Heading to EVO in 7 days. I know this topic will come up.
I played FFI, FFIV, FFV then played FFVII. Most people seem to have started on VII.
In retrospect, the polygons were generational. The story was written for amnesiacs. Each character was identical save for Ultimates.
Why do you consider this the best of the FF series? Help me understand what I do not appreciate.
Tell me why FFVII is a good game...
● ARCHIVED · READ-ONLY
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'General Discussion' is for looking at broad themes as they relate to the making of games, not for discussing the pros and cons of an existing game.
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Is this speaking from the time FFVII came out or from right now. Coz personally, during that time, I had so much fun playing that game, everything felt new and really fun. But if I look at it again from the current time, everything feels a bit bland. Which is possibly due to the very huge difference between games of that time and the games of the previous years.
I cant really tell technical reasons as to why I liked it though, coz all I remember is that I had so much fun playing that game. And for me, thats why I play games anyway, to have fun.
PS: Btw, for me its a good FF but not the best. The best for me is still X though there are also a lot of people who hate it -
for me its a good FF but not the best. The best for me is still X though there are also a lot of people who hate it
Hmm, why do you feel X is the best?
Any FF opinion might help to shed light on the entire discussion. -
I think FF VIII is the best, the story, the feeling was just ... indescribable, try it yourself
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FFVII is a masterpiece for me from its setting that something I can relate to heavily, an extreme medical condition that not a lot of people would understand, amazing use of symbolism, body language in the most subtle ways and how it integrates religion to the character's name, existence, and plot that I see from very few games. Even people get the whole Zack and Cloud thing extremely wrong. But explaining all that would require to write a freaking essay and would take a while.
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I think FF VIII is the best, the story, the feeling was just ... indescribable, try it yourself
I think a free demo came with another Squaresoft game I had at the time, FFT? Did not get into it.
Felt a lot like those gender-specific legos.
FFVII is a masterpiece for me from its setting that something I can relate to heavily, an extreme medical condition that not a lot of people would understand, amazing use of symbolism, body language in the most subtle ways and how it integrates religion to the character's name, existence, and plot that I see from very few games. Even people get the whole Zack and Cloud thing extremely wrong. But explaining all that would require to write a freaking essay and would take a while.
From anyone but square, I would have appreciated the amnesia story angle. Maybe my loyalty to them jaded me toward their overuse of this trope.
Also, I know the weapons were the real bosses of the game, but the story-line game itself felt too easy. -
Cloud does not have amnesia, it's way worse than that.
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Ok, I might have to dig up some old posts, because I have basically written essays on this (as @Archeia is aware).
I don't consider it the best FF (FFT is the best FF), but it manages to be the most underrated and overrated game in the series by far. It is a REALLY good story with a lot of vagueness due to the translation. The setting, characters, and their arcs are very good.
The gameplay on the other hand is mostly serviceable. The materia system is cool though.
EDIT: Explanation of why Cloud is the way Cloud is:
Ok, time to play "I know more about Final Fantasy VII than any reasonable sane man should".
I'm going to have to explain some things first, because there are lot of moving parts to explaining how Cloud ended up the way he did.
The Calamity from the Skies: Jenova.
"It looked like... our... our dead mothers... and our dead brothers. Showing us specters of their past." -Ifalna on Jenova.
The first thing you have to remember about Jenova, is that it is a shapeshifter. But not only can it take the looks of whatever it wants, it can mimic their personalities and actions. Jenova has the ability to read surface thoughts, and adjust its actions to your expectations.
The second thing: Jenova can assimilate other beings. By infected another being with its cells, it can mutate and manipulate them. Actually, if you pay attention in the story, something really kind of disturbing is revealed: Monsters are possibly the descendants of the Cetra that Jenova infected before she was put in a dormant state by the last pure Cetra.
What is the process used to create Sephiroth, SOLDIER, and Sephiroth Clones?
This is a neat one, and something that isn't touched on much in the translation. I don't know how much of this is because of bad translation, and how much is just stuff that wasn't even in the original Japanese. Most of my knowledge here comes from a combination of some things we DO see in the game (Sephiroth project) and things from the Ultimania guide.
