Johnny vs. Final Fantasy VII 

When you date Aerith at the Gold Saucer, she confesses to Cloud that she originally saw Zack in him, but later came to like him for who he was.

While Aerith dying didn’t have as big of an impact on me as it did others, Yknow what broke me a bit? That moment on the airship where red goes “although she’s not here, she left us a window of opportunity…” and it just plays aeriths theme. Damn that was good

Johnny: Skip to 35:21 to avoid spoilers Also Johnny: 36:02 *Aerith's Death Scene*

Sephiroth Supernova could kill you in the Japanese version it was changed everywhere because a 2 minute cutscene attack that might kill you isn’t fun

Popped that '06 cherry and now we're getting multiple longbois. Welcome to the dark side, we're eating tonight gamers

Not gonna lie, the Cloud, "good job team!" moment got a pretty big laugh out of me.

I honestly think Johnny is like the ONLY person whose sponsorships I dont skip. The voice and the humor are what do it for me

"1997, that was a magical year for me and a lot of other people" Given that I was born in '97, I'd have to agree with that statement lol

One of the biggest games in history, being covered by Johnny this feels like a landmark event

Johnny did it again as he made another video that surpassed the run time of his Sonic '06 review. This was my first Final Fantasy game and I remember that I had to sell a few games in order to get the Greatest Hits version of the game. It deserved that label because it was a critical and commercial success unlike other games on the PS1 that got the label because they were commercial successes and not critical and commercial successes.

The only thing that can make me enjoy watching an hour-long review of a game I've never played is the passionate commentary of a man like Johnny.

The influence this game had on gaming was crazy.

“Never thought I’d see the day…” Just kidding. Ready for another solid video from the resident RPG guy.

I love how we just get a sort of running gag with some of these FF reviews, like FF4 gets the Jameson laugh and here we get random Aerith captions

I like that Lewis takes parts of the review itself without being too distracting or taking away the focus from Johnny.

Whoever did the edited bits with Aerith and the cutesy text sprinkled throughout the video needs a goddamn raise. Stat. Yes, even if it's Johnny. He should give HIMSELF a raise. EDIT: Oh, it was Lewis. You did god's work, Lewis. You should tell John to give you a raise.

9:47 - Johnny of all the analogies you have used, I think this might be the one where I'm left speechless. Congratulations.

Lewis was definitely having fun role-playing as Aerith whenever she shows up. Also, when Aerith dies "Goddammit!" Edit:The "R" word that Tifa uses during the stair climb is still there in the re-releases.

I only played FF7 last year (caught Covid and needed something to pass the time) and I was initially a bit wary because I didn't think turn-based games were really my thing, but boy did I fall in love with this game. I can't think of a single moment, song, boss fight or location that I didn't like throughout my entire playtime, and I still listen to the soundtrack as much as I can. Tifa's theme still manages to bring a tear to my eye at times

I remember when it came out, I had never played a Final Fantasy game. A friend in high school had the strategy guide and I looked at the back, which had all the characters on it. I thought, “Look at this ragtag bunch of weirdos. I wonder what their story is.” Bought a PS1 and FFVII a month later and ended up maxing out the timer. Loved every second of it.

29:06 "You always remember your first time" I feel that this can apply to the Tales series as well, specifically Tales of Symphonia. All those twists and turns it throws at you, it leaves everyone who's never played a Tales game before so shocked and thinking, "holy crap"

"This is the hardest round of Smash or Pass Ever" I don't know why but that made me laugh out loud harder than it should have

Please continue the marathon, Johnny! It’s been 2 years and we’re still waiting.

I actually just bought tickets to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra to hear them play FFVII Remake World Tour. Johnny dropping this video today is a sign that it was the right decision

“Never thought I’d see the day” -Cloud

Well here we are, Final Fantasy VII, The absolute big one, I'm still liking this review already before I'm actually watching this.

I think what was the most heartbreaking about Aerith's death wasn't her death itself but the music and how the scene was directed: the theme starts as the materia bounces off the ground and somehow that little detail really chokes me up.

I love seeing Johnny make long reviews these days, because you know he’s not talking about a game he can’t stand, but a game he loves.

