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FF7 PS1 revisiting:
I had a lot of fun with the game, but i still think it's one of the weakest entries
of the serie.
On the other hand, some stuff i used to dislike have become better to me, like the
character of Cloud, that i now like quite a lot, as well as his obvious "find
yourself" narrative arc that is kind of a teenager thing done well.
He is ultimately a more serious Chazz/Manjoume who tries to act cool out of
childish teenager love and lack of identity.
All characters from FF7 have personnality issues or are hiding their true self
either subconsciously or intentionally, which is pretty interesting. All the
character arcs work on that principle for the playable chars and Sephiroth.
By far the thing i liked the most in this playthrough was finally figuring out what
JENOVA's deal is on a thematic and narrative standpoint, as she always stuck like a
sore thumb to me.
She simply is, just like SMT's angels, a representation of christianity and the
west invading the world. She comes from outside the planet, she is a STRANGER (to
the nature/the old traditional way) to contaminate it and transform itself into
something familiar (just like christianity and the west tried to absorb japanese
culture) or corrupt people into its "cultist" to live.
(The ancient soldiers experimented on are the warriors of old forgotten by the
meiji transition of japan, as we will see later and tainted/driven insane by the
west and the "crusades" of the west on their culture and way of life.)
Jenova's name even reference that as she is the "Calamity from the sky". Literally
the spiritual clash of cultures that takes place in the sky as people accept or
fight for their ideals.
FF7 is, however, way more critical of traditionalism, nature, and
hippies/environmentalists. As they are shown to not know what to do in Cosmo
Canyon, and with Cloud and Barret understanding that they hide behind the veil of
"i am protecting the planet !!!" Just to justify their action and hide their true
self. They even question themselves in the end "we did everything we could, now
it's up to the planet".
Bugenhagen, the sage of Cosmo Canyon does enjoy technology and is hopeful, as he
sees it as what might save mankind.
The weapons themselves are destroyers and aren't good, which shows that the planet
and nature isn't necessarily kind to humans, and Cid, in space understands that it
is just a little speck of earth not worth much but that they should try to save it
to stay alive. Although ultimately neither truly matter on a cosmic scale.
The Ancients too, are implied by Yuffie to have been a belligerent, war centric
race despite their love for nature, as all the materias they made are built for war
and fighting.
Another thing related to the West VS Tradition theme is obviously the SHINRA. It is
very important to know that it is a Zaibatsu, ( A family-driven japanese hyper-
company) and has history with war and weapon manufacturing.
It is the post 1945 japan merged with the Meiji era that ignores its
tradition/tries to erase them and suppress their warrior class and old ways in
order to modernize itself and trade with the west.
Sephiroth is after all, an ancient warrior who was "engineered" by such a society
LITERALLY but corrupted by the influence of JENOVA, the west, and driven insane by
feeling like he has no roots anywhere and was only created to ve a monster.
His design is very reminiscent of a Samurai for that reason. And his ascension as a
Judeo-christian god-like self-crowned messiah is that too, him wanting to control
traditions, nature and the world through what he was gifted by birth and through
the horrible system that engineered him.
He couldn't adapt to modernity but uses it to destroy everything he hates.
He doesn't have a real identity and tries to find one like other FF7 chars, and out
of desperation, hides himself behind his "mother", the one who engineered his
madness, JENOVA, the god of the west.
When it comes to actual gameplay.
The game and the dialogues are terribly translated, and its the FF that aged the
most badly out of them all, imo.
It also suffers from very dumb and weird storytelling, everything is convoluted and
a lot of things are unexplained or left to the imagination.
Sephiroth is just a vague asshole who wants to become god with very convoluted ways
that don't make much sense, and its hard to really understand why he is so
important without the themes of the story.
The romance triangle bullshit is absolutly terrible, except in the disc 3, where
some scenes with Tifa are touching.
Aeris is not a bad character, but her death is overblowned and full of incoherence,
and proves that people who love FF7 never played other FF, as they have more tragic
deaths who are better written, handled and sadder. (FF2 alone)
The Materia system is absolutly terrible. On paper it is a good idea as it allows
to create your own set of combos with orbs that contain abilities, actions, or
commands.
However, they require a shitton of farming, reduce your stats so you cannot
actually fully create combos without having only 3000HP lategame,
And are simply a worse version of FF6's Esper and only a few combinations are good,
and worst of all:
There is no way to unequip all and you have to redo your setups through your
different characters by:
calling them on the world map, removing the materia,
Reequiping one by one by scrolling through the menus that CANNOT BE SORTED...
Horrible.
The game is also VERY EASY, way too easy, by far the easiest FF of them all 100%.
However the game is still pretty fun thanks to the limit breaks and the simpler ATB
system with 3 chars instead of 4, which seems more optimal in some ways.
Disc 1 is the best disc, as it is the case with arguably all PS1 FF.
the Midgar intro is awesome but the game slows down and becomes boring and without
real goal right after getting out of Midgar. It becomes good again right when my
waifu Aeris uooohhh dies.
Disc 2 has its awesome moments that for some of them, outshine Disc 1 (Cloud's
"mind palace", Rufus fighting the weapons) but it also has very long useless parts
in the Snowy Mountains and an absolutly terrible NONSENSICAL story moment where we
stops Shinra from saving the world for no reason by stealing Huge Materias and
murdering people.
After this comically retarded section, the entire team are like "lol maybe we were
wrong, now we dk how to save the world we will all die".
Very dumb.
The game feels incomplete and the story is more all over the place than older
titles like 2, 4, 5 and 6.
But the themes are great, the characters are pretty interesting despite their very
limited dialogue and their very "buy my toy" designs.
I can see why everyone likes it because it's also more streamlined and "kid
friendly" than other FFs in some ways.
I do think it's a great game, but i still put it in the last 5 FF or so.
I can also notice how FF8 and 10 tried to enhance or remake some scenes and moments
of FF7 to various success. I still prefer them over FF7 though.
TL'DR: Vincent, Barret and Cid are based... nostalgia is the bane of existence,
Play FF2, FF6 and FF8.
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