The Final Fantasy VII Appreciation Thread

[Debopam Roy]

One of my favorite games ever, this game had it all, action, romance, a brilliant storyline, and yes, the music. All the while I keep hoping they'll do a remake, but no luck so far. However, that's quite beside the point. Tell me, have you played this game? Share your experiences, feelings, anything! I'm a huge fan of the game.

[DeadLikeMe]

My personal GOAT game. I remember the ads before it came out and then getting it. Hell I think it was the only game I played for months. Still one of my fondest gaming memories. Being pissed when Aeris died because she was turning into a god tier healer. Getting Vincent and beefing him up because he looked badass. Farming materias, breeding Chocobos, damn those were the days.

[ßringer]

I'm a huge fan of the series, but I don't understand the cultish borderline obsessed following this game has amongst gamers. It's widely regarded by many fans of the series as the greatest entry in the history of the franchise, and a great deal of RPG fans consider it the greatest JRPG of all time.

Everytime this game is brought up in a gaming discussion I always find myself being the lone contrarian , vehemently making the case that 'Final Fantasy VII' sucks ass, and that it's overly emotional fanboys are most likely suffering from a bad case of nostalgia.

First of all, when was the last time you played this game? I know that I revisited it once again last year just to confirm my firmly held beliefs about how ****ty it is. Most often I find that a lot of FFVII fans haven't played the game in a great many years, and that immediately disqualifies them from the conversation, IMO.

Secondly, the storyline and characters are absolutely atrocious, even by JRPG standards : Cloud is the standard strangely androgynous hero who shockingly suffers from amnesia (like we haven't seen that before in like, every other JRPG ever), Tifa is the standard bubbly big tittied female sidekick, Aerith is the prototypical innocent love intrest whose death made millions of creepy virgins cry in 1997, Barret is the token angry black guy who looks and acts like Mr. T, Sephiroth is the classic pseudo-gothic bad guy who listens to 'Disturbed', is super pissed at his parents, and goes on to found 'Hot Topic', and you even manage to link up with a genetically modified red fox/cougar/whatever with a mohawk who speaks perfect English and a talking housecat with a megaphone who rides atop a pink robotic puppet with bat wings.

Don't even get me started on the absurdity of the storyline.

Then there's all of the technical shortcomings that you only realize many years later. The loadtimes, for example, are ****ing abysmal : I summoned Bahamut Zero for the first time when I was in middle school, and when the cutscene had finally finished playing, I was 46 with arthritis and a swollen prostate.

The materia system (for learning abilities) was poorly designed and had been done better in previous installments of the series.

The bottomline here is that FFVII is an abysmal piece of laughable dog**** that fans of the series will never be able to get over. Those same fans will continue to bash future entries into the series (a few of which were phenomenal experiences and offered tons of content and more unique battle systems) simply for the fact that it's not a FFVII remake.

Please feel free to respond with your criticisms of my post : I would love nothing more than to hear fans of this game tell me once again about how amazing it is, and I promise that I'll respond with vigor just as soon as I stop pissing myself with laughter.

[Sheppirino]

FF VII was the reason I finally gave in and bought a PS1. The commercials really had me hyped up for the game. Up until then I was strictly all for Nintendo. That being said while I do think FF VII is good I think VI is the best in the series. Probably because I'm getting into my mid 30's and I just like the old school FF games more.

[DeadLikeMe]

I'm a huge fan of the series, but I don't understand the cultish borderline obsessed following this game has amongst gamers. It's widely regarded by many fans of the series as the greatest entry in the history of the franchise, and a great deal of RPG fans consider it the greatest JRPG of all time.

Everytime this game is brought up in a gaming discussion I always find myself being the lone contrarian , vehemently making the case that 'Final Fantasy VII' sucks ass, and that it's overly emotional fanboys are most likely suffering from a bad case of nostalgia.

First of all, when was the last time you played this game? I know that I revisited it once again last year just to confirm my firmly held beliefs about how ****ty it is. Most often I find that a lot of FFVII fans haven't played the game in a great many years, and that immediately disqualifies them from the conversation, IMO.

Secondly, the storyline and characters are absolutely atrocious, even by JRPG standards : Cloud is the standard strangely androgynous hero who shockingly suffers from amnesia (like we haven't seen that before in like, every other JRPG ever), Tifa is the standard bubbly big tittied female sidekick, Aerith is the prototypical innocent love intrest whose death made millions of creepy virgins cry in 1997, Barret is the token angry black guy who looks and acts like Mr. T, Sephiroth is the classic pseudo-gothic bad guy who listens to 'Disturbed', is super pissed at his parents, and goes on to found 'Hot Topic', and you even manage to link up with a genetically modified red fox/cougar/whatever with a mohawk who speaks perfect English and a talking housecat with a megaphone who rides atop a pink robotic puppet with bat wings.

Don't even get me started on the absurdity of the storyline.

Then there's all of the technical shortcomings that you only realize many years later. The loadtimes, for example, are ****ing abysmal : I summoned Bahamut Zero for the first time when I was in middle school, and when the cutscene had finally finished playing, I was 46 with arthritis and a swollen prostate.

The materia system (for learning abilities) was poorly designed and had been done better in previous installments of the series.

The bottomline here is that FFVII is an abysmal piece of laughable dog**** that fans of the series will never be able to get over. Those same fans will continue to bash future entries into the series (a few of which were phenomenal experiences and offered tons of content and more unique battle systems) simply for the fact that it's not a FFVII remake.

Please feel free to respond with your criticisms of my post : I would love nothing more than to hear fans of this game tell me once again about how amazing it is, and I promise that I'll respond with vigor just as soon as I stop pissing myself with laughter.

