FF7 remake most important ever, and that's not a compliment

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

Found this today.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-petite/if-we-are-being-honest-ab_b_7617648.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592

TL;DR (even though it's not too L to R): FF7 is the most overrated game ever. It has aged terribly, but even compared to other games that came out around the same time, it was never very good. The story is bland, the dialogue is awful, the world is uninspired, and with all the things it tried to do at once, it did none of them well.

Now, I've never played FF7, but we all grew up suckling at its teat regardless of whether we personally partook or not. And whether it's actually good or not, I really enjoy lobbing grenades at the untouchable classics.

So. Discuss.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

Analysis like these are bullshit tbh, and articles like these show how thick said analyser's are.

FF7 is about wonderful setups, rhythmic movement and flow (both in story and battle), complimented by stunning music, camera shots and atmosphere to create an absorbing and immersive RPG. Picking things apart such as dialogue show just how dumb said pickers are. It's like having a wife who cooks amazing, cleans like a trooper, is a super mum, and then someone saying "she's a bit boring with conversation" - it totally misses the point.

All the points he points to may be flawed in isolation, but that's like saying Maradonna wasn't a great tackler or Winston Churchill wasn't great with the economy. All it does is display said critic's ignorance and incapability to actually grasp the point of them in the first place.

To further that, these mathmatical ways of analysis are generally bullshit and they have been killing gaming for years.

"Not truly open world", "Another 'save the world' story", "no ammo", "no voiced protagonist" etc. etc. - all these bullshit complaints mean absolutely nothing in context of game enjoyment, and the fact that devs feel obliged to keep these scrotes who set these false standards happy means we get dross games like Dragon Age:Inquistition and Mass Effect 3, instead of class ones like Dragon Age:Origins and Mass Effect 1.

These people are actually killing gaming, and I urge devs to ignore this bizare drone they all seem to spew forth. If you begin to look at it, it's usually issues in their own lives which their can't/daren't solve, so various media serving as an outlet for that, nothing more.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I've never played it either but not because of the story as you really can't know if it's good or bad if you haven't played the game. I wouldn't be surprised if the story isn't that good just due to most gamers playing FF7 when they were rather young and didn't really know good writing yet. The reason I never played FF7 and most FFs is because the combat system just sucks and is horribly repetitive and wastes so much time, which is greatly exacerbated by random battles. Random battles were always horrible, then and now. Random battles only hinder exploration and make the world seem dull and lifeless. Just look at the Calm Lands in FFX (another overrated game), they are supposed to be teeming with monsters and life but my backyard is more interesting to look at. Back to the battle system. Any game that has a turn-based system where it's your team on one side and the enemies on the other is horrible (I'm sure there's an exception where it actually does work) because a lot of strategy in a good turn-based system from chess to DnD to XCOM lies in positioning. When you remove positioning, you remove a lot of the strategic aspect. FF and most JRPGs (with turn-based combat) are in that weird middle ground where they want to be both fast-paced and strategic whereas they should just focus on one or the other. Funny enough, FF12 actually proves all previous FF games have very little strategy and can all work in real-time. Take the gambit system from FF12 and put it in say FFX or FF7 and the games would play themselves as well. If a few if-then-else statements (the gambits) make your game play itself, your game isn't strategic enough to merit a turn-based combat system. You can't have XCOM play itself with a few if-then-else statements.

With all that said, I would like the FF7 remake to be good and have an actually fun combat system, very action oriented or be very strategic like say Tactics but I'm guessing an action-based system would fit the game better due to the big swords and flashy action.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Well, this guy is clearly trying way too hard to make crap up. It's also hilarious at how he thinks he's found something original and daring when in fact he's just regurgitating the same, dull arguments people have dismantled time and time again. VII is one of the FFs that has aged the best; IV-VII are by far the easiest to get into and the nest of their series (though V had some uneven challenge); VII is not like I-III which have aged terribly and thus needed TONS of updating when their remakes came around and neither is it fundamentally broken like VIII, XII, and XIII which had serious gameplay and narrative issues on a basic level. Even graphically it's fine due to its pre-rendered backdrops bringing in the atmosphere (and let's face it, crossdressing Cloud would just look WEIRD with an HD upgrade) with tons of different ranging from the cyberpunk Midgar to the Native American Cosmo Canyon, to the alien City of the Ancients, and frigid bleakness of the Great Glacier. Even gameplay doesn't need fixing; the combat is straightforward and the Materia system is simple to get into but has tons of depth. There's nothing that needs changing except maybe a slightly better translation (and even then if they try to touch Barrett and Cid's text people will RIOT)

 

[deathbydeath]

FF7 isn't remembered because it's a good game; it's remembered because it was in the right place at the right time and hit all the right notes. At the time, Final Fantasy was a series big enough to be noticed but not big enough that the sudden success wouldn't surprise anyone. It was hyped to hell and back before it came out so that enough people knew they should buy it for their kids, and the kids were young and impressionable enough at a time where animu was starting to take root in the West. It blew kids' minds because it was extremely cinematic, accessible and novel (so very novel), so much so that the other, shoddier parts were glazed over by grafix and romanse.

tl;dr: FF7 may have aged shittily (except the score, Jesus Christ) and have had sub-par characters and story for its time, but like the great Dwane Johnson said, "It doesn't matter!".

