Yuffie Kisaragi, We All Hate Her, But Why? A FF7 Review SS W/O

This is being written for Xeno3998's write-off on Squaresoft games. The company that constantly amazes us with great RPGs and other games.

Other Participants Include
-Kanga14
-Xeno3998
-Trackgrrl
-Crazy3237
-Guile176
-Mike_Bracken
-Sephiroth2000
-Rader6795?
-WretchedPyro
-Shampoo-Girl
-Jeremy1456
-Kenshin-Guy
-Chris_Billings
-Crucify
-GasJocket214
-Orestes84
-Y2JMcDohl
-Annexation

I know Yuffie Kisaragi fans may be outraged but I hate the character! Stupid Teenage Female Ninja! SHE'S SO ANNOYING! I don't care if you hate me for that! BRING ON THE HATE MAIL! With that being said, please read on

Imagine this, 3 years ago I am sitting around my sister's apartment trying to find something to do. I look at my brother-in-law's PSX and see that I've beaten all the games he has. But what's this? Oh? A new game he has? Final Fantasy 7? Hmm, I wonder. I quickly sit down and begin to play. And there I sat for 5 hours (I am not joking) just playing this game. I was amazed, dazzled, and when I went to sleep that night I left wanting more. So Much More...

Little did I know that the 5 hours I played was just the tip of the iceberg. For the whole 50 hours I spent playing Final Fantasy 7 I got chills, thrills, and more twists than a pretzel factory. So I just pulled up a chair and soon I found myself getting enveloped in the story, emerged in the characters that were so finely made and developed, plugging headphones into the jack in the TV just to hear the tunes better. When all was said and done, I finished the game and was breathless, so what did I do next?

I Played It Again

You see, it's not very often that a game like Final Fantasy 7 comes along. It's the diamond in the rough. It's the needle in the haystack, it's the crown jewel, basically, it's the king and all others are its followers. Please do not take this lightly, I'm sure others can back me up. Final Fantasy 7 is everything people make it out to be and the hype is real, so real in fact that it's almost cult-ish fan base traces across the world, over almost every country. These countries echoing praises of Sakaguchi, one of the developers. And if the great reception from Final Fantasy 6 wasn't enough to boost his career, he'll have an even bigger table to fill after his next project. It doesn't hrut that it sold over a million copies and now earned it's Best Seller sticker. Now it's a low price of $19.99 which sweetens the deal more. But anyway, about Final Fantasy 7...

The Story In A Nutshell
You are Cloud Strife, you temporarily join a rouge group called Avalanche to take down some Mako Factories, but what starts as a war against a company, turns out to be a war against worlds, old rivals, and the existence of all man-kind. Join Cloud and his team as he takes on one of the coolest villains ever, Sephiroth, who is hoping to destroy the world. Will Cloud and his party ever beat Sephy? Only you can decide! All of the characters (Except for Ninja Girl) amazed me, even Cait Sith, whom most people hate with a passion. This game has real characters who seem to go through real situations. It’s truly a spectacle to be seen. Squaresoft has brought us an enhanced storyline here also. It seems like a simple plan but really, it weaves and twists into a much more, dark, more complex plot that is sometimes hard to comprehend. You’ll need around 50-60 hours tops to solve it.

Squaresoft really made it their business to include some adult themes in the game also so use discretion. There's tons of sexual references and language, but it's all good right? You'll be amazed at the storyline and how you get involved in it and not the bad content in the game. In my mind, it's good that Squaresoft has the balls to include a scene where Cloud threatens to rip "it" off of another man when he doesn't give him information. Kudos to Square.

You Want Lights? So See Some Fireworks...
Final Fantasy 7 is a game of dark works. Crimson black hues and dirty browns occupy the first 10 hours of the game. The only big standout for bright graphics are that of Cloud's spiky hair, which is nicely colored a bright Yellow. Obviously so we know where he is at all times. Though it is a very nicely animated game, one cannot overlook that Cloud Strife has blocks for hands. Yes, it's true, apparently blocky hands are in style. While I loved the dark atmosphere, I could never get my mind off Cloud's horrible hands! While that seems to be a bad part of the characters, it seems all of their body parts are blocks so you get used to it very quickly.

