Final Fantasy VII

FF7 is good (obviously) and is an important milestone in gaming history. If you consider yourself someone who enjoys video games as a hobby, I think you should play this at least once. ...However, considering this game is now over 25 years old, we should add some pretty big disclaimers to the above statement. First and most obvious, the graphics are tremendously dated, and they are dated in that super special way that only early 3D games can achieve. The backgrounds are mostly pretty nice. They are pre-rendered and could potentially fit right in a modern pixel game. The character models, however, are just straight up colored blocks. You have to use a fair bit of imagination to immerse yourself. With that being said, I do think they fall into the "so bad that it's actually good" category. I found myself amused as Cloud raises his polygon arms to spin the buster blade around. The story is charming, but can feel tonally weird at times. While FF7 is significantly better than other "Japanese to English" titles of the era, it still struggles with not quite matching how a native speaker would approach these situations. For example, there will be tense moments in the game, and the characters meet those moments often with cheesy dialogue or out of place words that someone with a better grasp of the language wouldn't use. It's not enough to ruin the experience, but there are plenty "what the f@#$ does that mean" moments. Lastly, I would say the gameplay is fun and suits the game, but is pretty simple - especially when compared to modern turn-based titles. Modern turn-based RPGs, even the modern Final Fantasy titles, has significantly improved and added depth to the genre that you will notice is missing in FF7s combat. This doesn't mean it's bad. In fact, I did enjoy the battle system a lot with its many types of spells, limits, and "pseudo real-time" turn system. It just is a product of a earlier moment in gaming.