FINAL FANTASY VII (NSP, XCI) ROM + v1.0.2_5 Update

FINAL FANTASY VII The Shinra Electric Power Company has taken control of the world, monopolizing its life force as Mako energy. In the sprawling metropolis of Midgar, a rebel group called Avalanche fights against the company. This is a 1997 role-playing video game developed by Square for the PlayStation console and the seventh main installment in the Final Fantasy series. Square published the game in Japan, and it was released in other regions by Sony Computer Entertainment, becoming the first game in the main series to have a PAL release. The game’s story follows Cloud Strife, a mercenary who joins an eco-terrorist organization to stop a world-controlling megacorporation from using the planet’s life essence as an energy source. Events send Cloud and his allies in pursuit of Sephiroth, a superhuman who seeks to wound the planet and harness its healing power to be reborn as a god.

GAMEPLAY

The gameplay of Final Fantasy VII is similar to earlier Final Fantasy titles and Japanese role-playing games. The game features three modes of play: the world map, the field, and the battle screen. At its grandest scale, players explore the world of Final Fantasy VII on a 3D world map. The world map contains representations of areas for the player to enter, including towns, environments, and ruins. Natural barriers—such as mountains, deserts, and bodies of water—block access by foot to some areas; as the game progresses, the player receives vehicles that help traverse these obstacles.

Chocobos can be found in certain spots on the map, and if caught, can be ridden to areas inaccessible on foot or by vehicle.  In field mode, the player navigates fully scaled versions of the areas represented on the world map. VII marks the first time in the series that the mode is represented in a three-dimensional space. In this mode, the player can explore the environment, talk with characters, advance the story, and initiate event games.  Event games are short minigames that use special control functions and are often tied to the story.  While in field mode, the player can also find shops and inns.

Shops allow the player to buy and sell items that can aid Cloud and his party, such as weapons, armor, and accessories. Inns restore the hit points and mana points of characters who rest at it and cure abnormalities contracted during battles. At random intervals on the world map and in field mode, and at specific moments in the story, the game will enter the battle screen, which places the player characters on one side and the enemies on the other. It employs an “Active Time Battle” (ATB) system, in which the characters exchange moves until one side is defeated. The damage or healing dealt by either side is quantified on screen.

Final Fantasy VII also features powerful, character-specific commands called Limit Breaks, which can be used only after a special gauge is charged by enemy attacks. After being attacked, characters can be afflicted by one or more abnormal “statuses”, such as poison or paralysis. These statuses and their adverse effects can be removed by special items or abilities or by resting at an inn. Once all enemies are defeated, the battle ends, and the player is rewarded with money, items, and experience points. If the player is defeated, it is game over and the game must be loaded to the last save point.

CHARACTERS AND SETTING

Final Fantasy VII takes place on a world referred to in-game as the “Planet” and retroactively named “Gaia”. The planet’s lifeforce called the Lifestream, is a flow of spiritual energy that gives life to everything on the Planet; its processed form is known as “Mako”. On a societal and technological level, the game has been defined as an industrial or post-industrial science fiction setting. During Final Fantasy VII, the Shinra Electric Power Company, a world-dominating megacorporation headquartered in the city of Midgar, is draining the Planet’s Lifestream for energy, weakening the Planet and threatening its existence and all life.

Significant factions within the game include AVALANCHE, an eco-terrorist group seeking Shinra’s downfall so the Planet can recover; the Turks, a covert branch of Shinra’s security forces; SOLDIER, an elite Shinra fighting force created by enhancing humans with Mako; and the Cetra, a near-extinct human tribe which maintains a strong connection to the Planet and the Lifestream. The main protagonist is Cloud Strife, an aloof mercenary who claims to be a former 1st Class SOLDIER. Early on, he works with two members of AVALANCHE: Barret Wallace, its brazen but fatherly leader; and Tifa Lockhart, a shy yet nurturing martial artist and his childhood friend.

During their journey, they meet Aerith Gainsborough, a carefree flower merchant and one of the last surviving Cetra; Red XIII, an intelligent quadruped from a tribe that protects the planet; Cait Sith, a fortune-telling robotic cat controlled by repentant Shinra staff member Reeve; and Cid Highwind, a pilot whose dream of being the first human in outer space was unrealized. The group can also recruit Yuffie Kisaragi, a young ninja and skilled Materia thief; and Vincent Valentine, a former Turk and victim of Shinra’s experiments.

The game’s main antagonists are Rufus Shinra, the son of President Shinra and the later leader of the Shinra Corporation; Sephiroth, a former SOLDIER who reappears several years after being presumed dead; and Jenova, a hostile extraterrestrial life-form whom the Cetra imprisoned 2,000 years ago and who Sephiroth was created from. A key character in Cloud’s backstory is Zack Fair, a member of SOLDIER and Aerith’s first love.

PLOT

AVALANCHE destroys a Shinra Mako reactor in Midgar, but an attack on another reactor goes wrong and Cloud falls into the city’s slums. There, he meets Aerith and protects her from Shinra. Meanwhile, Shinra finds AVALANCHE’s base of operations and intentionally collapses part of the upper city level in retaliation for the Mako reactor being destroyed, killing many AVALANCHE members and innocent bystanders below as collateral damage. Aerith is also captured since Shinra believes that as a Cetra, she can potentially reveal the “Promised Land”, which they believe is overflowing with Lifestream energy they can exploit.

Cloud, Barret, and Tifa rescue Aerith, and during their escape from Midgar, discover that Sephiroth murdered President Shinra despite being presumed dead five years earlier. The party pursues Sephiroth across the Planet, with now-President Rufus on their trail; they are soon joined by the rest of the playable characters. At a Cetra temple, Sephiroth reveals he intends to use a powerful magical artifact known as “Black Materia” to cast the spell “Meteor”, which would have a devastating impact on the Planet. Sephiroth claims he will absorb the Lifestream as it attempts to heal the wound caused by Meteor and become a god-like being in the process.

The party retrieves the Black Materia, but Sephiroth manipulates Cloud into surrendering it. Aerith departs alone to stop Sephiroth and follows him to an abandoned Cetra city. While Aerith prays to the Planet for help, Sephiroth attempts to force Cloud to kill her; after this fails, he kills her himself before fleeing, leaving the Black Materia behind. The party then learns of Jenova, a hostile alien lifeform who landed on the Planet two thousand years before the game’s events. Upon arrival on the Planet, Jenova began infecting the Cetra with a virus, and they were nearly wiped out. However, a small group managed to seal away Jenova in a tomb, which Shinra later unearthed.

At Nibelheim, Jenova’s cells were used in experiments which led to the creation of Sephiroth. Five years before the game’s events, Sephiroth and Cloud visited Nibelheim, where Sephiroth learned of his origins and was driven insane as a result. He murdered the townspeople and then vanished after Cloud confronted him. At the Northern Crater, the party learns that the “Sephiroths” they have encountered are Jenova clones that the insane Shinra scientist Hojo created. Cloud confronts the real Sephiroth as he is killing his clones to reunite Jenova’s cells, but is again manipulated into giving him the Black Materia.