8 ms·

Final Fantasy VII is available on Steam

81 points by ValentineC 13y ago

lmm 13y ago
I still have my original discs but it's such a pain getting it to run on anything newer than WinME that I'd given up trying to play it. Is the rendering performance OK? Are the movies intact? Do you get the choral music that was only accessible to people who had a creative card with soundfont support? Also, this reminds me of several video gaming magazine jokes: Character Booster – Find yourself stuck on a difficult section or lacking the funds to buy that vital Phoenix Down? With the Character Booster you can increase your HP, MP and Gil levels to their maximum, all with the simple click of a button, leaving you to enjoy your adventure.
- Torn 13y ago
  The music is the same as Enix's old version, i.e. MIDI and not nearly as good as the original PSX music. There's a mod for that though - google Ficedula's music patch
  - thezoid 13y ago
    Did Enix do the original PC port? That would be kinda weird since, Square and Enix were competitors at the time. Guess the use of MIDI is what you do when the hardware doesn't for sure come with support for redbook audio.
    - neverm0re 13y ago
      Actually, the PSX version of FFVII is /sampled and sequenced/ (like a surprising chunk of PSX music) from a Roland SC-88 MIDI module and part of the reason why a lot of video game music enthusiasts found the PC port of it interesting was because of the Yamaha XG support, an extension of General MIDI that was competing against Roland's GS extensions. It had nothing to do with a 'lack of redbook', especially given the PC port shipped on disc and no one was releasing stuff on floppies anymore. It simply was common for Japanese computer games to support MIDI modules, even into the late 90s. They kept at it longer than Sierra!
    - dclowd9901 13y ago
      The original PC port was done by Eidos, actually. Even weirder for the time (when Eidos was primarily pumping out Tomb Raider games).
  - jMyles 13y ago
    Pretty sure you meant Eidos, not Enix.
rcruzeiro 13y ago
PC only? Really square? I guess it would be really difficult to port those amazing, cut-edge graphics to opengl...
- toyg 13y ago
  I guess the business plan was something like "let's make this old win32 code run on win7 and ship the fucker", rather than any well-thought-out long-term effort...
  - seferphier 13y ago
    "and print money!"
- cosarara97 13y ago
  s/PC/Windows
- asb 13y ago
  Apparently it works pretty well on WINE http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=26490 http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId...
- zokier 13y ago
  Yes, it would be quite significant effort.
- frankcaron 13y ago
  This PC version was actually released over a decade ago; it's pretty ghetto and old. That said, it Wine-wraps decently. The same treatment was given to FFVIII, as well, so it likely won't be long before it joins its predecessor on the Steam store (its appearance leaked in the registry moons ago).
donutdan4114 13y ago
My all-time favorite game. Got it for PC in 1997, and it changed my life.
- alinajaf 13y ago
  Yep. I'm perpetually waiting for square to get their shit together and just give us what we want: A frame-by-frame remake with PS4 generation graphics.
  - Cthulhu_ 13y ago
    But is it really what you want? What you want is to relive that experience; a full-on PS4-style graphics remake will change the whole experience. It'll be a game with the same characters, environments, story and basic gameplay, but the feel of it will be completely different. I run a FFVII-based fansite (thelifestream.net, [/plug]), and the general consensus of the community there is that while a full FFVII remake would be nice, it would generally be criticized by the original fanbase, no matter how awesome they make it, simply because it's not the same game anymore. For an example of the only full-on remake Square ever did of one of their older titles, you could look at FFIII on the DS, remaking a 2d, sprite-based game into a 3D one. Of course, FFIII doesn't have nearly the fanbase of VII so there were less tears on the internet over it.
    - EpicEng 13y ago
      I would love a full remake. While they're at it they can remake Chrono Trigger (my all-time favorite) and FFIII (VI) as well.
- KeliNorth 13y ago
  Ditto. Ditto. For emphasis. Thank you for liking FF7. It's been a fad for the past 5-10 years for people to say "I don't know why everybody likes it, it wasn't that great." They are not correct. The only game I've played through more times is Ocarina of Time - I rarely replay games, especially very long ones. Especially more than twice. FF7 has been the only exception. I didn't have a psx, couldn't afford it back then, but I had a PC and got the PC version shortly after it had come out. It was my first FF game. Stories like to have heroes, give them flaws, mess with them, and then miraculously help them win. The monomyth/hero's journey being the framework. I don't know if any FF messed with their main character as much as Cloud. Well, they were on a streak after FF6 (Female protagonist who was definitely different from not just other games, but even her fellow party members... man they had good writing) The guy was messed up. Very bad things happened to him. Many times. People died, and not just for shock value. Some of it has been overhyped, and so the backlash against overhype has caused too many people to rate it lower than it deserves. Others expect too great of things and are disappointed when FF7 doesn't floor them - after all, they are told the title is one of the best RPGs of all time. It is, but it's impossible to look at it nowadays without already having an expectation in mind. Back then, when we were still young and living off RPGs after school, some fantastic games were made. Some, like FF7 and Xenogears and Chrono Trigger were life-altering. These are the reasons why I want to work as a creator. They are the reasons why I love good entertainment and good writing. They established the tropes. They get a pass on having the tropes used against them. Man, I always feel like writing a treatise when FF7 crops up. I loved the game, but I was never a full-on fanatic of it. It just deserves some love for it's age.
wjoe 13y ago
Does this still use Square's DRM, or is it all handled by Steam now? I was playing the re-release through Wine on Linux last year, but the DRM workarounds made it activate as a new PC each time it started. Since it has an activation limit, I got locked out after a few launches.
- Shish2k 13y ago
