How to download mods for final fantasy vii

Final Fantasy VII Remake is here, and if you’re like me, you probably want to play the original again just so you can compare the two. There are plenty of ways to go about it. You can purchase FF7 on pretty much any major platform, including Steam and the Switch these days.

Unfortunately, you might remember this game aging a little better than it actually did. Simply put, it’s a little jank. Don’t get me wrong, I love Final Fantasy VII, but the original game certainly shows its age. Add on top of that, with these somewhat unstable ports, you might find yourself wrestling with the game instead of enjoying it like you did when you were younger.

Luckily, users are there to fill in the gaps where Square Enix dropped the ball. There is a HUGE modding scene for Final Fantasy VII, and they’ve done so much to make the experience more enjoyable. From including more detailed models with redone animations, to expanding the battle system, tidying up the translation, and even introducing cut content back into the game, the mod scene has made the original Final Fantasy VII so much more than its original release. Consider a modded version of Final Fantasy VII to be something of a halfway point between the original and the official remake.

And the modding community is still active today. In fact, the mod loader we are going to use was updated just this March!

So here’s a quick guide to getting all these mods up and running. It will take a little doing, since Final Fantasy VII doesn’t have official Steam workshop support, but it’s still relatively simple.

Step 1: Download and install Final Fantasy VII

Yes, you are going to have to use a PC version here, but it doesn’t matter where you get it from. Just purchase, download, and install the game from wherever you want.

Step 2: Download the 7^th Heaven installer

Go here and download the 7^th Heaven installer. You’ll have to run the installer as an administrator. Don’t worry it’s safe.

You can install 7^th Heaven literally wherever you want. You don’t have to put it in the same directory as Final Fantasy VII.

Step 3: Launch 7^th Heaven

The first time you launch 7^th Heaven, you’ll be taken to the general settings menu. 7^th Heaven is set up to immediately recognize where your Final Fantasy VII data is installed, so you likely won’t have to do anything. However, if you see that the install directory is wrong, simply update it to point to the correct EXE, movies folder, and so on. In general these settings should be fine, but you can always choose to turn on auto-update if that’s your thing. Just click save when you are done.

Step 4: Select and download the mods you want

At this point you’ll have access to the mod catalog. 7^th Heaven comes with subscriptions to two mod catalogs, Mods of the Round and the default Qhimm catalog, but you can add more catalogs if you find them.

In this window you’ll choose the mods you want and double click them to download them. There are lots of mods to choose from, from rebalances to the mechanics, to new materia, to texture packs, to mods that make everyone Barret…. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.

Note that some mods will have simple names like Gameplay or Textures. These are usually packs of several different mods which are incompatible with each other. So after you download the full pack, simply double click it to go into options in order to apply the mod you like.

Step 5: Activate and configure your mods

You can now go to the My Mods tab to see every mod you have downloaded. To the right, there will be switches for each mod noting whether or not the mod is active. If you double click a mod, you can go into each mod’s individual settings. It’s worth it to check out the settings for every mod you have installed, simply because there are more options than you might expect.

Step 6: Press play!

That’s it! Press play and FF7 will load, complete with the mods you have selected.

Yes, really, it’s that easy. There are lots of mods that you probably want to check out. I particularly suggest “A New Threat” which will give you a ton of extra gameplay content (as well as the ability to save Aerith, if you are one of those people.)

Extra options you might want to fool around with

For the most part, this is all you need to know to get the game up and running. However, there are a few other options that are worth tweaking.

In the Game Driver menu, you can fool around options for graphics. It defaults to p in good old CRT You can, increase the resolution and change the aspect ratio as you like, as well as turn VSync on and off. You can choose to add post processing shaders, though in general you might want to leave this off because graphical mods do all that and more. You can hover over each option to see what it does.

If you find that your game is too big for your screen, or stretched in a weird way, go to Game Launcher Settings and turn on High DPI Scaling Fix. This window also has some of the basic FF7 game options built right into the mod launcher. The controls profile option is one you probably should note. Here you can choose whether you want to play in standard mode, or by swapping the confirm and cancel buttons, based on whether you enjoy American or Japanese controls.