A Contrarian View of FFVII 159
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."
Contrarian? (Score:4, Insightful)
For many people, it was the first Final Fantasy game that they played, so it's obvious why there are many who hold it in high regard. But it's sluggishly paced and the characters are mostly interchangeable towards the end game, despite their roles (or lack thereof in some cases) in the story.
Re:Contrarian? (Score:1)
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Re:Contrarian? (Score:2)
Beat the game using intial weapons, no materia, and no accessorys.. and you would see yuffie is one of the most important characters!
no I don't have a girlfriend... why do you ask?
Re:Contrarian? (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't get me wrong, I am a fan of the Final Fantasy series, and have played most of them to the end. However, they have always been kind of cheesy in alot of departments.
Actually, my main problem is that they seem to have become alot more movie-like since around VII. The first several hours of some of them is just like watching a movie with very little actual interaction beyond running the battles.
I
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Re:Contrarian? (Score:2)
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Re:Contrarian? (Score:2)
Re:Contrarian? (Score:2)
In other words you just swapped character data into your party, she's not actually "there" story-wise.
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Re:Contrarian? (Score:2, Interesting)
On top of that he's seriously emotionally repressed. Apathy is about as emotionally stable as death is medically stable.
Also, he's reading a lot into the game. I never thought that Tifa was Zack's girlfriend, and besides Cloud and
Re:Contrarian? (Score:2)
Umm... I could be wrong because it has been awhile but wasn't it revealed in the game that Cloud never grew up with Tifa, that he kind of "stole" Zack's memories, putting himself in Zack's place?
Re:Contrarian? (Score:2)
I feel a little dirty d
Re:Contrarian? (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, the same thing could be said about any of the later FF games. 8? Most definitely. 9? Pretty much, yeah. 10? Very much so. Even Final Fantasy 6(3) had the same issue due to the fact that anyone could use Espers to learn any and every spell, although at least the special abilities were somewhat unique and non-interchangable. But really, you rarely
Re:Contrarian? (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem you mention in FF3/6 is simply that the game will level you up too quickly; or, more accurately, there are a number of sidequests in the World of Ruin that people won't pass up on. Think: If you were playing it for the first time, would you sit there and hammer away at Intangir on Gogo's island in the World of Balance before the floating continent? I wouldn't. Or, in the world of ruin... would you try to get every character + Umaro and Gogo? Nope, I would have stopped once I had a good compliment of Celes, Sabin, Edgar, Terra, Shadow, Mog, and maybe Gau.
People get overpowered in FF3, and then wonder why the game gets lame. You're not supposed to be able to do 9999 damage 8 times per round with Genji Glove + Offering! You're not supposed to be able to cast 3 ultima spells per round for 4 MP (magic box / economizer, Ult. Haste Ult. Ult.). You (and I) are overpowered by the end of the game BECAUSE we love it so much that we explore every nook and cranny. We do the phoenix cave. We beat all 8 dragons. We get Tritoch and beat doom gaze. We upgrade Odin to Raiden. We de-curse the cursed shield. We do Elbot's rock. We get the Water Rondo.
If you were speed running the game, it would be much harder.
~Will
Re:Contrarian? (Score:2)
Re:Contrarian? (Score:2)
Oh, that brings to mind another point about the game. When you get most new characters, their level is based on the level of your existing characters, plus or minus a modifier that's static.
So, when you get Sabin, if edgar, locke, and terra are lvl 6 (reasonable), Sabin will be lvl 7 or 8. If your characters are lvl 30 (you used frameskip to level them up), sabin will also be around lvl 30.
So, if you spend the time at the begining of the game, then everything from then on our is cake.
Re:Contrarian? (Score:2)
negative.
Re:Contrarian? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to mention the plot holes that you can drive a semi-truck through.
Most of the people that like that game like it due to nostalgia - they never had an SNES, it was the first console RPG they played, etc etc. But, I agree. The game is just awful. I was happy when Aris died. The characters are cookie cutter. The story DRAGS ON FOREVER. The end guy is too easy. The sidequests are stupid. In the end, everybody dies anyway, even though she "saved the world".
