FF7 Retrospective

[Summoner Yuna]

FF7 is arguably one of the most popular RPG's ever made and since FF is one of my favorite video series I decided to give it a try after I beat FFX. And guess what, I loved it. So I want to share my thoughts with you about the different aspects of the game.

Story- Seldomly have I seen a game with such a good story. The mythos of this game is one of the most compelling I've ever seen. In my opinion, Shinra is the real villain of the game. Their obsession with power was what drove the planet to such a crisis. First, by sucking mako energy from it and second by creating Sephiroth. Another thing that was beautifully done was Cloud's identity crisis. I think it's a great metaphor about how one's worth doesn't lie in power but on willingness to help others and loyalty. The only thing I think could've helped make the story even better than it already is was improving the dialogue, since it tends to be a little simplistic a some points, but when it's at it best the dialogue is just as compelling as any other aspect of the game. I also wish they explained more things such as why Jenova attacks planets and what exactly is she. More background on her would be nice.

Characters- I'm impressed that this is the second time I've encountered a cast of characters which I love. It was great that every character had a motivation to fight for the planet. My only gripe is with Barret and Cid. Even though I like both characters a lot, they tend to be overdone at times. I mean Barret is quite the stereotype and Cid curses every two words. I thought that if they had toned it down, this two characters would've been more realistic.

Gameplay- The gameplay is actually a lot of fun, especially bosses. Sidequests an minigames are also brilliant. I especially enjoyed the whole chocobo sidequest.

Music- The music in this game was awesome. It was varied and rich. And it portrayed the emotion of the game adequately.

Graphics- The graphics are of course outdated, however I can see that for their time they were brilliant.

All in all, I think FF7 is brilliant game that is a great addition to the FF series.

So, feel free to post your opinions.

 

[cooky560]

I agree entirly, it is still the Final Fantasy installment I come back to time and time again, I have seen it all before yes, but there is always something new to learn, some secret you have never uncovered, and the story is so well told people are still discussing it today, which for a video game made in 1996 is extremely rare. If you consider that in the UK at least a lot of people were still making mega drive games in 1996, it really shows the power of this game, and I am glad that it wasn't put on the N64.

 

[Grimoire Valentine]

I doubt you will find any FF fan who disagrees. VII was the finest of the series without a doubt.

 

[cooky560]

actually I know people who feel that VIII is the best in series

 

[Ace Strife]

VIII had it's good points, but too many bad ones. It sucked! If someone thinks FF7 isn't the finest of the FF's, they haven't ever played it, or they are psychotic.

 

[Shyne]

I agree entirly, it is still the Final Fantasy installment I come back to time and time again, I have seen it all before yes, but there is always something new to learn, some secret you have never uncovered, and the story is so well told people are still discussing it today, which for a video game made in 1996 is extremely rare. If you consider that in the UK at least a lot of people were still making mega drive games in 1996, it really shows the power of this game, and I am glad that it wasn't put on the N64.

I think FF was going to be on the N64 but it didn't end up on it because they could never have fitted it on and you cant have multiple carts...

But i totally agree, i'm glad FFVII went to playstation, it is the best title of all time and imo, time and time again it's proven to be the best. I've yet to play a game, especially an RPG that's better than 7. Imo, the graphics are STILL fantastic, just like back in 1995/6.

FFXI is the only game that comes close to being an FFVII beater.

FFX was awful no matter what anyone says imo, sorry but it was. Story was awful compared to FFVII's long complex story. The characters just haven't been the same since VII. I'm playing XII now but it just feels like a Zelda game....e.g doing puzzles, going back and putting blocks to turn lights on etc etc.

FFVII is a true RPG and every single time you go back to play it, you find something new and it's addictive. The random battles is so, so much better than the newer FF games. Without random battles, FF doesn't feel like a fantasy to me, because you can predict and have tactics ready for the battle. In FFVII, you're thrown in to do your best and survive.

