Type of game: Nihonshiki (Japanese style) RPG

Created by: SquareSoft

Published by: Eidos

You are Cloud Strife, an EX-member of the military group SOLDIER. You’ve joined a resistance group called Avalanche, which is apposed against Shinra Inc., an evil company who drains the main Planets resource, Mako energy. Because of that, Shinra Inc. has a lot o power and influence. But by sucking Mako out of the Planet, it will die. And that’s why Avalanche tries to stop Shinra Inc.

My first expedition to the world of RPG. And if all RPG’s are like this, you can be sure that I will favour RPG’s! The game exists out of 2 things: The field and the battle. On the field, you talk to various persons, try to find your way through the immens world. It is since Lands of Lore 1&2 the most large i’ve ever seen and explored! The graphics of the field consists of pre-rendered surroundings, to win processor speed. They look quite well, and real-time light effects are well blended in the scenary. The field runs on a 640x480 resolution, which is formidable, yet not incredible. Sometimes you see the pixels, but you won’t notice them because of the excellence of the game itself. The characters aren’t very impressive: If you compare Lara Croft with Cloud, the main character in Final Fantasy VII, he looks very poor. Other than that, everything looks fine. The second part is the (turn-based) battle part. Here, you will see a much higher quality in the players. You can also feel the bond in the group, because if someone is badly hurt, an other groupmember will either use a curative item, such as potion, or he will use the magic "Cure", if he has the ability to do so. A battle goes something like this: You first walk around the field. Then, you’ll see a change from the field to the battleground. You’ll have to wait until your characters will "fill up". Then you can make your move. You can either make an attack upon your enemy with the characters equiped weapon, use magic, or summon a monster. All actions are very spectacuar, in pure Manga style. Especially the "summon" command is very fun. You can call for instance a monster from hell, which will barbecue all your opponents. Or you can summon some icy lady, who will frost your foes blue. When you have killed all foes, you will receive AP’s, which improves you charcters magic, EX, Experience points, gil, money, and sometimes items. Weapons and Magic powers (like Ice, Lighting or Cure) can be equiped in the accessable menu. Saving a game is not that simple; you must reach a save point , where you can save. At first, I was kinda scared by this type of saving, but the save points are most of the time on the appropriate places. However, it usually is a huge releave to encounter a save point. And now a word on the movie sequences and music. The cutscenes are in .avi format, so you can watch them in advance, but please, I beg you dear gamer, do NOT watch them in advance. I did it and it wrecked the whole suspence of CD one.But what I found very good , is the "overflow" from film to game. Picture this: A train is coming in a station and it stops. And then, you see two men jumping of the train on two guards. From the point you see the two men, you’re ingame. You’ll hardly notice the difference! The music is of good quality; holiday tunes on the beach, mysterious sounds in the Shinra headquarters, and downright suspence at some times. Saucy detail: NO digital speech! Just text, text, text! Something that’s normal in a Nihonshiki game, but in times like these, this is quite auckward. But in time, just as the save points, you’ll get used to it.

Final Fantasy is one hell of a game, and my current number one. Graphics are OK, battles are very interesting, interface is well thought-through, music is fine, no speech however, but cutscenes are stunning. If you’ve never played RPG’s and you want to start with playing them, buy Final Fantasy VII. It’s a purchase you’ll not regret. And if you’ll excuse me, I’m now going to kill some monsters.

Gameplay: 10

Graphics: 8,5

Sound & Music: 8

Addictiveness: 9,5