Even a cursory browse of Wikipedia will highlight the importance of the game in the Final Fantasy series, credited by many as being the JRPG that brought both the then SquareSoft’s flagship IP and JRPGs as a whole to the west in a big way. On that technical basis, Final Fantasy 7 manages to be as impressive as it is dated. As a result, it’s all a bit half hearted. Aside from the fact it’s technically now possible to take an entire console JRPG from two decades ago and run it on a device that fits in your pocket, there seems little reason for Square Enix to have made such a move. That’s not just because it means that more than half the screen is covered by (albeit transparent) buttons from start to finish, but also because it says a lot about the attitude the publisher has taken to the port as a whole. Sadly, in the case of Final Fantasy 7 – here rolling out on iOS almost twenty years after its debut on the original PlayStation – Square Enix has opted for the latter, and its a decision that haunts the game throughout. Either they go back to the drawing board and build the game from the ground up specifically designed for taps and swipes, or they compromise and lay over a controller-based set up across the screen to keep the original controls in tact. Games not built for touchscreen based play rarely play well on iOS, namely because the developer is forced to make a decision. It’d be a bit like handing a hardcore racing enthusiast the keys to a brand new Ferrari, hiring out the freedom of the Nürburgring to test it on, being graced by the perfect weather and a crowd of thousands ready to cheer on every twist and turn…and then removing the engine, cutting out the floor with a pen knife and tasking said enthusiast with running around the track powered by only their feet, in true Flintstones’ style. They take one of the format’s biggest selling points, the touchscreen, and casually throw it under a bus. There’s a reason why external controllers for iPhone and iPad games have never really taken off, even with the weight of Apple’s blessing behind them.

Final fantasy 7 ios