A Contrarian View of FFVII

This week is seeing the commercial release of Advent Children, so it's appropriate to see Jeremy Parish discussing the original game. However, he's got a slightly different take on the game than you might be used to. Seen via GameSetWatch. From Parish's article: "What better way to sell to people than by speaking directly to them? Cloud Strife is the everynerd -- wrapped up in delusions of greatness when allowed to take things on his own carefully-selected terms until he sees the world for what it is and is forced to come to grips with the fact that he's actually completely pathetic. That's your average game-obsessed message board dork in a nutshell: the petty tyrant of a tiny little niche of the Internet but a failure in real life. It's the kind of parable Jesus would have been proud to have shared with the hungry masses between bites of magical fishloaf, the cigarette ad of nerd coming-of-age stories -- a promise to nerdlings that if you face down your demons, accept your failures and struggle to move beyond them, you'll save the world and your childhood crush will fall madly in love with you."

Re:My reasoning

[meringuoid]

I got so sick and tired of seeing the EXACT same setting for every RPG, is there some rule when it comes to making a good RPG that says "You MUST set this in times of dragons and dungeons!"? I understand that they are all based off the D&D games but come on, do they ALL have to take place in the same time frame?

Well, let's see...

* checks RPGs on game shelf *

Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, Neverwinter Nights: Forgotten Realms, D&D
Morrowind: Vvardenfell, Mournhold and Solstheim, magic mediaeval
Fallout 1 and 2: radioactive future California
Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines: contemporary California
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2: a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away

Four mediaeval D&D style, four futuristic, one present-day. It's not THAT overwhelming. I'm guessing that the tendency among RPGs to mediaevalism is largely due to the established D&D market and game worlds, which save a lot of work in design.