  Relatedly, does it use Square's "Cloud Saves" (ho ho ho)? I've got the square version, but it was largely unplayable because you when the cloud servers are down / timing out (as was the case 9 times out of 10), the load / save functionality would be disabled (can't even load or save local files :-/). And then after playing for ~20 hours, the game decided to overwrite my save file with a cloud backup from ~19 hours ago...
  - dkersten 13y ago
    It does, but you can turn it on/off. Its off by default.
Shish2k 13y ago
Still waiting for a proper HD rerelease - fans have already hacked the game to load high-res character models / sprites / menus / etc; but it looks silly with 1080p characters wandering round a 320p world :( How hard can it be to re-render an already-created CG scene with a few more pixels?
- archangel_one 13y ago
  Quite hard, because all the backgrounds are bitmaps. It's an unfortunate era for that - Final Fantasy X looks fantastic on a modern system, because it can be rerendered at higher resolution.
  - dclowd9901 13y ago
    I don't think he means from the consumer end, I think he means that Square certainly has the CG models sitting around somewhere and can re-render those backgrounds for an HD version. But why sell your best horse when people will gladly buy the hobbled one?
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  - Shish2k 13y ago
    Personally I've always thought that it was number of details rather than pixels which counts - in that sense a 320p game where every pixel is hand-drawn with deliberate care would beat a modern game where all 1080 pixels are full of the same "generic explosive barrel" model copy/pasted 50 times :P In my retroactively ideal world, Square would have had had the foresight to render FFVII at 1080p and downscale at runtime for the playstation - then even today, 15 years later, we could load the game up in an emulator and unlock enough detail to max out a modern HD display.
- mariusmg 13y ago
  If the FFX/FFX-2 remake will sell, i'm sure they also do VII. The problem with these remakes is that the original assets are in crappy resolutions so they'll basically have to remake everything. And that takes time. And Square is not exactly known as being a efficient company.....
sergiotapia 13y ago
Why are they charging so much for such an old game?
- Cthulhu_ 13y ago
  Simple: because people are willing to pay for it. People pay fortunes for vintage toys because their parents got rid of them two+ decades ago and they want to relive their youth and have expendable income. Similarly, people want to relive their youth from 15-20 years ago with video games, and are willing to re-buy a version of the game that runs on modern-day systems. Re-releases of old / 'vintage' video games are quite popular on Steam, allowing the owners of the rights of said games to sell them again with relatively small investments. This also happens on modern consoles (PSN on the PS3, etc), which no longer have backwards compatibility, so that the game manufacturers port the game to modern systems (at minimal investment) and sell them again. Optionally rendering the game at a higher resolution and calling it a HD re-release.
- lmm 13y ago
  A nontrivial number of people consider it to be the best game of all time. If you compare to other media there are plenty of old books or music albums that sell at full price.
- EpicEng 13y ago
  I have always loved (J)RPG's. I tend to think of them more as great books than simple games. Graphical quality is typically not of much importance for us who love this sort of game. Old or not, it is a great game, and we'll pay for it.
frankcaron 13y ago
FYI: The Steam version of the game still has a phone-home, always-online DRM which requires you to maintain connectivity in order to play. This is not the standard Steam DRM.
- Sprint 13y ago
  I was about to buy Chrono Trigger for my Android the other day but luckily I read through reviews before. It too requires an online authentication at least at every start. I passed.
  - myko 13y ago
    Yeah this screwed me. I bought it right when it came out and planned to play it on a long flight. Mind numbingly stupid DRM for a mobile device.
  - EpicEng 13y ago
    And, in an attempt to secure their software, they push people into the arms of emulation and easy to find, DRM-free, ROMs. Bafflingly short sighted, as usual.
- kiiski 13y ago
  Still? I bought the game from Square a few months ago, and it works perfectly without internet connection. I don't know about this Steam version though.
- gordaco 13y ago
  Thank you, this is the information I was looking for. They won't have my money, then. Why is it so difficult to do GOG-like releases? I would buy things like this with my eyes closed.
hansbogert 13y ago
Ow c'mon Steam, you were on your way to support Linux so well -- windows only :(
- omni 13y ago
  Valve had literally zero input into this decision, so direct your frustration at Square Enix instead.
radikalus 13y ago
I remember when the demo for FF7 was released alongside Brave Fencer; I think I played that demo alone 50+ times. Completely changed my expectations on how immersive/cinematic/emotive games could be.
- gpcz 13y ago
  Wasn't FF8 released along Brave Fencer Musashi?
  - radikalus 13y ago
    Good call -- it WAS totally tobal #1.
- EpicEng 13y ago
  The demo was released with Tobal No.1, not Musashi. I also played the crap out of that demo. It was amazing for its time having just come from the SNES.
  - lmm 13y ago
    It's funny how we remember the games from the early years of a console over the more polished final ones, even when trying to choose "best of all time". Perfect Dark improved on Goldeneye in every way, but rarely makes such lists (and similarly with Majora's Mask). FF6 and Chrono Trigger were stunning, pushing the SNES far further than one would have imagined possible - but it's FF4 you hear people rave about. And sacrilegious as it may seem, I think FF9 actually improved on 7 - but it's far less remembered than that first, stumbling foray into 3D, FMV and all the rest of it.
    - radikalus 13y ago
      I think is a pretty common psychological tendency, no? It's like more about the derivative (delta/improvement) of quality, the velocity of the game relative to previous efforts not its actual position in space.
markolschesky 13y ago
Remember how the original PC version always crashed at the chocobo races if you tried running it on Windows XP? I remember being so bummed about that until someone released a patch for it on the internet. What did we do before automatic game patches?

