Yesterday, as reported, a touch-friendly version of Final Fantasy VII was made available for sale on the App Store and iTunes. It is essentially the PC version of the game, with one difference. You can cheat.
And it's not a bug -- Square designed it this way on purpose, and once you hear why, you probably won't be pleased.
We previously reported that this version of FFVII would let you turn off random monster encounters in the field whenever you felt like it, but this brought up a baffling question. If people who play the mobile version never level up, just how do they expect to beat some of the tougher bosses in the game? Eventually progressing will become impossible.
Ah, but not if you have a feature that instantly brings your party up to the level required to beat the boss! No kidding, people. You have to toggle it on in the options screen to use it, but it IS there. Playing the game this way would barely make it a game at all. You would never grow Materia, discover new limit breaks, or have to search for rare items to make your characters incrementally strong over a period of hours so you would stand a chance against one of the Weapon bosses. Final Fantasy VII essentially becomes....horrors....casual.
The game starts with the option turned off, though, and chances are if somebody is so stupid that they need battles turned off and bosses made wimpy to beat FFVII, they'll also be too stupid to operate the options menu or even find it. That's lookin' on the bright side.
The mobile version of Final Fantasy VII is available now for Apple phones exclusively, and costs $16.
