This game is, to take one of its own lines, a walking mass of complexes.
If one listens to the shouting on the interwebs, then it’s simultaneously too old, too new,
too easy to break, too slow, too confusing, too predictable, too melodramatic, and don’t
get me started on the blame heaped upon it for that whole “Compilation of Final Fantasy
VII” nonsense.
I can’t really understand it.
This game, which is apparently the worst thing ever, still feels like the best thing ever.
So much so that, with the mere whiff of a tech demo re-creating the game’s iconic
opening cinematic, the same internet that derided it so bent itself into knots demanding
a high-def remake.
Instead, you get this, a moderately optimized version of the PC port from 1998.
And you can log into it via Facebook, for reasons beyond my ken.
That’s the kind of game this has become.
Let’s be frank: FFVII was a very, very buggy game.
Even though some parts of the translation are fixed, many - like this classic line from
the first boss fight - remain incorrect.
The character behavior is still as weird as it ever was.
And, in perhaps the greatest transgression against the original text... mouths.
Weird, blow-up-doll mouths on most of the supporting cast and NPC figures.
What you do get with the PC version, though, is 150 save slots, cloud saves in case you
need to continue on a different computer, and - perhaps the most ridiculous of all - a
button in the web interface that sets your party’s HP and MP to max and hands you 50
million gil.
I can’t make this up.
I get that there are those who are so afraid of grinding that they’d avail themselves
of this feature immediately, but the fact of the matter is it actually slows the game
down.
You blow up your max HP on the first disc, and you will not use a limit break.
Ever.
I’ve done the math, right there.
Your limit gauge will fill at about a 25th of the rate it would if you’d just played
by the rules.
Did I mention that of the 36 achievements, 18 of them are limit-break related?
How about a bit more diversity?
Like actually doing that miserable tower-defense battle on Fort Condor, or completing an Enemy
Skill materia.
Call it “Honorary Blue Mage.”
Quina would be so proud.
I realize that, by this point, everyone who’s wanted to play Final Fantasy VII has probably
done so.
And they can say what they want, but even with a strangely-applied coat of paint and
a huge disconnect between the new, high-res polygons and the old, standard-definition
pre-rendered backgrounds, and despite an inane system of achievements and fully-legalized
cheating... to say nothing of the weird cropping issues and strange musical changes...
regardless, it’s still one of the greatest games ever made.
Possibly the most powerful first three hours of a game ever crafted.
This isn’t a relic of a former era, it’s the living moment where games learned cinematography,
made available to you again in case you don’t have a PS3 or the thirty-to-sixty-some dollars
for your own copy.
I’ll spare you my dissertation on Final Fantasy VII as a filmic text... for now.