The planet's likeblood, Mako, is being drained by the evil electric company Shinra Electric Power Company in an effort to further their profits. An eco-terrorist group known as AVALANCHE plans to sabotage and destroy the reactors placed in the city of Midgar and enlists the help from mercenary Cloud Strife. Together they successfully take out the first reactor in Sector 1.

Cloud doesn't really care about the cause and initially fights for personal gain and for the promise he made to childhood friend Tifa Lockhart. His motivation slowly changes as he sees the hurt and pain caused to people around him as a result of Shinra's evil doings. Eventually he joins forces with many others to save the planet, which is threatened by Shinra and Cloud's nemesis Sephiroth. He also soon discovers a reason to fight for a reason other than his own.

Final Fantasy VII is a JRPG with heavy emphasis on story, discovery and hidden mechanics. The game features 8 recruitable characters that can join the party, which has been changed to three instead of the previous four. There's also an introduction of Active Time Battle (ATB) which allows the user to input commands to members in the party once the ATB gauge fills up. Magic is done through materia which can be combined in many different ways to create different outputs. They come in different forms like summon, magic, effect and support materia. Equipment can further also modify their experience gain, or growth, making them level up faster from use.