All in all, the darks rule the game but don't fret, later in the game it brightens up immensely. It's not a one-sided game graphically, it's just that you don't see it's other side till the halfway point. It's just beautiful though, even for a very early RPG game on the playstation. It'd be very odd for you to hate the game because of it's graphics, sure they're nothing special, but they're not the worst in the world either. So be a good lad and deal with it, if not, play FF8.

One thing I did like alot about the game, many of the backgrounds were interactive and could be toyed with. Drinks could be picked up, and the developers put some cleverly hidden treasure chests in the back/foreground so we might not be able to see them. A small graphical trick but it says alot. Being one of the first games to use Full Motion Video in a game, FF7 does its job for video. It may not be the prettiest or smoothest video in the world, but it transfers from the in-game graphics to video seamlessly and that’s really what counts.

Do You Hear Those Anxious Hearts?
In a sense, FF7 set the standard for Video Game Soundtracks to come. FF7 had a simply incredible OST and it went on to sell thousands of copies across the world and is a hot commodity on eBay now. The reason is, it's a great soundtrack! It has some of the deepest songs in it, truly some of which have touched my heart as well as many others. Nobou Uematsu arranged a variety of amazing pieces for the game, one that has stood out in my mind as the best Final Fantasy track ever. It's called Anxious Heart, it's a sad, slow moving sort-of depressing arrangement with a few strings and in some versions, a very wicked piano. It plays at all the right times in a game and seems to suit Cloud very well.

Another very nice arrangement is Aerith's Theme. It's a very soft, subtle piece with many strings involved and seems to be a theme for struggle and peace in the game. It's really a nice piece that calms me and whenever I think of FF7, I think of this. It's a near perfect arrangement that allows for almost any emotion to come forth in it. I especially like the Piano played during it. It's very nice and quaint.

All in all, FF7's sound is great, the soundtrack is just haunting and glamorous at the same time, a winning combination. Not to mention the sound effects sound very realistic and always on cue. And the FF battle music is back.

Ahh...The Active Time Battle, How I Love Thee
The ATB battle system is back, which allows for combat to be decided in real time. So I can choose my attacks based on time and not turn, but that also allows the enemies to strike when I don't want them to. It's a bit of a double-edged sword.

Anyway, I loved playing the game. I loved seeing how the characters developed, especially Aerith and Cloud's relationship. It truly touched me when something happened later on but that's spoiler material. It was a total blast to play, and I re-played it many times to the effect. Everyone in the game are lovable characters who stand out, except for Yuffie Kisaragi, a ninja who is always in my way and is loud and annoying. Miss Kisaragi should be shot on sight and given a sloppy funeral in my opinion. But that's just me.

Gameplay was very tight though; I finished in a nice 52 hours, which was just about right for me. I got what I needed out of this game as well as a new outlook on some things. I found out that there was more than enough interaction with the villagers and I went to back to multiple towns to do side-quests. Also, Customizing your weapons and gear in the game via the use of a Materia system intrigued me as well. I found endless ways to customize my magic to maximize my power. I literally spent a few hours figuring this stuff out and trying to mindlessly alter my attacks in ways to beat my opponents quicker. This new system of magic broke away from previous games but took a step in the right direction as I see it.

Overall
Final Fantasy 7 remains to be one of my favorite RPGs of all time; it's just that I really hate Yuffie Kisaragi. =-) But it's still a fine work. If you read this, prove you're no stamper and comment on it. If you like futuristic RPGs that aren't afraid to cross boundaries, then FF7 is for you. An RPG fan isn't really hardcore, until you've played this.

Happy Gaming!
~Aaron The Kenshin-Guy

Copyright 2001 Kenshin-Guy Productions
If you steal this, I will unleash my powerful magic, The Knights Of Round on you, so don't steal this review!

My Deal With Yuffie Kisaragi, A Special Feature In My Review
I hate Yuffie. You know that. She has basically no purpose in the game except to make you miserable. She is loud, annoying, and her jokes don't come off well. Don't let me get into the fact that her physical and magic attacks are weak! I traveled to Wutai for a side-quest and she stole my materia! I could've killed her. So answer me these, why do you hate Yuffie Kisaragi? Please reply in the comments section. Thank You.