#18
Change YoY: = My Rating: 9.4 / 10
Inarguably the most successful and most influential JRPG of all time, Final Fantasy VII very much lives up to the hype, even if certain elements have suffered due to the passage of time. Look past those things, and at its core Final Fantasy VII is still an absolutely brilliant game. Even then, the few aspects that don't quite hold up are mostly due to the game's age and the era in which it was made. The graphics are naturally dated, and some moments would probably no longer be acceptable if the game was made today, but the one aspect that hurts the game the most is its honestly quite shoddy localization. The translation into English is simply not very good, rife as it is with errors, weird and awkward sentences, and even mistakes that unintentionally altered certain scenes. The quality of the game still shines through, but it's still a shame that such an important part of the game falls so far below acceptable. It was very common at the time, but for such a high-profile game you'd expect better.
One of the most brilliant aspects of Final Fantasy VII is the decision to make its main character an unreliable narrator. We get to witness numerous events from Cloud Strife's point of view, yet we don't learn until much later that his recollection of events is at best incomplete, and at worst completely fabricated. This gives the game a sense of mystery and even unease, since if the player pays attention from the start they will begin to notice some strange inconsistencies in Cloud's story as the game progresses. This is also the source of many of the game's most important and well-known twists, the only thing holding the story back being the poor translation that often leaves certain aspects of the story somewhat unclear. However, it also has some very strong theming around topics such as environmentalism, corporate greed, terrorism, and various other political and spiritual issues that run through the entire story and most of its important characters.
Final Fantasy VII also features a wonderfully flexible battle system built around the game's use of Materia as a source of abilities and stats. There are countless different combinations that the player can tinker around with. The game's world is also among the most iconic of all time, with locations like Midgar, the Northern Crater, Cosmo Canyon, and others being fondly remembered for a very good reason. Finally, it also has one of the all-time great video game soundtracks composed by Nobuo Uematsu. Again, the game is not without its flaws, but they do very little to detract from its overall excellence.
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