I first saw Final Fantasy VII in the back pages of a dog-eared issue of GamePro at my friend Kevin’s house. It was early 1997, I was nineteen, and we were supposed to be studying for a calculus midterm. Instead, we were flipping through gaming magazines, procrastinating like the responsible college freshmen we were. The preview spread showed impossibly detailed characters (by 1997 standards, anyway) standing in what looked like a cyberpunk city, with text promising “40+ hours of gameplay” and “cinematic storytelling never before seen in video games.” I remember Kevin saying, “That looks cool, but forty hours? Who has that kind of time?” I nodded in agreement, already mentally calculating how I could rearrange my class schedule and social commitments to find those forty hours.
My PlayStation was a relatively recent acquisition—a splurge purchase from my first semester’s book money (sorry, Introduction to Philosophy, I skimmed the library copy instead). Up until then, I’d been primarily a Nintendo kid, raised on a diet of Mario and Zelda. RPGs weren’t completely foreign to me—I’d poured countless hours into Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI (or III, as my North American box confusingly labeled it). But those were sprite-based games with charming but decidedly two-dimensional characters. What I saw in those magazine pages looked like something else entirely—a glimpse of what video games could become.
When Final Fantasy VII finally launched, I didn’t have the cash to buy it immediately. This was the era before Amazon Prime same-day delivery, when games cost $49.99 plus tax, which might as well have been a million dollars to a college freshman living primarily on ramen and dining hall cereal smuggled out in Tupperware containers. For two excruciating weeks, I listened to luckier friends talk about this incredible game they were playing, careful to shield my ears whenever they veered toward spoiler territory. I picked up extra shifts at my campus bookstore job, pulled together the cash, and finally brought home that double-wide jewel case with its iconic cloudy sky and oversized sword.
The opening sequence of Final Fantasy VII remains, to this day, one of the most effective introductions to a game world I’ve ever experienced. The camera pulling back from a flower girl (who I’d later know as Aerith) to reveal the sprawling dystopian city of Midgar, then transitioning to Cloud jumping from a train on a sabotage mission—it conveyed an entire setting, tone, and conflict without a single expository dialogue box. The Final Fantasy VII Midgar design analysis could fill an architectural thesis—this split-level city with the wealthy literally living above the poor, stealing not just their resources but their actual sunlight, was so much more conceptually sophisticated than the typical “here’s a castle, here’s a forest” RPG setting I was used to.
I played the game in feverish bursts, often staying up until 3 or 4 AM, stumbling to morning classes in a fog of sleep deprivation and mental preoccupation. “Just one more save point” became my mantra, though the game’s somewhat sadistic spacing of those save points often meant “one more” translated to “90 more minutes of gameplay.” My roommate, who wasn’t a gamer, would occasionally watch over my shoulder, asking questions about the plot that I’d answer with the evangelical zeal of the newly converted. “So why does that long-haired guy want to destroy the world?” he’d ask, and I’d launch into an explanation of Sephiroth’s motivations that would make him slowly back away, wondering what he’d gotten himself into.
The Final Fantasy VII character development for Cloud blew me away. Here was a protagonist who wasn’t just a silent cipher or a plucky hero—he was complex, troubled, and as I would discover throughout the game, not even sure of his own identity. As someone navigating the often confusing transition from teenager to adult, trying to figure out who I was supposed to be in the world, Cloud’s journey resonated with me in ways I couldn’t fully articulate at the time. The game trusted players with a protagonist who wasn’t always likable, who was dealing with serious psychological issues beyond the typical “save the princess/world” motivation. That was revolutionary for 19-year-old me.
And then there was Aerith’s death. I need to talk about this moment because the Final Fantasy VII Aerith death scene impact on me was profound. I didn’t see it coming—this was before the internet routinely spoiled every major plot point, when you could actually experience narrative surprises in popular media. I remember sitting in my dorm room, controller in hand, watching this crucial character being impaled, the materia bouncing down the steps, that haunting music playing. I think I actually said “No” out loud. I kept expecting some magical revival, some phoenix down that would bring her back, but it never came. The permanence of her death violated what I thought were the rules of JRPGs—main party members don’t just die halfway through the story. But she did, and the game was better for it, teaching me that meaningful storytelling requires real stakes.
The battle system was unlike anything I’d experienced before. The transition from the field map to the battle screen with that swirling effect and sudden blast of battle music still triggers a Pavlovian response in me. The Final Fantasy VII Limit Break system explained perfectly what I love about good game mechanics—it created this risk/reward scenario where taking damage filled your limit gauge, encouraging you to occasionally play recklessly for the payoff of those flashy special attacks. I spent hours trying to find all the limit breaks, dragging my damaged characters through battles, frustrating my roommate who couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t just heal Cloud already.