So the first thing let's covers is Sephiroth. Sephiroth was a human being who was injected with Jenova cells while still in utero. Every bit of his DNA is permeated with Jenova cells. This increased his strength and gave him "special" powers beyond normal humans. He is effectively a human/jenova hybrid.
SOLDIER. Members of SOLDIER are screened for two things, the first is for actual ability. I mean they were elite troops and all, but the second was a strong sense of self. We'll get to why in a minute. They were injected with Jenova cells and given Mako showers, enhancing their physical abilities.
Sephiroth Clones were a thing created by Hojo. They were created from the survivors of the Nibelheim incident. The theory Hojo had was that Jenova cells, given time, would try to reconnect with each other. The process used to create them? Injecting them with Jenova cells and giving them Mako Showers. This is why Cloud could pass as an ex-SOLDIER. He actually did have the same abilities. So what is the difference? Unlike SOLDIER members, they weren't screened for a strong sense of self. They also were traumatized by the Nibelheim incident. Because of this, they were left much weaker to the manipulations of Jenova.
What the hell happened to Cloud?
After the escape and Zack's death, Cloud was still in a fugue state. Most of his memories were buried underneath trauma and the manipulation of Jenova through the cells. He wandered toward Midgar because that is what Zack told him to do. That was when Tifa found him. And this is where we get to the interesting bit!
The Jenova cells in Cloud acted on instinct, doing what it had done in the Cetra in the past, it pulled the memories off of Tifa to try and figure out how Cloud should act. Tifa remembered Cloud leaving to join SOLDIER, so that was what it picked up. It combined this with Cloud's memories, and it used his memories of Zack to fill in the blanks of what a SOLDIER was supposed to act like.
Cloud wasn't lying, and he had no shame for lying, because he had no idea that what he believed wasn't 100% true. The "voice" that keeps talking to him throughout the game is his real self, trying to make him remember, trying to reassert itself, but he didn't have the strength of will to manage it.
So how could Sephiroth control Cloud?
Sephiroth has a sense of self that is huge. How huge? Like, seriously huge bro. See here is where it starts to get interesting as far as what Sephiroth is doing the whole game. Unlike every other being that Jenova had ever infected, Sephiroth was different. It couldn't control him. Instead, Sephiroth controlled IT. And through it, he could control every other being Jenova controlled. Actually, something not mentioned in the game itself, but is really neat, is that Sephiroth never leaves the crater in the entire game. The thing you are chasing the entire time is Jenova shapeshifting to appear as Sephiroth, under Sephiroth's control. That is why you keep fighitng Jenova pieces each time you run into it.
So why couldn't he control Cloud late in the game?
THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP. No really, through his connections with the other party members, Cloud gains self confidence and a strong sense of self, allowing him to ignore the Jenova commands.
And here is where I really like Cloud in Final Fantasy VII: Cloud was a loser, who failed at everything he tried to do, who was completely brainwashed, experimented on, and had his mind deconstructed by an alien superbeing, and in the end, he grew, he became stronger, and he learned who he was. And because of that, he was able to Omnislash Sephiroth's punkass into the lifestream.
Source: I wrote this like, 100% from memory (other than the quote, I knew the jest of it but couldn't remember the exact wording so I looked it up), so it may not be EXACT on on every point. Most of my memory comes from Ultimania guide translations and playing the game a lot. So booya. -
Good points:
Story: Starts as individual VS the state, then turns into a desperate fight for the survival of the planet itself.
Materia system: "Oh, what's that, Emerald Weapon? You're going to use Aire Tam and Revenge Stamp on us? Well, let me cast life on all of the party as I fall, thus resurrecting us all, followed by a quadruple summon times two that will also replenish my HP and MP, which my companions will mimic once each. Nice knowing you. Also, Malboro? I see your Bad Breath and I raise you my Hades Materia linked to Added Effect on my armor. Thanks for teaching this Enemy Skill Materia your signature move, too."
Setting: The world felt HUGE. Cities, towns, dungeons... all with more than one model per townsfolk archetype. HUGE.
Graphics: OMG 3D POLYGONS! THIS IS T3H FUTURE!!!!1111 (For their time, to be fair)
Mini-games that yield very useful rewards when done right: Chocobo Breeding, Chocobo Racing and Battle Square.