I guess my question would be what ones do you rate higher than it?

Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, FFVIII and Wizardry V are probably my favorite 4 RPGs of all time. It has everything to do with nostalgia when looking back. Current games are nowhere near as fun to me. I thought Skyrim was ****. It is like an MMO with nobody to scam/compete with/boss around. I actually haven't ever played all the way through FFVI (or IV or w/e it is called) but other than that one I can't see another FF title being superior to VII. 8 was inferior to me. 9 was entertaining but entirely too linear. X was just awful IMO and I haven't played one since. I could see a case for FF Tactics being the best of the series but I consider that a different genre.

The timing of the release, the new generation of consoles, and the beautiful ad campaign really hyped the game up. Then you got it and were exposed to a then (and somewhat still) massive 3d world map on top of a quite immersive RPG. If you were a young tween/teen as I was when it was released it was the most amazing RPG I had played (including the aforementioned SNES titles). Playing it in that era and at that age is what made it my personal GOAT.

[HangOver]

I agree, it's one of my favorite games and I happen to have the same Birthday as Cloud Strife. The original Birthday of Cloud Strife is August 19th in the original FFVII. It just coincidence but I find it cool I share my birthday with a cool character like Cloud Strife.

[elgranluchadore]

its overrated yeah, but its a good game
i remember i had to force myself to keep going because the battle system wasnt doing it for me and the graphics are horrible, but im glad i kept going the story is pretty good and the music is epic
the materia system was a mess
best final fantasy ever: final fantasy 13-2

[Debopam Roy]

This is in reply to 'The Bringer' - you say Final Fantasy VII was a generic prototypical JRPG, a storyline which has been heard and seen for so many times, but think back to it and you shall realize that it was FFVII who STARTED these kind of plots. In other words, it CREATED the 'generic storyline' you are talking about, which has been copied by every other game millions of times. There isn't an RPG in the world who can claim that they weren't inspired by it in some way or the other.

"Cloud is the standard strangely androgynous hero who shockingly suffers from amnesia (like we haven't seen that before in like, every other JRPG ever), Tifa is the standard bubbly big tittied female sidekick, Aerith is the prototypical innocent love intrest whose death made millions of creepy virgins cry in 1997, Barret is the token angry black guy who looks and acts like Mr. T, Sephiroth is the classic pseudo-gothic bad guy who listens to 'Disturbed', is super pissed at his parents, and goes on to found 'Hot Topic', and you even manage to link up with a genetically modified red fox/cougar/whatever with a mohawk who speaks perfect English and a talking housecat with a megaphone who rides atop a pink robotic puppet with bat wings."

Cloud, Sephiroth, Aerith, Tifa, Barrett - they became the example subsequent game developers sought to emulate.

[Debopam Roy]

And on a slightly unrelated topic. The Elder Scrolls series is my favorite series as well. Especially, Morrowmind and Oblivion. Skyrim, was no doubt epic. But I still feel Bethesda dumbed down the game for the mass audiences. Daggerfall and Arena, well...it would be too much of a pain, to try and obtain a running copy of them somehow.

[ßringer]

I guess my question would be what ones do you rate higher than it?

Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, FFVIII and Wizardry V are probably my favorite 4 RPGs of all time. It has everything to do with nostalgia when looking back. Current games are nowhere near as fun to me. I thought Skyrim was ****. It is like an MMO with nobody to scam/compete with/boss around. I actually haven't ever played all the way through FFVI (or IV or w/e it is called) but other than that one I can't see another FF title being superior to VII. 8 was inferior to me. 9 was entertaining but entirely too linear. X was just awful IMO and I haven't played one since. I could see a case for FF Tactics being the best of the series but I consider that a different genre.

The timing of the release, the new generation of consoles, and the beautiful ad campaign really hyped the game up. Then you got it and were exposed to a then (and somewhat still) massive 3d world map on top of a quite immersive RPG. If you were a young tween/teen as I was when it was released it was the most amazing RPG I had played (including the aforementioned SNES titles). Playing it in that era and at that age is what made it my personal GOAT.

Well, sticking strictly to the 'Final Fantasy' series, I thought that XII, V, IX, IV, and VI were all superior to VII. I could pick a bunch of other traditional RPGs and JRPGs from around the same time that I felt were superior, as well.

Plenty of other games before FFVII offered gamers a complete 3D world to explore, as well.

This is in reply to 'The Bringer' - you say Final Fantasy VII was a generic prototypical JRPG, a storyline which has been heard and seen for so many times, but think back to it and you shall realize that it was FFVII who STARTED these kind of plots. In other words, it CREATED the 'generic storyline' you are talking about, which has been copied by every other game millions of times. There isn't an RPG in the world who can claim that they weren't inspired by it in some way or the other.

Not really.

While I agree that FFVII was the first 3D RPG to really offer up a healthy amount of backstory and a large amount of (then) high quality cutscenes that moved the story along, plenty of what FFVII offered had already been offered up before in JRPGs : Sp*ky haired heros, big tittied female sidekicks, a love intrest that dies tragicly, a manipulative party member who is working for the "other side" (though this time it was somewhat new being a robotic cat thing), etc....

FFVII may have innovated a lot of what we see as standard within the genre today, but it also gets credit for innovating plot points and character styles that were clearly lifted from a slew of previously successful JRPGs.

Cloud, Sephiroth, Aerith, Tifa, Barrett - they became the example subsequent game developers sought to emulate.

Again, not really. See above. They all had certain aspects of their characters lifted from previous JRPGs.

The only thing that JRPG devolpers really want to emulate in regards to FFVII is it's financial success.