~W
Re:Contrarian? (Score:2)
It's better this way... (Score:3, Funny)
Because obviously trying to improve ourselves is doomed to failure, we're all going to remain permanent virgins for the rest of our lives.
Re:It's better this way... (Score:1, Offtopic)
Step 2:
Step 3: Get laid
-Rick
More graphics, less gameplay (Score:1)
I've always thought that FFVI had much more meat to the game. I mean, the plot in 7 wasn't really that great compaired to the plot of the other games. But it had so much flash, it just made peoples eyes glaze over if they hadn't had previous RPG experiance.
I for one am glad that I played RPGs well before FF7 came along, otherwise I think it would have ruined me and made me unable to enjoy graphics and ignore the actual gamep
Re:More graphics, less gameplay (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree completely. In a smaller storage space, and with pixels rather than 3-D models, FF6 managed to tell a much better, richer, and more complex story than FF7. Every one of the many characters had his/her own personality and slice of backstory, and each had his/her time in the spotlight at some point in the game. Oh, and Kefka makes Sephiroth look like a pansy.
Re:More graphics, less gameplay (Score:1)
Advantage: Kekfa.
Yes, he did look like a panzy, compairatively
Re:More graphics, less gameplay (Score:2)
What, even the moogle, the mime, and the abomniable snowman? It's a bit like they decided to have a seperate character for every "class", and by the end ran out of ideas. A few of the other characters are a bit disposable as well IMO. I have a bit of a general dislike of the whole thing in RPGs where you end up with a dozen characters but you can only use about three of them at once, so maybe I'm biased about it...
(My other
Re:More graphics, less gameplay (Score:2)
Thus why I said "slice of backstory" instead of "complete backstory." All of the characters,
Re:More graphics, less gameplay (Score:2)
They're still pretty throwaway, you could easily get rid of half of FFVI's playable characters for the core story to work.
And what if that "prick in a clown costume" poisoned entire villages,shattered the world, and sent his wrath upon anyone who dared to disobey him? Would you take him seriously, then?
Not really. He's a generic evil villian, his
Re:More graphics, less gameplay (Score:5, Insightful)
I just have trouble seing a character like that as a person. Now, Sephiroth, that was a "villain" I could get behind. Yes, he angsted a fair bit. But he had a plan, a purpose. He had a method to become a God that actually worked well within the framework of the game universe. He wasn't evil for evil's sake - he was purposefully evil.
Of course, here is my greatest heretical notion: that FF8 was a better written game than FF7. No, seriously, I mean it. Compare the dialogue from the earlier FFs (through 7) and later (say, 9; oh dear god, 9 was poorly written) to that in FF8.
Non-8 FFs:
A: "Oh, woe! The world will end!"
B: "WHAT?!?!?!?!!?!!!!?"
C: "Take heart, everyone, we can do it!!!!"
D: "Lets do it... together."
A: "Yes! For the world!!! If we believe in ourselves, we can do it!!!"
VIII did have its fair share of that kind of cliche (it's an FF tradition, after all), just not as much. And certainly not the entire script, as in IX. God, that was awful.
Not that FF8 didn't have its problems. Ultimecia would best be described, to borrow Miss Snark [blogspot.com]'s term, as "aliens that arrive in chapter 14". Squall was deliberately hard to like, and as a video game MC, that's harder to deal with than an unlikable book MC. And lets not even get into the gameplay balance/time issues.
Of course, nothing beats Tactics. I think they were channelling George R. R. Martin on that one
Re:More graphics, less gameplay (Score:2)
Re:More graphics, less gameplay (Score:2)
When I picture the script for the original Tactics being written, I picture someone in a kaiser helmet cracking a whip at huddling writers, shouting, "More characters! Damn you, they better be lost in a sea of plot-critical characters before the game even starts! More political intrigue! More historical parallels! I don't see enough references to 15th century British succession wars and Old English epic poetry in this script!"
