Final Fantasy VII is Now on Steam (But Not in Japan)

[Steven Bogos]

Final Fantasy VII is Now on Steam (But Not in Japan)

Final Fantasy VII's Steam release comes with steamworks features, such as cloud saves (no pun intended).

About a year ago, Square Enix released a Steam [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/118275-Square-Enix-Finally-Confirms-PC-Final-Fantasy-VII], and comes with a whole suite of Steamworks features, such as Steam achievements and "Cloud" (har har) saves. It's also, somewhat ironically, unavailable for purchase in Japan.

You'll be able to unlock 36 Steam achievements, and play the game with a controller in Steam's "Big Picture Mode" for just $11.99. A "Character Booster Tool" is also included, that allows players to tweak HP and MP bars of their characters.

Early reports suggest that the Steam version still requires you to log in to Square's servers to play, meaning you'll have to deal with a double-dose of DRM.

For a quick recap, the remastered PC version contains:

Much higher resolution textures
The addition of a Z-buffer, so no more shaky polygons like the PSX version
Support for 16:9 resolution (but the image will be stretched)
Support for most modern machines without any issues (unlike the previous release by EIDOS in 1998)


If you're looking to get the most out of your Final Fantasy experience, a helpful excellent guide to Final Fantasy VII modding [http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1hmgeu/final_fantasy_vii_on_steam/], which while designed for the 2012 version of the game, should work fine with the new Steam version.

Is Final Fantasy VII the best Final Fantasy? It's certainly the most recognizable one.

Source: Reddit! [http://store.steampowered.com/agecheck/app/39140/])

Permalink

 

[mechalynx]

Thanks for the heads-up. Just bought it.

Hope it comes to GOG too.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I've never played any of the FF games. Might as well give this one a try, seeing how much it's praised by everyone including my grandmother.

 

[Dr.Awkward]

I've never played any of the FF games. Might as well give this one a try, seeing how much it's praised by everyone including my grandmother.

Judging from your previous posts, you seem more of a story guy, so you'll probably find FF6 more interesting. Then again, why Square hasn't placed 1-6 in one package and as PC release is beyond me...

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Thanks for the heads-up. Just bought it.

Hope it comes to GOG too.

Considering the 2012 version had Se cureROM I doubt Sqenix will oblige.

 

[Revolutionary]

Basically it's the same as the version on the square enix site except I can re-download it if I accidentally delete it / accidentally may hard drive? I'm in.

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

I've never played any of the FF games. Might as well give this one a try, seeing how much it's praised by everyone including my grandmother.

Judging from your previous posts, you seem more of a story guy, so you'll probably find FF6 more interesting. Then again, why Square hasn't placed 1-6 in one package and as PC release is beyond me...

I was just about to chime in and say the exact same thing. 6 is the apex of Final Fantasy, at least for me.

But I can tell you why they never put them out in collected format.
"Because if they did that, they couldn't keep metering them out one at a time to the handheld markets" said Paul with a cynical tone of voice.

 

[Scribblesense]

Maybe I am missing something, but, just who are they trying to sell this to? The people that have played this game will either:
A: Still have the game
B: Not interested in getting it

Just who are they trying to sell this to. Good luck selling it to someone in there teens.

C: People who still have the game but like the convenience of Steam.
D: People who forgot about the game and want to experience it again.
E: People who never got a chance to play it and want to see what all the fuss is about.
F: People who buy stuff without looking.

I still have the CDs somewhere, and a working PS2, but I think I'd like to try it on my PC. Point is, people will buy it and there's effectively zero cost to putting it on Steam, therefore doing so is pure profit.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

Early reports suggest that the Steam version still requires you to log in to Square's servers to play, meaning you'll have to deal with a double-dose of DRM.

You know what? I don't care. I made exceptions for Red Faction Guerilla and Dark Souls. FF7 definitely deserves my attention again. If it sells well we'll probably see more JRPGs on the PC soon.

 

[Morti]

Maybe I am missing something, but, just who are they trying to sell this to? The people that have played this game will either:
A: Still have the game
B: Not interested in getting it

Just who are they trying to sell this to. Good luck selling it to someone in there teens.