Native American warrior cougar. Whose tail is on fire.
Two secret characters, one of them being a badass robo-vampire who wields a gun. Enough said.
Mugging and morphing: "Stand still, Master Tonberry and Unknowns. I'm going to transform you into items that will make me even more powerful! BWA HA HA HA HA HA!"
Limit Breaks: "Those are nice desperation moves, King of Fighters. Hold my beer. Yeah, I'm going to mimic it after I perform it, why do you ask?"
THE MUSIC. SO MUCH GOOD MUSIC.
Only on Playstation. Bring those guys who make cartridge games a blindfold. :LZYcool: (With the N64 being thought of as a "Kiddie" system, and the Saturn a trainwreck, the PS1 was the cool console to own) -
Personally I think for most people it is because it was the first FF game they every played, which is in part due to the fact it was the first one advertised well (I never heard of it until they aired some TV ads), and it even got a PC port in 1998 which also made it the first FF game for PC's ever released.
In general I think one thing people actually like about the game is it didn't try to scale things too much to your level. You wanna go run around and grab all those materia before doing the final dungeon? Go ahead, even though one of them could one hit kill the final boss (I'm looking at you, Knights of the Round). So basically it was more like, here is what you need to pass, no go find a way to do it. And sure, you might find a way to get so powerful you could sneeze and defeat the entire game, and the game developers were fine with it. And you know what, no one I know cared either that the final dungeon could become too easy (I say this as I was in college when the game came out, and it seemed like everyone on my dorm floor had it. No one complained at all about it being possible to make the last dungeon too easy).
And yes, I know at level 99 the final boss powers up, but if you get to that point you probably got 3 or 4 Knights of the Round, which is still cast all of them, win game. But I can't say more on that, because by level 82 I had 2 Knights of the Round materia + the ones from the ultimate bosses, and I had to really grind to even get to level 82. -
FF7 was the perfect storm. One thing you'll need to understand is that the US market was starved for JRPGs in those days. I remember going to the flea market and sifting through tables full of NES and SNES games trying to find JRPGs that I hadn't yet played. Nine times out of ten, I came away empty handed. The pickings were slim.
I was at the mall one day and made my usual stop by the video game store Babages and they had a kiosk set up with the demo of FF7. It let you play through to the first boss fight. Now while the character and enemy models were quite crude, even for the time, the rest of the graphics blew my mind. Every RPG I'd ever played up until that point was mostly static pixel art. The monsters didn't move. The heroes usually just took a step forward and swung a weapon ... and that's if they were actually on the screen during battles which was rare. And now all of a sudden, we've got these gorgeous, 3D-looking backgrounds, the camera is zooming around the field of battle, particle effects going off everywhere, the heroes and monsters were running around slashing weapons and clawing you and knocking you over. Everything felt so alive.
Those of us who grew up with RPGs in the 80's and early 90's had to use our imaginations ... a lot. We had to make believe that walking around a bunch of squares with icons on them was our adventures journeying through fields and hills and mountains, fighting for their lives to reach the next town so they could rest. Now for the first time, we were actually running through a 3D world. Even the slight elevation changes of hills, slopes, stairs and such blew my mind. The world was no longer flat. Our imagination was no longer needed to construct a realistic world. It could be focused on other things (like imagining the characters as more realistic than they looked).
FF7 broke so much new ground in world immersion. It was a fascinating place to explore at the time. The mini-games were really cool too. Snowboarding down the mountain. Betting on the Chocobo races. Shooting hoops. Then you also had the full motion video cutscenes that we had never experienced before in an RPG. After playing that demo for 10-15 minutes, I instantly knew I had to get a Playstation so that I could have this game.