Re:More graphics, less gameplay (Score:2)
so im NOT the only one!!!!
seriously, FFT has the best FF story thusfar, IMHO. FFTA was kind of a letdown because after the first stage it was always apparent that nothing was real. you never feel a sense of true urgency or danger, since you know [and are constantly reminded] that youre in some form of hallucination. i loved the gameplay, but i sat it down an never went back about 2/3rds into FFTA.
why arent more RPGs well written dayumit!!!?!?!? the thing i appreciated about the final fantasy series [wi
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The plot in FFVII is not expansive but what I found impressive is that there's so much to do. I think the basic dichotomy between people who do and don't like FFVII is actually over mini-games. People who like mini-games adore FFVII, it was the first game to do them worth a crap. People who don't like mini-games hate it, because some of them are mandatory and in order to accomplish certain things you pretty much have to play them. I mean the whole chocobo thing requires you to race your chocobos just to br
Re:More graphics, less gameplay (Score:2)
Re:More graphics, less gameplay (Score:2)
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I don't know if anyone agress with this either. It's been quite some time since I played both so I could be wrong...
Anyways, VII was a good game in the series. I would say it
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Mod TFA down (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Mod TFA down (Score:1)
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Re:Mod TFA down (Score:2)
Er.. WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe it's just me here.. MAYBE.. but isn't life a meaningless exercise of not dying untill you die..? Surely being a failure at life means you're oh.. DEAD!
Maybe we should stop judging people on their job/material goods and go "Hey this guys doing something he enjoys, he's not doing too bad really is he?" Life is not what you own, what you buy or what you want to buy.
Re:Er.. WTF (Score:3, Funny)
Get over your stupid little philosophy, sit down, shut up and consume. Maybe if you weren't such an ideological insurgent, the elders would have already picked you out to work as a supplier of opinions a
Go ahead, be contrarian.. but... (Score:5, Insightful)
"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."
I mean, is it just me, or does it seem like this is exactly what this guy represents, within the context of the very article he has written about it?
The rest of it.. I tried hard to find anything meaningful. But every time I just can't help but think the author has personal experience pushing each word into the keyboard.
TLF
Holy Cow (Score:2)
This dude has his head so far up his ass that he doesn't even realize what he is saying anymore. He has "Chris Crawford" syndrome. These poor little people don't even understand what fun is! They have no idea how to derive enjoyment from an entertainment product! They just don't GET it. They don't un
Re:Holy Cow (Score:1)
My reasoning (Score:2, Interesting)
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?
Earthbound, Secret of Evermore, Final Fantasy VI (III in the US), VII all these use the same formula but they exsist in t
Re:My reasoning (Score:3, Informative)
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
Re:My reasoning (Score:2)
Phantasy Star, Xenosaga- high technology in alien worlds
Kingdom Hearts- pretty much everything
There is a LOT of variation that people gloss over because they've only played Dragon Quest/Final Fantasy and simply assume that everything is the same. You get the same thing as far as plots go: people reduce the plots to absurdity to further whatever point they want to make.
Re:My reasoning (Score:2)
Re:My reasoning (Score:2)
Ummm... check your facts. It's sci-fi set in a modern context. You cut out the alien technology (sky runner, psi, phase distorter) and you're left with modern day.
Evermore is just a giant cyberworld where each area has a "theme" of some epoch.
Final Fantasy VI i guess is steam... Narshe is entirely run on steam... But there's always been some element of high technology mixed with fantasy in the series. Some games just gravitate to one side of the line more than others. VII a
Whoa there (Score:2)
I think I speak for all of us when I say I'm glad that most basement nerds aren't commiting terrorism (bombing a power stations), attempted murder (attack on Rufus), and having unsafe, preparital sex (what do you think that fade-to-black with Tifa outside the highwind was?)
Re:Whoa there (Score:3, Funny)
For all we know Cloud had to go on a side quest where he slotted up his condom with lube materia.
Re:Whoa there (Score:2)
Re:Whoa there (Score:2)
Yes, I am a nerd.
