#2 Final Fantasy VII

As many of you may be able to tell from my list, RPG's are my favorite genre of video game. And if there is one RPG that I wold pick from my collection to play again, it would be FFVII! For those of you unfamiliar with the RPG (Role Playing Game) format, I'll explain it to you. In RPG's, you take control of a group of players, mostly ranging from at least 3 to maybe 5 at a time, and travel over a world trying to destroy some sort of evil force that has ravaged your planet. The battles are "turn-based" which means that you and the enemy take turns attacking. This type of fighting style forces you to get a strategy. You must successfully juggle commands such as standard fighting, magic spells, and items to win. FFVII, while using all of the above standards, also innovates and brings something new to the table in each new installment of the series. Final Fantasy II brought in "Summoning." These are powerful magic spells that "summon" another monster or entity to attack the enemy. These kinds of spells can range from healing your party, attacking an individual enemy, or unleashing a barrage of cosmic energy to totally desimate all of your opponents! While summoning monsters has become a staple of FF, FFVII brings in two more innovations. Limit breaks and materia. Limit breaks are a form of special attack that each character can perform after being damaged to a certain degree. As the game progresses, you learn new and more powerful limit breaks. The only catch is, it takes more damage to activate them as you rise higher and higher in levels. In order to acquire every character's Ultimate Limit Break however, you must do or find or buy certain things. For example, Tifa's Ultimate Limit Break can be found if you got to her home and play certain notes on her piano. Materia is the new magic system FFVII uses. Materia are items that you "plug into" your weapons and armor, giving you that spell and all of it's benefits (for example, putting a "fire" materia on your sword may give your sword fire-like attributes!). In order to maximize your character's performance, you must raise materia levels and give your characters their optimal combinations. FFVII is a great RPG! It's long, involving story truly draws you into it's HUGE world. Even after you travel the entire surface of the planet, you can still explore the ocena depths in a submarine! There is no end to the secrets, exploration, and FUN found in FFVII!

RATING Graphics: 9 Control: 10 Extras: 10 Camera: N/A Game Play: 10 Originality: 10 Re-Playability: 5 Over-all: 9.0 EXCELLENT

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Final Fantasy VII Hint #1 Item duplication. Obtain the w-item materia from below Midgar. Using the w-item materia allows a character to use two items in one turn during battle. There is a trick in using the w-item materia that duplicates items! However, there is a catch: you must have at least 2 of the item you want to duplicate! During battle, while using the w-item materia, select the item you want to duplicate and use it. You immediatly are given the option to select another item to use. Again, select the item you want to duplicate, but DONT use it! Cancel your selection. Continue to select and deselect the item. You should notice your number of items increase by 1 each time you cancel your selection. Go all the way to 99!

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There's a big world out there!

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Final Fantasy is a TM and (c) of Square Soft, Inc. Thanks to videogames.com for the images.