Final Fantasy VII - Part Fifteen
Psyduck the Northern Cave. Filling a dungeon with a load of monsters that can hit you with an instant death effect isn't making the game challenging, it's making it unfair. Luckily, I had enough anti-instant death stuff with me that once I figured out what I had walked into I was okay. With that bullmuk out the way, the party continued their descent down the crater. Through this, I did encounter an actually tough monster a few times - the black dragon. This thing has powerful attacks and the ability to cast freaking Ultima. Not a single boss fight as of yet has been as fearsome as this random encounter monster. Comparatively, without the ability to instant kill, most of the other monsters were pushovers.
Finally, after a gruelling descent, the party reached a fork in the road and were forced to split into two teams. Cloud, Tifa and Yuffie took the left path while everyone else (with Red covering their asses lbr) went right. A large amount of cave ward travel ensued, fighting through many obnoxious enemies (psyducking Tonberries). Finally though, the party were able to reconvene at the centre of the cave system, distribute the loot and prepare for the final battle. Before much could be said, enemies started approaching from behind. The group couldn't all stay together for long. Cloud, Tifa and Red descended to face Sephiroth while Barret, Cid, Yuffie, Cait Sith and Vincent stayed behind to hold off the incoming threat.
Of course, it wasn't so simple as just walking up to Sephiroth. The party had to descend down a glowy path of floating broken stone as the Jenova music played (I wonder what that could possibly signal...), all the while fighting through ludicrously powerful foes. Until, sure enough, Jenova stood before them once more. Jenova, as per usual, went down easily, but it wasn't going to be as simple as that for Sephiroth. The party descended deeper still when suddenly they found themselves before Holy. A moment later though, the remaining party members were abruptly teleported in and Sephiroth appeared before them. The fight began with Cloud, Red and Tifa facing Sephiroth down.
This fight was brutal. Sephiroth's damage output was insane - the man's Supernova attack straight up ruined the solar system and the party on multiple occasions with the trio just barely scraping through thanks to their barriers and regen. His longevity was even worse. He had a few billion HP and kept putting up his own barrier that needed repeated dispelling. The party hammered him with Limit Breaks, their best E-Skills and Spells and even the odd regular attack for well over an hour until finally, after one last confrontation with Cloud 1 v 1, he had been taken down three times and this time stayed down. Holy activated and, just barely, defended the planet against Meteor thanks to the freeing of the Lifestream. They barely made it through but, in the end, the world was saved.
So, Final Fantasy VII. The overwhelmingly most popular game in the franchise. The game that got a generation of people into Final Fantasy. Probably one of the most definitive titles of the PS1 era. I liked it! I can definitely see why it means so much to so many people.
The story itself is very ambitious and complex compared to earlier Final Fantasy titles. The only other one up to that point that really goes that hard on the scale of the story is FFVI which is one of my favourite games and I think FFVII continues the trend of a vast story well executed. The characters all felt very grounded in their setting with their own motivations for doing what they do and, by and large, were very compelling. Some characters started off slow or had dead patches, but nobody was boring the whole way through. I suspect I might have missed a lot of stuff for Yuffie and Vincent given their optional status, but they still felt like a part of the cast in full despite that - especially Yuffie. Most of the cast had solid character arcs and those that didn't generally had something else that kept them interesting.
The villains were a bit of a mixed bag. The Turks rarely felt threatening and usually felt more like comic relief. I don't think that was really the intention going by how they came off later on, but that's just how it is. I really liked Shinra as a whole though. In fact, while Sephiroth was very imposing as an antagonist, I think Rufus was a lot more compelling. It was cool having three factions all at odds with each other though (the party, Shinra and Sephiroth). It made for some very interesting character dynamics and sometimes left you questioning just what was going to happen at the end. I appreciated the environmentalist themes with Shinra too and I was pleased that, while they got muddied a bit towards the end, the story mostly continued to factor them in. Hell, even Sephiroth himself was a bi-product of the hubris of Shinra which was a nice touch to keep everything tied together. Comparatively though, Sephiroth himself was thematically lacking give the rest of the narrative. You could argue his refusal to die tied him in to the narrative of natural v unnatural, which makes sense, but the link felt tenuous at best. He felt less like an entity of his own and more like a mistake created by Shinra, which was a little iffy since he clearly had agency and relished in what he was doing. I'm not sure how I'd fix that myself to be fair, but something felt lacking and I think it is because of the final bbeg's tenuous link to the thematics of the story.
Speaking of the story though, I do like that consequences felt prevalent - something other Final Fantasy games sometimes lack. Aerith's death felt like it mattered and it continued to reverberate throughout the story even after the fact. Shinra flew too close to the sun and rained hellfire down upon the world as a result, even unleashing the nightmare creation that is Sephiroth. Even the party had to face the consequences of their action, Reeve struggled to earn back the trust he lost and Barrett had to face up to his own death toll. Consequences should matter in a story and I'm pleased FFVII realised this.
Mechanically, the ATB still sucks and it would be impossible to enjoy the game without wait mode (for me anyway). I like time to make choices and to enjoy the game rather than having to race against the timer. The fights never felt unfair but were rarely too easy to be fun either - especially towards the later half of the game. That being said, Northern Cave's insta-death enemies are hardcore bullmuk and that is a terrible way to manufacture difficulty. It's just bad game design. Also, Sephiroth's boss fight was really fun but I feel like it was starting to draw on way too long. It just went on and on and it was starting to wear thin by the end. It wasn't obscenely hard (although it certainly wasn't easy), just obscenely long. It didn't quite overstay its welcome, but it was pushing its luck. It definitely didn't help that he used Supernova like five times and every time I had to watch the entire damn solar system-destruction cut scene and the fallout. The only other thing to say about the gameplay is that, as is Final Fantasy tradition, the mini games were terrible and I was thoroughly peeved by how many of them were a mandatory part of the gameplay experience.
Visually, I was really impressed. Obviously the graphics in a PS1 game do not hold up for the most part. Everything is janky and polygonal. That being said, you can tell that it was cutting edge for its era and that some of those cut scenes probably pushed the PS1 to its limit. The cutscenes with Aerith and Cloud at the Gold Saucer were especially pretty. Musically, we're well into the era of Final Fantasy music being iconic as hell with FF7. The overworld music was pretty meh, but the character themes and battle music were all top-notch and the music always fit the mood of the story really well. Sephiroth's theme (of course), the Jenova theme, the Forgotten City theme, Aerith's theme, the Cosmo Canyon/Red XIII theme and The Great Warrior were all really good pieces of music with the latter being my favourite from the game.
So, how does FFVII stack up to the other Final Fantasy games in my ever growing list of FF games? Pretty well! It doesn't top FFX and I think VI just barely edges it, but it's strong competition for FFIX's third place spot. I'd say I'd give a tentative ranking of X, VI, IX, VII, III, IV, XIV (ARR) and then V with XII out of the list until I replay it and reassess my thoughts. It's a tough call for places 2-4 though. I can definitely see why FFVII does top so many lists for other people though. It's a fantastic game.
Writing: 8/10
Visuals: 7/10
Soundtrack: 9/10
Gameplay: 7/10
Total Score: 31/40