final fantasy 7

OVERALL STRUCTURE

the greatest strength of this game is in its environments (namely, the art), its characters, and its music. the course of the story is a close second

much shorter than i remembered, speeds up and speeds up as the game nears its finish

sephiroth never quite manages to gain the personality promised by his concept, however his menace is unmistakeable, he always seems to embody a totality of evil that exists outside his personality, he has the most personality when the game is at its best: near the end of disc 1, when aeris is still alive, and the whole team is trying to work together to stop him. his creepy superiority is actually very human, his numbness to human pain a human quality, it speaks to a hidden interiority

when its discovered that he has been existing encased in crystal in the north for years, that he is giant in form, that he may not have a human body at all, that we have never actually met him, this is at first truly weird and terrifying, but then a little blunted -- wait, what was the man we interacted with? does he actually have that personality? what exactly is going on here?

cloud is also at his best here on disc 1, he is confused, in love with two of his friends, plagued by fragmented memory (a familiar state), plagued by mental states he does not understand, betraying himself and his friends even as he tries to stop sephiroth.

the game is also at its best when you are still exploring the world. the rhythm of exploring the map, finding new locations and characters, new items, new small stories, is very good. the bosses are hardest here, the areas you must traverse (particularly mt corel and nibelheim) have the most personality and menace. the broken places you explore, people barely holding on to the fragments of their lives, it is very sad and resonant

the beginning of the game has unmatched momentum and power. starting a story with an explosion is an idea the final fantasy series was never able to beat. the characters in midgar are so strange, quickly drawn, ruthless, funny, and gross, in a way the rest of the game never quite touches. the final dungeon of midgar, shinra hq, is big and quiet and corporate, it feels like its own game. beating shinra hq and escaping, only to find there is an entire world to explore, is a dizzying and unmatched game experience.

the revelation regarding cloud's true identity is good. it feels like a real resolution, like a real wound has been healed, confronting the truth here is dizzying and satisfying. however, cloud's personality after this becomes cloying, a little grating. he no longer has the depth of his earlier personality, he is upbeat and focused, he is saddened by aeris' death but not devastated, he is ready to move forward and accept the challenges, etc etc. this is simultaneously genuinely moving and uplifting, and just annoying. i miss old cloud, he isn't as interesting.

the last third of the game (disc 2 and 3, after the crisis at northern crater, and really after aeris' death) aren't able to match the first third. sephiroth, waiting in the northern crater, while meteor draws closer, does have an excellent dread and anxiety. the characters in the world all gaining new dialogue to match the events of meteor creates the feeling of a living world. however the subplot involving shinra collecting the huge materia never feels urgent enough, and the dungeons and events we are given to explore for this purpose never as interesting as the earlier dungeons. they are repetitive and boring to play. the return to the earlier already explored locations doesn't deepen or reveal enough to really make it worthwhile also, the entire world has already been explored, except for a small handful of false locations gated off by tedious minigames. there is not the sense of exploration and wonder. returning to midgar is interesting and thrilling, but we don't see enough of it to feel its more than an interlude

northern crater, the final dungeon, is excellent and difficult. its strange format (splitting the party) is jarring and scary, you feel less that you're working together than that you're being fragmented by the hugeness of a place. as a kid this really worked. as an adult northern crater's art really doesn't compare to the earlier art. the monsters are hard enough that the dungeon is very scary at first, and becoming powerful enough to eventually (easily) best them is pretty satisfying, less so now that it can be played at 3x speed, but back then, a real feat.

the game's best art exists in the tension between natural beauty and modern ruin. the twisted steel of midgar's smoking beams, broken slums, destroyed airplanes buried in dust, blasted trees surrounding a destroyed power plant, steaming interiors of menacing architectures, and so on, juxtaposed with twisty steel-grey mountains, shining water, the gleam of materia and the glowing green liquid mako, faceless and lonely cliff-faces.

AS FOR THE COMBAT GAME PLAY:

it's still very good. the materia system and the constraints of available slots allows a really good freedom and forces some really interesting choices, while allowing some very interesting combinations and combos. the magic is clean and fun, the nomenclature satisfying. what's better than casting a spell called Ice2 or Bolt3? it's immediate, and the animations match the expectation. the late-game magic is impressive and fun as well, but never quite matches the utility of the early magic -- again this is because of the structure of the game, we are never forced into situations where we need to use them effectively. on the other hand, we get a spell called Ultima that turns the entire screen fried neon green, and it rocks

the summons remain impressive and rhythmic and surprising (what the fuck is typhon?), their use is immediately intelligible (very powerful magic that can only be used once per battle, but very expensive over the course of even a couple battles), it is very fun to recognize characters from mythology, the animations are like interludes of music

ATB is still a really neat combat system, and an excellent hybrid between turn based and complete freedom. it makes sense to control a party in this way, and punishes too much hesitation. i wish dungeons and dragons could emulate this somehow, my players really take so much time to make decisions during combat.

THE MUSIC

the music really is some of the best out of every video game ever. the opening theme still almost moves me to tears, sephiroth's theme, aeris' theme, the battle music, the junon parade theme, the electric guitar boss music still absolutely fucks, the world map music is so beautiful, tifa's sad childlike theme, the shinra HQ theme, it's all immediately recognizable and communicates something essential about the characters and places, but also adds something indefinable. it maintains this feeling of surprise all the way up to the end when you fight sephiroth's last form, as the angel, i remember the first time i heard one winged angel i could not believe this music existed in a video game. there are a few times when the game's music wanders, but mostly it's seamlessly excellent and i could almost listen to it on repeat.

AERIS

her death, as a child, was truly surprising, shocking, strange, her absence a strange lack more than something overly telegraphed. i've heard this is what death is like, i have actually been lucky enough not to experience a close death. as an adult it still has that quality.

she herself is a strange and sad character, i like her a lot, she is truly optimistic in a way the others aren't, she teases, she's really a kind person, and she's a flirt. when the game introduces the idea that she and cloud are "perfect" for each other (right before her death, of course, and right after a very difficult early-game boss fight that we don't know is her last combat appearance), it creates a true longing that doesn't quite match her personality, but we can tell that she and cloud both do long for love. she really is a great character.

i don't quite buy, based on this, her sort of spiritual spaciness, and her willingness to go off on her own, away from protection. but maybe i'm still grieving her.

THE ENDING

the ending is very good. you kill sephiroth in an attempt to save the world, but the world still ends, probably. at the very least it will be irrevocably altered and it is likely many many people including the main character's died. this matches the urgency and sadness of the game right from the opening minutes, with barrett crying, "The planet's dying!" This is more than just the people, it is about the planet

However the game takes pains to have a resolution of sorts to all the characters, because the game cares very much about the people as well. this is nice and appreciated, and all the resolutions feel pretty true to the characters. i wish there could have been something more for them.

LESSONS TO LEARN

the importance of characters and NPCs, vivid interesting NPCs and an assortment of them invariably give the world depth and interest. gotta do the characters.

not sure what else can be applied. simply observations.

still a great game.