I have to rant a bit on comparing Aerith's death to the previous deaths in the Final Fantasy games. Aerith's death was significantly different from those. Characters like Galuf and Tellah were old men who valiantly sacrificed their lives for the greater good (I know Tellah didn't kill Golbez but he at least freed Kain from the mind control for a bit). In Tellah's case, his demise was pretty telegraphed. There was a big, dramatic fanfare with their departure. And they were cradled in the arms of their comrades as they crocked out their final words. Their deaths were very "Hollywood" so to speak. Aerith was a young woman around the age of 20 (so unlike the ones before, she didn't get to live a full life). It wasn't telegraphed in the slightest. It wasn't a valiant sacrifice for the greater good (she would have been able to summon Holy whether alive or dead and her choice to face Sephiroth alone was ultimately a grossly poor choice). It wasn't a spectacular death and in fact is chillingly mundane (it's basically the fantasy equivalent of someone sneaking up behind you and shanking you). And there are chance for parting words. She's here one moment, than the next she's gone. I think that's the real significance of the way Aerith died compared to what came before. There's no fanfare or spectacle happening there. It's just a sudden, unfair tragedy that's much closer to how death happens most of the time in the real world compared to the usual "Hollywood Deaths" we usually see in media. (I know those Hollywood-esque deaths DO sometimes happen in real life, but they are a lot more rare than our media landscape would have you believe).

I love clicking on a video about a game which means a lot to Johnny, let’s us know we’re in for something special

I replayed final fantasy 7 for the first time in 8 years in preparation of this video and I do not regret it. The game felt so different from when I was a kid. I love the story now more than ever and cloud is now my favorite to final fantasy protagonist because of the shear depth and development he gets. I'm so thankful that I was able to experience and relate to everything that you mentioned about this game in your video and I feel you did an amazing job with this review.

Even as a non-fan of this series, I think these have been great videos for Final Fantasy. This one and VI both really conveyed the personal attachment, in the way that you can hear the passion for these games. Also wanna give a shoutout to Lewis' editing, especially with his comments through Aerith.

6:57 oh my god, the rest theme. i didn't expect that to be the music piece used for your spoiler warning, but man, that song gave me the biggest smile on my face

To me, the way the love triangle works is: when Cloud thinks he is Zack, he’d love Aerith - when cloud remembers his true self, he’d love Tifa. And the game does let you play it that way to get that moment with Tifa near the end. It’s best of both worlds

23:38 For the longest time, fans theorized that there was no blood because Sephiroth's sword is the Masamune, a blade that is said to be unable to cut/bleed the innocent or undeserving. Then Rebirth came along and just confirms that it was technological limitations :V

As someone who played the Remake as my first Final Fantasy and then jumped into the original, it was absolutely stellar. FFVII is a wonderful time even for a modern gamer

To me, Final Fantasy VII and Pokemon Red & Blue were the one-two punch that opened the mainstream in the west to JRPG’s. Sure, there had been other great RPG’s before these two, but none of them had garnered the massive amount of attention and imagination from western mainstream media and gamers alike until these two games came out.

Ah FF7...one of the let's plays on SGB that sadly got cut early thanks to COVID ruining it. I wonder if there has been anymore talk or development of Johnny and the guys going back to finishing that game (as well as Saints Row 2 and Spiderman 2) via discord chat during like they planned too during their farewell video from behind the scenes? I hope they didn't forget that...

7:12 Hey, that’s a Titan A.E. reference!

I loved Lewis' little annotations for Aerith, they were great.

Man it is fucking insane how much Square popped off in the 90s. FFIV, FFVI, Chrono Trigger, Xenogears, FFVIII (people don't hold it in as high regard as VII but I still think it's cool), etc. Classics that have all withstood the test of time as genre defining RPGs.

I gotta give you props for explaining the convoluted story in this game. I get it now as an adult, but when I played this back in the day, I had no idea what was going on.

