What exactly is supposed to be so good about Final Fantasy VII?

O

Oxigen_Waste

Banned
I'm tired of always seeing FF7 be considered as one of the best RPGs/games ever... I just don't get it. At all.

I love Final Fantasy! I really do! VI, IX, IX and XII are all amazing and some of my favourite RPGs ever! V and X are good too, even if not as good. VII, however, I just don't understand... It has got to be the worst game I've ever completed, in my opinion! The gameplay is completely unremarkable and is actually a step backwards from VI, the acclaimed materia system is basically a less deep job system that makes every character exactly the same, the minigames are intrusive and awful, it looks like shit (literally the only game ever to make me cringe at it's graphics and be actively distracted by how bad they are), the story is an overrated mess and Sephiroth isn't even that remarkable of an antagonist,not to mention none of the main characters is even remotely interesting apart from Cid! The only thing about the game which I even remotely enjoyed was the soundtrack, and even then it's not THAT good.

What the hell happened to make everyone love the damn game so much?? It's ridiculously inferior to it's predecessor in every single way and the fact that IX came out on the same hardware is the final nail in the coffin, imo (as IX is just absolutely amazing)! It makes no sense! I know it was many people's first RPG and that it gets a special place in their heart because of that (I have that same thing with Skies Of Arcadia), but still, there's only so much you can overlook, and with a game as flawed as VII is (imo, of course), I just don't understand what the hell happened to make it into such a big deal! oO

Now, I don't want this to turn into a hate-thread, so what I'm basically asking is... WHAT EXACTLY DO YOU PEOPLE LIKE ABOUT IT AND WHY?
 
It was a big deal when I was 13, does not hold up now, but people are unwilling to separate the game from their age and raised standards of quality from 1997.
 
ShockingAlberto said:
It was a big deal when I was 13, does not hold up now, but people are unwilling to separate the game from their age and raised standards of quality from 1997.
Click to expand...

Only the graphics and English translation do not hold up, everything else is as magical and beautiful as it was when I was 12.

Wasn't my first RPG, either, I finished Chrono Trigger, EarthBound, and Final Fantasy VI before it... which are my second, third, and fourth favorite games ever made after FFVII in that order. Good times in 90s.
 
Toki767 said:
It was a lot, and I mean a lot, of people's first RPG.
Click to expand...

First times can be overrated, you know?

Edit - I tend to agree with OP, though it's not the worst game by any means. There are quite a few JRPGs better than FF VII, though it's still respectable in its own right. I found the Legend of Dragoon and FF IX much better.
 
You lose a lot of perspective on FFVII buy not playing it when it came out. It was among the first games to go that more cinematic route that almost all JRPGs since follow. It was a lot of peoples' first FF, and hell a lot of peoples' first JRPG. Story/characters aren't great, but they looked cool in the manual. Cloud/Vincent/Sephiroth are probably the coolest looking FF characters ever. Pretty much any super early 3D game is going to be distractingly ugly. FFVII is even worse because it changes style from cutscene to cutscene. I will always remember it fondly though.
 
I played it for the first time a few months ago and absolutely loved it. You just need to get on the right mindset before playing it, just think of how incredible it must've been in 1997.

Also, it's the first time I could remember every single song in the soundtrack when I listened to it after beating the game.
 
ShockingAlberto said:
It was a big deal when I was 13, does not hold up now, but people are unwilling to separate the game from their age and raised standards of quality from 1997.
Click to expand...
It feels rough around the edges for sure, but I still enjoy it a lot. I'm planning on replaying it again as soon my Vita memory card arrives in the mail, so we'll see how I feel this time. It's been 5+ years since I last played it.
 
ShockingAlberto said:
It was a big deal when I was 13, does not hold up now, but people are unwilling to separate the game from their age and raised standards of quality from 1997.
Click to expand...
Nor should they. FF7 is a game from 1997 and should be judged as such. Same with any other game. I guess I just automatically put myself in the mindset of a game's era when I play it. That's how Phantasy Star 1 blew my mind when I played it for the first time in 2007.
 
antitrop said:
Only the graphics and English translation do not hold up, everything else is as magical and beautiful as it was when I was 12.

