Title: The Jenova Project
Author: Mr. Ite
Rating: T
Genre: Fantasy/Adventure
Status: WIP (116k words)
Fandom: Final Fantasy 7
Pairings: None (so far)
Summary: This is a novelization of Final Fantasy VII. It was originally written before the Compilation existed, and has been tinkered with across the years. It still does not follow Compilation canon, so some may consider this AU. Book I fully uploaded.
Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3122672/1/The-Jenova-Project

So as novelization go this one is definitely worth the read. It follows the plot of the game but it's different enough that it doesn't feel like your just reading the game instead of playing it, if that makes sense. It's really well-written, the dialogue flows naturally and the characterization is great.

I actually talked to the author in around 2015 and he was finishing up the second book. He said this one (first one) was suppose to be around 200k words and was finished. I know he had the whole thing posted at one point a few years ago before he took it down for a rewrite.

5/5

 

The writing is really shit in this. The author has a really poor grasp of how dialogue tags and beats work. On the plus side, he errs on the side of caution when it comes to brevity, and that's the saving grace. There's a terse, tightly controlled style to this which is relatively uncommon outside professional works, and that carries it through the (abundant) grammatical errors. Spelling seems to be more or less intact, so I imagine this is yet another victim of modern education and spellcheck as the sole editor.

My sole experience of FFVII is through fanfiction. And almost entirely Peggy Sue fanfiction, at that. This made it a little bit difficult for me to get invested in any of the characters, but the brusque style employed by the author made that less relevant; it shines in fun and fast action sequences more than emotive character introspection.

So. Yeah. Mixed feelings about this. On a lot of levels it's actively bad from a technical point of view, but I really feel like none of the errors were too intrusive or interfered much with my experience. I'm being a bit generous here, but I wouldn't want to rate this fic any lower.

4/5

 

Well, I was enjoying it during the first half or so but then it kind of petered out sometime after Shinra brought down the roof and I can't quite put my finger on why. I stopped around Chapter 30 when I realised that I was just reading it for the lack of other things to do rather than because it actually interested me despite my fondness for game novelisations.

Can't say that I dislike the fic but I can't work up any desire to continue either.

3/5

P.S. @Scott you've used a mobile version of the link for Fanfiction.net

 

Sorry about the mobile link. I'm on my phone so that's probably why.