final fantasy 7
(a part of this text was taken from Wikipedia)
The origin of the
beast. Final Fantasy VII is not only the most popular game in the
Final Fantasy series, but it was/is considered one of the best RPGs (Role
Playing Game), if not one of the best games ever. Its plot, game system,
music and especially its characters sent it to the top of popularity charts,
created 'urban legends' (there's still people who believes that it's possible to
revive Aerith), and made it stay in the memory of every gamer who put a hand on
it.
But let's start from the beginning. Square-soft was about to release Final Fantasy VII for Nintendo 64 in 1996, but in the end they decided to make it for the Playstation instead. There were two reasons for this. First of all, the cartridges that the Nintendo 64 used weren't enough for the game's graphics and music; and the second and most important one, the bad relationship Square had with Nintendo, because of their restrictive policies for the international versions of the previous FFs (all of them censored to avoid sexual and religious references). With some changes, the game was released in 1997 for Playstation, as stated before. One year later a PC version was released.
The story is set in a planet called Gaia, where a huge corporation called ShinRa (or Shinra) rules as a de facto goverment. Their power resides in the
extraction of Mako, a type of energy that makes everything work in this world
(similar to petrol in real life). The game starts with Cloud Strife, who
claims to be a First Class SOLDIER (a special paramilitary unit) joining
AVALANCHE, a terrorist group who believe that Mako energy is important for the
well-being of the planet, and wants to stop Shinra. There he meets Barret
Wallace and re-meets his childhood friend, Tifa Lockhart. Through the rest of
the game he meets new allies: Aerith Gainsborough, Red XIII/Nanaki, Cid Highwind,
Yuffie Kisaragi, Vincent Valentine, and Cait Sith.
The good action starts when the party finds out that the real menace to the planet is not Shinra, but Sephiroth. This man was once regarded as the best member of SOLDIER and was believed to be dead, but starts tormenting Cloud and confusing him about his past. This, along with Aerith's origins, many secrets, betrayals, and surprising deaths produce plot twists all the time, making you bite your nails and play it till the end no matter how many hours you spend.
