While your memories of the original Final Fantasy VII may be almost entirely fond, don’t forget that to get it looking that nice on older PCs, concessions had to be made. Like most sections of the game running at a dreadful 15 frames per second.
It’s a jarring thing to have to sit through in 2022, but for PC users there’s now a way around this, thanks to a mod that boosts the entire game’s framerate to 60 frames per second. From the overworld to encounters, it’s constant throughout, and if you think that’s just a minor change that won’t make much of a difference to your enjoyment or appreciation of the game, think again.
Just so you can have some reference, here’s a video of what the framerate looks like on the original release, when you’re engaged in a battle:
Choppy! The 18-minute video by Tsunamods below takes you through the whole thing, showing comparisons between the old FPS count and the new, as well as providing install instructions. I’ve keyed the video to start at a certain point that really shows off how smooth the whole thing looks now:
It’s wild how a single change makes such a huge difference to the game’s appearance! The buttery smoothness throughout just makes the whole experience look a lot cleaner, and the creators are right to be so excited about the whole thing.
If you want to install the necessary files and try it out yourself, you’ll find links to the necessary downloads in the YouTube video’s description. Though note that as things stand it works best with the original, 1998 version of the game; if you’ve got the more recent Steam release, you’ll need some workarounds in order to get the necessary animations working, which are best summed up in this comment.