FF7 article (Score:2)
Last time I checked playing a role could be where you have full control and make the character (western sandbox style RPGS), or where you take the hero and play as him, to tell the story (Eastern RPGs). The entire article comes across
Re:FF7 article (Score:1)
I'd like to know what kind of idiot doesn't realize that no computer RPG that isn't multiplayer can actually involve roleplaying? If you're picking from a list of responses, you're not playing a role, you're taking a test. Final fantasy (and most other console RPGs) does away with this by simply providing you scripted dialogue, while you make in-game choices by doing things or not doing things. Most console RPGs have gone the same way, because why bother?
As for the quality of the FFVII music, well, I di
Re:FF7 article (Score:2)
Personally, I think that if you aren't minimaxing every decision but thinking, "What would this character do in this situation?" then you are roleplaying, whether anyone else is watching. In an MMORPG you may be minimaxing, power-levelling and chatting in l33tsp43k and that is NOT roleplaying even if others are around.
Very few single pla
Re:FF7 article (Score:2)
Planescape Torment, Baldur's gate 1,2, KOTR, Jade empire... Fallout, for goodness sake (although not bioware). YOU get to decide who your character is, and how to play them.
Japanese "rpgs" tend to be more of "here are a bunch of characters
Re:FF7 article (Score:2)
Now, I've beat Torment, and I don't remember any features in there that used conversational AI to allow me to have real conversations with anyone... Probably because it's not possible and if it were, it would not be desirable.
Contrarian? More like asking for it... (Score:2, Insightful)
Honestly, everyone is entitled to their own opinions but the entire tone of this article is "I'm calling you an idiot; what're ya gonna do about it?"
Re:Contrarian? More like asking for it... (Score:2)
Re:Contrarian? More like asking for it... (Score:2)
I had a slightly different take. I thought he was trying to gather together an army of people who don't want to be idiots so they support his view and fight the battle.
Dunno if that's the case here, but I've seen it on web forums. "I don't like BSG!" "Me too! I look more sophisticated and intelligent by having a different view!" "STFU!"
squueeenix isn't squaresoft (Score:3, Interesting)
Amano (Artwork for 1-6) is long gone. Yoshida (FF Tactics) is designing the new FF XII. Uematsu (music composer) is also gone.
Maybe I'm too cynical, but I think SE is the EA of RPGs now.
Re:squueeenix isn't squaresoft (Score:2)
Hironbu is gone too (Score:2)
Re:squueeenix isn't squaresoft (Score:2)
Advent Children continues the tradition... (Score:2)
Basically, it is worth seeing for the cool effects and the fanboyism of seeing all the characters, but don't go in expecting a coherant plot.
Last Order DVD (Score:2)
Re:Last Order DVD (Score:2)
Re:Last Order DVD (Score:2)
My Life as a Kettle (Score:5, Insightful)
Says the man who A) reviews 7 year-old games B) uses them to insult people.
This man is absolutely correct (Score:2, Insightful)
This article is right on, on just about every point. It's what I always considered to be wrong with VII. From the annoyingness of Cloud Strife, to how VII is everywhere now, to how it wrecked length expectations in the console RPG market, to how it's horribly padded, to the load times. ESPECIALLY the load times. Those are the reasons I got to the 10 hour mark in the PS1 game and lost interest a
It spoke to me (Score:2, Interesting)
It's like he crawled into my head and managed to coalesce a lot of the things I hated about FF7. I never liked it much; it was okay but it never engaged me like the previous FFs did.
Re:It spoke to me (Score:2)
Final Fantasy 8 had one thing: the card game.
The damn card game in FF9 is WAY too random. I mean, a 6m15 card should occasionally be able to beat a 6m27 card, but should never be able to beat a Dx7A card.
Other than that, yeah. Give me FF3/6 and FF9.
Re:It spoke to me (Score:2)
It was lame on my Apple2 in 86. In the same era I was playing RPGs like Ultima that let me move each character independently, modify the world (did dungeons stay dead on the console?)
How in any way do you derive even the slightest fun from console RPGs? I admit to only pl
I liked Squall. (Score:2)
I hated the draw system, and I didn't much care for the Ultimecia plot. I can think of a lot of RPGs that ar
Dumb. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dumb. (Score:2)
Douglas Adams used to really hate characters like Kefka, villains who were just motivated by sheer destructive evi
What is he criticizing? The game or the player? (Score:1)
Parish (Score:1)
Zzzzzz... (Score:2)
Well, at least he's self referential.
