final fantasy vii is the chef d'oeuvere of renowned development studio square enix- formerly, square soft. indeed, it is deified as essential video game canon, perhaps one of the most influential works of art in the contemporary era. it would be facetious to say that final fantasy vii is the progenitor of many of it's best qualities; rich storytelling, complex and flawed characters, emotional music all are certainly present in previous final fantasy games, from what i can tell at the very least. i haven't played final fantasy vi, but i understand that you can attribute all of these same characteristics when describing that game. nonetheless, these qualities permeate final fantasy vii as well. coupled with- for the time- revolutionary full-motion video cutscenes, final fantasy vii emphasizes it's story and characters above any other game at it's time. it's cinematic certainly, even rivaling some playstation 2 era games such as drakengard, even if it did suffer from a much smaller budget. after all, final fantasy vii was once the most expensive video game ever produced; it's no surprise that it still manages to hold up to this day.
all this is to say that final fantasy vii, ironically, feels much less like a video game and more like a visual novel. in fact, the gameplay- sans the minigames- are almost entirely superfluous. it's almost impossible to see the game over screen unless you are particularly unlucky because you are given a wealth of resources to absolutely shred everything in the game. this is less true at the start, of course, with limited materia, items, acessories, and armor, though this ultimately makes the beginning part of the game far less entertaining when divorced from the story. understandably, the first three or so hours become boilerplate with little materia variety to make use of the series' jump to the third dimension. it's not as though the later game becomes harder, or that the mechanics become more interesting for that matter. the difference is fairly simple; the higher the number, the greater the dopamine. even though im doing the same actions as i was doing just hours earlier, that extra one hundred to one thousand to two thousand damage that i'm dealing to hordes of monsters becomes more and more satisfying. this is essentially why the game may as well be a visual novel; the story is far more interesting and engaging than the gameplay is, and the gameplay is essentially just an obstacle to get to the meat of the game. however, the gameplay is still entertaining enough that it doesn't at all hinder the experience whatsoever.