If you played this game after the fact, it's not going to be as impressive. All of that wow factor will have been lost due to continued advancement in video games. All these things that made FF7 such an amazing experience back then have been copied, improved upon and churned out in huge quantities since then. RPGs, probably due to the massive success of this one game, have become much more common place and less unique and special. It's just something you would have had to have experienced at that time in order to fully understand. -
I agree its something you had to play in the era to get the full expirience since a lot of "new" features that have since been copied wouldnt be appriciated. Ff7 is important to the history of rpgs. The graphics were bad yet the quantity of content was huge.. i wouldnt play through the whole game again because it would take too long but i would play the minigames at the gold saucer again
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To add to the above, in Europe we didn't have many other RPGs until FF VII. I can only think of one Turn Based even, Lufia II. Even though there is a physiyal english release of Treasures of the Rudras, we didn't get the previous FFs or Chrono Trigger until much later in the GBA era. So FF VII was truly one of a kind. And it sparked the release of other, more niche-RPGs on the PS1. The battle system also wasn't overused at that time, and while pretty basic, it still did it's own thing with the materia system.
However, I think what truly makes FF VII so great is the story and the presentation.The game deals with issues that keep us buisy to this day and maybe are even more important now than 20 years ago.
You have a energy company that corrupted a whole city, is using the life energy of the planet for their profit to a point where it has become unhealthy for the population and themselves. Despite all this, their megalomania knows no bounds, so they start looking for a promised land with endless energy, even though it's not proven it actually exists.
Then you have a group of eco-rebels, terrorizing parts of this city by causing major blackouts. Though, of course they did all this to save nature and the planet.
Next there is this badass looking guy who turned from an ideal, maybe a fatherly tutor even, to an extremist who tries to conquer the world by purging all the unworthy from the planets surface. Because he radicalized himself by reading books containing half-truths and theories, he now thinks he's the chosen one.
The rest of the story deals with the implications of these problems, the backgrounds of the characters and how they are all involved in this scheme with a few twists and sprinkles here and there. Why does the black guy have a machine gun instead of a hand? Is this a vampire sleeping in the coffin? Why is Tifa acting so strangely?
The beauty lies in the writing (not in the translation or script, mind you). Important Characters are not portrayed black and white, there are nuances and motives that make them relatable. The SNES RPGs didn't feature this depth of storytelling before.
Though, I think the others are right in that you have to have played it when it was still new to truly appreciate it. I remember talking with my cousin about how Final Fantasy VII -really- needs to get a remake with the graphics of FF VIII and a better translation. It also didn't help that the PC version of the game had those really nasty MIDI sounds. Even though personally I enjoyed the „remixed“ versions, but there are so many flaws on the technical side alone, that I totally understand newer players having difficulties to get into the game.
...One last thing I wanted to mention. I don't understand where the notion comes from that FF VII is such a long game. People told me the playtime counter stopped at 99:99:93 or something, but I never managed to play this long in one playthrough. Sure, there are quite a few sidequests and I, too, grinded all the way to lvl 99, but I can't remember taking more than 45 hours to fully complete the game. Only playing for the story took me around 20 hours, iirc. I definitely made it to Nibelheim in the present in 6 Hours. I'm really curious how people kept themselves buisy for so Long. -
This isn't my favorite Final Fantasy or anything but its a good game; I definitely think for some people though its having played it at the height of its impact; I started with ps2 and played X first; personally I enjoyed X more (although my favorite is VI over all for FF) but I can definitely see why people would be so taken with VII. Ignoring things like good cut-scene graphics for its time or first 3d FF, etc...(looking at some things that hold up for the game today):
SpoilerIt features a fairly modern world one can relate to directly, something that invests the player in the world early on. The game also gets you eager to explore the world; you spend the early game in the shell that is midgar, there is much to explore in midgar certainly but a moment dawns on you in the game when you realize how much bigger the world and its plot really are. It gets you excited to explore more and see what you can find in this vast familiar yet also strange land. I think it helps as well the game starts off on a high note, it starts with this big mission and fills in information as you go.
The game has a fairly strong cast of characters, in part because they all have strong distinct personalities that make them feel more like individuals. The cast is also quite colorful and varied as well, a man controlling a robot that sort of has its own personality as well, a cussing renegade who also cares for his adopted daughter fiercely, the kind and mysterious girl that carries a burden/love interest, your tough but loyal child-hood friend/love interest, a talking wise wolf-like creature, etc...
The story is quite layered in that it often adds something further as time goes on, just when you think you might be experiencing the whole of the game you find out there is another piece to it. At first its issues with the energy company, later its sephiroth, cloud's past, the planet's destruction, etc...
