Only a few minor complaints – FINAL FANTASY VII Review

Still worthy of 5 stars for a few reasons although there were a couple minor "cosmetic glitches" that I'll point out at the end of this review. First, the ability to seemlessly switch between analog or d-pad control, the major graphical improvements over the original PC version I grew up with 20+ years ago, and how fluid the game play was on my iPhone SE were all high points. The game looks amazing compared to the original versions. I only played it on PC prior to this and had to use the clunky arrow keys back then to navigate. The analog control was perfect for moving around, the D-pad option was perfect for menus and battles. Then for entering the safe combination to acquire Vincent, switching to D-pad is necessary and quite doable. iCloud saving is a great addition. Auto saving is *probably* a great addition for new players but I never used it once in my 90 hours of playtime so far. I was disapproving of the "encounters off" button at first, but once I got to a certain point it became useful for toggling on to avoid the random counters when revisiting areas with low level encounters. I disapprove of the "max stats" button as I fear that new players will potentially abuse it early on and ruin the experience entirely. I think that using this feature at ANY point in the game is just shameful and thus pretended the option did not exist. Now for the minor "cosmetic glitches" 1) The Highwind glitch where you tell the pilot to fly, and instead of the screen going black and transferring to the world map like usual, it occasionally goes black and transfers right back into the Highwind. Simply talking to the pilot again takes you to the world map to fly around just fine. This glitch doesn't happen every time and not even very often, and never twice in a row, but still a minor nuisance. 2) Don't know why but in the main room for chocobo race registration, there is a slight bit of lag / low fps. It's not that bad and not a big deal, it's the only place in the game where this happens and luckily you're not really moving around when you're in this room, but still worth mentioning. 3) A few times during my playthrough while navigating the overworld, the screen flickered black very briefly. Hardly noticeable and if I blinked I could have missed it, but still worth mentioning. But that's it. This was amazing and amazing looking port. Controls and visuals were both smooth and clean, even on the iPhone SE with it's tiny screen. Worth every penny!
Review by Blake E. Ireland on FINAL FANTASY VII.