Speaking as someone who played a bunch of the FFs before I played FFVII, I think the reason Aerith's death hit hard back then (and still does to this day) is that it was the first time people had seen a fully fledged main character die mid-story in a high profile video game. Aerith had a likeable personality (my favorite of FFVII), was fully customizable, and had her own distinct niche in the party so there was NO indicator she was going to die, adding to the shock and sadness. The only FF playable character western audiences knew of who died before then was well... Tellah. Aerith's death and how well it's handled (the party mourns, there's frequent callbacks to her, and her leitmotif still plays at some parts throughout the game) is one of my favorite things about FFVII.

I can't wait for Johnny to do Final Fantasy 8 I don't think he has ever played it until the end.

So many nights I stayed up as a kid and fell asleep playing this game. Great review man. Sent me back to my childhood and back to our Livestreams. Nostalgic stuff

You really need more subs. Laughed out loud several times during this video. Props to Lewis for the brilliant editing here as well. Can;t wait for the FFX vid next year

Another amazing video essay. I could listen to you talk about ANYTHING with your lovely voice. If you ever (somehow) run out of video topics, I wouldn't mind several long videos about character or location analysis....

Sonic 06: At least only Final Fantasy 6 surpassed me. Final Fantasy 7: Let’s dance, asshole!

As expected, another really long video from Johnny, and on one of the biggest games in the planet. It'll be interesting to see how this video goes, as someone who came from Remake first since I grew up on the N64 instead and didn't get to experience this back then.

I can relate to Aerith's death moment not being monumental. Growing up in the era, it felt like people were far more interested about bringing her back to life than her actually dying. The death that struck me the hardest was in another FF and it felt completely unexpected due to when it took place in the story.

I can't overstate how important Final Fantasy VII is to me. I didn't play even half of it when I was growing up, but it was so beyond any fiction I experienced at the age of 10, that it was mind blowing. Like the most serious fiction I got into before that time was...honestly, Power Rangers in Space. And outside of a few MTV/Fox shows and Mortal Kombat, I had seen almost nothing that wasn't kid friendly. Every single aspect of this game (barring a very basic knowledge of JRPGs from Pokemon) felt entirely new to me.

I always love any long-form FFVII video. It is actually my most favourite game ever, and I sincerely think it was where video games peaked: It was never going to get this good ever again. You made a great point in comparing the spirited characterisations as opposed to VI. What I'll never forget is Cloud's speech at the end of CD1, and the strong resolve he made to move forward even if he deeply doubts he would be logically or emotionally stable. Or the way he managed to enter a 30-minute long flashback with barely any fighting in a hotel room in a video game. That's the kind of stuff you just never see in a video game, and it's as daring today as it was daring then.

Even though I prefer VI and IX over this, I still really love and have a huge amount of respect for Final Fantasy VII. Just beat this for the first time recently and I’ll say this game still deserves a lot of the attention and praise it gets. Great story, memorable characters, fun gameplay, dated, but still groundbreaking visuals for its time, one of Nobuo Uematsu’s best soundtracks, and some of the most memorable moments in gaming history! One of the influential RPGS ever made and one of Square’s greatest achievements!

This is and probably will always be my favorite game of all time. I love the expanded universe, I love the remake, all of it. I love the story, Cloud's journey as an amazing protagonist who overcomes adversity and comes into his own as a person against all odds, most of the characters, and even if it's flawed and a bit overrated, it taught me to hold on to the ones you lose and that no one truly dies if you hold the memories you make with them in your heart forever. I had lost my grandfather a year ago and I know he'll always be with me as long as I remember the message this game imparted upon me.

Love these longer videos and hearing Johnny go into his personal past with a game and gush over his personal thoughts/mild theories about characters and thing story, reminds me of similar times when I was a kid and really takes me back

Finally, over 10 years later, he’s doing FF7

I think Aerith’s death is so effective because she never gets replaced, but her character is unique so no matter how much you try to cover the hole it’s never right, idk I knew the plot twist for years and every time I tried to cover the hurt it made me sad

I actually think the hype about the sadness of Aerith's death is derserved, especially if you've had her as a party member as much as possible, and had the date with her. It was her presence, all the time she spent with you/cloud, mixed with cloud's reaction to the death and the soundtrack playing, it all combined to be a pretty hard hitting scene. But of course there are so many sad scenes on the older FF games too, and they are also powerful

25:43 - HA! Every time that event gets referenced I can't help but laugh. VII was my first Final Fantasy and holds a nostalgic place in my heart. It's not the only game or story to do the kinds of things that it does, but for me, and for a lot of people, it was the first time we encountered anything like it. It was magical. And now I'm irrevocably attached to the world and cast.

