Oh, Final Fantasy VII. Rightfully listed as one of the best PlayStation games, best JRPGs, and best Final Fantasy games in many rankings. Even today, the game remains a masterpiece with its story about the exploitation of the Earth, capitalism, the downfall of our civilization, death, rebirth, personal identity, and more. And now, in the first quarter of the 21st century, it's more relevant than ever. I found myself swallowing hard at many points because the game's message hits too close to home. It all starts relatively humbly. We are Cloud Strife, a Class-1 Soldier hired by the eco-terrorist organization Avalanche to assist in a bombing mission. Shinra, the large corporation in FF7, is depleting the Earth's resources to generate energy. Being helpful and naturally cool, we embark on a journey through the fantastic city of Midgar for a few hours, only to be released into the semi-open world with our mouths agape. I say "semi-open" because theoretically, we have various continents to explore. However, there is a relatively direct path to follow for the story. We learn more about ourselves, the world, and of course, our adversary Sephiroth, whom we must defeat in the next 20-24 hours of gameplay. The world is wonderfully diverse, with small towns, forests, mountain peaks, snow villages, and more. The battles occur in real-time and are structured such that each character has a kind of loading bar that fills up, allowing them to select an attack, item, or more. While making these choices, the battle doesn't pause, so the other party members must wait for us to finish while the enemies continue to attack. This brings a certain tension but also some haste to the battles. We fight alongside a charismatic cast of heroes, each with their own weapons and styles, allowing us to assemble our favourite team and experiment by switching characters. Another component is the Limit Break system, which is activated (also with a "loading bar") when a character has been attacked enough times. Then that character can unleash a powerful special attack. By using these Limit Breaks frequently and defeating enough enemies, we can learn even more fantastic-looking Limit Breaks. Also, pretty fantastic-looking are the Summons, which bring up powerful monsters and creatures to aid us in battle. However, many of them suffer from the problem of taking too long to execute. This is where a feature of the PS4 version of FF7 comes in handy—namely, the ability to speed up the game times three. This quality-of-life improvement is something I couldn't do without during the game. Unfortunately, most regular battles haven't aged well and consist of mindless button-mashing until all enemies are defeated. They are generally not challenging. So, as I traverse the overworld map, battles are triggered, I activate 3x speed, and spam the attack button. Depth is lacking, at least when not fighting a boss. The other two enhancements feel a bit cheaty with toggling on and off random encounters and also an HP, MP and Limit Break Boost that makes your team pretty much invincible. I would not recommend using those two but if it helps you experience the world and story then go for it. However, the game compensates with the Materia system, which provides a wonderful framework for our heroes to acquire active and passive skills such as offensive spells, healing abilities, or stat boosts. In addition to the battles, we travel from location to location, learning more about the world and the backgrounds of fan favourites like Barret and Tifa. Unfortunately, not all of our party members receive equal attention, and some interesting backstories are extremely well hidden. Two optional characters can even be missed. Whether we recruit them or not depends on luck, chance, and attention to detail. Saving can only be done at specific save points scattered throughout the world and in inns. While these save points are generally placed fairly, it can be frustrating when we unknowingly walk into a trap and start the next battle with very low HP. The gameplay consists of a mix of battles, dialogues, exploration, and occasional mini-games. However, these mini-games are often clunky and poorly explained, if at all. For example, there is the rescue of a nearly drowned girl, during which Cloud kept shaking his head as if I were doing something wrong, only to eventually succeed. Similarly, the game throws us into a military parade march without much explanation. Yes, the game does have its rough edges, which can be attributed to its age and the prevailing trends of that time. But what is still incredibly impressive even today is the overall presentation of the game. It's 1997, and most of the time, we see our rough polygonal characters against pre-rendered static backgrounds. My jaw literally dropped when, in the middle of a scene, the camera suddenly panned, revealing that these scenes are not as static as they appear. The fight scenes on the other hand show us more detailed character models and a fully 3D environment which looks terrific. And then there are a few 3D-rendered video cutscenes that fully blew my mind. The team worked on a remarkable technique for the PlayStation 1 that justified the use of three discs. However, it is on Disc 2 (around 20 hours into the game) that things really start to pick up, throwing us into a grim scenario of saving the world (as expected in a JRPG). One problem arises when we know the overall goal but are unsure about the next steps, especially when we have to set the game aside for a few days. There is no quest log or similar feature, so it can be a bit challenging to pick up where we left off. In some cases, mostly for optional stuff, it's almost necessary to consult external resources. I have listed several rough edges, and yes, it's evident that Final Fantasy VII has aged. However, it's the story, even almost two decades later, that propels the game to masterpiece status with its mission to save the Earth, fight against the evil Shinra Corporation, and confront our archenemy, Sephiroth. The final battle delivers one last awe-inspiring moment that leaves your mouth hanging open. In addition to the epic visuals and presentation of the fight, the battle against Sephiroth is accompanied by a real orchestra and choir, elevating it to one of the best musical pieces in video game history. The overall direction and presentation of FFVII are still masterful today and make up for many of its shortcomings. This is definitely a game that JRPG fans should play even today.