigame/gimmick for a dungeon every hour or so. I will lend to its' credit, this did keep me on my toes for the duration of the game, but some of the minigames were wildly frustrating if you just didn't jive with the concept well. I would also say that the pacing of the story is a little wonky in Disc 2, I felt like there was a big lull in the middle, especially compared to the breakneck pacing at the start and the end of Disc 2, doing little side-fetch quests felt a little bit like the Triforce Quest from Wind Waker, albeit much much less tedious.

Final thoughts, I am a stupid idiot moron for not playing this sooner. This was one of the most fun gaming experiences I've had in a long while, I felt like a kid again, as that was the last time I've felt such wonder for gaming. I can confidently say that this game rightfully deserves it's place among the monoliths of gaming as a truly influential, masterpiece title now that I have finished it. It is super fascinating coming back to it after playing dozens upon dozens of JRPGs that drew inspiration from this monumental title, and drawing my little thread from those games back to here. This is just one of those games that every gamer has to experience at least once, just to see what all the hype is about.

I have a confession to make: I used cheat codes / hacks to complete a good portion of Final Fantasy 7. The PS3 / PS4 port of Final Fantasy 7 came installed with a handful of built-in cheats you can easily turn on through pressing the L3 or R3 buttons (or both): a hack for 3x speed, a hack that turns off random encounters, and (crucially) a hack that fills up the characters' Limit Break gauges and completely refills their health every turn. At first, I only used 3x Speed intermittently because FF7 is often slow as hell, and I only really flicked on No Random Encounters while exploring the overworld and trying to figure out where the hell to go next without getting interrupted.

But here's the thing: FF7 is an old game. It is an oldass game, and in some places it has aged like milk. The aforementioned slowness of the dialogue and movement is one thing, but you are constantly being reminded of the antiquated nature of the game at almost every turn. FF7's overworld is an overambitious disaster: no landmarks on the map (which makes backtracking miserable without a guide), indecipherably weird movement, and a strange warping effect that makes walking around somewhat nauseating. Random and oft-unpredictable difficulty spikes permeate throughout the campaign; sometimes you will just killed by random bullshit and there's nothing you can do about it in the moment (froglocking). The translation is notoriously wonky and uncanny, so important mechanics are often poorly contextualized to the point of some bits of advice being outright lies ("attack while its tail is up"). And the less said about BS like climbing the frozen mountain or passing through the green whirlwinds, the better. There are so many frustrating little things pockmarked throughout the 20-30 hours the average player will spend with FF7 that start tallying up over time, and the older I get, the less patience I have for difficulty spikes and stupid bullshit.

So I caved. I turned on Infinite Limit Breaks and Restoring Health and basically never turned it off as the game's runtime stretched into the double digits... and in doing so, I felt my frustration (mostly) fade away into the ether, allowing me to appreciate what works about this classic without being reminded of what has aged about it.

Was this the right thing to do? Did my decision to turn on hacks hinder the authenticity of my critical experience with FF7? Do I really have a platform of any kind to judge this game upon compared to the thousands of 90s kids that had to put up with this game's tomfoolery and beat it through sheer force of will? I don't know... and I honestly don't care. Nerdietalk wrote a brief review of Fallout: New Vegas where she admitted to using console commands to breeze through the game, and in doing so, she got to "experience some incredible writing and worldbuilding." I kept thinking about that small writeup while playing through Final Fantasy 7, and I ultimately came to the exact same conclusion. It's possible that using cheat codes cheapened my experience with FF7 and made it less authentic and genuine than playing it as-is on the PS1, imperfections and all. But at some point during my playthrough, I stopped caring about this nefarious, ambiguous question of 'authenticity' altogether, because in the process of using cheats & hacks to streamline my experience, I got to play an incredibly creative and compelling adventure where something memorable, funny, and heartbreaking was always waiting for me around the corner.

FF7's world is an timeless one, filled to the brim with distinctive landmarks and rock-solid worldbuilding. Midgar alone is a killer cyberpunk location, an iconic dystopia so memorable and well-realized that they could well have set the entire game here (foreshadowing); the fact that we're also treated to strong, striking locations like Cosmo Canyon, the Gold Saucer, and the Forgotten City long after Midgar has been left in ruins just feels like the frosting on top of a delicious cake (or the sauce on top of a Midgar pizza). FF7 combines futuristic cyberpunk aesthetics with swords-and-sorcery fantasy so seamlessly that you don't even question why all these magic users and swordsmiths drive motorcycles, blow up power plants, and travel across the world in armored cars, planes, and airships. The way that Mako energy & "The Lifestream" as a concept is tied into the game's themes of nature & technology is brilliant, the Materia system is a flexible and customizable work of art, and the way the game's scope gradually evolves from "ecoterrorist revolution" to "fighting a godly being to save the planet" is actually pretty flawless and well-paced, all things considered. It's not hard to see why the broad strokes of FF7's alluring and creative world captured the imagination of thousands; there is something enchanting about the world of Gaia and the characters and stories found within it.