Protip: if you have berserk status on a character, they learn their limit breaks significantly faster. I'd have over half of my party's limit breaks before even leaving Midgar.

After not surpassing his Sonic 06 review for like 9 years, he did it twice in a month. Congrats! Man, if we ever get a Persona marathon, or Johnny ever covers Record of Agarest War, we'll be sitting down to hour and a half-long reviews every month. Exciting times.

Cloud didnt take zacks personality, he took his memories of him, the storys zack told, and put himself in those, thats why he has zacks mannerisms, but not his personality. The personality he has at the start of 7, is based on clouds own idea of a badass soldier dude, parts of his own personality, and tifas idea of cloud, that got all intermingled when she met cloud at the train station because of jenova fuckery. This is why aerith got confused at first, because cloud remembered her of zack, but that he was different, and because of her ancient shenanigans knew he had issues and wanted to help him

This was my first Final Fantasy games and it still remains one of my favourites (alongside 9 and a couple of others). The soundtrack is still my favourite. I've been lucky enough to see Distant Worlds in London 4 times in the last 15 years, and it delivers every time. To hear Nobuo Uematsu's work played by a full orchestra is something amazing and I'd highly recommend it to anyone.

Being lucky enough to have experienced the death scene of Aerith during the release of FF7. Not years later, etc. So it hit me (at age 13/14) far more than anything before then - at honestly, since then. It probably helped that I was absolutely enamored with FF7 at the time - and it was largely my first straight up RPG. I had played games on the NES and PC that were similar (I went onto the Genesis after the NES) but nothing came close to the scope, depth and scale of FF7. It was truly in a league of its own, and has never been replicated since. It was at the right place, and the right time. It was literally the perfect storm.

Sephiroth has always been my favorite video game villain of all time. What makes him so special to me is how he never started out as a villain and as a good caring role model, but then he slowly goes mad as he realizes his true self, and he can mentally get inside a person’s head, hence his iconic phrase “I will never be a memory.” He is someone you don’t EVER want to fuck with.

FF7's an interesting one. I didn't grow up with the game so I have no nostalgia for it and I feel many of aspects of the game were poorly implemented or didn't age well. But what I really loved about the game was how well it was written and how much attention to detail there was. It's abundantly clear that the devs really cared about FF7 and wanted it to be a rich experience that would reward players for slowing down and paying attention and for doing repeat play throughs. Cloud in particular was a pleasant surprise since his guest cameos in other games and all the 2007 era AMV's gave me a really bad impression of him as an annoying edgelord, but in FF7 I really connected with his struggles and enjoyed how Cloud's resolve and humanity defined him. Him, along with the rest of the cast were a treat, and their story is what kept me motivated to continue playing to the very end. Personally I'm not the biggest fan of FF7, but I definitely still had fun playing the game and can appreciate how impactful and meaningful it was for people at the time. I can see why a lot of people hold the game in high regard even to this day!

Not one, but TWO reviews that surpassed the Sonic 06 review in length. Amazing.

It's amazing how the story transitions from an evil corperation doing bad things to one being becoming a god and threatening all of humanity. Literally every Persona game in a nutshell lol

Only just started the video but I wanna say that you're one of the few creators whose sponsorship I usually watch all the way through, you always do a great job of making them entertaining

This was the first Final Fantasy I LEGIT played (tried the original on Wii shop for ten minutes then gave up). While I thought FF IX was better, I understand why this game is so popular to the point of being the FF rep for Smash Bros. Maybe I should replay it in the near future.

lol The editor's note about the Beta spell is great XD I loved FF7, not as much as 6, but god. Tifa was my girl crush back in the day and still is, but now that I'm older, I can respect her as an amazing woman and I take with me her strengths when I think about her as a person. Course she hits hard~

