The latest album in the collection, Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII & Last Order: Final Fantasy VII Original Soundtrack, was released by Square Enix the same year as a combined soundtrack album for the game Before Crisis and the animated movie Last Order.

The original music received highly positive reviews from critics, who found many of the tunes to be memorable and noted the emotional intensity of several of the tracks.

Final Fantasy VII was the first game in the series to be developed for the PlayStation, and while the media capabilities of the console allowed for pre-recorded Linear PCM (often as Red Book audio tracks on the CD), it was decided to generate the music in real time on the console instead, using samples and note data.

Uematsu decided that the quality was not worth the effects on gameplay, though after the release and seeing Suikoden II (1998, PlayStation), which had used higher-quality music instead, he reversed his stance for Final Fantasy VIII.

[4] He later stated in the liner notes for the soundtrack album that the music for Final Fantasy VII was his "greatest harvest" to date.

[8] Final Fantasy VII was the first game in the series to include a track with digitized vocals, "One-Winged Angel".

The track has been called Uematsu's "most recognizable contribution" to the music of the Final Fantasy series,[4] though the composer did not expect it to gain such popularity.

[9] The piece, described as "a fanfare to impending doom", is said to not "follow any normal genre rules" and has been termed "possibly the most innovative idea in the series' musical history".

Inspired by The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky to make a more "classical" track, and by rock and roll music from the late 1960s and early 1970s to make an orchestral track with a "destructive impact", he spent two weeks composing short unconnected musical phrases, and then arranged them together into a song, an approach he has never used before or since.

A limited edition was produced along with the original album, containing illustrated liner notes with several pictures of Uematsu's workspace and personal effects, various cutscenes and in-game screen shots from the game, and a discography.

[21] Ben Schweitzer of RPGFan claimed that "for the most part, it's a diamond", with his primary complaint being the quality of the MIDI sound.

He found the tracks to be "beautiful" and said that "One-Winged Angel" was "possibly the most innovative idea in the series' musical history".

[1] Philip of Square Enix Music Online, however, disliked the sound quality of the soundtrack and saw several tracks as "trivial", though he did note that Uematsu "has a flair for strong, memorable" pieces.

[2] In 2006, IGN ranked the album as the best Final Fantasy soundtrack to date and cited the "gripping" character themes and "One-Winged Angel" in particular as contributing factors.

[27] The album includes light-hearted tracks as well as slower, more emotional pieces, covering a variety of genres such as marches, new-age themes, and jazz.

228 on the Japan Oricon charts, selling 1,200 copies, and was well received by reviewers, with Gann raving that the pieces were fun to listen to, the performer was "amazing", the choice of tracks was "excellent", and the album as a whole was a "spectacular CD".

[35] Additionally, the theme song "No Promises to Keep", composed by Uematsu and performed by Loren Allred was released as a single on April 3.

Both the original tracks and the arrangements cover a variety of musical styles, including orchestral, choral, classical piano, and rock music; Variety noted that the styles vary between "sparse piano noodlings, pop metal thrashings and cloying power ballads".

[40] The new release of the film included a new ending theme, "Safe and Sound", by Kyosuke Himuro and My Chemical Romance singer Gerard Way, and replaced "Water" with a new song, "Anxious Heart".

[44] Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Original Soundtrack sold over 38,900 copies, and was well received by critics.

[28] Chris Carle of IGN called it a "jagged but beautiful blend of opera, metal and electronica", and a "richly-layered, complex and utterly listenable soundtrack" while praising the variety of musical styles used and the quality of the pieces.

The tracks were composed by Masashi Hamauzu and orchestrations were provided by Yoshihisa Hirano, making it the first Final Fantasy VII-related soundtrack to not include new material from Nobuo Uematsu.

[46] Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII Original Soundtrack received mixed reviews from critics.

The tracks composed by Ishimoto cover a range of moods, from "harsh and in-your-face" to "stunning and lovely", but were primarily used as ambient background music.

[52] The soundtrack also includes a large number of arrangements of tunes from the original Final Fantasy VII score, as well as a theme song entitled "Why", performed by Ayaka.

[30] It received mixed reviews by critics, with Don of Square Enix Music Online stating that while some of Ishimoto's and all of Toyama's arrangements were excellent, the original pieces that made up the bulk of the album offered "very little that is actually worth a listen".

[53] Gann was more lenient, praising Ishimoto for writing "an excellent soundtrack" and being especially happy with the quality of the arrangements of Uematsu's pieces.

Sophia Tong of IGN described the album as a "mixed bag", stating that some of the arrangements and new tracks were "fantastic" while others were "not all that compelling", and lamented the overuse of a few themes throughout the soundtrack.

The album was released on December 19, 2007 by Square Enix, and was mainly composed by Ishimoto, with some tunes based on works from Final Fantasy VII by Uematsu.

[70] On September 14, 2007, the OverClocked ReMix community released an unofficial tribute album titled Voices of the Lifestream, a compilation containing 45 arrangements of Final Fantasy VII music.