Final Fantasy 7 original remains one of the all-time classic RPG games, with the Final Fantasy 7 Remake proving that the passion for Cloud Strife, Sephiroth, Aerith, and the world of FF7 remains as strong as ever. Nevertheless, if there’s something missing from the milestone Square Enix hit, it’s voice acting. Thank the aeons, then, for this new Final Fantasy 7 mod, which brings a huge voice cast to the world of Midgar and the Golden Saucer, and a new way to experience FF7 as we wait for the Final Fantasy 16 release date.
Releasing on January 13, Echo-S7 is a wildly ambitious project from the team over at Tsunamods. Adding full voice acting to the entirety of Final Fantasy 7, this is more than just a small group of fans and modders recording the dialogue themselves.
Tsunamods has recruited Final Fantasy community members from all over the world, with the main cast performed by trained professionals. The result is a voice performance for every single character in Final Fantasy 7, from the central heroes right down to incidental citizens in places like the Sector Seven Slums and Costa del Sol.
“We gathered actors from all over the world to voice-act the entirety of Final Fantasy 7,” Tsunamods explains. “Every main, minor, and NPC; you name a character, they’re voiced – even the tutorials! All the NPCs are voiced by our community, giving us a great range of accents and voices to make the game feel real. The main and minor cast are all well-trained actors with fantastic vocal and tech quality.”
The mod also changes some of the core mechanics in FF7. The classic dialogue boxes, for example, still appear on screen, only now they’re automated and synchronised with the spoken dialogue – you need to keep mashing the same key to get through a cutscene. The mod also prevents you from creating custom names for the main party, since they would naturally clash with the recorded voice lines.
As reported by DSO Gaming, Tsunamods is also working on voice mods for both Final Fantasy 8 and Final Fantasy 9, though release details on those are still unavailable. In the meantime, you will be able to get Echo-S7 from the official Tsunamods site once January 13 rolls around.
Check out some other fantastic old games if reading about Final Fantasy 7 has got you feeling all nostalgic. You might also want to explore our FFXIV levelling guide, to keep you at the peak of performance, or perhaps some of the other best MMOs on PC.