One of the most formative games - well, stories - of my time on this Earth. It's brilliant, and I find it's aged qualities still charming. But . . . it has been diminished by Square's inability to move on from it. Yeah, it's because it's their biggest title, however between the Compilation, Remake, and how its all been boiled down to two dudes with giant swords and shipping of characters, the work just isn't special to me anymore. Like what happened to Star Wars, Jurassic Park etc. Let the past be the past

I was so excited for this review, I love hearing people's passion and happy memories of the game. I will say I always interpreted Rita's hesitation to bring up clouds. . . Inconsistent memories is because she didn't have an explanation for how Cloud even has any of those memories of an event she doesn't remember him being there for, yet a lot of his details are still right.

42:45 This alone is what made me never actually finish OG FF7 sadly. Watching supernova twice in one fight and then wiping made me not wanna bother with the fight again.

Appreciate you tackling this underrated, hidden gem! I didn't get to grow up with this game like so many did so I'll probably never get to appreciate it much the same way, but I can definitely appreciate the legacy it left behind.

I love it when Johnny uploads i always drop what im doing to watch his great vids.

29:24: “I don’t know, am I a monster?” Yes. Yes you are. The concept that not just a character, but a main character and love interest in whom there had been much narrative investment could be permanently killed off was earth-shattering. Something like Celes trying but failing to hurt herself or Shadow (not an important character) possibly dying but being saveable does not compare to Aerith’s death. Not to mention Aerith was the only person who ever cracked Cloud’s shell and got him to laugh, open up a bit, flirt, etc. Once again, Sephiroth stole Cloud’s humanity from him. It was and still is iconic.

SomecallmeJohnny, Your videos always make me happy, so I subscribed!

It's amazing that this video wasn't longer than the final fantasy VI video

Man, I absolutely love your videos and I’ll never get tired of em. You’re so well spoken and naturally funny. Now back to binging your vids lol

Such a masterpiece game it makes me sad we don't get RPGs or games on this caliber anymore. It's an experience that was one of a kind

The most Glitchy Final fantasy making the first game blush

If it wasn’t for the fact I was BORN in 97, even if I played the other 6 games, the minute I saw Aerith’s death, my reaction would have probably been a more emotional version of the lead up to Amy’s final confrontation with E-100 aka Zero

By the way, I’m looking forward to seeing Johnny’s review of Resident Evil 6 soon! I’m just hoping he doesn’t hate on it too much. I know that most people hate it, so it might happen, but I’m one of the few that loves it(no it’s not just because of the hot girls and action sequences, gonna stop you right there), it’s the story and characters personalities. I need to get the animated movies Resident Evil Degeneration and Damnation sometime too since I love 4 and 6 a lot(it sounds like they take place after and before the games respectively). The Revelations Games will be interesting to learn about too since I don’t know much about them myself.🤓👍🏻

I always loved the way Cloud interrupts Sephiroth’s villain speech after killing Aerith by just shouting at him to shut up and his text box covers Sephiroth’s. Just a nice little presentation touch that can only work that way in a text based game. Makes the moment feel so raw to me. Cloud is so pissed he’s just straight up not listening.

"You never forget your first time, especially if it involves the death of your beloved." Phrasing!

I played this game in 2021 for the first time, was absolutely floored and enjoyed my time with it. Easily a top 10 game.

35:10 I mean given how crystals in older FF where just rocks that granted powers to the heroes, materia is basically FF7 equivalent of crystals.

One of my favorite 'fun facts' about Final Fantasy VII is that things could have gone very differently. Tetsuya Takahashi and his wife (who both worked for Square at the time before founding Monolith Soft later) offered a script they had written as a proposal for Final Fantasy VII. That script was declined for being too dark (though I raise my eyebrow at that reasoning), but the project became allowed to be developed on its own. First as a potential sequel to Chrono Trigger before finally just being a completely new property initially called 'Project Noah' with a final name of Xenogears. Yeah...the Xeno series (and probably Monolith Soft itself) exists because Square declined having it as FFVII. And I am happy things turned out that way personally because I do love the Final Fantasy VII we actually got and it allowed another of my favorite RPG series of all time to be born. My favorite of the incarnations of the franchise is Xenoblade Chronicles, but I do love Xenogears and Xenosaga too (even with them not being allowed to be completed projects due to Square and Namco's respective hiccups). Tetsuya Nomura, FFVII's lead designer and the father of Kingdom Hearts, even contributed to Xenoblade Chronicles 2 with designing the characters of the Torna group.