Wasn't my first RPG, either, I finished Chrono Trigger, EarthBound, and Final Fantasy VI before it.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't agree, but I won't completely disagree either. Later additions broadened the appeal of the game and set it up as something it wasn't.

For example, Cloud is portrayed as the brooding emo pretty boy in everything post FF7, but there was only ever a SMALL portion of FF7 where he was like this. At the start of the game, he's the over confident, ultra cocky "SOLDIER". Mid-game he goes through a depressed stage because of thinking he's only a worthless experiment. By end game, he's matured and once again very confident without being cocky.

Everything since has reverted him back to being absolutely worthless but somehow that has increased his popularity over the years... I don't get it.
 
UnNamed said:
Materia system.
Click to expand...

.

Just look at what is in the game that isn't in other FF games, assume people enjoyed that and you're done. I don't buy the whole "I don't get it" angle.

Hard Type is a blast to play if you enjoy having to use every little thing that can give you an advantage. IIRC it's been recently updated to Beta 13.
 
Manu said:
I played it for the first time a few months ago and absolutely loved it. You just need to get on the right mindset before playing it, just think of how incredible it must've been in 1997.

Also, it's the first time I could remember every single song in the soundtrack when I listened to it after beating the game.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I played it later on (about 3 years ago) and I still came out impressed. Even for its age it still feels so big and grand at least to me in all aspects.
 
KojiKnight said:
I wouldn't agree, but I won't completely disagree either. Later additions broadened the appeal of the game and set it up as something it wasn't.

For example, Cloud is portrayed as the brooding emo pretty boy in everything post FF7, but there was only ever a SMALL portion of FF7 where he was like this. At the start of the game, he's the over confident, ultra cocky "SOLDIER". Mid-game he goes through a depressed stage because of thinking he's only a worthless experiment. By end game, he's matured and once again very confident without being cocky.

Everything since has reverted him back to being absolutely worthless but somehow that has increased his popularity over the years... I don't get it.
Click to expand...
The extended canon of Final Fantasy VII is embarrassingly stupid. I pretend it doesn't exist as not to ruin my memories.
 
The use of cinematic visuals at the time + music. It really doesn't hold up very well over time due to the inconsistencies of the visuals. I just remember how amazingly great it looked at the time.
 
I've recently bought the game on Vita, and honestly I didn't even get to the second disk.

It just bored me to tears, I could only play for around 17 hours, and even that was a stretch. There is so much filler in this game that is just plain boring, I just can't do it. It just takes so much freaking time for ANYTHING to happen..
The dialogue is also extremely cheesy, in a bad way, IMO.

Overall it is extremely dated, from my point of view.

That being said, I do like the combat and materia system, and also the music ( for the most part ).
 
Saying it was ridiculously inferior to its predecessor doesn't mean a whole lot in the EU. FFVII was the first game in the series to be released over here and was the first RPG to properly catch the attention of the mainstream to the point where it was the first one for millions of people. It did for RPGs what Star Wars did for Sci-Fi/Fantasy, introduced millions of people to the medium and defined a lot of people's younger years, hitting a resonant zeitgeist that people still talk about now. What it did for bringing the genre in to the CD space, with its cinemas and production values was unprecedented and felt ahead of it's time. And yet at its heart, it didn't betray the roots of the series and took the genre crashing into a new age of 3D battle scenes, CD music and tons of minigames. It helped that the story was one of the most powerful, memorable and sombre narratives experienced in the medium at that time. These are no small feats, OP.
 
- Interesting cyberpunk design.
- A strong female protagonist with Aeris.
- Great pacing e.g all the action on the way to Shinra HQ.
- Fantastic secrets including fighting the Weapons/ getitng Knights of the realm/breeding a flying gold chcocobo.
- Some nice mystery with that ambiguous ending, Jenova's origins and characters like Vincent.
- Loads of variety in the setting, for example the difference between Midgar, the Gold Saucer and Junon.
- Limit breaks are just 'cool'
- The materia system was a nice fresh approach to boasting your characters.

