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Having just finished this game, I thought I'd lay down some random thoughts I had, though there isn't much to say that hasn't already been said.

I think the problem with FF7 isn't so much the game as the fanbase that calls it God's gift to gaming (whereas Shadow of the Colossus had its problems both in being extremely lame, and the fanbase calling it God's gift to the world). Now, some parts were bloody tedious - running up at least sixty flights of stairs in the Shinra building, that motorcycle minigame where I couldn't seem to hit anything, the snowboard minigame with the crap controls, the presentation for Rufus' arrival at the city with the giant canon, sitting through attacks like the Bahamut ZERO summon (at least something was happening during Kights of the Round, and the colors were pretty) or Sephiroth's Supernova spell, etc. But when it knocked off that minigame crap and delivered solid RPG gameplay it was actually quite decent.

Why couldn't they have made the spinoff game about Cid instead of Vincent? I personally don't know what to think of Vincent. At first his attitude towards everything was "Meh, whatever", but he got a little better after I found Lucretia's Cave, and there is the problem that since he was optional much of his dialogue isn't followed on, like what he says to Hojo before the fight with him. Cid on the other hand was a swirling ball of color. He was like a little kid in a compulsive swearing old man's body, like when he wanted to ride the Chocobo at the race and the way he's mesmerized and fascinated by outer space when you're in the Shinra rocket's escape pod. I guess Vincent has more story reason to have his own game, as well as popularity with the fans.

And Sephiroth is Kefka lite.


Where are these lemmings going? Not the Super Nintendo Super Shire! They know to go to Codiekitty.com now!

The only reason to run up those 60 flights of stairs is for an Elixir. You can get more cool stuff if you bust in to the Shinra building. And the music is better, so... yeah.

Snowboarding sucks. I don't know why the hell they put that in there.

Yeah, I hate long summon animations. I wish they had an option for you to just see the damage get dealt.

Sephiroth=crap villain. I say that not because he really sucks, but he's a hell of a lot crappier than everyone says he is.

Oh, and did anyone else notice that Safer Sephiroth has not one wing, but like four or five of them?

Yeah, this game is completely overrated. -CSM

(A)Greed.

Good, and good for its era, but yes, overrated.

Personally, I would much rather have seen a Yuffie-centric sequel game. The kleptoninja is my favorite character in the game, and she's got a very distinctive homeland compared to the rest of the World presented in FFVII- and tons of plot, far above and beyond what most optional characters get (and yes, she is too optional). More than enough there to build a game or three on.

But instead, the gothy-emo thinking guy gets a game.

Don't get me wrong, Vince's got a pretty cool character design, but that kind of apathetic (or semi-apathetic if you do his sidequest) personality just never struck me as anything but vaguely irritating.

NO. NO Yuffie Sequel. That's as bad as an FFX Rikku sequel, if not worse.

Barret and Cid are the only ones that deserve a sequel, if at all. Because no character from any game deserves a sequel, from Edgar all the way down to Selphie. -CSM

Crazyswordsman wrote:The only reason to run up those 60 flights of stairs is for an Elixir. You can get more cool stuff if you bust in to the Shinra building. And the music is better, so... yeah.

Ah well, live and learn.

Oh, and did anyone else notice that Safer Sephiroth has not one wing, but like four or five of them?

I'm counting seven (those "fins" on the second set of wings are actually a third set), but maybe the song is only referring to the big "evil" one his right arm turned into. Also, I believe "Sephiroth" comes from "seraph" which means "angel" (or was a class of angels, maybe either depending on who you're talking to), and "roth" which means "one". In what languages, I don't know.

Yeah, this game is completely overrated.

Yeah, it's overrated, but I wouldn't call it a bad game. Not a great game either. Would have been better if they omitted those stupid mandatory minigames (others I forgot to mention were the squats for the wig, and performing CPR on the girl).

As for Yuffie, let's just say I only used her to get the Leviathan summon.


Where are these lemmings going? Not the Super Nintendo Super Shire! They know to go to Codiekitty.com now!

That bigass thing isn't a wing. It's his arm. Notice how the thing surrounds his arm and doesn't go onto his back? That's not a wing at all. -CSM

If you want to get into where it's coming from, the other six wings are coming out of the bottom of his torso, which is more off base than where his right arm should be. Not just distance, but birds' wings essentially are their arms.

Given the structure it's either a false wing or a really messed up praying mantis arm.


Where are these lemmings going? Not the Super Nintendo Super Shire! They know to go to Codiekitty.com now!

But it's certainly not worthy of the praise it's given by its legions of fanboys. -CSM

He has the three pairs of wings to mimic the Seraphim angel class. Along with the double halo, I guess it's to show that he's one supreme badass.

Anyways, I think of FF7 as a milestone. It's like Star Wars; what FF7 did to gaming, it's the same thing Star Wars did to movies. Bigger, more CG/special FX, more expensive.

Except that he's not a badass, and FF7 is hardly a milestone for gaming. -CSM

Is Star Wars a milestone for movies?

I'm not saying that FF7 is a great or even a good game (I do think it's a great game, by the by). I'm saying that after FF7, games took a departure from what they were.

....Why the hell is this in Neglected Characters? It's like putting a lolsony thread in PPR.

I haven't managed to force myself to finish the game, at least partially because the only character I give a damn about is Barret and him only because of his relationship with his daughter.

But saying this isn't a milestone for gaming is ridiculous. It shattered the entire idea of what games were thought to be capable of in terms of cinematics. Without this we wouldn't have Metal Gear Solid, or Ocarina of Time, or even Halo. Its influence traveled outwards in a shockwave that did literally change the industry.

p.s.

As an overall game, no. But as Ace said, it was a milestone in special effects. Now, whether this milestone was a good thing or not is open to debate, because now we have RPGs that go overboard on the special effects, and even FF7 had the annoyingly long summons and Supernova spell.


Where are these lemmings going? Not the Super Nintendo Super Shire! They know to go to Codiekitty.com now!

^Yeah, you're right, it was a milestone. A milestone that the golden age of gaming was coming to a close. -CSM

Golden age of gaming came to an end?

Right, that's why this year is shaping up to be the best in over a decade, right?

The point stands that FF7's impact was ultimately positive - it couldn't be anything but, considering how it affected people's reception of storytelling in mainstream gaming.

It'd say the advent of FF7 is a mixed blessing, though. It kicked 2D gaming in the crotch, and games had to go "epic" or bust.

FF7 was a great game. However, people are angry at it because of flaws it had. But those flaws were sort of like stretch marks on growing people--it was very hard to make this new format, so certain things suffered in transition.

Unlike Sonic Adventure's abortive attempts at 3D gaming, however, Final Fantasy 7 succeeded.

And a good deal of the 'bad' games Crazyswordman speaks of could possibly be so by not following FF7's lead, or failing to live up to it. Because most of the bad games are worse than FF7; rarely do you see FF7 clones which fail entirely because they've done nothing new.

Not so. I mean, look at the DS. Or most of the N64 library. Or any Nintendo game except for the Zelda games. Or pretty much any game on the two hundred million plus Game Boys sold over the past fifteen years.

Epic gaming's saturation of the market is vastly exaggerated, but FF7's impact on storytelling in gaming literally can't be.

I think storytelling is predates FF7, though. I'm thinking about both FF6/3 and Chrono Trigger on the SNES.

Perhaps FF7 helped bring FF6 and Chrono Trigger-style storytelling to 3D, thus making sure it would be seen across the gaming medium?