8:52 Vince: Yeah that’s how Wedge joined. Wedge: Haha- Oh f**k me I saw too much!

We truly have came this far, haven't we folks?

One of my favorite memories is going to my local library as a kid because I didn’t have internet and using its wifi to download final fantasy 7 on my psp. I remember my mom always talking about how much she loved the game so I wanted to try it and man did it blow my mind as a 13 year old even in the 2010’s! Such a great game

I learnt a lot about FF7 by watching Tim Rogers's excellent Final Fantasy 7 translation series on Kotaku's RU-vid channel. It made me realise that the game in general is a bit more complete and polished than the sometimes-wonky PS1 translation implies it was. I think in general my opinion on the game was tainted by all the sequels, compilations, and whatever the hell Advent Children is being something I heard about before even having a chance to check out the original. Newer FF7 stuff seems to lean a lot more into 'modern Square-Enix tropes' that just frustrate me - the feeling of style over substance, and what substance there is being something that's never explained in a straightforward way. Or within the piece of media itself.

I recently beat this game for the first time last year, and I have to say: I truly did love it. The narrative, the gameplay, all of it was incredible. It's amazing how much new things this game tried when it came out and how much it did right or at least did well enough for its first go around. You did mention Shinra and Midgar kind of being absent throughout the later narrative, and while I sort of agree in terms of direct appearances and the like, I think the narrative stages of the game make this awesome. You're not in Midgar, the whole world isn't like that, but you get to explore all of these other areas that all have an underlying connection with Midgar in that they're all negatively impacted by Shinra. That's what makes the rest of FF7 so great, that big gulf between Midgar and everywhere else, Urban vs. Rural. It makes the rest of the game feel like Avalanche's real praxis, rather than simply blowing up reactors and annoying Shinra in ways they can spin into good press and dump money into to fix, Avalanche goes out and starts helping the communities and people that Shinra's impacted, all while trying to stop an even greater threat. This game is so god damn good. I love it.

almost two years later and still no FF8!

I never got to play FF7 when it first came out. I only had the SNES. But I still felt the influence of it everywhere. The artstyle especially got me. It was just so new and bold compared to anything else I'd seen at the time.

This game truly is something else. Great video and thanks for triggering all that sweet nostalgia and greatness dopamine my guy

I read the editor's note in the Zuul voice. Final Fantasy VII is my first FF. It helped me get into the series and without it, I wouldn't have found my all time favorite FF in VI, nor would have been engulfed by FFXIV as I became. As a result of VII's influence on me, I've beaten a majority of the series and played almost all of them, save XI and XV, with key FFs standing out in my memories more profusely than others. Top Numbered FFs being VI, XIV, IX, XII, and VII. If we include spin off titles, Tactics takes the top spot and Vagrant Story knocks both XII and VII out of the top 5 as I absolutely LOVE the world of Ivalice Yasumi Matsuno lovingly crafted (Orbonne Monastery is my all time favorite Alliance Raid in XIV as a result).

This was technically my first Final Fantasy game, as well as the first JRPG I’ve played to completion and I loved it. I know why it’s such an iconic game. Technically FF13 was the first one I played, but I hated it. Now that I’ve played more Final Fantasy games, FF7 has actually gone down in my opinion. It’s not a bad game at all, don’t get me wrong. But FF9 beats it in my opinion, and as controversial as this will sound, I rank it on the same level as FF8. The biggest problem I have with this game (and FF8) is that there’s nothing separating the characters aside from their weapons and Limit Breaks. And some characters I just don’t bother with like Cait Sith and Red XIII.

At this point the sponsor ads have become something like "Raid: Express Legends, brought to you by Nordshark VPN." in my head.