I always like to start a piece of writing with a declarative. It’s authoritative, punchy, decisive. So here’s one: Final Fantasy VII is the greatest RPG of all time. How’s that for a bold opening gambit, eh?

I could use all of my allotted thousand words detailing the game’s labyrinthine plot, but the cliff notes version goes like this: for the vast majority of the duration you play as Cloud Strife, a “spiky-headed” mercenary formerly of elite fighting force SOLDIER. Together with, among others, a rag-tag crew of eco-terrorists, a grouchy ex-pilot, a fingersmith ninja and a flower girl from the slums, your quest is to stop man in black, and stone cold badass, Sephiroth from destroying the planet in his megalomaniacal desire for absolute power. Along the way you’ll also have to deal with the malign Shinra Corporation, an evil industrial powerhouse bent on finding a Promised Land and bleeding it of Mako (think oil, but green and bit magical). This game was rocking a Save The Planet message a decade before “green” became a global buzzword.

Originally intended for release on the N64, the developers were forced to switch teams and bat for Sony when it became apparent that a game this epic wasn’t going to fit on no puny cartridge. It would eventually fill three disks when it was released in 1997, and even then it pushed the little grey box that could to its absolute limits. While in normal play the characters are rendered in retro blocky polygons, the FMVs are crisp and clean and beautiful. Fourteen years later they remain so, and they make the hardware sing.

The depth of imagination on display is mindboggling. Take summon spells for instance: these are powerful creatures, you might even call them Gods, which players can… well, summon, to aid in battle. They inflict heavy damage and each comes with its own animation, some of which can only be described as mini epics. Indeed, the final boss has a summon that lasts almost two full minutes. There are also limit breaks, devastating special attacks that characters can use when they’ve been sustained enough damage. Every character has seven to unlock, each a masterpiece in its own right.

And you get plenty of time to use them; like most RPGs random battles feature heavily, with Squaresoft’s patented Active Time Battle system never better. Equipping spells is as simple as placing ‘materia’, magic orbs formed by the planet, into slots found in weapons and armour. These are then levelled up in classic role playing fashion, by gaining experience in battle. Materias are myriad; there are magics like Cure, Ice and Fire, commands such as Deathblow or Morph and the aforementioned summons.

The materia system forces the player to employ a degree of strategy and to think ahead. I’m in the middle of playing the game again, so a self-indulgent example, if you’ll allow:

I’ve had Chocobo Lure, an almost entirely useless materia, sitting in one of my characters’ slots since I picked it up just after I left Midgar, a huge city and de facto global capital. It has no applications for combat use, so what am I doing? I’m making sure it’s been sufficiently levelled up for me to use it effectively when I come to breed chocobos. The thing is, that won’t happen until deep into the second disk probably some 15-20 game hours away. That’s a degree of perseverance, application and forward planning that’s almost beyond me in real life. But that’s what FFVII does – it forces players to think about the long game. A dedicated gamer can easily rack up 100+ hours exploring every nook and cranny, every inlet and every island; it is the proverbial marathon and it rewards those willing to put the hours in.

Chocobo breeding is a fine example. Chocobos are a type of bird that inhabit the vast game world, they look a bit like what might happen if Big Bird knocked up an ostrich. They’re strong and they’re speedy and when you ride one you become immune from random battles. You only absolutely need to catch one of these creatures once throughout the game, to evade a giant serpant called the Midgar Zolom, after which you can progress through the rest of the story oblivious to the beasts.

Or, if you have a mind to, you can breed them.

Mating different combinations of chocobo results, with time and diligence, in four very special birds. Each is a different colour and allows the player to traverse a different kind of terrain and pick up four special materias you wouldn’t otherwise be able to get your mitts on.

The game is full of things like that. Entire islands, cities, characters, spells, summonses, quests and bosses can be missed, skipped or blithely ignored. The characters inhabit a real world, enormous in scale and varied in geography and climate; from the smoggy film that hangs over the city of Midgar to the vast snowfields of the northern continent to the desert of quicksand that surrounds the Gold Saucer amusement park. To save the planet is your mission, and thanks to the brilliance of the design team, headed by Yoshinori Kitase, it’s a planet you’ll want to save, one you’ll have to drag yourself away from.

And then there’s the music. Let it suffice to say that it’s so good, it’s been toured by orchestras. It packs a serious emotional wallop too, as anyone who remembers the shock at the end of the first disk will attest.

Earlier on, when I said Final Fantasy VII was the greatest RPG of all time? Forget that. It’s the greatest video game of all time. “There ain’t no gettin’ offa this train we’re on” repeats one of the game’s most colourful characters. I don’t know why you’d ever want to.