I remember I was watching my friend playing it on his Playstation and I nearly bought Playstation because of it. ( I was still on my Saga MegaDrive ). But I waited for the PC version, turns out my ATI Graphics card just wasn't good enough. The game if I remember correctly was heavily optimised for Glide ( The API from 3Dfx ), so bought a Voodoo 2 instead which was crazy expensive just to play a game but I couldn't resist. The PC version was insanely great. Voodoo 2 Graphics had 30fps making everything silky smooth LOL. ( I dont think we were 60fps era yet ) The software synthesiser from Yamaha was miles ahead of anything else on the market. The music was just brilliant ( Nobuo Uematsu is an absolute genius ), 25 years later when I see FF7 I could still hear the intro music in my head. Those MIDI sound when selecting commands. Spending days just to get a Golden Chocobo ( And typing that now the Chocobo music is playing in my head ). It is somehow all burned into my DNA.
I just wish I have time to play the Remake. Still waiting for PS5 to become widely available.
The good old days, they dont make games like that any more.
I also played it on PC, but remember even at the time the low resolution backgrounds looking horrendous and taking a lot away from the experience. You had insanely low polygon, untextured characters rendered at full monitor resolution, composited on backgrounds pre-rendered at 320x240 for TVs. So the graphics were made up of two drastically different elements each with distinct, critical issues.
The first 3D console that I thought was actually worthy of the name was the Dreamcast. Everything before that was just atrocious looking, even at the time, in my opinion. I'd had some exposure to computer gaming but I was in college and always bottom-feeding on hardware, so it's not like I was always cutting edge on computer gaming graphics.
I remember watching an ad for some Playstation game that was clearly trying to have awesome graphics at all costs, even if it meant that their TV ad was playing at something like 5 fps. Awful. Honestly looked unplayable.
Yeah, man, I was a kid in high school at the time, and saved a lot of money to get this game. It was running at 4 FPS, but even worse was that the characters went from beautifully-drawn sprites in FF6 to hideous sets of cubes and pyramids in FF7. I'd heard so many good things about the game that I assumed it must just be completely broken on my computer, and returned it to the store for a refund
I gave the game another try on the PSX later, and I have to admit that it was a lot of fun once I got past the terrible graphics
That's interesting! Watching a friend play Final Fantasy 7 was the reason I never cared to get a Playstation. The graphics were horrible. I mean, sure it was 3D, but everything was so ugly. I went back to playing games on my SNES and Genesis, and didn't buy any Playstation games until much later.
In retrospect, I missed out, but the way that game looked really soured my view of Playstation for years. I should play one of the remasters some time to see what the story is all about.
Yeah, I like FF7 a lot, but my view in the 90's was that 3d was ugly and the older games had better graphics. The ff7 backgrounds look a lot better than the characters, and even the FMV sequences still pretty meh if you ask me. I'd take the art style of Lunar or Phantasy Star or something over it any day..... in fact I still prefer that style to the newer 3d games anyway.
Thankfully there's more to the game than the appearance. The music <3
When I first saw the game as a kid, I was baffled by how thin the character's elbows were. It's almost doll-like, and you get the feeling you're a puppet master witnessing an epic and sometimes tragic performance.
FWIW I remember seeing it at stores when I was a kid and thinking the graphics were best I'd ever seen. Like my mind was blown and I was sad I didn't have a PS1. The pre-rendered backdrops helped a lot here. It was a different time.
I was getting into the remake but stopped playing when I learned it was only half the game plus a bunch of bullshit filler. Instantly killed any interest or goodwill for me. Playing the original again on emulator ATM. Was perfect, just needed to up the polycount...
It's a really strong game if you judge it on its own merits. I had played through most of disc 1 of the original just before it came out, and I liked all the extra detail that the remake added to the gameworld. It's a shame it's not all of FF7 but if they eventually remake the whole game with this level of detail then its future is very exciting!
I loved FF7. They definitely make games like that today! It's just that we've since grown and don't have as much time to sink into a game and you're more influential when younger. I played Breath of the Wild 2 years ago and I'd 100% put that game up against any of the wonderful RPG/Action games I played as a child (going as far back as Ys Book I & II on a Turbo Duo and Fate of Atlantis on PC).
I just wish I have time to play the Remake. Still waiting for PS5 to become widely available.
The good old days, they dont make games like that any more.