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Epicurus.com - Final Fantasy VII
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List Price: N/A
Our Price: $149.00
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: Square Enix
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Video Game
Brand: Playstation
EAN: 0711719416326
ESRB Age Rating: Teen
Feature: For Sony Playstation
Label: Square Enix
Manufacturer: Square Enix
Number Of Discs: 3
Platform: PlayStation
Publisher: Square Enix
Studio: Square Enix
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Features
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For Sony Playstation
3 discs
69 page manual
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Editorial Reviews:
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Long recognized as role-playing games par excellence, the Final Fantasy series gets a technological makeover in this installment (and series debut on the PlayStation). Shedding the two-dimensional graphics and limited sound capabilities of its predecessors, Final Fantasy VII features lush 3-D graphics, beautifully animated "movie" sequences, and soundtrack-quality music. Coupled with the game's intricate storyline, endearing characters, and immense yet highly imaginative world, these new advancements make for a quite an engrossing experience. The story of Final Fantasy VII centers around a solider named Cloud Strife, who joins forces with Avalanche, a group of resistance fighters, to take down an evil mega-corporation known as Shinra. (The fate of the world hangs in the balance, of course.) Truly epic in scope, this four-disc game requires a considerable amount of time to complete---this reviewer gladly gave up over 80 hours of his life to finish it. But it's definitely a rewarding adventure that every PlayStation owner should consider undertaking, especially since it's now one of the low-priced "Greatest Hits" titles. --Joe Hon Pros:
- Intricate and absorbing storyline with endearing characters
- Immense and highly imaginative game world
- Special battle system
- Beautifully animated movie sequences
Cons:
- Your friends and family may feel neglected
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Nice!
Comment: Thanks for this classic Final Fantasy game. This will be the first 3 disk long rpg I've played though but who cares. It's great!
Customer Rating: 
Summary: The Beginning of the End of Final Fantasy
Comment: Final Fantasy 7 is an abomination, a plague upon the Final Fantasy universe, and an embarassment to the Final Fantasy name.
The graphics are absolutely atrocious by today's standards and they were mediocre at best ten years ago. The difficulty level is far too easy and the battle system is nothing groundbreaking. The story is typical and the character design is awful. The overall game design is unorganized and illogical. The mini games are terrible and are more frustrating than fun.
This game does not reward you well for exploring dungeons or defeating bosses, but rather grants you the ultimate materia through mindless, tedious, and uninteresting side quests like chocobo breeding.
The soundtrack and atmosphere are the only redeeming qualities, but are still mediocore compared to previous FF OSTs and other RPG music.
FF7 is garbage compared to classics like FF4 and FF6 and trash compared to other PSX RPGs like Xenogears, Valkyrie Profile, Vagrant Story, Suikoden 2, Star Ocean, and Chrono Cross.
The best Final Fantasy game on PlayStation is Final Fantasy Tactics. The best Final Fantasy game of all time is VI, and certainly is not VII.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A late review
Comment: For me this was my first Final Fantasy experience and I am proud to say this is not only one of my favorite Final Fantasy's its also one of my most favorite rpg's. I don't give VII 5 stars because its the first final fantasy game I played, I give it 5 stars because it truly is an amazing roller coaster of excitement, emotion and even add humor into the mix as well as not being just kid friendly. Not only that but it has the one of the most memorable vilians if not the most memorable one, Sephiroth.
Storyline: In VII you play as Cloud Strife a mercenary for hire. As the game begins you are thrust into battle immediately as you have joined up with a rebel (or terrorist, if you will) group called Avolanche, who either its members or supporters needs to learn how to spell, to blow up a Shinra reactor in the city of Midgar. Shinra is a corporation that is sucking the energy, called Mako, out of the planet which is slowly killing the planet. After this job and the next you end up joining Avolanche and pretty much becoming the leader of the group taking over Barret's spot. As the story progresses you find out you were a member of a group called Soldier, Shinra's elite soldiers, and befriending the main villian Sephiroth. Thats the introduction to VII as I will not go into it any deeper. I will say that the story gets more complex, very emotional and has some really good twists along the way. It also deals with more adult themes such as cussing and even some cross-dressing to name a few.
Characters: Square dived in really deep on some characters background and left others barely scratched. Cloud and Sephiroth have the most character develpment in the game and their story's intertwine quite a bit. As the game progresses though, Sephiroth and Cloud's stories start developing on their own and not relying on each others. Aeris role and story in the game is probably the most important supporting characters in the game followed closely by Red XIII. Tifa, Barret and Cid get good stories into their backgrounds and definately add their importance in the story as well. Another member is Cait Sith who you find little about and forces his way into the party. Vincent and Yuffie are optional characters to have in your party and can easily be missed to get if you aren't paying attention, assuming you want them in the party in the first place. They don't play much part in the story and have very little background insight on them during the game.
Combat System: The combat system is developed around whats called materia. Its what you need to use magic and can be found after defeating bosses, lying around in room or just bought in stores. Everything that has to do with fighting is centered around materia, from equipping your weapons and items to casting magic-its a must to be knowledgeable about how to use your materia and use it properly. Your materia also gains experience in battles, not by using it though, but by equipping it to your armor and items you have equipped on your character. You can also use materia together such as the "all" and "fire" materia. You equip it on your weapon or item that has a sideways figure 8 looking thing on it and when you cast fire you hit all your enemies instead of one. The last thing about materia is once you max out your experience in say your "fire" materia it reproduces another one starting the new materia experince at 0 and you now have 2 fire materias instead of one-You can also do that to the summon materia's too. A few other things about the combat is its an active time battle system which means while your choosing your commands for characters the enemy won't hang around and wait to attack. The last thing is your limit breaks which are special attacks that you get after your "anger" meter (I guess that what you can call it) fills up. You can set it to allies getting hit or if that particular character gets hit. There is a lot of materia out there so don't be afraid to mix and match to see what goes with what.
