Final Fantasy VII PC (re-release) Review

While I may have skipped over our usual graphics page, I didn’t want to linger on that part too much until the end of the review, as very little has changed, but thats not to say they haven’t improved anything, with this latest re-release of the title come several “minor” tweaks that add up to a big result which benefit modern gamers, gone are the blurry videos that plagued the original PC release, gone are the green glitches that plagued the original PC release due to graphics cards not being properly supported, now we have a proper scaling engine that allows the game to be run in a full 1920×1080 window, not that it increases the games backdrops resolution, but it doesn’t decrease their quality either as you stretch the image, the engine now allows scaling to a full 16:9 format as well as the standard 4:3, sure this stretches the games graphics, but it does a damn fine job of it and you can’t really notice and last of all the character models have been given an extra boost, and with any modern GPU throwing in a little AA and AF, they look as sharp as ever, even if they are only made of about 40* polygons (*don’t know the actual number).

So with all the graphical adjustments, not improvements but fixes and adjustments that are well implemented, a new and improved sound track that is way closer to the original PlayStation edition than ever before, in game achievements that actually add a little extra to the gameplay, cloud saves that allow you to continue your game on another computer and a character booster, which in fairness is cheating, allows lazy gamers to get the maximum level characters from the start, this really does add up to a great value bundle and a very worth nod to one of the greatest games of all time.

The game is available from around £9.99 at the moment, which is an absolute bargain for a piece of gaming history, not only because its a game that clearly still has a place in my heart, but because of the sheer amount of gameplay on offer for the asking price, so if your a fan of Final Fantasy titles, RPGs, or just plain curious, there hasn’t been a better time to pick up this title since 1997,  which is why I’m awarding it the eTeknix Gamers Choice Award.