C: People who still have the game but like the convenience of Steam.
D: People who forgot about the game and want to experience it again.
E: People who never got a chance to play it and want to see what all the fuss is about.
F: People who buy stuff without looking.

I still have the CDs somewhere, and a working PS2, but I think I'd like to try it on my PC. Point is, people will buy it and there's effectively zero cost to putting it on Steam, therefore doing so is pure profit.

G: People who had a friend who lost a disc, lent them said disc and can no longer find said disc...

Now give me FFVIII for the same reason >_<

 

[Falterfire]

Maybe I am missing something, but, just who are they trying to sell this to? The people that have played this game will either:
A: Still have the game
B: Not interested in getting it

Just who are they trying to sell this to. Good luck selling it to someone in there teens.

You're missing a huge market: People who have heard for years about how awesome FFVII is but have never had a console on which to play it. See also: KotOR 1 & 2 have sold quite a few copies on Steam, and Battlefront 2 sold a ton of copies not too long ago.

Also: It's currently the top-selling game on Steam, so I'd say they guessed correctly on there being a market.

 

[MHzBurglar]

Maybe I am missing something, but, just who are they trying to sell this to? The people that have played this game will either:
A: Still have the game
B: Not interested in getting it

Just who are they trying to sell this to. Good luck selling it to someone in there teens.

C: People who still have the game but like the convenience of Steam.
D: People who forgot about the game and want to experience it again.
E: People who never got a chance to play it and want to see what all the fuss is about.
F: People who buy stuff without looking.

I still have the CDs somewhere, and a working PS2, but I think I'd like to try it on my PC. Point is, people will buy it and there's effectively zero cost to putting it on Steam, therefore doing so is pure profit.

G: People who had a friend who lost a disc, lent them said disc and can no longer find said disc...

Now give me FFVIII for the same reason >_<

H: People who may or may not have the original PS1 version but would like to play it at a higher resolution with better textures (either via the included touch-ups or community mods). This game has NOT aged well graphically and it's at the point where low low-poly low-detail 3D of the PS1 version can get in the way of the overall experience. (FF VIII and FF IX also suffer from this, but they don't have this problem anywhere near to the extent that FF VII does...)

 

[kajinking]

Maybe I am missing something, but, just who are they trying to sell this to? The people that have played this game will either:
A: Still have the game
B: Not interested in getting it

Just who are they trying to sell this to. Good luck selling it to someone in there teens.

C: People who still have the game but like the convenience of Steam.
D: People who forgot about the game and want to experience it again.
E: People who never got a chance to play it and want to see what all the fuss is about.
F: People who buy stuff without looking.

I still have the CDs somewhere, and a working PS2, but I think I'd like to try it on my PC. Point is, people will buy it and there's effectively zero cost to putting it on Steam, therefore doing so is pure profit.

G: People who had a friend who lost a disc, lent them said disc and can no longer find said disc...

Now give me FFVIII for the same reason >_<

I lost 5, count em' FIVE of the original Sims Expansion packs that way

OT: Well I was planning of doing stuff this summer (getting a job, learning a skill, maybe exercise) but who cares now.

 

[NinjaNikki]

Basically it's the same as the version on the square enix site except I can re-download it if I accidentally delete it / accidentally may hard drive? I'm in.

Same here

 

[Covarr]

I'm going to make this as clear as I can:

THE SECONDARY DRM IS NOT DRM AT ALL.

The game requires an online connection on first run. Go into settings in the launcher, disable cloud saving, and it'll never need a connection again. I think this was more a case of poor design (need a connection to turn off connection requirement) than intentional DRM. The actual DRM from the 2012 release, namely SecuROM, is nowhere to be seen here.

P.S. Thanks

P.P.S. They messed up the music again. Download and install "FF7 Ogg Music" from this page [http://www.icksmehl.de/ff1/downloads.php] to fix it.

 

[Pebkio]

If they had worked in all the great graphical mods that have been around for years, then maybe I'd be interested, but I could just take my FF7 disks and mod it manually without the requirements of steam. I'd only get behind the steam release if it added convinenience and it clearly doesn't.