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This is a decent adaptation of FF VII. Much of the story and world is in, and it's very nice to play it on the NES.

The level-up system for weapons and spells is quite nice. I don't think the PS1 version worked quite like this, but it's been a long time since I played it.

There is a distinct lack of polish, no checks for making sure you don't do something unexpected. At times it's unclear what you're supposed to do, and it's usually because you tried something unexpected, went to an unexpected direction, and the game let you. At those points I had to look up a FF7 walkthrough for what the PS1 version had you do there.

There's a lot of bugs, and many of them are game-breaking. From the smaller end, maybe a third of the items in boxes never show up in your inventory after pickup. Game-breaking end, if you choose to look for treasure in the Bone village, after the first round finds nothing, the guy won't talk to you anymore. No way to get the lunar harp without reloading a save.

The enemy balancing is absolutely horrible. Maybe 5-6 times in the game it happens that in the current area you have no trouble, but step into the next area, and the enemies one-shot you. You're already wearing the best equipment, so each time the only solution is to grind.

Total: 6.5/10

I can't believe how good this port to NES is. Dialogues seems to be 1:1 with original, and it follows accurately the original psx storyline. Also, its more challenging than the original. The magic system is smart and upleveling stuff feels rewarding. Recommended to any1 loving retro stuff as well as FF7 universe.

It's been a delight to play this game (version 1.1), it felt just like playing the psx version (with the obvious limitations).

• Sound 10/10:

The patch features 29 8-bit covers of the original title songs. Aside from being 8-bit, which you might or might not like, they are the same magnificient songs.

• Graphics 9/10:

Every map is very detailed and carefully made to resemble the original. We can't ask more for a nes game. Even the ending features 3 "images". I found a couple of the first "dungeons" a little confusing due to not noticing some tiles could be walked under, but that's all. The patch enhances battle animations making them more visually pleasant and entertaining. Cloud even sticks his sword in the ground when casting magic. The sprites and mugshots are very well done and resemble the original a lot. My only complain is Cloud's sprite, as to me he seems to be wearing gold armor. Enemy sprites were all redone to match the psx version, and almost all boss sprites are new, and there's a pretty good job behind them.

• Gameplay 8/10:

This has the lowest score, but don't get me wrong, the game is really enjoyable. But there are a couple of things I didn't like. Being able to dash is a great plus, it's a little buggy, but nothing pressing B again can't solve. The materia system: every new character comes with a materia. Materia levels up as you use it, learning a new spell each level. You can equip unequiped materia in combat, but you may only have one equiped at a time. There's only two materias with healing spells, which isn't a problem aside for "forced battles" where you are obliged to fight with certain characters (which might not be in your main party and so they might be unequiped and at low level). It takes too long to level up spells to their maximum (lvl 20) and the most powerful spells have too little "mp" (each spell can be cast a certain amount of times, being less as the spell becomes more powerful). For example, a Quake1 spell at level 20 is a lot more useful than its stronger versions, because it is enough to defeat the most difficult enemies in the game and you can cast it more times, and you are likely to have it at a higher level than the powerful version (again, because your are able to cast it more times). So, if a new patch is made, maybe the whole materia stats should be rethinked to balance it more. Weapons and armor: due to limitations, every shops sells alomst everything, which is not a bad thing, but the prices for the best equipment are too low, so I jumped from startup equipment to the best equipment when I got the chance. I think better equipment should be a lot more expensive to avoid this. Also, weapons take a LOT to level up, I carreid the best buyable weapon since almost the beggining of the game and I dind't max it to lvl 20. Also, there are more weapons (and maybe armor) than those in the shop, but they are dropped randomly in battles IN ORDER, so you have to buy all the weapons if you want the enemies to start dropping wapons until you get the best weapons... which by the way should be very time consuming. Treasures: it's a pitty that there are very few treasure chests scattered trough the game, and I didn't find any with valuable items. I think it wasn't possible to add them to the game, otherwise finding the best weapons in the caves would have been awesome. To sum up, the game plays pretty well, but if for some reason you'd like to max out the materia and best weapons (which you should first get from random battles) the amount of time required appears to be unproportional to the benefits (and I've maxed some other games).

• Storyline 11/10:

Why this score? Because the game misses most of disk 2 and 3 storyline. This should be a reason to give it a low mark, but the way Lugia2009 hacked the game events, adding scenes, new dialogues, explanations... it's just perfect. Lugia2009 managed to convert a game missing important plot and with a shitty ending into a game that perfectly wraps all the original storyline and adapts it to the game playable contents, adding missing explanations and giving it a very nice ending. Yes, it doesn't contain all storyline, but when not compared to the original psx version, you realize there's nothing missing from the game and all makes perfect sense.

• Conclusion:

If you like FF7 you'll enjoy this game; if you haven't played FF7 but like RPG and don't mind the NES you'll like this game, but I think it's more enjoyable if you have played the psx version. If it is none of the previous... go play FF7 for psx/pc.

By the way the game works perfectly in retroarch (FCEU core), which is available for android devices, making it a perfect game to play on the go.

I was pretty skeptical when I saw this listing initially in the news feed, but I have to say, that this is a rather surprising adaptation (and localization) of the great classic.

It's a little clunky, as should be expected, but it is definitely something new; and I am a sucker for NES-era Final Fantasy games. Anytime someone makes a complete remake of any of them (or a game their spirit) I have to take a look.

I haven't gotten very far into this game yet, but so far so good. I am happy with what I see so far.