81 points by ValentineC 13y ago

lmm 13y ago

I still have my original discs but it's such a pain getting it to run on anything newer than WinME that I'd given up trying to play it. Is the rendering performance OK? Are the movies intact? Do you get the choral music that was only accessible to people who had a creative card with soundfont support? Also, this reminds me of several video gaming magazine jokes: Character Booster – Find yourself stuck on a difficult section or lacking the funds to buy that vital Phoenix Down? With the Character Booster you can increase your HP, MP and Gil levels to their maximum, all with the simple click of a button, leaving you to enjoy your adventure.

Torn 13y ago
The music is the same as Enix's old version, i.e. MIDI and not nearly as good as the original PSX music. There's a mod for that though - google Ficedula's music patch
- thezoid 13y ago
  Did Enix do the original PC port? That would be kinda weird since, Square and Enix were competitors at the time. Guess the use of MIDI is what you do when the hardware doesn't for sure come with support for redbook audio.
  - neverm0re 13y ago
    Actually, the PSX version of FFVII is /sampled and sequenced/ (like a surprising chunk of PSX music) from a Roland SC-88 MIDI module and part of the reason why a lot of video game music enthusiasts found the PC port of it interesting was because of the Yamaha XG support, an extension of General MIDI that was competing against Roland's GS extensions. It had nothing to do with a 'lack of redbook', especially given the PC port shipped on disc and no one was releasing stuff on floppies anymore. It simply was common for Japanese computer games to support MIDI modules, even into the late 90s. They kept at it longer than Sierra!
  - dclowd9901 13y ago
    The original PC port was done by Eidos, actually. Even weirder for the time (when Eidos was primarily pumping out Tomb Raider games).
- jMyles 13y ago
  Pretty sure you meant Eidos, not Enix.

rcruzeiro 13y ago

PC only? Really square? I guess it would be really difficult to port those amazing, cut-edge graphics to opengl...

