The game includes characters from Final Fantasy VII: Cloud Strife, Tifa Lockhart – which are playable in both versions; Sephiroth, Yuffie Kisaragi, Vincent Valentine, and Zack Fair – which were added to the PlayStation's roster exclusively.

This restricts the camera to a more or less fixed position, zooming in and out with the action, but not tracking around the arena as would be common in most other 2D and 3D fighting games.

[4] Players fight through an extensive dungeon crawl, much like the Blizzard title Diablo, and can equip different weapons and items.

There are also several smaller minigames, such as a race mode, where players run laps around a course while engaging in combat to slow down their opponent, and a board game similar to Reversi.

Since the main characters are archaeologists, the goal revolves around going as deep in the dungeon as possible in the hopes of finding great artifacts.

Consuming Protein, Vitamins, Minerals, Carbohydrates, or Lipids will in turn increase Attack, Magic, Dexterity, Speed, or Defense, respectively.

Each monster can drop a food item which will fill the hunger bar slightly, and supply the player with one of the previously mentioned nutrients.

[4] In the arcade version, Cloud, Tifa, and Sephiroth were revealed after thirty, sixty, and ninety days, respectively, after the initial install and boot of the game.

The contests were held at Electronics Boutique and Babbage's stores across America, beginning on July 10, 1999 in New York.

[13] GameSpot concurred, writing that the blocking controls were "unintuitive" and generally disappointing minigames outweighed the games beautiful graphics and Full Motion Videos.

[11] Later reviews reflected the strange use of famous Square Enix characters with "generic moves" and primarily wrestling-based combat.