Never understood the whole fractioning of the FF fanbase. I've played all of them except #11. I enjoyed them all. Even X-2, which was just a bit of fun that seems to offend so many *cough*serious*cough* RPG gamers.
Ah well... Kingdom Hearts II is in my PS2 now, so who cares about anything else? :)
Re:Zzzzzz... (Score:2)
Hmm, almost there (Score:2)
Thinking that this observation applies to gamers and only gamers? That's a 'D'.
"Personal demon?" (Score:2)
Except, in this case, his demon is this guy who's calling forth a meteor to destroy the world...
Inconsistencies (Score:2)
Except he didn't have all that much control over those "carefully-selected terms." He envied Zack, sure, and he didn't dare tell anybody in his hometown that he ultimately failed in his goal, but after having his mind fucked with, Cloud honestly though
Cloud was Tifa's Crush (Score:2)
Flame Bait! (Score:2)
The author obviously doesn't get the whole story of FFVII at all or the appeal of the characters. Its close-minded, self-righteous idiots like this guy that make me wish for manditory sterilization of stupid people.
FFVII was a masterpiece of storytelling and innovative game design. It changed the world of console RPGs forever and showed what could really be done with the PSOne hardware if developers too the time to "try" harder.
at the age you discover people are stupid... (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you all remember the age at which you could state, in all seriousness, that people aren't smart? And say it as a straight-forward comment, as if this is a great discovery? I think everybody goes through this period. Especially geeks. Especially geeks who may have had a hard time in the teenage years. But then, after you get done picking on the expected targets: mainstream culture and society, you have to prove yourself "geekier than thou" by picking on things in your own sub-culture, until only the very narrowest is good for you. I think we have all seen this and taken part in it.
The thing is, in places, FFVII is indeed stupid. It has the same hardcore hero who gets better and more magical powers, living everyone's dreams of power fulfillment. And of course he is surrounded by the same group of magical beautiful women. Of course it has a villain that you save the world from. The game mechanics are often repetitive. There are certain holes and inconsistences in the story. The world only has ten or so towns, and the planet is shaped like a Torus. There is an Evil Corporation(TM) running things. And many more. So, yes, like all human endeavor it has lots of stupidity. But it also has many, many smart and engaging things about it: the gradual, spooky peeling back of Cloud's character, the mixture of cute nostalgia and gothic elements, the look at the inner machinations of Shinra, the gigantic amounts of literary references, the sometimes understated dialogue, the design of the geographic locations you visit, and of course the music and graphics.
So, yes, while in some ways stupid and repetitive, it seems somewhat snide to dismiss it out of hand. He could say that he doesn't like playing it, or that its legions of fanboys and fangirls sometimes treat the game as the greatest thing ever. But I think Final Fantasy VII got its reputation for a reason. Lots of people who are not stupid at all think it is a great, great game.
And, slightly OT but worth reading: (Score:2)
God will forgive you, but I won't... [dyndns.info]
The lack of realism in Final Fantasy VII [dyndns.info]
Although perhaps after reading these, a case could be made that I am a fanboy who reads too much into the game...
Re:And, slightly OT but worth reading: (Score:2)
[Insert standard snarky Slashdotter remarks about the Bush administration here.]
Linear (Score:2)
FFVII is closer to an "interactive movie" than it is to an actual game. At some point, I was playing the game half-asleep just waiting for the next cutscene, not really noticing the 100 random combats that they make you fight between "Cutscene H" and "Cutscene I".
My girlfriend played FFVII
I don't know FF7 but ... (Score:2)
Using D&D as the bar to define Roleplaying - not matter if Pen & Paper or Videogame - goes to show that this guy is nothing
Flamebait (Score:2)
Re:Uh, why would you do this...? (Score:1)
Its got a few similar places, but mostly the story is confusing and muddled down in "mysterious past" syndrome. Its basically a large number of fight scenes strung together with pretty graphics, just like FF7.