Why love Final Fantasy VII?

[auronlu]

It's never been my favorite game, partly because I'm an arthritic thinker who much prefers X's tactics-based and turn-based combat system to flail-and-smash, partly because I prefer fantasy and mythic to dark urban dystopia settings. But I can see why VII could grab some folks. The storyline has a lot of twists and turns, from the simple "eco-terrorists... but also a mercenary who's dubious" beginning, to the flower girl who gradually turns out to be an Ancient Race (always a popular theme) and, eventually...er, I don't know how far you got in the game, but she's a classic myth figure disguised as Eliza Doolittle... to all the machinations of Shinra, sometimes enemy, sometimes ally. The Turks are a fun set of honorable or thuggy adversaries to beat up on.

The party itself has a fairly good mix of goodie-goodies and cynics, noble and down-to-earth, comic relief and serious. If you like minigames (I don't), there's a varied and interesting selection of them. The male/female balance in the party is better than ususual, with Aeris representing the stereotypical magic-wielding healer who goes "tink" for 0 HP in physical combat, Yuffie the trickster, and Tifa the barmaid beating the stuffing out of people -- one is going to appeal to "virtual girlfriend" or self-insertion tastes for a lot of players. The guys are similarly spread across a spectrum, and even the most caricature-like, Barrett/Mr.T, turns out to have some interesting backstory. I think this Cid appeals to a lot of folks because it's so unusual (and was especially back then) to have a hero who's a swearing, chain-smoking JERK who's nasty to his girlfriend... sometimes he's a hero, sometimes he's a bastard who deserves a kick in the balls. A little more interesting than generic sword-wielding sidekick.

The world's vast, with a lot of different styles of civilizations and landscapes, something that I look for. The City of the Ancients especially stuck out in my mind as an original design... at least the houses... on the order with some of my favorite MYST/RIVEN worldbuilding. The vehicles and oversea trips come at good stages in the game... always moving you on just before you can get bored with an area (wait! can't I get back into Midgar?) and, later on, allowing you to visit more and more places.

There are some moments of high drama and visual impact; I can see why one scene with Sephiroth became iconic. On the other hand, there are moments of inspired lunacy... Cloud's quest to get into Don Corneo's mansion has some pretty danged funny moments. And there's some good interpersonal stuff between the characters. Finally, for the most part, all the strands of story weave back together better than in some games, IMO.

One minor detail of VII which I liked is that it did a good job exploiting the limited graphics capacity at its disposal to make stylized, entertaining, comic-like battle moves. For some reason Red XII's somersault flip amuses the heck out of me. The swooshes and flourishes of the other characters during combat are also satisfying. A minor but constant detail. My first gaming experiences were with Pong, Choplifter, Zork and Adventure -- and I started with D&D before 20-siders were invented -- so I can appreciate the older stuff when it does a good job of working with what's available.

It's a good, solid game. Personally my favorite was VIII for years, until X's epic/mythic world ate my brain, but I can see why VII has endured as a favorite for many.

Edit: Even if I have managed to consign Cait Sith to the same mental box of denial and non-consent that I have stowed Lulu's moogle dolls and Quina (*Hides from Quina fans*). Evidently "cute blobby thing" doesn't work for me the way it does for others.