7th Heaven (FFVII PC Launcher W/ 1-click HD Mods)

This is the 7th Heaven 2.0 trailer and we're at 7th Heaven 2.2.3.522 so it's old, but you get the idea. If you, like me, are someone that only keeps up with the mod community every 6mo.~12mo. just to see if anything new has come out or if you didn't know of this at all, I'm here to say we finally have a near dummy-proof FFVII launcher you can get right now!

When last I checked, about a year ago, we were at 7th Heaven 1.5ish and you still had to do a bunch of launchers and manual file overwrites. Well, no more (for a while now, but I'm slow):



...and you can have your game looking like this:



This is an actual screenshot of my install from yesterday as I was downloading mods to try out and configuring them (old saves work, obviously):



So, for a long while, the FFVII PC port has been around. There have been people modding it for years. Hell, you had to mod it out of the box to even get the Chocobo Races to work. The out-of-the-box PC version needed a patch and this was back on the Windows 98/XP days.

All of the fun of the mod community, however, was gated behind being technologically knowledgeable in what you were doing. You had to know where to find mods. You had to be able to apply them. They had to not break things. Boy, did they break things. Even things such as playing with headphones plugged in one day and unplugged the next day could cause the entire thing to not work.

Enter: 7th Heaven.

To make a long story short, a group of modders has, shall we say, had a lot of free time during the Covid stuff (in addition to the years of work that had already went into the game's mod comminity), to finally release a single install GUI with one-click downloads / toggles of many many mods to get your FFVII experience looking fan-***-tastic.

I'm just going to show you what you need.

1. Any actual PC install of FFVII. The disks from the 90's. The Steam version. Anything between. You can find a FFVII PC install .iso online if you really can't be bothered to shell out money, however I don't condone pirates or bays or bits or torrents. I condone none of those.

2. 7th Heaven. Find the current release here:
http://7thheaven.rocks/#download7h

3. Finally, you really should watch this as it is amazing and will get you up and running. It's a step-by-step tutorial, in plain easy-to-understand spoken english, with large resolution.

Gonna post my personal recommendations on settings/mods you need/want to pick up here.

Stand by. Do it for Jessie.



The only two problems that I encountered the very first time that were disheartening were a black screen upon starting a new game and no sound/video, but those are problems with the way FFVII PC '98 version (what I have) handle sound and video. I'm gonna work on posting what my setup is and hopefully that will get you up and running too. If I can do it (PC install from mounted .iso) to fully playable with HD graphics and sound in addition to some other things... anyway, less talking and more post-building.

These are the mods that I suggest:



Bonez' Modern Spell Names: ON
Will net you mostly normal spell names that you would be used to since you play a modern FF game.

Qhlmm Catalog: You can turn the Jessie Mod on here. It is a neat little... thing. Speak with her BEFORE you hit the elevator button to have her join (she is Tifa LV1 in battle), but it's... neat. Also, guess who you get to save! You'll see.

Battle Models: Qulmm Catalog Main = all ninostyle. Personal preference. Enemies and weapons you can fiddle with as you see fit.

Battle Textures: Qulmm Catalog: [4x Upscale] Remako HD - CaptRobau
This guy used AI learning to take old textures (including battle field) and basically HD render it. Good stuff and you will see him more times in these settings I'm suggesting)

Field Models: Qulmm Catalog: Leave resize project off for now. Otherwise, Dynamic Weapons are going to be what you see in the field walking around in towns stuck to cloud's back. Kind of neat. I set lots of ninostyle - Right Hand here. As far as the rest, this is how you will see people's models when you interact with them in the field (not overworld map). Again, lots of ninostyle here as my preference. The rest, up to you. You can't really break this.

Field Textures: Qhlmm Calalog = 1 [4x Upscale] Remako HD CptnRobau
This is the biggie for HD graphics upscaling. Like I said. A guy took all of the pre-rendered maps/field environments, and used machine learning to HD them. If anything, you want this.

Gameplay - Qhlmm Catalog - Difficulty is just... different adjustments to a playthrough. "Hard modes". There is a read me for them on the left of 7th Heaven when you have Gameplay highlighted for more info. Tweaks: self explanatory. Use the ones that tickle your fancy. Lock Inventory can be a nice way to dupe items, by the way. Also, never sell ALL of something. Just every-one-except-one to keep them all in inventory. You can play with these for fun.

Media - Qhlmm Catalog. This will be a large download you can watch that 40 minute 7th Heaven tutorial video above while you wait. You can set HD movies here. Movies = 1 - [AI] CptnRobau - Remako, the computer AI learning renders of movies. Music - Several different soundtracks here. 1 - Anxious Heart Original Soundtrack (anxious heart is just the preview you can click at the bottom of the box) All songs are adjusted in most of these. Sound: I like my beeps and boops as they are.

Minigames - Qhlmm Catalog. Pretty much just adjust minigames resolution, difficult, etc. Mess with it as you see fit. Always the "Reset to Mod Defaults" option.

Spell Textures: Main = 2 [4x upscale] kela51 + satsuki. You'll notice this right away at the very first boss when he scans/targets you. Coin Skill = 23. Fiddle as you see fit. Limit Break = Off or it has previews. Pick your poison.

Damn it. Wrote out the rest and fat-fingered some keys and went back on my browser and lost what I didn't post. Oh well.

User Interface - Qhlmm Catalog: Menu = your choice. Avatars = These are your character's profile images in menu, save screen, and PHS. Fun options here. Enjoy. Backgrounds = Game over screen same. I did Prelude 2 and Start menu 7. Your call.

World Models - Qhlmm Catalog: This is what you see on the overworld map. I did a lot of ninostyle here. Go figure.

World Textures - Qhlmm Catalog: I did 1: {4x Upscale] Remako HD CptnRobau. The deep learning HD, but this time it's overworld map textures.

Bonez' Sound Shuffler Add-on. Can't be configured. Seemed neat. If you close the FFVII window, you have to reopen 7th Heaven every time to relaunch this so I may end up turning it off. I like my beeps and boops.

If you have a clean install, with a clean install of 7th Heaven, and the mods added that I suggested, set up in the same way that I suggested them, then you should be good to go. Oh, my FFVII folder is about 25 gigs now. Trails of Cold Steel 3 is like 12~16 or something and I have only played it maybe 3 hours. FFVII is worth it. (^_^)

Anyway, I hope this helps get you up and going with some HD FFVII. I know I'm going to play some now. It will finally be nice to play FFVII on my PC with a bunch of one-touch toggles of stuff. It is LONG passed due.

Qhimm is a grand place. I'm amazed that it has survived this long. Anyone playing classic ***should understand what I mean, you know in a world full of dead links and outdated guides.

That being said: eww, video guides.

The video guide is something you can watch while you download all of the mods, I suppose. I found it an interesting (and understandable) view. There is this other guy (who posted that 2nd video I used) who has a video made showing off what he uses and English isn't his primary language. Also, he has his resolution set, on the video he is making, so that everything is SO *** TINY on his screen. Like... dude. We get it. You can put a lot of stuff on your screen, but that doesn't make for a good YOUTUBE video EVEN at 2k I still had to get close to MY giant screen to see it all. Useless.