10/10
Obviously, unmarked spoilers ahead. Seriously, play the game first if you care about that. I'll give a warning when they start, but just a heads up. How do I begin to describe this game? It didn't even feel like a game. It felt like an
experience. No other game, including the 2020 remake and maybe excluding the entire Ace Attorney franchise, has led me on an adventure this moving. No other game has led me on an experience, figuring out the deepest machinations of not just these characters which I've come to view as something of an extended family but of myself. It's hard for me to describe how emotional this game made me. Four games have made me cry; Life is Strange, Okami, FF7 Remake, and Final Fantasy VII. Two games have made me cry twice; this game and the remake. No games have made me cry thrice. One game has made me cry four times; this game. Final Fantasy VII. No game has made me cry solely by playing a piece of music; except for this game.
The amount of feeling this game exudes just... blows everything else out of the water. It's hard for me to put into words how important this game has become to me over the past week. I've played it for four days straight, from replaying Disc 1 to the end, and in those four days I've laughed, become angry, cried, been shocked, and be lead to re-evaluate myself and how I interact with others. This game has carved itself into my mind, for better or for worse, and as I'm writing this I'm planning to play Crisis Core, the prequel released for the PSP, and buy the novellas. I also eventually plan to watch the sequel movie, Advent Children.
Major story spoilers begin here!When Aerith died my breath was genuinely taken away.
I mean, I knew it was coming. It's hard not to have that part of the game spoiled for you. Hell, I even watched the scene more than once to make a few memes. But when I watched it, when I saw it happen while I was playing... fuck, it's hard to describe. I mean, it was like having a family member ripped away from you. And when her theme kicked, I actually sobbed like a kid. I sobbed over a scene I knew was happening, twice; both when I first played Disc 1 and when I replayed it with a retranslation patch I used for the rest of the game. I'm actually tearing up right now thinking about it. It's so hard to describe how this felt.
When it's revealed that Cloud was living a lie during the climax of Disc 2, I cried again. It was such a shocking moment. It's, unironically, my favorite twist in gaming; no, in fiction. The fact that Cloud's entire life was a delusion is something that's so ballsy and shocking that it took me a second to fully comprehend it. The song that plays during that moment,
Who... Am I?, quickly became my favorite song in the OST. It also reinforced my shipping of Cloud and Tifa, who quickly became my favorite ship of all time. As characters, they're two of my favorites and characters I find great comfort in.
It's hard to talk about this game without talking about its villain. Sephiroth. The Man in the Black Cloak. The One-Winged Angel. My favorite character in fiction. Sephiroth's presence
feels like someone breathing down your back. It gives you shivers; especially when Sephiroth bends Cloud's mind and forces him to give him the Black Materia. "Professor, I want a number." The fact that Sephiroth can do that alone makes hi so much more threatening. The fact that he took over Jenova, whose name is literally a portmanteau of "Jehovah" and "Nova," or "New God," and functionally made her into a slave is another indicator of his immense power. He's a subtle manipulator, a terrifying presence, a new God. He's earned the moniker of being the strongest character in the compilation's universe for good reason.
Major story spoilers end here!Just like Sephiroth, it's hard to talk about this game without talking about its music. Nobuo Uematsu is truly a modern-day Mozart or Kant. From absolute tribal-classical fusion bangers like
Cosmo Canyon, or beautifully emotional beats such as
Words Drowned Out by Fireworks, or high-octane battle songs such as
Birth Of A God, there's not a single song in this game that goes wasted. Every single song in the OST has a place, and it feels wrong when they're taken away, such as in the flashback scene in Disc 3 when you visit Shinra Mansion, but it works so well. There's songs that feel overbearing, bloated, and crushing like
Mako Reactor and the steady, orchestral, and divinely glorious
One-Winged Angel that encapsulates the awesome terror of Sephiroth's newfound godhood; hell, the song itself is a
prayer to him.
So, what am I trying to say? Am I trying to say that FF7 is a perfect game?
...Well, uh... yeah. There are some small issues with fetch quests and less-than-perfect translation, but these can be overlooked and fixed. Final Fantasy VII is a perfected melodrama, a hallmark of the industry, and earned its title as the greatest game of all time.
Posted: Sat Jul 17, 2021 9:59 am
