Recent reviews by MIINA

This was my first platformer and i gotta say i was never too interested in the genre, but the visuals alone in this made me wanna give it a try. And let me just say, the art is absolutely stunning, i mean this is probably one of the most gorgeous and stylistic games i've ever seen, i have a love for pixel art, so this game just had me in awe. The animations, enemy designs, map designs, boss aesthetics. its such a visually striking game and i honestly cant praise the visuals enough.

As for gameplay, I enjoyed it for the most part. Some bosses were ridiculously difficult though, might be partly my fault for being kinda ass, but i felt the mechanics for some to be slightly unfair n cheap tbh. i.e the massive uncontrollable knock backs, enemy attacks mixed w unblockable projectiles, enemies attacking while flying off the screen etc. Overall this game is FRUSTRATING, like hair pulling levels of frustration sometimes, almost as if the devs purposefully made it to be as annoying and non forgiving as possible, whoever decided to add insta-killing spikes, i literally dispise u with all my heart lol.

One of my biggest gripes tho was how the game handles optional content. I’m someone who prefers 100%ing games, and trying to perfect this was an absolute nightmare. There were so many moments where I couldn’t obtain an item or missed a key moment, because I either did something unknowingly that conflicted with it or waited too long. You don’t need these to progress, but missing out on them was super annoying. For example, I spent nearly two hours fighting two bosses and got a left and right eye as my reward, only to find out I was too late to trade them in. So all that effort felt so wasted.

Another downside was how much I had to look up stuff. Figuring out certain quests was a borderline chore at times because of how cryptic n vague some of them were, plus the many obscure secrets and hidden areas that felt impossible to find on your own unless you got super lucky — like hitting a random blank wall to unlock a hidden room. It just isnt realistic and many will miss out on cool items.

I also found it quite strange how dummy linear the game wants you to go in order for you to achieve a "good" ending, it feels nearly impossible to get this ending w/o looking it up. On top of that, the "bad" ending was pretty disappointing imo. Checked out the good ending on yt and it looks 100x better, which sucks even more knowing that like 90% of the players will probably only ever see the bad one in their first run. It just doesn't make sense to me at all.

I still had a fun time overall tho. Despite the frustrating parts, many of the boss fights were still enjoyable, navigating around the map while finding new items n areas was fun, story was a bit confusing at times, but it was still extremely cool and intriguing, music was also surprisingly good aswell, and I’ll honestly never forget how gorgeous the art is. This game definitely has its issues tho, and i honestly just wish they didn't make this game so purposefully frustrating and punishing for the average player, but ig that's just the way it is 7.5/10

I’ve tried playing this a few times over the years but never got far, think the outdated visuals just made it hard to stay immersed. I was pretty familiar with the story/characters, and knew how amazing the game was supposed to be, but I rlly couldnt stay invested for too long. I gave it another shot with some modern mods—mainly using visual upgrades and a new voice acting mod. and man it completely changed the experience for me. It really brought out the best of FF7 and really made me see just how great the game really is, the upscaled visuals make the game absolutely stunning, the Nomura based Ninostyle models are fking awesome, and the voice acting mod brought so much more character and charm to it all. Coupled with an FPS mod, and you’re quite literally playing the remaster everybody always wanted. If you’re a FF7 fan and haven’t tried it with modernised mods, you are genuinely missing out. It’s a whole new experience, and frankly better in nearly every way.

Mods aside though, I was pretty amazed by just how great everything was, especially for its time—the crazy world building, the super fun materia/combat system, the charming characters, the compelling story, and of course, the incredible music. As someone whose new to JRPGs, i feel this was such an amazing introduction to the genre, and definitely made me look forward to playing more in the future. (Im looking at u chrono trigger)

If you’ve ever struggled to get into this game, or are just a fan in general, I really recommend giving it another go with some up to date mods, but either way still an amazing game that was definitely wayy ahead of its time. This over remake any day of the week 10/10.