For a newcomer, Final Fantasy VII has got to be one of the biggest "let's see what this game is all about" types of games, which ends up gut-punching and Trojan-horsing you into its twisted, emotional, meaningful, and impactful story. This sort of applies to many other Final Fantasy games, and it is expected from them at this point, but this one probably hits especially hard due to how the story is rationed and how mostly silly the game is outside its key moments.

Some aspects of this game aged so gracefully, it's ridiculous:

The story is complex, yet you're introduced to it in such a way that you never feel overburdened or lost. Even as you progress deeper into it, this is never the case—the pacing is brilliant, probably up until the last couple of hours of the final stretch. The themes of the story are still some of the most relevant ones in how they reflect the real-world state, especially with its noticeable focus on environmentalism. The way this game tackles the theme of identity is still refreshingly good—video games nowadays rarely add much in comparison to how Final Fantasy VII does it. I find this theme to be the most mesmerizing in this story, with how it's so stylishly explored. How the story is told is also never archaic by today's standards, except maybe how it starts to wrap up near the end.

Final Fantasy VII also has a very epic overworld, which opens up to you after about five hours in Midgar—just as you've started to get used to it, now there's this whole map for you to explore. You start off small on the world map without being able to explore all of it, and that's just perfect because you don’t feel overwhelmed.

There are lots of towns to explore, all of which are varied, different, and interesting, with lots of characters to meet and story to go through. Additionally, the well-placed and often well-hidden optional content—such as greater weapons, optional companions, extra bosses, lore/cutscene sequences, etc.—adds layers and layers of motivated exploration.

Some of the better characters and companions in JRPGs are here, too. The party roster that you gather along the way is one of the best in the genre for me. Rotating your companions in your party never feels meaningless from a gameplay standpoint, and they all feel different and fun, especially with how their Limit Breaks work. Overall, they are just interesting characters. I absolutely love the entirety of Persona 4’s main cast and their chemistry—it felt similar here, so it’s great to see such a lively, refreshing roster. Their backstories are handled especially well—sometimes pretty tearjerking—and their everpresence in the story is welcome at all times.

The antagonists, of course, are there, but they’re soloed and overshadowed easily by Sephiroth—it’s a no-brainer. Sephiroth may not feel like the most motivated villain, mainly due to his pursuit of pure power over the world, but everything that revolves around him is just too stylish and epic. His boss fight is a definite jaw-dropper, and it’s surprising how rarely anything comes close to being so over-the-top in a good way. I mean, the guy has a special move that takes two minutes just to show what it does animation-wise before the actual impact... this is nuts.

NPCs and other interactable citizens—99% of whom you can actually approach and interact with to hear their one-liners—are never not interesting. Often, you actually need to talk to everyone in an area because the game doesn’t always point you directly to the person you need to talk to. Instead, you actually get to ask around, and even at this level, the writing is great, at least now with the latest translations—thankfully.

The soundtrack is, of course, one of the most iconic in the series. Combat themes are never repetitive and are always hum-along-worthy. Boss themes, especially Sephiroth’s, are fantastic. Ambient music and background themes for dialogue/cutscenes are always great—sometimes funky due to their time period and genre constraints, but still. Overall, it’s very stunning, passionate, charming, and exciting. I love it.

Some of the technical visuals are still mind-boggling, such as the FMV + 3D fusion in cinematic sequences. I rarely see stuff like this anywhere else. There are also so many animations for smaller things in the game, which makes what happens on screen feel that much more believable. Even though most of the visuals are 2D backgrounds, the overworld is fully 3D, and it looks stunning for a PS1 game, especially considering how huge it is.

Combat with its Materia system is flexible, customizable, and overall just really fun. Hunting for different cool Materia in this world also feels really rewarding. The Materia aspect is not particularly clear to you at all times and almost forces you to use guides to study and research different kinds of Materia combinations, but it allows you to create different contextual builds on any character that you want, which is awesome. The ATB aspect of Combat is something that I had to get used to, as I'm mostly used to a static turn-based flow, but it's fine once you get into the rhythm.

Mini-Games... damn.
The mini-games, along with some local unique mechanics, have an insane density versus how varied they are throughout the game. Some of them are really fun—there's Chocobo racing, submarine fighting, rock climbing (with keeping yourself warm), snowboarding, tower defense, and also a very iconic motorcycle chase where you have to slash enemies on the go. All of these add so much to the game.

The difficulty overall is balanced very, very well. You very rarely feel underpowered, and if you don't know this game's tricks (as you shouldn't as a first-time player), you don't feel too overpowered either.

Evidently, some aspects of this game aged real poorly:

Graphics are probably the most obvious bully target in this regard—I'm not even going to start seriously criticizing this aspect. This game blessed us with its release at the START of '97, so this is an old game, and even with some old graphics, it is still miraculously beautiful and technical. Modding is for sure a good choice here.

I didn't like the sudden difficulty spike on the last few final bosses.

The lack of proper indication, especially around the later parts of the game, is also prominent, as you don't get much information or signs that would give you clear goals to pursue or knowledge of where to go at any given moment. I found myself constantly stuck after mid-game, just to give up and refer to a walkthrough, only to see that there was no way I would have stumbled upon the next step just by exploring.

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To sum it all up, I feel extremely happy to have finally reached FFVII, played through it for the first time, and realized what it was all about. I was not disappointed—often, I was pleasantly surprised. This is still a special and meaningful game, which can thankfully still be comfortably played on just about any platform of your choice. It's still pretty seamless even on modern hardware... what more can I really say?

I was totally sold on VII, so next up for me—Advent Children, Crisis Core, and finally, the Remakes, which is really exciting, I must say.