Throughout their journey, Cloud bonds with his party members, including Aerith Gainsborough, who holds the secret to saving their world. Final Fantasy VII is a 1997 role-playing video game developed and published by Square for the PlayStation.

The Story Behind Final Fantasy VII

The next installment was planned as a 2D game for Nintendo's Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Super NES). The disc also included the early test footage Square created using characters from Final Fantasy VI. The summon sequences benefited strongly from the switch to the cinematic style, as the team had struggled to portray their scale using 2D graphics.

He proposed the Materia system as a way to provide more character customization than previous Final Fantasy games: battles no longer revolved around characters with innate skills and roles in battle, as Materia could be reconfigured between battles. The game was also released for Android on July 7, 2016, for the PlayStation Classic on December 3, 2018, and for the Nintendo Switch and Xbox One, also developed by DotEmu, worldwide on March 26, 2019. The PC version was updated by DotEmu for use on modern operating systems and released via Square Enix's North American and European online stores on August 14, 2012.

How Final Fantasy VII Plays

When not in battle, the player can use the menu screen, where they can review each character's status and statistics, use items and abilities, change equipment, save the game when on the world map or at a save point, and manage orbs called Materia. Shops allow the player to buy and sell items that can aid Cloud and his party, such as weapons, armor, and accessories. The commands change as the game progresses, and are dependent on the characters in the player's party and on the abilities, spells, etc., the player has added to their equipment.

The game features three modes of play: the world map, the field, and the battle screen. While in field mode, the player can also make use of shops and inns. Materia are the main method of customizing characters in Final Fantasy VII, and can be added to equipment to provide characters with new magic spells, monsters to summon, commands, statistical upgrades, and other benefits.

Why Players Still Load It Up

The game's popularity and open-ended nature also led director Kitase and scenario writer Nojima to establish a plot-related connection between Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy X-2 (2003). Cloud is also a playable character in Final Fantasy Tactics. Patrick Holleman and Jeremy Parish argue that the game takes the unreliable narrator concept a step further, with its interactivity establishing a connection between the player and the protagonist Cloud, setting Final Fantasy VII apart from films as well as other video games.

The advances in technology used to create the FMV sequences and computer graphics for Final Fantasy VII allowed Sakaguchi to begin production on the first Final Fantasy film, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001). The game is also noted for its cyberpunk themes; GamesRadar+ called it one of the best games of the genre, and Paste compared its cyberpunk city of Midgar to Akira and Blade Runner. Several characters from Final Fantasy VII have made cameo appearances in other Square Enix titles, most notably the fighting game Ehrgeiz (1998) and the popular Final-Fantasy-to-Disney crossover series Kingdom Hearts.

Final Fantasy VII — Frequently Asked Questions