DISCLAIMER!: This chapter contains Heavy Spoilers for Final Fantasy 7 so read it at your own risk because if you do not even play this game then you really missed out lol.
July's lineup hits hard. WWF is chaotic and loud in the best way, Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strike Back is a brutal platformer that still feels fun even when it bullies you, but Final Fantasy 7 is something else entirely. The moment it releases, it doesn't just meet expectations—it blows right past them.
Final Fantasy is already legendary in the game community, one of ZAGE's greatest JRPG franchises, maybe the greatest. It has a massive fanbase around the world, and by the time VII arrives, the series has already built six solid mainline titles—from FF1 all the way to the most recent FF6 on ZEPS 2.
So when Final Fantasy 7 gets announced, players expect the usual: a great Final Fantasy, now on modern hardware. But once the game is in their hands, it becomes obvious this isn't "just" the next entry. It's bigger, bolder, more cinematic, and more intense than people were ready for, and that's why it instantly becomes the release everyone can't stop talking about.
In this world, Zaboru didn't really change the overall gameplay of Final Fantasy from the PS1 version he remembered from his previous life. The core systems, the pacing, even the big story beats stayed mostly intact, because he knew the foundation already worked. He didn't want to "fix" a masterpiece until it became something else. What he did change—what he insisted on changing—was how the characters looked and moved in this version.
Back in his previous life, the character models of the original Final Fantasy 7 were good for their time, but they clearly had limits. The field models were simple, sometimes blocky, and the gap between the cute chibi overworld look and the more detailed battle models could feel jarring. A few years later, Square proved on the same hardware that they could push character modeling further with FF8, making faces more defined, proportions cleaner, and animations smoother. In this world, where ZEPS 3 hardware is far superior than the PS1 ever was, Zaboru demanded that Final Fantasy 7's characters should look closer to FF8-level quality from his previous life—maybe even better.
So in ZEPS 3, Final Fantasy 7 doesn't just "run faster." It looks upgraded from the OG Ps 1 version in Zaboru previous life. Faces have clearer structure, hair shapes don't melt into triangles, and even small things like shoulder posture, hand movement, and idle animations feel more natural. When characters talk in story scenes, their expressions and body language finally match the tone—tension looks like tension, sarcasm looks like sarcasm, and sadness doesn't rely on text alone. Even if it's still early 3D, the models feel more intentional, less like rough placeholders.
Zaboru personally pushed the ZAGE dev team IZAN to go all out. He wasn't just funding it and walking away—he was involved, giving feedback, pointing out what made the original charming and what needed upgrading. He wanted the models to stay recognizable and iconic, but not cheap. "Keep the soul," was basically his rule, "but remove the ugliness that came from limits." That's why the end result feels special: it isn't a remake that changes the game's identity—it's the same Final Fantasy 7, treated with the respect of stronger craft. And because Zaboru had already designed the full character look and direction himself, Team IZAN could integrate and refine everything faster without losing the original soul from.
And for the environments, Zaboru still chose the 3D image-rendered background style, because that was one of the things that made Final Fantasy 7 unforgettable in his previous life. Those pre-rendered scenes have a mood that pure real-time graphics can't always capture, especially in 1998. Here, they're enhanced—cleaner lighting, sharper detail, stronger contrast, and more depth—so the world feels even more gorgeous and unique. The characters pop against the backgrounds better, the camera framing feels more cinematic, and suddenly Midgar's steel-and-smoke atmosphere becomes even heavier. It's the same art direction, but refined, and that refinement is exactly what makes players feel like they're witnessing a "new standard" without losing the identity that made Final Fantasy 7 legendary in the first place in his previous life.
For players and long-time fans of the FF series, this release carried huge expectations. This was the first Final Fantasy to launch on ZAGE's newest console, the 64-bit ZEPS 3, and people weren't treating it like "just another sequel." They treated it like a test. A statement. A moment where the franchise either proves it can evolve with the hardware, or gets left behind by the new era.
