Final Fantasy VII
Playtime: 66.3 Hours
Final Fantasy VII was my first Final Fantasy game I've ever.
The first thing that caught my attention was the music. I love nearly every track in this game. From 'Bombing Mission' to 'One-Winged Angel', all of these tracks are amazing and I recommend you give them all a listen. My favorite from the bunch is probably the Turks' theme, which is something I have kept as my ringtone! While this isn't my favorite Final Fantasy, it definitely has my favorite music tracks from a Final Fantasy game. Please give them a listen on Youtube if you have the time!
The gameplay is similar to a lot of Final Fantasy's in the sense it's a turn-based RPG with a bit of twist in which characters have a time limit between doing another attack. It took a while to get used to this fast-based combat but I really started to enjoy it once I got the hang of it. If I had one complaint with the combat, it's I wish that there was a way to favorite items so that you can use them easily in battle.
The story and characters are really good as well. I know that a lot of the characters at the beginning of the game are fleshed out a lot more in the Remake, but when it comes to the main cast of this game, they are all well written and fun to interact with. They have great character arcs, and even the character I liked the least (Cait Sith), grew on me after an important moment in the story.
The world itself is also really interesting. It's a mix between futuristic and fantasy, like a world that was supposed to be a magical fantasy was been taken over by greedy corporations. I would all the places I went to cool as well, although I really didn't like how pixelated the backgrounds looked. I also used a mod that used better character models because I find the base game models to look very jarring.
My biggest complaints about this game would be there is a fair bit of padding to get some of the very-late game achievements. That, and I found 'Cloud's memories' to be a very slow part to the game. I also got a bit confused about some later moments in the game that I only got better context about from playing Crisis Core.
If you have never played a Final Fantasy game before, I highly recommend you play this one first. While it is not my favorite of the bunch, it is the best game for newcomers to the series, and is just an overall great game as well.