 

[CritialGaming]

I find that people who have never played FF7, are often the ones who cry out about it being overrated and not that good. It's like a group of hipsters that stand around smoking cigarettes and talking about how games only really mattered when the graphics were so blurry and pixalated that it took real imagination to make the game worthwhile.

So let's tackle the points.

1. "It's just another end of the world story." Well yes maybe fundamentally. However one could argue that the "end of the world" thing is the only real constant the Final Fantasy series maintains through it's literally dozens of iterations. And really the end of the world threat is just a background to serve as your childhood hero turns into a madman and because of a shared traumatic experience, your band of heroes are the only people capable of stopping an almost God-like villain. It's like saying Call of Duty is just another Terrorist-murder brawl.

2. "The combat was just the dreadful turns based boring crap". True, yet the turned based formula was something that had always been a staple of the Final Fantasy and even JRPG's in general up to the point. Need I also remind you that turn-based combat remains in Final Fantasy games to this very day! Combat quite frankly has never been FF's best point, but that doesn't mean it is bad. As far as ATB combat goes, FF7's was solid and the strategy lied with how you developed your Materia combinations. People complaint that the Materia system itself was broken and too simple, but really, you had to go way out of your ways to overpower yourself. You had to grind sure, but you also had to hunt down the most power Materia in order to really break the game. Basically breaking the game was a player choice not a requirement.

Turn based combat can be fun if done right. The whole standing in a line thing was a limitation of the console and tech of the time. From FFXII and beyond, the turned based combat became more dynamic because it allowed characters to move around the battlefield. For this remake, that's really all they need to do, add some dynamic motion to the battle and characters as you input commands. Something closer to FFXII rather than FFXIII though because.....reasons.

3. "Ewww graphics" Any early era Playstation game will look pretty fucking dated now. Early 3D modeling was just not a thing to stand the test of time. This being the first 3D FF game you have to understand that. Same thing holds true for the first Tekken game. Frankly if you play a game for the graphics you are a shallow twit and your opinion of gaming has about as much value as a Starburst commercial on acid. Can you not like graphics or art style, yes, but saying a game is bad purely on that is stupid and you should feel stupid.


All in all I have high hopes for the Remake. Tradition of Final Fantasy remakes so far would suggest that they are going to not so much as overhaul the game, but rather "clean it up". The combat will be smoothed out and rebalanced, the story will be cleaner and probably contain voice over, the graphics of course will be made up to snuff. But overall it will be the same game, with all those moments you remember.

 

[mad825]

I find that people who have never played FF7, are often the ones who cry out about it being overrated and not that good. It's like a group of hipsters that stand around smoking cigarettes and talking about how games only really mattered when the graphics were so blurry and pixalated that it took real imagination to make the game worthwhile.

So let's tackle the points.

1. "It's just another end of the world story." Well yes maybe fundamentally. However one could argue that the "end of the world" thing is the only real constant the Final Fantasy series maintains through it's literally dozens of iterations. And really the end of the world threat is just a background to serve as your childhood hero turns into a madman and because of a shared traumatic experience, your band of heroes are the only people capable of stopping an almost God-like villain. It's like saying Call of Duty is just another Terrorist-murder brawl.

lulwut? Too much hindsight no? Honestly, there's too much of a hippy message of "saving the environment" and "corporate bad, smash corporate" bullcrap shoved down my throat, a similar issue I have with the film Spirits within. Oh, and the main villain has mummy issues written all over him.

 

[CritialGaming]

I find that people who have never played FF7, are often the ones who cry out about it being overrated and not that good. It's like a group of hipsters that stand around smoking cigarettes and talking about how games only really mattered when the graphics were so blurry and pixalated that it took real imagination to make the game worthwhile.

So let's tackle the points.

1. "It's just another end of the world story." Well yes maybe fundamentally. However one could argue that the "end of the world" thing is the only real constant the Final Fantasy series maintains through it's literally dozens of iterations. And really the end of the world threat is just a background to serve as your childhood hero turns into a madman and because of a shared traumatic experience, your band of heroes are the only people capable of stopping an almost God-like villain. It's like saying Call of Duty is just another Terrorist-murder brawl.

lulwut? Too much hindsight no? Honestly, there's too much of a hippy message of "saving the environment" and "corporate bad, smash corporate" bullcrap shoved down my throat, a similar issue I have with the film Spirits within. Oh, and the main villain has mummy issues written all over him.

Well yes. But really. Once you get into the Shrina building 5 or so hours into a 70 hours game, the tone shifts from corporate bad too, oh god god-like evil dude is back and we have to chase him down and stop him.