And the crazy part is: it passed instantly. The game is beautiful—its graphics, its gameplay, its story presentation, all of it. Players are genuinely stunned by how confident it feels, like ZAGE didn't just upgrade a JRPG, they upgraded the scale of what a JRPG can feel like.
Just one week after release, many players are already saying it's the best game they've ever played on ZEPS 3. Some even go further and argue it might be one of the best games ZAGE has ever put out, period—which instantly starts debates all over the ZAGE forums. "Best in the library?" "Best JRPG ever?" "Best story?" People fight about it, but even the ones who argue still agree on one thing: Final Fantasy 7 is absolutely in the top tier.
And it's easy to understand why, because the moment you boot it up, it hits differently. Midgar isn't some cute starter town. It's this massive steel-and-smoke city where everything feels tense, expensive, dangerous, and alive. You're instantly thrown into something bigger than you understand, and the game doesn't wait for you to feel comfortable. It starts like a thriller: sabotage missions, corporate power, weird science, propaganda, and characters who talk like they've already lived through hell. That opening alone makes players feel like the game is "serious," like it isn't afraid to be dramatic, messy, loud, and sometimes even ugly—because the world itself is ugly.
On ZEPS 3, the presentation is what's making jaws drop the hardest. People are describing it like, "Bro, it's like a movie, but you're controlling it," because the way the game shifts between exploration, dialogue, action, and those big cinematic scenes with insane graphics is something a lot of players simply haven't experienced in an RPG at this scale. The character models moving through those detailed backgrounds, the camera angles, the way scenes are staged like real film shots, the timing of music drops, the way the screen suddenly explodes into a cutscene—it all feels like a new language.
Even small things impress players: the lighting in Midgar, the way smoke and steel make the city feel heavy, the sense that the world has layers and depth instead of flat rooms connected by hallways. When you finish the first few hours, it doesn't feel like you "played a beginning." It feels like you survived an opening chapter of something massive. People walk away saying they witnessed a new standard—not just for "best graphics," but for how a game can present itself with confidence.
Materia, and Why Everyone Can't Sleep
Then there's the part that's quietly ruining everyone's sleep: Materia. A lot of RPG fans are used to, "This character learns these spells, that character is the healer, this guy is the physical attacker," and FF7 just says: no—your character is what you build.
You slot Materia. You link it. You experiment. And suddenly Cloud isn't just "the sword guy"—he can be your healer, your nuker, your support machine, whatever you want him to be. The first time someone links an "All" effect to a spell and watches it hit everyone, it triggers that instant addict reaction, like you discovered a cheat code that's actually legal. But still each character still has their own specialities and affinity to certain things too.
Players aren't only playing the story—they're tinkering, optimizing, showing their friends, and arguing about setups. That's what makes the game feel alive outside the screen, because even when you're not playing, you're still thinking about builds.
The gameplay still uses the classic ATB system that ZAGE's Final Fantasy is known for, and you run a three-person party—Cloud as the fixed leader, with the other two slots chosen from whoever is currently available. Zaboru also tuned several enemies and encounters to hit harder and behave smarter, making fights more challenging without losing that satisfying "I solved it" feeling and list of main party are exciting too.
The main party feels different from the usual JRPG tropes. A lot of players are used to RPG parties that are "heroes on a quest," but FF7's crew feels like real people with secrets, pride, guilt, and weird little habits, and the game actually lets those personalities clash and breathe. Cloud feels like he's acting cool while hiding something, Barret feels like he's loud to cover pain, Tifa feels like she's holding back words on purpose, Aerith feels like she's smiling even when the world is cruel—players get attached because these characters don't feel like mascots, they feel like a messy group you somehow start caring about. And then the roster keeps expanding in ways that surprise people: Red XIII comes in with that "I'm not your pet" energy, sharp and proud, but also oddly wise, like there's an old soul behind his anger; Cait Sith looks like a joke at first, a goofy mascot on a plush toy, but the way he talks and the way he moves around the story makes players feel there's something heavier underneath the comedy; Cid Highwind hits like a completely different flavor—this bitter, rough, loud guy whose dream has been crushed so long he doesn't even know how to speak gently anymore, yet players can still see the fire in him, the part that wants to fly higher than the world allows. And then there are the rumors that drive people insane: Yuffie and Vincent. They're secret characters, missable if you don't explore or if you don't make the right choices, and that alone turns them into playground myths and forum obsession.