Graphics: The graphics in this game especially for its time, I thought to be simply unbelievable. The random battles are done in 3-D, a first that I know of, for an rpg to do that on a console system and definately set the bar for rpg's to follow. The cg clips were simply breathtaking at the time but after today's games its hard to believe I thought that when I first played the game. You can tell that they were definitely trying to move past the sprite based characters (which they did in battles) from the previous games but they just couldn't leap that hurdle until Final Fantasy VIII. The backgrounds were interactive instead of just being completely preset, but weren't fully 3-D, I guess you could call it 2-D interactive.
Music: Music is definitely one thing that can single handedly ruin an rpg such as repetitive fight music and travelling music. This is another area where VII excelled at. Sephiroth was given his own theme music (one that most players if they heard would identify it in a split second) and music at the gold saucer was definitely theme park music. Aeris' theme was also very memorable and after a certain event in the game, upon hearing it you might be caught off guard and you could find yourself tearing up. Even orhestra's have had concerts where you could find them playing music from VII and even other final fantasy titles.
Minigames: This is one area where Square could've done better. They have many minigames but few of the games are fun like the snowboarding and motorcycle chase. The others were rather boring and got old really quick. The chocobo races were fun but chocobo breeding was time consuming and ultimately a pain to do. The Gold chocobo was random in breeding and you could end up reseting you playstation for over an hour trying to get it. I persisted and got mine but the reward was almost not worth the hours slaving over it. Just remember if you don't do it you never get to get the Knights of the Round materia, which is the most powerful summon in the game.
Final Fantasy VII came from out of nowhere hitting the world like an asteroid sending shockwaves all over the video game nation. It single handedly put rpg's on the map for the non-hardcore gamers and sent hardcore gamers into an rpg frenzy. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but you can't deny that Final Fantasy VII deserved the hype that it created. It took all the best aspects of rpg's such as the story, love story, character build-up, an easy to use and tactical fighting system and combined 3-D models for its random battles, an interactive background and music that has been remembered for over a decade. Also having follow up games years later coming out because of the huge fan base. You can say that another rpg would have done it sooner or later but the truth is Square put one heck of a game together and they did it first.
You can call me a square fanboy if you want but the truth is I'm an rpg lover. Yes, I have played almost all the final fantasy rpg's out there. I have also played the incredible Lunar games, Grandia games, Xenogears, Xenosaga, Legend of Legaia, Legend of Dragoon and the list goes on and on to more recent titles on the ps2 and 360. The truth is that none of those rpg's shook the foundation of the entire gaming world and turned it completely upside down. Even people who hate rpg's hate this game the most out of all the rpg's out there because its the one they had to hear about the most!
Final Fantasy VII gets a straight 5 out of 5 and deserves more for the bars they broke and limits they pushed. Not only that, but its characters are timeless and memorable, its story is amazing and emotional and the music is like none other for its time.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Ultimate Nostalgia
Comment: Recently threw this into the PS2 and revisited what I consider to be not only the best RPG but the best game of all times... Aeris. All I gotta say. :D
Customer Rating:
Summary: The nostalgia levels are through the roof.
Comment: Square Soft brings the Final Fantasy series to the Playstation with a gem that will (and did) change the industry. Even today, nearly twelve years later, many consider Final Fantasy VII to not only be the best game Square Soft has released, but the greatest RPG of all time. For those not familiar with the series, there were six prior releases to this one and all were considered gems in their own right. So what sets FF VII above all others in the genre?
Story:
Cloud Strife is an ex member of Soldier, a military arm under an evil organization named Shinra. After witnessing his idol, Sephiroth, torch his home town upon discovering the truth behind Materia and the Mako reactors, he switches sides and joins Avalanche, a secret organization based in Midgar that is set on shutting down Shinra and saving the world. The cast in FF VII is nothing short of spectacular.....and have evened spawned their own games (albeit not very good games)
Gameplay:
Final Fantasy VII has a lot to offer the gamer. The game starts in the cold underbelly of Midgar as Cloud departs the train and meets Barret, the leader of Avalanche with a gun graphed to his arm. All the features you'll associate with a role playing game are here....with so much more. Each character in the game....from the playable characters to the NPCs.....all have unique and entrancing personalities. You have a basic leveling system, where you gain levels by fighting monsters in and around Midgar. Magic, mayhem, and summoning, are among a few of the skillsets you'll have at your disposal. There are side quests and side missions that you can choose to partake - some lead toward hidden characters that can join your party. The game play is smooth and easy to use. There is one problem that I have about the gameplay....you're not allowed to use the thumbstick to move your characters....only the thumbpad. Materia is also a vital part of the game. Materia is compressed Mako that, when used in conjunction with your weapons or armors, grant that user skills like, magic, summoning, stat increases, mug, etc......
Graphics and sound:
The graphics really are the games only downside. Yet, while the in-game graphics are beyond horrendous, the cutscenes are some of the best around.....and when you consider that this is a PS1 release, the cutscenes are even more special. The sound is top-notch. The music is orchestrated to convey the emotions of the events unfolding and does this to near New York Philharmonic quality....yes, they are that good.
Final Thoughts:
So, is Final Fantasy VII the best game ever? No! It is the first RPG to be released on the PS1 and the first to have mature themes, and is nostalgic and the one we all remember and those memories will always keep this game ranked up there with whatever games are released henceforth, but the greatest game? no.
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