YES the third person shooting is kinda mid and YES the later levels get some pretty mean design choices that almost force you into grinding earlier levels for xp and gil and YES the first three-quarters of the game have very little meaningful or interesting story and YES everything with Omega and the Protomateria raises a lot of Big Lore questions about things going on in FF7.

BUT.

That last bit of the game! The last, like, three levels or something! It's all kinda sick as hell! The Rosso and Azul boss fights are just so damn cool. And basically everything once you get to the Weiss fight?? It's all anime bullshit and I love it. Vincent is great. What a cool guy. Yuffie is fun to have around sometimes! The little bit of Cloud/Tifa/Barret you get rules! Reeve sucks! And I guess Cid is there, too!

And I think the choice at the end of each level to convert your points into either XP or Gil is genuinely cool! And having your RPG stats to level up helps set this apart from the majority of shooters, which is neat!

I think I'm going to be rotating Rosso the Crimson in my mind for a long time.

If you don't like the edgy goth twink game then, I dunno, try letting joy into your heart or something.

Pros:
- Freedom of character builds through materia make winning battles satisfying.
- Masterfully crafted plot with intriguing mystery, twists and turns.
- Most of the cast gets great character development.
- Good pacing; side quests can be done to take breaks from the big events, or ignored entirely once you want to see what’s in store next.
- Very good art direction.
- Great soundtrack.

Cons:
- Boring level design. Dungeons and whatnot only amount to walking through the area until you get to the end (or find miscellaneous loot off the beaten path). Random encounters are usually a lazy way of setting up battles, and FFVII is no exception. Especially given that these random encounters are relentless and stop you in your tracks at seemingly every opportunity.
- Despite the UI looking aesthetically pleasing, it annoyingly does not allow for enough information to be displayed at once.
- Save points are an annoying save system that does not provide interesting gameplay in a game like this. They work in something like Resident Evil, but in an RPG, it only serves as an artificial roadblock and add more potential for too much lost progress.
- A couple of characters (mainly the optional party members) are unfortunately not as fully explored as other characters, despite being endearing in their own right.
- The ending is too abrupt. Ambiguous endings are all well and good, but there must have been a better way to execute it. The way the ending is makes it seem like it was sequel bait all along, despite the Compilation of FFVII probably not being in their minds at the time.
- The official English translation is downright terrible (even with the updates from most recent versions of the game). I’ve played the game in the fan translation “Beacause” (from “The Reunion” mod), which is an improvement, but I’ve seen the whole game in the original translation as well. Therefore, it feels impossible to experience this game in English in a way that feels completely genuine to the original text (and 100% professional). This point does not contribute so much to the overall score because it’s not really the actual game’s fault that this happened, more so the circumstances surrounding its release in the late 90s. But I thought it was worth mentioning.

Score: 8/10, closer to a 7 than a 9.

Pros:
- Amazing combat system that ingeniously mixes tactical and reaction-based gameplay together.
- Satisfying difficulty in major (and many minor) battles that encourages you to experiment with different loadouts and character builds. Hard mode pushes this idea further to great effect to make you master the combat system.
- Incredible sense of progression through character level-ups, materia level-ups, and learning different weapon skills.
- Great UI/UX that displays all information in a convenient way while matching up very well with the game’s overall art direction.
- Fantastic recreation of the original FFVII’s first several chapters with all the benefits modern presentation can offer. Content from the FFVII Compilation is integrated seamlessly and tactfully to further flesh out the world. A brand-new sense of intrigue is introduced through the addition of a new mystery that incorporates the Compilation as well as completely new lore.
- Much new life is breathed into the cast of characters through ridiculous amounts of new dialogue and interaction between all characters, making their relationships even more believable and entertaining than before. Voice acting in both English and Japanese is fantastic.
- Breathtaking art direction and music. The frequent use of adaptive music throughout is incredibly effective.

Cons:
- The camera can be somewhat unwieldy during battle in tight spaces.
- Level design is basic. Basically just battle gauntlets broken up by puzzles or quick time events. The puzzles/QTEs are mind-numbingly easy and only serve to waste a bit of time.
- A little bit too many trash mobs.
- One portion of the game felt like straight-up filler. Although it was clearly meant to bring character development to someone, the gameplay aspect was just an uninspired chase section. Another portion of the game (in the lategame) went on just a little bit too long.
- Most (although not all) side-quests are boring fetch/kill quests with little entertainment value to speak of. Unfortunately, you are required to do every side-quest if you want to see rather worthwhile extra cutscenes.
- Although it may sound silly, the overuse of “anime grunting/breathing” was actually a little distracting.

Score: 9/10, closer to a 10 than an 8.