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The Best Original Final Fantasy VII Mods to Try

SugiG011 mins

FFVII Mods That You Need in Your Life

One of the most modded Final Fantasy games in history has to be the original Final Fantasy VII, and despite the recent remake trilogy, people are still creating cool mods for the original version on Steam. Today we are going to explore some of the best mods you can download that will both enhance the gameplay, and also make neat quality of life changes that you are going to appreciate.

The majority of these mods are intended for the Final Fantasy VII Steam version, so if you don’t own it yet, you can pick it up dirt cheap from this vendor. As a precaution, make sure to create a copy of your save files in the game and zip them somewhere in case things go bad.

The majority of the mods will require 7th Heaven Mod Manager to install, so make sure you will be picking that up if you have any plans on installing things.

NewMagic + Hard Mode

NewMagicshardmode v4.3 turns up the heat on Final Fantasy VII! Facing stronger, smarter foes, loot table overhauls, new gear and enemy skills, and a balanced materia system. Features even include a mighty Midgar Zolom late‑game boss. Recommended for players seeking a fresh, hardcore experience—just don’t forget your defensive stance…and plenty of Ethers!

Satsuki Yatoshi Mod (SYW)

The SYW mod represents the most accurate modern take on the PC version of Final Fantasy VII, helped by deep learning techniques (such as ESRGAN). The package includes cleaner, more detailed, and higher resolution background arts, battlefields, world map, magic effects, animations, minigames, menus, and videos. All upscaled with AI or done in HD from scratch.
It comes along with its own mod manager tool, optionally, if you don’t want to interact with the 7th Heaven mod manager. 

Multi-Mode 60 FPS Mod

When it comes to a lot of these old games, they always had bad frame rates due to technical limitations or other development reasons. Luckily, incase of Final Fantasy VII, we have a mod that allows us to play the game at 60 FPS. The other option offers 30 FPS on battles instead of 60 FPS, which is something I tend to prefer with a lot of these older games, as the attack animations were not planned initially to support such faster frame movement.

Remastered Worldmap Textures

If you want to have more crisp and detailed Worldmap textures, this 4x upscaled mod gives you a nice look that was created with a DCRT-type AI Model. Tsunamods also has its own variation of this mod, which you can try too. 

Echo-S 7 Voice Mod

Ever wanted to play the original game with full voice acting? Well, now it’s possible with the Echo-S voice mod. This mod is actually using the original Japanese script from 1997 instead of the Western English translation, so the experience is guaranteed to be a bit different from what you had before.

Remastered Backgrounds

If you want those sweet 4k up-scaled AI backgrounds, you might want to look into this one, which is also created by holynitemare. Keep in mind that this is over 4.5 GB in file size, which is almost four times the actual game’s size.

NinoStyle New Character Models

One of the better and more fitting graphical overhaul mods available out there. This mod changes existing characters inside and outside of battle that match original designs of Tetsuya Nomura, and the video above and images on the mod page are slightly outdated from the newest versions they conjured recently (which look a lot better if you ask me). There are also chibi variations available,e so you can choose between the two and decide which one fits your graphical style more.

Zack Fair Replacement Mod

This is a pretty simple mod that changes out Cloud’s character model in the field and in combat to Zack Fair. It has a couple of different variations available due to the courtesy of NinoStyles. Might require the installation of FF7_SYW mod tools in order to get it to work.

Lifestream Edition Mod

Final Fantasy VII: Lifestream Edition is an expansive gameplay and graphics mod with many new features, including an enhanced UI, total script revision, new & expanded scenes, name changes, new items & materia, new missions & sidequests, fully playable Jessie, expanded stories & roles for her, Biggs & Wedge, new songs, and more!

Opera Omnia Models Mod

Another alternative character model option to go for – these are inspired by Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia and only change the models in the field, but not in combat. These are also limited to the main cast plus Sephiroth. 

Final Fantasy VII 3D Graphical Overhaul

If you are looking for a massive graphical re-stylization of the game, you might want to take a peek at this mod. This mod does a complete 3D Visual overhaul on all characters, bosses, enemies, and summons, and even alternative outfits on minigames.

Cosmo Memory Mod

Another excellent mod created by the Tsunamods team that is doing a massive overhaul on a lot of the sounds inside the game. It also adds a lot of ambient sounds to areas that didn’t have anything playing in the background, which further builds up the atmosphere in the game.

Final Fantasy VII Modding Still Going Strong

If you are looking for mods for other Final Fantasy games, we compiled lists for Final Fantasy IX, Final Fantasy X, and Final Fantasy XV previously. If you think we missed some really good mods from this list, leave us a comment with a recommendation, and we might add it here. Note: Some of the mods might get outdated and may be completely unplayable at some point.

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