toyg 13y ago
I guess the business plan was something like "let's make this old win32 code run on win7 and ship the fucker", rather than any well-thought-out long-term effort...
- seferphier 13y ago
  "and print money!"
cosarara97 13y ago
s/PC/Windows
asb 13y ago
Apparently it works pretty well on WINE http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=26490 http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId...
zokier 13y ago
Yes, it would be quite significant effort.
frankcaron 13y ago
This PC version was actually released over a decade ago; it's pretty ghetto and old. That said, it Wine-wraps decently. The same treatment was given to FFVIII, as well, so it likely won't be long before it joins its predecessor on the Steam store (its appearance leaked in the registry moons ago).

donutdan4114 13y ago

My all-time favorite game. Got it for PC in 1997, and it changed my life.

alinajaf 13y ago
Yep. I'm perpetually waiting for square to get their shit together and just give us what we want: A frame-by-frame remake with PS4 generation graphics.
- Cthulhu_ 13y ago
  But is it really what you want? What you want is to relive that experience; a full-on PS4-style graphics remake will change the whole experience. It'll be a game with the same characters, environments, story and basic gameplay, but the feel of it will be completely different. I run a FFVII-based fansite (thelifestream.net, [/plug]), and the general consensus of the community there is that while a full FFVII remake would be nice, it would generally be criticized by the original fanbase, no matter how awesome they make it, simply because it's not the same game anymore. For an example of the only full-on remake Square ever did of one of their older titles, you could look at FFIII on the DS, remaking a 2d, sprite-based game into a 3D one. Of course, FFIII doesn't have nearly the fanbase of VII so there were less tears on the internet over it.
  - EpicEng 13y ago
    I would love a full remake. While they're at it they can remake Chrono Trigger (my all-time favorite) and FFIII (VI) as well.
KeliNorth 13y ago
Ditto. Ditto. For emphasis. Thank you for liking FF7. It's been a fad for the past 5-10 years for people to say "I don't know why everybody likes it, it wasn't that great." They are not correct. The only game I've played through more times is Ocarina of Time - I rarely replay games, especially very long ones. Especially more than twice. FF7 has been the only exception. I didn't have a psx, couldn't afford it back then, but I had a PC and got the PC version shortly after it had come out. It was my first FF game. Stories like to have heroes, give them flaws, mess with them, and then miraculously help them win. The monomyth/hero's journey being the framework. I don't know if any FF messed with their main character as much as Cloud. Well, they were on a streak after FF6 (Female protagonist who was definitely different from not just other games, but even her fellow party members... man they had good writing) The guy was messed up. Very bad things happened to him. Many times. People died, and not just for shock value. Some of it has been overhyped, and so the backlash against overhype has caused too many people to rate it lower than it deserves. Others expect too great of things and are disappointed when FF7 doesn't floor them - after all, they are told the title is one of the best RPGs of all time. It is, but it's impossible to look at it nowadays without already having an expectation in mind. Back then, when we were still young and living off RPGs after school, some fantastic games were made. Some, like FF7 and Xenogears and Chrono Trigger were life-altering. These are the reasons why I want to work as a creator. They are the reasons why I love good entertainment and good writing. They established the tropes. They get a pass on having the tropes used against them. Man, I always feel like writing a treatise when FF7 crops up. I loved the game, but I was never a full-on fanatic of it. It just deserves some love for it's age.

wjoe 13y ago

Does this still use Square's DRM, or is it all handled by Steam now? I was playing the re-release through Wine on Linux last year, but the DRM workarounds made it activate as a new PC each time it started. Since it has an activation limit, I got locked out after a few launches.

Shish2k 13y ago
Relatedly, does it use Square's "Cloud Saves" (ho ho ho)? I've got the square version, but it was largely unplayable because you when the cloud servers are down / timing out (as was the case 9 times out of 10), the load / save functionality would be disabled (can't even load or save local files :-/). And then after playing for ~20 hours, the game decided to overwrite my save file with a cloud backup from ~19 hours ago...
- dkersten 13y ago
  It does, but you can turn it on/off. Its off by default.

