I bought and first played Final Fantasy VII on my PS4 on December 6th 2015. This was a couple weeks after Cloud was announced for Smash 3DS/Wii U, and 1 week before he was released. It doesnt seem like that long ago, but its been 5 years since then. I very clearly remember playing it in the winter time in the lead up to Christmas that year, bringing my PlayStation over my grandmoms house. The game is very much synonymous with December and winter time with me now as a result. But I never ended up getting far before putting it down and never really coming back to it on that playthrough. I remember getting passed Midgar, going to the Chocobo farm and maybe 2 hours past that, so all together around 7ish hours in? Ended up selling my PS4. But on March 31st 2019, I got it on the Switch when the port released. I again played through it pretty regularly at that time, getting much farther than I did in my first playthrough, getting to around the part where Cloud is messed up and in the hospital by June of that year, before putting it down for another 8 months, until February 2020. I played for a small pocket of time then, and then ultimately put it down again, as I was nearing the submarine segment. A couple days ago, Sepiroth was announced for Smash Ultimate, 5 years after Cloud was, and 5 years since I first started FF7. I finally sat down and took the time to beat it as a result. All of this aside, I do like FF7. I think its aged horrendously and as an outsider whos only Final Fantasy experience is this (besides Kingdom Hearts 1 and 3), its mechanics can be really confusing and alienating. If comparing this to a Dragon Quest game, I vastly prefer Dragon Quests mechanics because everything is so much less confusing and clunky. I also constantly get lost in the game, not knowing where I needed to go to progress the story and relied a lot on walkthroughs. I really love the Midgar section, but once the world opens up after that, and especially once you get to Disc 2 parts of the game, it gets so confusing. All that said, I still really like the characters, the story and more than anything else in the game, the world of FF7. The world itself is such a cool turn in the final fantasy series, which at first presents itself as a kind of sci-fi world, but once you get past Midgar, it regresses back into the fantasy genre, like past Final Fantasy games, which I think is so unique and cool. The story itself is probably the most convoluted mess of a videogame story I have ever experienced (aside from Kingdom Hearts and Metal Gear). But unlike Kingdom Hearts, I actually love the absurdity of this one. Kingdom Hearts feels like its just making things up as it goes along, which is really frustrating from a naritive perspective. I feel no investment because the stakes and finish lines are constantly toyed with. So nothing feels important. FF7 story, is just wacky and all over the place and things make no sense, but it still feels focused if that makes sense? Maybe its just the benefit of being spread across one game, as opposed to 12. Bot overall I think its again the world that really keeps my investment. Im giving this a higher rating than I normaly would for a games whos gameplay I don't really gel with. But I think in the case of this one, the story and world really are the showcase, so I'm willing to ease up on it in that regard. I'm looking forward to one day playing the remake, because I feel as though it would address a lot of the problems I have with the game.