So much about the plot just works in spite of the infamously off-kilter and terse translation. The disastrous and often self-destructive impact that Shinra has on the world around them can be felt even at the fringes of the planet, creating this delightfully apocalyptic and anti-imperialist atmosphere that imbues FF7 with a crucial sense of revolutionary fervor. But in spite of this dystopia, Final Fantasy 7 is a shockingly funny game, unafraid to be silly and lighthearted and larger-than-life in places like Wall Market, the Gold Saucer, the Chocobo Farm, and Wutai. But these moments of levity and goofball comedy never detract from the mysticism and gravitas of the overarching plot about life and death and the fate of the planet. FF7 is often a beautiful game, its quieter moments defined by a strangely contemplative and damp atmosphere, and sometimes the game even does a great job at being chilling and kind of horrifying: everything about Sephiroth (a legitimately intimidating force-of-nature type of villain that makes the absolute most of his minimal screentime) and the thick, asphyxiating mystery of Nibelheim is legitimately haunting. And even though I knew the two biggest plot twists in the game coming in (Aerith's death and everything about Cloud and Zack), the fact that I still felt a genuine sense of shock, awe, and impact when those moments finally came proves just how strong the writing of FF7 is after all this time.

Though honestly, the journey that our main protagonist takes is proof enough of the story's inherent strength. Cloud Strife is one of the best and most iconic JRPG protagonists of all time for a good reason: he's cool, he has a badass sword, a badass motorcycle, he's a tough antihero that refuses to take shit from anyone, and it's all a lie. I'd even go as far to call Cloud perhaps the best JRPG protagonist of all time. I have more of a personal connection with Skies of Arcadia's Vyse, and I could easily see someone making a similar case for Mother 3's Lucas or Persona 5's Joker. But in my mind, Cloud stands atop every single one of them because of how cleverly and succinctly he subverts the audience's expectations.

Cloud is an unreliable narrator, a liar so damaged by trauma and inferiority that Cloud himself is the most devout believer of his own lies, so fooled by his own smoke and mirrors that his mind has become fog itself. The way the game gradually unravels his badass tough-guy persona to reveal the broken, hurt child underneath it all is legitimately stellar. Cloud's character arc goes through so many twists and turns that keeps the audience on their toes, and yet there's a clear throughline of trauma and self-loathing throughout. He is, simultaneously, a ruthless and cool lone-wolf hero that can take on the world alone... and an insecure, lonely boy that was robbed of his chance to grow up by propaganda and mental illness. Only through properly working through his trauma and discovering himself does Cloud become a proper hero. When he says "I'm going to live my life without pretending", you want to cry with happiness, and when he whips out the Omnislash to defeat Sephiroth in a duel that ends the entire game, you want to fucking cheer for him. Cloud is consistently great every step of the way. No one has ever done it quite like Cloud Strife, and the fact that he's surrounded by a distinctive and fleshed-out cast of memorable and well-written characters is just the cherry on top.

Final Fantasy 7 is a complex game from toe to tip. It's antiquated, obtuse, frequently frustrating, and intermittently hard to love... but it's also creative, clever, frequently funny, and easy to fall in love with. It is an exciting game, with an impeccably timeless prog-rock soundtrack with catchy, complex songs that pump you up and make you cry. It is beautiful, painfully beautiful at parts with its gorgeously textured and painterly pre-rendered backgrounds (which look fantastic even now) and the heavy sense of mysticism shrouded over everything. Its beauty and gravitas are kept in check by the game's goofy sense of humor, the humor is kept grounded by FF7's impressive propensity for psychological horror and cosmic terror, and the horror is numbed by the lovable found-family cast of characters and the wonderful, hilarious, and deeply sad things they persevere through. FF7 is hilarious, tragic, imaginative, and overambitious as hell, and it somehow manages to run the full gamut of emotional highs and lows throughout a fairly brisk 20-to-25 hour runtime that ultimately left me exhilarated and awe-inspired in spite of the numerous legitimate frustrations that hindered my progress to the action-packed finish line.

There are too many issues present in the game's DNA for me to call it a timeless classic... but these issues ultimately aren't enough to detract from how confident, clever, creative, and cathartic of a journey Final Fantasy 7 really is. No matter how often I'll sharply exhale through my nose and mutter 'fuck this', I know for a fact I'll likely keep returning to this game over and over and over again as the years go by, and no matter how many cheat codes or hacks I'll resort to in order to reduce the migraine, I know for a fact the brilliant soundtrack, the ethereal pre-rendered visuals, and the simultaneously hysterical and evocative story will never cease to capture my imagination no matter what.

To the settling of everything. Let's mosey.