It's just a phenomenal game.
 
IIRC Final Fantasy VII was the result of a load of junior Square staffers coming together to try and reinvent the RPG as it had been to that point. Without any real idea of what they were doing, how to deal with the new technology, or make a game on that scale, etc etc.

So basically it's a huge insane mess, that has a lot of cool ideas shoved into it.

I don't believe "nostalgia" is always a negative thing, and shouldn't be cited as a knee-jerk reaction every time someone says a classic thing is still great - however in the case of FFVII I personally think there's a shitload of nostalgia invested around the game. It's similar to how Ocarina of Time is put on a pedestal - being the first 3D adventure game many people played, when 3D games were new themselves. (Though as a game Ocarina came together a lot better than FFVII.)
 
Could make the same thread and replace 7 with 6, 9, 12 or any of the ones you loved.

Whats not to like about it? It's kinda similer to 6 and 9 and had an interesting dystopian sci fi theme, great music and for the time great graphics.
 
Oxigen_Waste said:
I'm tired of always seeing FF7 be considered as one of the best RPGs/games ever... I just don't get it. At all.

I love Final Fantasy! I really do! VI, IX, IX and XII are all amazing and some of my favourite RPGs ever! V and X are good too, even if not as good. VII, however, I just don't understand... It has got to be the worst game I've ever completed, in my opinion! The gameplay is completely unremarkable and is actually a step backwards from VI, the acclaimed materia system is basically a less deep job system that makes every character exactly the same, the minigames are intrusive and awful, it looks like shit (literally the only game ever to make me cringe at it's graphics and be actively distracted by how bad they are), the story is an overrated mess and Sephiroth isn't even that remarkable of an antagonist,not to mention none of the main characters is even remotely interesting apart from Cid! The only thing about the game which I even remotely enjoyed was the soundtrack, and even then it's not THAT good.

What the hell happened to make everyone love the damn game so much?? It's ridiculously inferior to it's predecessor in every single way and the fact that IX came out on the same hardware is the final nail in the coffin, imo (as IX is just absolutely amazing)! It makes no sense! I know it was many people's first RPG and that it gets a special place in their heart because of that (I have that same thing with Skies Of Arcadia), but still, there's only so much you can overlook, and with a game as flawed as VII is (imo, of course), I just don't understand what the hell happened to make it into such a big deal! oO

Now, I don't want this to turn into a hate-thread, so what I'm basically asking is... WHAT EXACTLY DO YOU PEOPLE LIKE ABOUT IT AND WHY?
Click to expand...
You bitch about FFVII yet think IX is Godtier, when it's basically a copypaste of FFVII story-wise (just pasted on a more traditional fantasy world) with what is possibly the worst ATB based battle system in the whole series (it's. soooooo. freeeeeeeeaaaaaaakiiiiiiing. slooooooooooooooooooooow).
 
Well,
aerith dying
was a pretty huge deal.
people hacking the console because they couldn't accept her death

And dont say it wasnt cause it definitely was.
 
It hit the sweet spot in the zeitgeist of 1997. The point where multimedia, jRPGs, techno-orientalism and evangelion-influence all came together at just the right time for that generation.

I don't think that you can separate it from its time. Outside of 1997 it is a fun jRPG, not the "best thing ever".
 
It was certainly not my first RPGish game; I'm more the gen that started with Secret of Mana and those games.

However, I still feel this game has a certain magic. It's strongly related to the music for sure, but also to the world, the atmosphere overall, the characters to a certain extend but also to seeing the first screenshots in mags (couldn't wait to get to Gold Saucer in game after seeing it in the mags), buying the game from the shop (I still know how it looked there), opening the case. To me, it's just magic, it has a special heart in my place and my life, it feels like it belongs to me in a way.