FFVII >>> any other game. And don't get me wrong, i'd LOVE a game to come out and beat FFVII as the best, but since it's release, nothing has beat FFVII for me.

 

[Ace Strife]

I happen to like 10, but only because they inputed some new components into the gameplay, like the Overdrive System and the Sphere Grid. I liked it because of that. My biggest complaint was, Yu Yevon was FAR too easy for a last boss. I mean, he's killed after two strokes of Yuna's staff basically. It is a good game, but they really messed up on a few parts.....

FF7 still rules the planet. Hopefully if they make a remake, they don't screw it up.

 

[Shyne]

I happen to like 10, but only because they inputed some new components into the gameplay, like the Overdrive System and the Sphere Grid. I liked it because of that. My biggest complaint was, Yu Yevon was FAR too easy for a last boss. I mean, he's killed after two strokes of Yuna's staff basically. It is a good game, but they really messed up on a few parts.....

FF7 still rules the planet. Hopefully if they make a remake, they don't screw it up.

i didn't like the sphere grid @ all, and i hated the way you fought with summons.. imo, the summons should be summons, do their damage then go, like traditional FF games. Fighting with them really annoyed me because it didn't feel like an FF game. The characters in 10 didn't have a great background story to them imo like Vincent has and Aries. 10 just seemed to be full of fillers. But i'm not hating on you, im just saying my opinion.


i think if they made a remake, the only way they couldn't mess it up is by doing this:

ONLY IMPROVE THE GRAPHICS !

The storyline as we all know, is great. The gameplay is great. Sound is great, but i wouldn't mind if they re-did the sound with instruments, just to sound even better on a PS3 Blu Ray disk.

But if they just remade it with new graphics, but kept the camera angle the same, nothing could go wrong.

I think, when porting it over into English, one or two people on this board have spotted a tiny few mistakes in the dialogue, so if they took some time making sure there were no little blips, they could remake it and it'd sell out quicker than FFVII did on the PS1.

people would buy a PS3 just for this game. I've got a PS3 so i'm ok though

It could so easilly be announced that its being remade, but i think they're waiting until the FFXIII series is over and done with And i'm not looking forward to FFXIII as much because there are STILL no random battles. damn it.

If they remade VII n took away the random battles, i'd go crazy

 

[Ace Strife]

If they remade VII n took away the random battles, i'd go crazy

I totally agree. Random battles is what made every Final Fantasy until XII perfect. Unknowing of what was coming, it was an awesome experience. I love random battles.

 

[DL Clyde]

I doubt you will find any FF fan who disagrees. VII was the finest of the series without a doubt.

There is many people who would disagree with FFVII being the finest FF game.

 

[Ace Strife]

There is many people who would disagree with FFVII being the finest FF game.

That's what I don't get. Like I said earlier as well, either, they have never played the game, played the game but never payed attention to the storyline, or they are just crazy.

 

[Johnny Mo]

FF7 had its bad points like graphics and glitches, but this was because it was one of the earlyest playstation games. Things like that get better over time. In comparision to say FF8 and FF9, FF7 is much darker and intresting, it has the best charactor growth and combat system. Even down to the bosses FF7 was better like sephiroth who actually grows with clouds level and fights depending on how you beat jenova, whilst FF9 has a pink monkey as a boss.
But the one majorly overlooked things in final fantasy is the minigame 7 overall had the best and the wdest range. It helped taking a break of fighting.

 

[Shyne]

^^^

i'd disagree that FFVII's graphics weren't its strong point and i'd disagree about the monkey in FFIX.

Give me a list of games made in FFVII's first year out and point out ANY that had better graphics. None.

FFIX was, in my opinion , the 2nd best game ever made in the FF series. The emotions playing that game where phenomenal. The graphics were nice for the time and the game went back to the origins of FF, what with the job-system tie in.

Just my 2 cents..

 

[Vanilla]

Its definitely one of the best in the FF series. The storyline was great, the music was amazing and the graphics.. well, I find it cute.

