Helpful but a spellchecker and a proof reader wouldn't hace hurt, 25 Nov 2008
It helped me complete the game the first time round but I must say that there were times when the directions were wrong (left turned out to be right or vise versa), spelling mistakes such as potion instead of poison and overall, I just wasn't too impressed. Buy it if it's your first time playing the game but if not, I'd tell you to download a free guide from one of the many gamers who have already completed the game.
If I had to describe what I thought of it I'd say it felt like some guy had just written down all he could remember and then sent it off to be printed. No spellchecks, no proof read and it was missing little bits and pieces such as items that were never mentioned or describing items that couldn't be found.
A fantastic game,a fair guide, 07 Nov 2008
I can say without any fear that Final Fantasy 7 is one of the greatest games ever.But this is a review of the official guide and as such I can recommend this guide but must add that it doesn't show you everything there is to see.
I completed the game and then bought the guide and was amazed at how much I had missed.I followed this guide and doubled my playing time and actually managed to find Vincent and Yuffie and use them as playable character's which I failed to do first time around.I also managed to obtain the Knights Of The Round summon which was hard work but very worthwhile.
This is a very good guide and while it doesn't quite provide all of the answers,it does expand on this fantastic game quite a lot.
Good but not perfect, 13 Mar 2007
I've completed FFVII many, many times using this guide and others on the net. It is generally a good guide but there are a few secrets that it doesn't mention at all. There are a number of monsters missing from its bestiary and a materia that isn't listed. Other than that it is ideal for all causal FFVII gamers but the hardcore would be better using online guides written by FFVII geeks like me!
It's not the best guide - yet it's the official guide!!!, 21 Feb 2006
The guide shows every section of the main game, where to get the items and what's available in the shops - dead helpful and detailed, so you don't miss an item. There's a good bestiary, which is handy if you want a particular item fom Morphing a monster.
The bad points come to light if you're looking to do all the extra quests. For a start it doesn't tell you exactly when things are available...
It doesn't go into detail in how to defeat the Emerald and Ruby Weapons.
Nor does it tell you when the its best time to visit the crashed Shinra Submarine (you can miss out on a not-too-vital fight against Rude and Reno otherwise!)
If you want to get all the Enemy Skills then you need to keep checking the bestiary - rather than telling you when the skills are first or easily available! Not helpful if you've missed your only chance to collect a skill!
It's not very detailed with betting on the Chocobo Racing - where you could get the Sneak Attack, Gil Plus, EXP Plus materia!
If you want to complete this game to it's fullest, then you need to know exactly when side quests are available, when to gain Enemy Skills, when to do the chocobo racing and gain a Gold Chocobo - otherwise you could miss out on many smaller elements to the game. The EXP Materia, for example, is a time saver when it comes to trying to Master all your Summon Materia, so you can gain the Master Summon Materia... and so forth!
It's quite annoying that the official guide isn't that deep. I do feel rather let down that the games creators have created something so shoddy. Thankfully the game is ten years old and this guide has been banging about the same time - the wonders of the internet and all FFVII fans have taken their time to create indepth guides freely available to download!
For the sake of a tenner, you might as well buy this, and then print out the other information from the internet. Then you can truly say you've completed the game for 100%!!
Really Helpful and Very Indepth Information, 24 Jan 2006
I have completed this game a few times before, so i thought I would get this guide and see what sorts of things I had missed in the game. You wouldn't believe the ammount of hidden items, secret areas and such. This book in no way spoils the game, it adds to the pleasure of playing. I would recommend anyone who has played this game before to buy this book.
Guide imcomplete!, 23 Sep 2008
The only Piggyback brand guides I've used prior to this were for FFX and FFX-2 and was very pleased about them and so assumed this guide would be to the same standard.
I was hugely mistaken, much of the information isn't all that useful and when it actually comes to a part you really need to know...
All you get is:
(quoted)
PlayOnline
Keyword #-#######
"If you want to give Queen Stella what she is
looking for, then go to PlayOnline to find out its location"
I'm sorry but for a walkthrough of this price, I expected better and I kid you not, these little boxes telling you to visit PlayOnline for the info you need are CONSTANT!
I have the Piggyback brand guides for FFX FFX-2 and FFVIII (I reccently bought this with the IX guide, far superior) and I'd of rated those around 4-5 stars, so you can see how dissapointed I am with this purchase.
P.S. It also has the least number of pages out of the guides I listed.
Very Good, 31 Oct 2006
Easy to use & full of useful info. This guide is colourful and well presented, and made sure that I didn't miss any item pickups or other secrets during the game. It is annoying that some of the finer secrets require a login on the website. When you're trying to play the game and use the guide, you don't really want to have to go online to find out things that the guide should tell you anyway - especially for people with no internet connection. However, all the important information is in the book, it was just lots of smaller but still very useful secrets that required me to go online. A minor inconvenience. Overall extremely good and worth the money - the best guide there is for the game, though the guide for FFVIII was a bit better.
Could be better, 01 Oct 2005
I have used strategy guides of this line before and both were brilliant, or at least brilliant enough that I can't remember where they fell down. The FFIX strategy guide disappointed me, however. The text is more narrative than instructions, and though part of it seems to be the fault of the game (lacking in side quests, anyone?) I didn't feel like it really went in depth into what to do and how to do, but just told you what was going on. All well and good, but I don't like things that just point out what I've already worked out. I'd like a strategy guide I can refer to when I'm stuck; this one hasn't really come through for me.
not enough content, 03 Sep 2005
There is alot of information in this book and it is a good stratagy guide. However, there is way too much of it which you have to go to playonline for, which gets really annoying. After paying for a book i wouldn't expect to have to do this. It's a great downfall for this book, though the rest of it is very good and helpful.
GOOD THOROUGH BOOK, 14 Jun 2005
This is a pretty good guide overall.
However, I would agree with others that the website use is a bit of a pain, though useful.
Unfortunately, last time I tried the website IT DID NOT WORK. I think this is because the game is quite old and they do not want to continually maintain it.
The game is pretty good as well, though FF VIII is better, I think though it's more complex