It's certainly an emotion, not an rational argument like like "oh the gameplay was so great". I certainly liked and still like the gameplay, but really, it's never a thing I thought about, not back then and not these days. It's just Final Fantasy VII and playing it...feels like coming home.
 
Its a pretty great game, the materia system allowed you to make anyone viable at any role they were required, the music was pretty great, there are some pretty powerful set pieces through out.
But the translation was iffy and the graphics obviously haven't held up with all the popeye overworld stuff. Plus the internet makes it pretty necessary to hate the cool things so there's that I guess? Not liking the things that everyone else likes?

Nothing that happens in FFVII is any more ridiculous than anything that happens in any more recent RPGs and its a whole hell of a lot more playable than most of the convoluted as hell TriAce battle systems we've been thrown this generation especially.
 
TheMink said:
Well,
aerith dying
was a pretty huge deal.
people hacking the console because they couldn't accept her death

And dont say it wasnt cause it definitely was.
Click to expand...
It was the biggest of deals. My classmates and I weren't talking about anything else when I was in middle school.
 
The whole Midgar section is really well-done, the music is fantastic.

The CG was pretty amazing for a game at the time (especially the CG movie turning into a prerendered background trick). Also the setting/atmosphere felt fresh and new when the game came out, for someone in the US, anyway.
 
FFVIII and FFVII were the best Final Fantasy games for me.

Great stories, great characters, great music, great hidden bosses... great everything.

FOR ME... I liked IX and X too... after that, the saga died.

I didn't play games from I to VI, so I can't say nothing about them.
 
Midgar was a great setting, a main character dies in it, it had cutscenes, the villain was a bad ass.


IMO, It kind of took all that made Lunar great and expanded on it.

Plus it came early on in the generation, so it had little competition and almost everyone played it.
 
Oxigen_Waste said:
I'm tired of always seeing FF7 be considered as one of the best RPGs/games ever... I just don't get it. At all.

I love Final Fantasy! I really do! VI, IX, IX and XII are all amazing and some of my favourite RPGs ever! V and X are good too, even if not as good. VII, however, I just don't understand... It has got to be the worst game I've ever completed, in my opinion! The gameplay is completely unremarkable and is actually a step backwards from VI, the acclaimed materia system is basically a less deep job system that makes every character exactly the same, the minigames are intrusive and awful, it looks like shit (literally the only game ever to make me cringe at it's graphics and be actively distracted by how bad they are), the story is an overrated mess and Sephiroth isn't even that remarkable of an antagonist,not to mention none of the main characters is even remotely interesting apart from Cid! The only thing about the game which I even remotely enjoyed was the soundtrack, and even then it's not THAT good.

What the hell happened to make everyone love the damn game so much?? It's ridiculously inferior to it's predecessor in every single way and the fact that IX came out on the same hardware is the final nail in the coffin, imo (as IX is just absolutely amazing)! It makes no sense! I know it was many people's first RPG and that it gets a special place in their heart because of that (I have that same thing with Skies Of Arcadia), but still, there's only so much you can overlook, and with a game as flawed as VII is (imo, of course), I just don't understand what the hell happened to make it into such a big deal! oO

Now, I don't want this to turn into a hate-thread, so what I'm basically asking is... WHAT EXACTLY DO YOU PEOPLE LIKE ABOUT IT AND WHY?
Click to expand...

Did you play it in 97 or a year ago ?
 
Oxigen_Waste said:
it looks like shit (literally the only game ever to make me cringe at it's graphics and be actively distracted by how bad they are)
Click to expand...

Today, it looks like shit today. In 97 it easily was the most beautiful game at the time, with the highest production values. It really blew my mind at the time. Plus the amount of content in there was staggering. Playing in Midgar for about 8 hours and then realizing that there's this whole world out there to explore... The game was awesome at the time. Now after every JRPG has copied and refined the formula it might not seem like much, but it was a revolution at the time.
 
I love how easy it is to abuse various game tricks/glitches to make everybody broken lol. The marteria setup is so flexible and fun.
 
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