Final Fantasy VII, a world full of excitement, entertainment, love, laughter, and death. This twists and intertwines the plot of Final Fantasy VII. But does it make the game excell, yes it does.

Final Fantasy VII is not your normal RPG. It has all the likely elements of one, except it makes you fell as though you are in the game itself. Final Fantasy VII excells in all that other RPGs didn't. Many people believe this to be one of the finest, if not best, RPG of all time. The CG scenes are the best to date. The graphics are amazing except for one minor flaw, the so called "chunky" state of the characters. The gameplay is the most addictive yet and the storyline is perfect. It has you fooled throughout the whole game. The materia command is easy to use and learn, and most interesting since it takes quite a big step from the "learn magic, use magic" basics in other RPGs. The gameplay is excellent in Final Fantasy VII. From learning new skills to mastering your materia for better usage. The mastering of the materia is the most interesting part of this game. While building up levels, you also can build the level of your "materia". Depending on the level of your materia depends on it's strength. For example, the "Cure" materia is effective through the beginning part of the game, but as you raise your levels, you will need a "Cure" that adds more to your HP. In turn, you need to raise your "Cure materia" to level 2, which is "Cure 2" which heals twice as much as the last. Then comes "Cure 3" and so on. The levels of the materia depend on the kind of materia you have egupied to your armor or weapons. There are five different types of "materia", red, green, purple, blue, and yellow. Each one has it's own use. Red is the summon materia, which is used to summon the monster or "God" named to that materia. There is blue materia which is support materia. Support materia basically makes the materia linked to it twice as good. Purple materia is the independant materia which has things such as "long range" attack which lets some one with, say a sword, attack without moving their position. The green materia is the magic materia, all of your magic based attacks will be green materia. The yellow materia is the command materia. The yellow materia lets you cast special commands during battles to lend you the upper hand. Any materia may be equipped, or linked, in special slots on the players armor or weapon. Each weapon has a specific number of linked materia slots and non-linked materia slots. The battles of Final Fantasy VII are similar to most other RPGs. The command list you can choose from is the basic of Magic, Item, Summon, Attack, and Guard. Other special selections become avaliable when special materia is attached to the player. Also, there is the Active Battle Time (ABT) which means you have a "time bar" at the bottom of the screen which raises slowly. When the bar is full, it is that characters turn to attack the chosen enemy. Each character in Final Fantasy VII also as a special attack, or a "Limit Break". Each character has four levels of Limit Breaks. Each which can be learned from fighting continous battles. There are two limit breaks with each level except for level four. The level four limit break consists of the most devastating attack that player can use. The level four limit breaks can be accuired from that particular players level 4 limit break item which can be found throughout the game.

The graphics, the only major section in Final Fantasy VII that has a minor problem. All backgrounds and backdrops are rendered in full CG (Computer Generated) form and the characters are "pasted" onto the set, much like the Resident Evil games. While you on the world map, everything is packed full of polygon pumping power. The mountain ranges, towns, and the sky. The battles are also polygonal along with the enemies, summons monsters, and players. All the CG scenes are amazing. There is over 60 minutes of CG sequences throughout the game which helps make the story line a little bit easier to follow. The magic attacks in Final Fantasy VII are the most amazing things in the game besides the CG sequences. Lightning attacks actually look like lighting and the ice and fire actually look like fire. Now on to the minor problem, characters. For one thing, which isn't bad, the characters "enter" the main character. What I'm talking about is while traveling in a group, you can only see one character. It would have been nice to see all the characters interact with each other and the people throughout the world. Now, the big momma of bad things, the character design. What the hell was Squaresoft thinking?! They could of had a perfect game except for the "chunky" characters. The characters could have been rendered in nice, eye-catching polygons, but instead they are made out of blocks. For real. They have a face with square eyes, no noses, and no mouths. This makes you think that Square got lazy near the end of the developement.

To make the game even better, the music actually fits the mood of the game. In a tense situation you have heart-beating music, in a sad situation, such as the death of a certain character you hear slow, but happy music. Even during a particular battle is the music that goes along with that particular battle scene. Sounds also range from the character walking through the woods, bouncing around, and even running and jumping. It would have been nice to see voice acting in a RPG for once, but it was totally clear that Square put all it could into that game.

The level of difficulty is not hard at all unless you are a beginner. For professional RPGers the game is easy and fun. The only problem anyone might have is with the materia. You might have trouble equpping the materia or even understanding how to use it. You also might have trouble with battles because certain enemies are immune and even absorb the players magic and attacks. Which in turns make you lose the battle because you are healing the enemy or take your time planning out how to find your enemies weaknesses and strengths. This makes the game a real pain when you want to get a battle over with because it takes a while. But hey, what are RPGs for?

The next part of my 2 cents includes the fun of the game. Final Fantasy VII is the most fun you can have with a game. You have many objectives to complete. You can spend all day building levels, gaining AP for your materia, and collecting GIL (money) to buy special items. But the funnest part of Final Fantasy VII is the side quests, or jobs, and the mini games. There are literally about 40-60 mini games and side quests. These mini games and side quests include, finding secret characters, which there are two, finding a players "Ultimate Weapon", finding a players level four limit break, finding and defeating the "Weapons", playing arcade games for GIL, and so on. Final Fantasy VII is packed with at least 200 hours of gameplay for true fans and people who want to explore every inch of the world, but for people willing to get the game over with can only expect around 60-75 hours of sweet gameplay.

Well, it has all lead up to this. The conclusion. Final Fantasy VII is fabulous in all areas. It will have RPGers amazed. Even if you're not a gamer or RPGer, you will still fall in love with Final Fantasy VII. If you have not picked up this game, go do it now. It definitely has my vote for the #1 RPG of all time.

By: SpawN