If the limit break system was accessible fun, the materia system was where the game showed its depth. I filled notebooks with Final Fantasy VII materia combinations guide information that I’d discovered through experimentation. Linking an All materia with Fire to hit multiple enemies, combining Added Effect with a status materia to give my weapon special properties—these discoveries felt like I was breaking the game in the best possible way. The materia system struck that perfect balance between accessible for newcomers (just slot in the shiny orbs and you’ll be fine) and deeply complex for those willing to explore its nuances (let me tell you about my quadruple-Cut plus Counter plus Added Cut setup).
The transition from Midgar to the world map remains one of gaming’s great “wow” moments. After around 7-8 hours thinking this sprawling city was the entire game world, suddenly being shown that Midgar was just one city on a massive planet created this sense of scale that made my jaw drop. I remember calling my friend at some ungodly hour to tell him about it, only to discover he’d reached that point days ago and was now exploring some place called “Gold Saucer.” Our friendship survived, but just barely.
Final Fantasy VII’s soundtrack by Nobuo Uematsu provided the emotional backbone for the experience. Those MIDI arrangements somehow conveyed more emotion than many fully orchestrated scores today. “Aerith’s Theme” still makes me melancholy when I hear it. The battle theme got my blood pumping. And “One-Winged Angel”? That track redefined what boss battle music could be, with its Latinate chorus and driving rhythm. I actually recorded some of the music onto cassette tapes so I could listen on my Walkman between classes. Yes, I was that guy, and no, I’m not sorry.
The PlayStation technical achievement that Final Fantasy VII represented can’t be overstated. Those pre-rendered backgrounds with 3D characters moving through them created environments with a level of detail that seemed impossible at the time. Yes, the blocky, Popeye-armed character models on the field map look primitive now, but in 1997, this was mind-blowing stuff. The FMV cutscenes—stored on multiple discs because CD-ROMs couldn’t otherwise hold all that data—were like nothing I’d seen outside of movie theaters. Switching discs partway through the game felt like an event, a ceremonial transition from one chapter to another.
As I approached the enigmatic ending, my dorm room became something of a viewing gallery. Word had gotten around that I was near the finale, and suddenly people who had previously shown zero interest in “my Japanese cartoon game” wanted to see how it all wrapped up. The Final Fantasy VII ending explained theories began immediately after the credits rolled, with everyone offering their interpretation of those final scenes. Was humanity saved? Destroyed? Transformed? The ambiguity was both frustrating and perfect, giving us something to debate over late-night pizza and warm vending machine soda.
I’ve replayed Final Fantasy VII several times at different points in my life, and what resonates changes with each playthrough. In college, I connected with Cloud’s identity crisis and the game’s environmental themes. In my late twenties, going through some personal setbacks, the theme of perseverance despite overwhelming odds hit differently. Now in my mid-forties, I find myself more affected by the game’s underlying message about memory, legacy, and what we leave behind. Final Fantasy VII is like that good book you revisit every few years and always find something new because you’re reading it as a different person.
The Sephiroth villain motivation seemed straightforward to my teenage self—he’s gone mad and wants to destroy everything. But with each replay, I’ve seen more nuance in his character. His discovery of his origins, his sense of betrayal, his twisted logic that leads him to believe he’s the rightful inheritor of the planet—it’s a complex villain origin that stands up to scrutiny decades later. The scene in the Nibelheim reactor where he discovers the truth about himself remains powerful storytelling, showing how knowledge without wisdom can corrupt even the most noble.
I missed classes to play this game. I dreamed about it when I finally did sleep. I talked about it incessantly to anyone who would listen (and many who wouldn’t). Final Fantasy VII reshaped what I thought games could be and do. It showed me they could tackle complex themes like environmentalism, corporate exploitation, identity, and sacrifice with nuance. It proved games could make me feel genuine emotion for digital characters represented by crude polygons. Most importantly, it demonstrated that the hundred hours I spent with it weren’t just entertainment—they were experiences that would stay with me, shaping how I viewed both games and storytelling for decades to come.
A few years ago, I introduced my nephew to the original game before he played the remake. He struggled with the graphics at first—”Why do their hands look like oven mitts?”—but soon became as engrossed in the story as I had been. Watching him experience Aerith’s death for the first time, seeing that same shock and denial play out on his face that I had felt all those years ago, was like witnessing the passing of a torch. The technology may be dated, but great storytelling remains timeless.
There’s a scene midway through the game where Cloud, having discovered his memories may be false, says “What is this feeling?” It’s a question I asked myself repeatedly during my first playthrough, unable to articulate how this game was affecting me so deeply. Now, with the benefit of years, I can answer: it was the feeling of realizing that this medium I loved could be more than just entertainment—it could be art. And not in some pretentious, abstract way, but in the most direct and emotionally impactful sense. Final Fantasy VII changed me because it showed me what games could be. And for that, I’ll be forever grateful to that spiky-haired ex-SOLDIER with the impossibly large sword and the very real human struggles.