Shish2k 13y ago

Still waiting for a proper HD rerelease - fans have already hacked the game to load high-res character models / sprites / menus / etc; but it looks silly with 1080p characters wandering round a 320p world :( How hard can it be to re-render an already-created CG scene with a few more pixels?

archangel_one 13y ago
Quite hard, because all the backgrounds are bitmaps. It's an unfortunate era for that - Final Fantasy X looks fantastic on a modern system, because it can be rerendered at higher resolution.
- dclowd9901 13y ago
  I don't think he means from the consumer end, I think he means that Square certainly has the CG models sitting around somewhere and can re-render those backgrounds for an HD version. But why sell your best horse when people will gladly buy the hobbled one?
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- Shish2k 13y ago
  Personally I've always thought that it was number of details rather than pixels which counts - in that sense a 320p game where every pixel is hand-drawn with deliberate care would beat a modern game where all 1080 pixels are full of the same "generic explosive barrel" model copy/pasted 50 times :P In my retroactively ideal world, Square would have had had the foresight to render FFVII at 1080p and downscale at runtime for the playstation - then even today, 15 years later, we could load the game up in an emulator and unlock enough detail to max out a modern HD display.
mariusmg 13y ago
If the FFX/FFX-2 remake will sell, i'm sure they also do VII. The problem with these remakes is that the original assets are in crappy resolutions so they'll basically have to remake everything. And that takes time. And Square is not exactly known as being a efficient company.....

sergiotapia 13y ago

Why are they charging so much for such an old game?

Cthulhu_ 13y ago
Simple: because people are willing to pay for it. People pay fortunes for vintage toys because their parents got rid of them two+ decades ago and they want to relive their youth and have expendable income. Similarly, people want to relive their youth from 15-20 years ago with video games, and are willing to re-buy a version of the game that runs on modern-day systems. Re-releases of old / 'vintage' video games are quite popular on Steam, allowing the owners of the rights of said games to sell them again with relatively small investments. This also happens on modern consoles (PSN on the PS3, etc), which no longer have backwards compatibility, so that the game manufacturers port the game to modern systems (at minimal investment) and sell them again. Optionally rendering the game at a higher resolution and calling it a HD re-release.
lmm 13y ago
A nontrivial number of people consider it to be the best game of all time. If you compare to other media there are plenty of old books or music albums that sell at full price.
EpicEng 13y ago
I have always loved (J)RPG's. I tend to think of them more as great books than simple games. Graphical quality is typically not of much importance for us who love this sort of game. Old or not, it is a great game, and we'll pay for it.

frankcaron 13y ago

FYI: The Steam version of the game still has a phone-home, always-online DRM which requires you to maintain connectivity in order to play. This is not the standard Steam DRM.

Sprint 13y ago
I was about to buy Chrono Trigger for my Android the other day but luckily I read through reviews before. It too requires an online authentication at least at every start. I passed.
- myko 13y ago
  Yeah this screwed me. I bought it right when it came out and planned to play it on a long flight. Mind numbingly stupid DRM for a mobile device.
- EpicEng 13y ago
  And, in an attempt to secure their software, they push people into the arms of emulation and easy to find, DRM-free, ROMs. Bafflingly short sighted, as usual.
kiiski 13y ago
Still? I bought the game from Square a few months ago, and it works perfectly without internet connection. I don't know about this Steam version though.
gordaco 13y ago
Thank you, this is the information I was looking for. They won't have my money, then. Why is it so difficult to do GOG-like releases? I would buy things like this with my eyes closed.

hansbogert 13y ago

Ow c'mon Steam, you were on your way to support Linux so well -- windows only :(

omni 13y ago
Valve had literally zero input into this decision, so direct your frustration at Square Enix instead.

radikalus 13y ago

I remember when the demo for FF7 was released alongside Brave Fencer; I think I played that demo alone 50+ times. Completely changed my expectations on how immersive/cinematic/emotive games could be.

gpcz 13y ago
Wasn't FF8 released along Brave Fencer Musashi?
- radikalus 13y ago
  Good call -- it WAS totally tobal #1.
EpicEng 13y ago
The demo was released with Tobal No.1, not Musashi. I also played the crap out of that demo. It was amazing for its time having just come from the SNES.
- lmm 13y ago
  It's funny how we remember the games from the early years of a console over the more polished final ones, even when trying to choose "best of all time". Perfect Dark improved on Goldeneye in every way, but rarely makes such lists (and similarly with Majora's Mask). FF6 and Chrono Trigger were stunning, pushing the SNES far further than one would have imagined possible - but it's FF4 you hear people rave about. And sacrilegious as it may seem, I think FF9 actually improved on 7 - but it's far less remembered than that first, stumbling foray into 3D, FMV and all the rest of it.
  - radikalus 13y ago
    I think is a pretty common psychological tendency, no? It's like more about the derivative (delta/improvement) of quality, the velocity of the game relative to previous efforts not its actual position in space.

markolschesky 13y ago

Remember how the original PC version always crashed at the chocobo races if you tried running it on Windows XP? I remember being so bummed about that until someone released a patch for it on the internet. What did we do before automatic game patches?