You are free to have your qualms and have parts about the story that you don't like. You're taste of storytelling here is valid. However every story is going to have some kind of message, it is just a matter of whether you can ignore the subtext of the plot in order to sit and enjoy the story as it is told.

If you want corporate bad messages play a couple Resident evil games. Or wait, you didn't like that.....don't play resident evil.

 

[Silvanus]

NB: Played FF7 for the first time only last year, so I'm not remembering it through a fog of nostalgia, and genuinely really liked it.


In terms of gameplay... a lot of things are in dire need of polish. The core of the combat system is solid (and fun), but would really benefit from some updating.

Story, though, I found brilliant. There's the god-like villain, sure, but he's only one element of it. There's the Shinra corporate shenanigans, Hojo's intrigue and personal backstory, the memory crisis Cloud goes through, the awakening of the Weapons... it's a great deal more than good-guys-vs-godlike-villain, and none of those other elements feel cursory, either; there's thought and depth in all of them. I find "bland" to be a tremendously odd descriptor to use, considering the story of FF7 (as with several Final Fantasies) contains more diverse ingredients than the vast majority of games do.

 

[MysticSlayer]

I can't really comment much on FF7 personally, but I'm not entirely sure what it is with the need to prove classic games are overrated and just loved because of nostalgia. It comes across as losing an argument and then coming back twenty years later to see if you can get your revenge. Basically, it's pretty much the most pathetic form of the "this game is so overrated!" arguments.

 

[Christian Neihart]

I'm waiting for a Chrono Trigger Sequel. Screw FF7. It has already solidified its place in gaming culture. Why not just leave it be and move on to something else? Like a proper Chrono Trigger sequel?

 

[CritialGaming]

I'm waiting for a Chrono Trigger Sequel. Screw FF7.

Chrono Cross?

 

[Something Amyss]

Even at the time, many reviews mocked the story and the dialogue. But it was babby's first RPG, and so a lot of people cut their teeth on it. Of course it's going to be remembered fondly.

And I still enjoy playing it on my Vita. Warts and all.

 

[CritialGaming]

Even at the time, many reviews mocked the story and the dialogue. But it was babby's first RPG, and so a lot of people cut their teeth on it. Of course it's going to be remembered fondly.

And I still enjoy playing it on my Vita. Warts and all.

If it was babby's first RPG what were the other 6?

I mean it was my first RPG, but that was because my nintendo days were filled with Mario and Donkey Kong country. I never even played Zelda games because they didn't look interesting to me.

You know it's kinda funny you bring that up, because I remember seeing the commercial for the game and dismissing it as one of those weird games where you pick menu commands and watch numbers happen. Then a guy who was a bully to me in sixth grade came up to me and said, "Hey you like video games right?" And he handed me a copy of FF7 because he got two on accident. This was a guy who hated me and I hated him due to his bullying. Then he gives me the game and we became friends as we talked about the game at school, the story, the boss tactics, we shared tips and tricks. It was a crazy experience and it was one that led me down the RPG rabbit hole.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

I can't really comment much on FF7 personally, but I'm not entirely sure what it is with the need to prove classic games are overrated and just loved because of nostalgia. It comes across as losing an argument and then coming back twenty years later to see if you can get your revenge. Basically, it's pretty much the most pathetic form of the "this game is so overrated!" arguments.

It's cut from the same cloth as the constant droning of how sequels and franchises are the devil; it's a way for people to feel like they're more daring and curious than they actually are, as well as to make up for the MASSIVE insecurity of how a game nearly twenty years old still hasn't been beaten. A remake of it pretty much means that the guys at Square have given up on ever surpassing it as they frequently said they would not remake it until they released an FF that surpassed it in sales and acclaim, which still hasn't happened. Seriously, stuff that's twenty years old isn't remembered fondly solely due to nostalgia (because if nostalgia was the sole or main factor then the FMV phase of gaming wouldn't be relentlessly mocked as it is).

 

[gim73]

I'm waiting for a Chrono Trigger Sequel. Screw FF7.

Chrono Cross?

No, Radical Dreamers is the direct sequel to Chrono Trigger...

Seriously though, we need another game like Chrono Trigger where you travel through time and alter the time line, not the lite version we got with Chrono Cross (Parallel Dimensions).

 

[RJ 17]

Ummm, anyone care to explain why we should care about gaming opinions from a traditionally more political publication? I saw Huffington Post in the link and already knew I didn't have to click the link as anything said in the article wouldn't even be worth the grain of salt it's served with due to the fact that they're hardly a reputable source for gaming information/news.

Really any point the author of that article brings up can be easily countered with two questions: "Who the hell are you? And why the hell should I give a damn about what you think regarding any game?"

 

[gigastar]

Honestly, given the choice between a remake and new content, id take the new content.

I dont know what will be out around the time of this FF7 remake, but FF7 will not be a priority purchase, even if it earns its Certification of Not Shit.