Yuffie feels like chaos in human form—greedy, cocky, fast-talking—yet her energy is exactly what makes the party feel alive, like this isn't a clean heroic team, it's a bunch of people pulled together by circumstance. Vincent is the opposite mood, quiet and haunted, like he walked out of a coffin carrying decades of regret, and the fact that you can recruit him or miss him entirely makes players feel like the world has hidden layers that don't care if you're ready or not . Because Materia lets anyone become anything, the gameplay doesn't force you into a "required healer" or "required mage," so players end up choosing party members based on who they like and who they're curious about—and that makes the bonds hit harder. Even small scenes land like punches because the game spends time making you feel those relationships forming, not just telling you the world is in danger.
And when players finally reach the parts where the world opens up, that's when the love turns into full addiction. Leaving Midgar isn't just "next area," it's that moment where people realize, oh—this is a whole planet, this is going to keep getting bigger, and there are going to be secrets everywhere. The map doesn't just expand, it invites you to get lost, and players suddenly stop rushing the story because the world keeps whispering, "Go check that corner. Go follow that road. Go see what happens if you come back later."
Then the game starts throwing in side content that feels unreal for one title: places like the Gold Saucer, goofy diversions, mini-games, optional challenges, collecting summons, hunting Enemy Skills, chasing upgrades, uncovering hidden routes—suddenly it's not only a story you finish, it's a world you live in. And the most surreal part for a lot of players is how detailed those mini-games are, because this isn't a small 2D RPG with a simple card game on the side. This is a big 3D epic, and yet it's hiding entire little "games inside the game," like Zaboru stuffed a whole arcade into one disc and just smiled.
Chocobo racing became the biggest surprise. Players walk into it thinking it'll be a quick joke, then suddenly they're dealing with stamina, speed, cornering, different chocobo types, track hazards, and that whole "one more race" addiction that hits like a drug. The atmosphere sells it too—the cheering crowd, the announcer energy, the way your chocobo actually feels like it's struggling when the stamina drains and you're screaming at the screen, "GO! GO! GO!" People start treating it like a serious side hobby: racing for prizes, chasing better results, and then realizing it connects to bigger rewards later, which makes it even more dangerous.
And it's not just chocobos. Gold Saucer alone feels like a different universe: ridiculous attractions, weird challenges, and stuff that makes you forget you're in the middle of saving the planet. You'll be doing mini-games that test timing, reflex, luck, or just pure stupidity, and then the game throws you back into heavy story like nothing happened. That contrast is part of the magic—FF7 can be grim and cinematic, then suddenly it can be playful and dumb, then right back to serious.
So players start trading rumors like playground myths in ZAGE forums: "I heard there's a super powerful summon," "I heard you can find a secret character," "I heard there's a weapon that can wipe your party," and now also, "Bro, I swear there's a way to get the best chocobo if you keep racing," or "Someone said chocobo stuff unlocks something crazy." It turns the whole community into a rumor machine, and that's when you know the game has fully infected people.
There's also Zabo-man in this world—a secret boss players can unlock before the endgame. He's genuinely strong, the kind of fight that shocks first-timers, and he wields a massive greatsword like it's weightless. When he shows up, he delivers his iconic line "You are very cool."and somehow it lands like both a joke and a threat at the same time.
The game is excellent, but the best part is the story. Players can't stop about it and by the time players reach the ending, it genuinely breaks them..
To be continue
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