 

[cooky560]

I have pretty much played them all, and every time I come back to FFVII

 

[JDawg]

Hey guys and gals, I'm new here, but I can't resist offering up my own take on FFVII.

I don't know if I love FFVII so much because it was the first game in the series that I ever played, or if my memories of the experience really are true, but I just can't bring myself to say that there has been a better game than that one.

The Materia System was fun, difficult, and offered plenty of strategy in a time when the most popular games offered none. I had never seen such a thing before in my life, and I was awestruck at the potential of it. I imagined an inventory full of mastered materia, and the power I could wield against my enemies.

The gameplay itself was brilliant. I never had a problem with the random battles--though today, after playing 12's ADB system, it would be hard to go back to it--and I thought it added a sense of urgency and immediacy to every fight. Though random encounters lasted, I believe, all the way through FFX, FFVII somehow perfected the feeling of monsters sneaking up on you. I loved the ATB system, and never found a flaw in it. It never took away from the game, as FFXII's sometimes does.

I also loved how the developers led you to believe the game was linear as you progressed through Midgar, until you fatefully stepped outside it's borders, and into the giant Sandbox world...just...wow.

And of course, there's the storyline...wow, again.

I just never imagined a video game could be so deep. Cloud's struggles seemed at first to be nothing more than that of a frustrated former soldier who had been reduced to mercenary-for-hire status. But as the story progressed, I was thrown for a loop too many times after to count. From the idea that Shinra was actually as bad as Avalanch actually said they were--much worse, even--to the realization that Cloud was in fact never an elite member of SOLDIER, but a nervous rookie who could barely keep his pants dry...it all hit me like any classic twist in literature or cinema.

I still think that Sephiroth stands as the greatest villian to ever grace a video game. The unfortunate aspect of Sephiroth's reign of terror was that it was largely unrealized. I think while he had his destructive moments, Sephiroth should have been able to bring more havoc upon the land than he actually did. If there was one complaint about the mythos of FFVII, it would be that the people of the world do not ever truly know the face of their attacker, and never truly understand just how badass a man they were dealing with.

The only disappointing aspect of the game experience--to me, at least, and it did leave me quite upset--was the ending. I won't go into detail, because there are those of you reading this who have yet to beat it, I'm sure, but I just wish there had been more finality to it, especially considering that the game never spawned a direct sequal.

It pulled a "Sopranos" ten years before The Sopranos did!

Since FFVII, the games have grown more complex in both graphics and gameplay (and most recently, story) and in my opinion, all but one or two of the games have improved the gameplay. But none of them have, at least in my mind, gripped me the way VII's story did. It was more character-driven than the rest (though there was impending planetary doom) and I felt more connected to the characters in VII than any other that followed.

I think it helped tremendously that you could name the characters yourself. That is an underrated aspect of the game, and the biggest casualty of the voice-over era.

The only game, in my opinion, that can stand up storyline-wise to VII is X. I know it's probably cliche at this point to say that, but I believe it to be true. While I was eventually impressed by VIII, and awestruck by the scope of XII (I HATED IX, by the way. Just a piss-poor effort), the only other game that made me care about the characters was X. I really wanted to know more about Tidus, and Auron's character and story were brilliant. The whole world felt doomed, and I don't think there has ever been a more feared, more destructive, more legendary force in video games than the entity Sin. It was as perfect an effort as Square could give.

And although I loved the game, it still just didn't have the ring to it that VII did. Something about VII touched me deeply, and made me absolutely love every character in it. I modeled Cloud after myself, drawing parallels between us; my secret affection for a girl named Jen played as my own personal backstory to Yuffie; Aries, to me, was the sweet and lovely hippie girl named Nicole that I loved so very much; Barrett was my large friend Rich, who was quite similar to the real thing; Red XIII was given the namesake of my lost dog, Little Bit (A Great Dane standing at over 6' tall); and even Cait-Sith pulled enough of my heart strings to earn the name of my beloved Cat, Beeflet.

VII was the greatest videogame accomplishment thusfar.