The game is very player oriented which I think endears it to people, you have a lot of customization and investment with the materia system and how it relates to weapons. You have some say in how events play out with cloud; you might emphasize the romance with Tifa over Aerith or maybe not even see much of either beyond must see scenes/events. The game rewards you for exploring and participation often, your time is rewarded with something new to acquire or discover; a new character, a new island/path, a new materia, optional backstory, etc...It goes on and on.
There is just a lot of content in general packed into the game, the characters and secrets I mentioned above but also a slew of varied mini-games to ( I put a lot of time into the snowboard one myself). Unless you only do the bare minimum its easily a game that can go well over 100 hrs.
On "paper" it might seem a lot of these things seem like rpg staples or no-brainer inclusions but it sort of all just comes together in VII in its own way. The game has its flaws, certainly but I think its a case where what it does well for the people who are fans it does extremely well. -
@Lestroth I dunno about you but I originally played ff7 on a pc below minimum requirements and that atb gauge was so slow to fill I could have easily hit 99 hours on the battles alone...but I upgraded my cpu before I finished disc 1
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While being undoubtedly a very good game IMHO it's not a masterpiece.
We have to consider the very important fact that Final Fantasy VII had the huge fortune of being one of the first JRPGs in 3D.
If FFVI would have been the one released in 3D I'm pretty sure it would have had a similar success and looking at the narrative side of the title I think it would have deserved it too.
Let's also add that VII was the one that advertised the genre among us Europeans, and "the epicness" of the episode comes from the fact that it was the first game of this kind that most knew here.
If we then follow sequels, prequels, spin-offs, movies and anime, the legend has been expanded through the years and became what is currently today.
That being said I personally like VI, Tactics and X more. -
VI is honestly even more overrated than VII. /unpopular opinion.
In that, I don't think it is a bad game, it is honestly quite good, but it has a lackluster villain and some really really cringy scenes that are lauded as brilliant (The opera scene is terrible, I'm sorry it just is. It is so badly done and for some reason the fans went gaga over it).
It wasn't even the best FF of that generation (V is better), and it isn't as good as Chrono Trigger or Dragon Quest V or Phantasy Star IV or Shining Force II, all from the same generation. -
Ok, I might have to dig up some old posts, because I have basically written essays on this (as @Archeia is aware).
I don't consider it the best FF (FFT is the best FF), but it manages to be the most underrated and overrated game in the series by far. It is a REALLY good story with a lot of vagueness due to the translation. The setting, characters, and their arcs are very good.
The gameplay on the other hand is mostly serviceable. The materia system is cool though.
EDIT: Explanation of why Cloud is the way Cloud is:
Yeah Fuzz, Tactics is the best game in the series. Where is our real sequel =(
VI is honestly even more overrated than VII. /unpopular opinion.
In that, I don't think it is a bad game, it is honestly quite good, but it has a lackluster villain and some really really cringy scenes that are lauded as brilliant (The opera scene is terrible, I'm sorry it just is. It is so badly done and for some reason the fans went gaga over it).
It wasn't even the best FF of that generation (V is better), and it isn't as good as Chrono Trigger or Dragon Quest V or Phantasy Star IV or Shining Force II, all from the same generation.
For me, I prefer VI because it had different classes. I never liked how the characters in VII were cut-and-pasted over different graphics, with Ultimates(limit breaks) thrown in.
Playwise, I prefer 2D worlds. I have always found the spatial exploration of 3D worlds to be to cumbersome. I think it is a lot easier for a developer to express their intentions in the 2D realm. Part of the reason I enjoy working with MV so much. -
The big difference with VII actually is in their upper tier weapons and their Limit Breaks. They also did have different stats (though this could be overrode pretty much with materia though, but to be fair, you could overcome almost any stat difference in VI with espers).
Vincent's Death Penalty acts very different from Ultima Weapon acts very different from Yuffie's Conformer.
Also, I find that Limit Break differences make way more of a difference if you play with everyone furied all the time (which is honestly what I did, the miss chance if you have high accuracy isn't really that bad).
VI does I feel have better differentiation between characters, but that is really only a small part of what makes a game great.