Final Fantasy VII Review (Michael.Erben)
Some people think this game sucks just because they played FFVI before it. "People whose first FF was VII are noobs and wack and know nothing about FF." Exact quotes.
Well, I'm a wack noob who knows nothing about FF, because VII was my first. I had never even heard of HP or MP or random battles before 1997. I only asked for the game for Christmas because at K-Mart I saw the game said '4 discs' on the package. I didn't even have a PSX yet, and I think I had only played Tomb Raider at that point. But FFVII was there with that gigantic buster sword and four discs, while the trash all around it had only one single disc. Pathetic.
Parents and grandparents went halfsies on a PSX and FFVII for Christmas '97 or '98 (can't remember), and they even got me an ASCII second controller. But none of us knew a memory card was also required. So I replayed the first hours of the game over and over for a week until I had bugged my dad enough to fork the cash out for one (he was pretty thrifty and initially I almost shat my pants when I saw that they had ACTUALLY even got a console for me). A few weeks later I saw the official strategy guide at Blockbuster and begged for that too. In some strange twist of fate, he actually got that for me too after a while.
So I played the hell outta of the game all through 7th and 8th grade. Some of my friends and other kids in school did too. Life was good. I remember beating Emerald WEAPON the first time and calling my best friend who lived across the street to tell him (he came right over to verify). Some amount of time later, that same friend was in my living room during another strange occasion where my mom actually let me hook my game to the TV in the living room. And they sat there with me for all of the like 2.5 hours or whatever it took to beat Ruby WEAPON by miming Bahamut Zero over and over. I remember we all jumped for joy when I saw that red wire-frame and heard that whoosh sound.
I've played Final Fantasy VII through on all the devices I've owned it on through the years, and I have to admit: I don't enjoy the game much anymore. I think it's because I'm still chasing that middle school high I got back then. And as I got older, I started analyzing things more and I see why my young mind was so enthusiastic about this game, and made inferences about why my older mind would've never like this game if I was 39 in 1997.
So play it for the first time, play it again, love it, hate it, mod it.... just don't downplay it's significance.