If you want to play the original Final Fantasy VII—whether you’re a first-timer or an old fan revisiting a classic—you should probably use cheats.
That might sound sacrilegious, but I’m not talking about level boosters or item duplicators. Some of FFVII’s new cheats are actually tools that make the game significantly more enjoyable to play, letting you ditch some of the musty old relics of 90s role-playing. Specifically: You can A) speed up the game; and B) turn off all random encounters.
Yes, you can turn off all random encounters. Every single RPG should have this option. It’s brilliant; all you have to do is press a couple of buttons to enable or disable encounters at will, so you can just breeze through dungeons at your discretion. Then, if you’re feeling underpowered, you can put random encounters back on but speed up the game so they don’t waste too much of your time.
These cheats were originally released in the iOS version of FFVII, which came out earlier this year, and they’re also in the PS4 port that Square published on Saturday. (FFVII is a hefty $16 on PS4, but it’s on sale for $10 until December 13.) To access the cheats on PS4, you have to push in the thumbsticks as follows:
L3 - speeds up everything by three
L3+R3 - turns off random encounters
R3 - automatically heals everyone and gives them infinite limit breaks
That last one is a bit much, but the first two are SO GOOD. Sick of that sprawling Knights of the Round animation? Want to get through the Midgar slums without having to fight any of those dumb houses? Don’t have 40-50 extra hours but want to replay FFVII anyway? This is the version for you.
Here, check out the “cheats” in action:
With just these two simple tools, Final Fantasy VII has transformed from semi-antiquated to a genuinely great use of your time in 2015.
You can reach the author of this post at jason@kotaku.com or on Twitter at @jasonschreier.