I never liked Final Fantasy 7

[thejboy88]

It was hailed as "the game that sold the playstation" and has often been ranked amongst the best of all RPG's, Japanese or otherwise. But, while Final Fantasy 7 has earned millions of followers and accolades over the years, I often find it to be a game that I have a hard time liking all that much.

Now let me say right now that I don't HATE the game. The battle systems is good, the graphics were revolutionary for the time it was made and the music still ranks amongst some of my favourite video game tunes. No, my beef with FF7 is simple; it depresses me. I have played many serious games over the years, like Silent Hill 2 and Shadow of the Colossus to name a few. And yet, for whatever reason, the tone, setting, story and even the characters of FF7 are sobering to me in a way that no other game has managed to accomplish.

Not even the occasional comedic moments can change that for me. Whenever I think about the game, I just feel depressed, and no, it's not just because of THAT scene (fans, you know the one). The whole game, from start to finish has just always had this dank, oppressive and even foreboding feel to it that's just always put me off whenever I played it. Granted, those other games I mentioned, as well as others, also managed to make me feel depressed at times, but for reasons I can never put into words, those games seemed to do it in a way that didn't make me feel negatively about them afterwards, whereas this game did not.

Discuss if you like. Do you feel the same, do you love the game, or perhaps some opinion in-between?

 

[Lufia Erim]

Good. The game made you feel something. That in and of itself should be worthy of praise. In the aense that, it had an emotional connection with the player. Few games can achieve that.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I think I kind of understand what you mean. While I adore VII, I do recall that when I was young that, even after beating everything in the game (good bye, Ruby and Emerald, you twits!), the game kind of left me feeling...down. I mean, I was told I saved the planet, and that extra scene two hundred years later showed that, but that ending really did feel like, "Okay, I won, but why does it feel like I still lost?" Kind of like sacrifice for the greater good.

And the whole game feels like that at times. Your party is struggling against a force that, at times, it doesn't seem like they can beat. And then, when you think about it, they do manage to kick SHINRA in the teeth, but then who is running the world now? The people that relying on Mako energy are not going to be powerless, and things don't look like they're getting any better in the slums for people.
Even Gold Saucer, a place to forget your worries, has that feeling of, "We're only here to help take your mind off of how depressing the rest of the world is." Only Yuffie's village seems to be a nice, happy place, and we all know that they're barely hanging on because of what Yuffie says.

So yeah, the game does have that weight of the world feel to it, and the ending didn't really do much to lift that. Yes, you saved the planet, but now what? There are still tons of things wrong that you haven't even touched yet.

Which is why I was so happy when Advent Children came out. It showed the world getting better.

 

[TelHybrid]

The game is meant to be dystopian and dark. Depression is the desired reaction.

The game accomplished its purpose.

If you're someone who wants a more traditional happy ending, stay the hell away from this game.

 

[voidraz]

Huh. That's one of the things I liked most about the game. Then again, everyone takes something different away from all media and there's nothing wrong with that. It's kind of like not playing horror games because you don't like being scared. Just different stroke for different folks.

 

[Worgen]

I didn't really enjoy ff7 either. I still ended up playing a lot of it but personally, I think its one of the weaker final fantasy games. What it did that no game had done before that was its presentation, it was probably the first game to try to have that epic of a scope, cinematic, and story.

 

[Fox12]

That's how I feel about SH2. It's one of my favorite games ever. But it's not "fun," and I don't really like it in the normal sense. I just feel depressed the whole time. I still recognize it as objectively good.

FF7 has a good balance for me. It's about mourning death, so it should feel morbid. But it's also about life. I don't know. Parts feel nihilistic and brutal, while other parts are indescribably beatiful. There is this foreboding sense that everything will evuentually end, even if you win. Reds grandpa even confirms it. And yet everyone still finds a reason to fight and live. There's a lot going on there that people don't realize. It's actually an impressive piece of work. And yes, I would call it art. One of the finest pieces our young medium has ever produced.

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

Looks like I'm the one who's going to be "that guy."

Final Fantasy VII is (and always has been) poorly written. It has a spot in gaming history because it is a pioneer, not because it was particularly good. No game before it had attempted to tell a story on as grand a scale as FF VII, and that alone makes it worth remembering.

But just because something was the first doesn't mean that it is good. I mean, if you have to play a bunch of other games and watch a movie in order to get all of the important details, there's a problem with the writing. Not only that, but like so many other FF games, it is written like a bad anime. Only one scene in the game was any surprise at all; besides that, the plot plays out like a stereotypical shounen anime.

Still, it wasn't terrible. It just blows my mind that so many people praise the story when there was hardly anything praiseworthy about it besides Aerith getting stabbed and actually staying dead for a change (The game came out nearly 20 years ago, there's a statute of limitations on spoilers).

I imagine that the death scene is the only reason people talk about it.

 

[Nooners]

Looks like I'm the one who's going to be "that guy."

Final Fantasy VII is (and always has been) poorly written. It has a spot in gaming history because it is a pioneer, not because it was particularly good. No game before it had attempted to tell a story on as grand a scale as FF VII, and that alone makes it worth remembering.

Honest question...why didn't games like Phantasy Star, or Ultima, or the OTHER Final Fantasy games, have that same impact? They all had epic stories, and PS AND Ultima had big character deaths...so what changed?

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

I imagine that the death scene is the only reason people talk about it.

...or its impact on gaming culture/industry at the time (it's another east-opens-up-to-west Rashomon, just like Akira was for anime). Or Uematsu's score. Or its designs. Or its production values. Or its famous/infamous ad campaign. Or Sephiroth. Or a lot of other things...

The PS1 was one of the most important stages in gaming history, and FFVII was one of that platform's crown jewels - so its reputation/place in gaming history comes down to a helluva lot more than a death scene.

 

[Christian Neihart]

I'm more of a Chrono Trigger person myself. That's a game worthy of all the praise. I dislike FF7 for what it has done to Squeenix, specifically the need to milk it for all its worth in subsequent iterations and spin offs. FF7 is to Squeenix as Batman is to Warner Bros/ DC, over exposed.

 

[Bat Vader]

I never liked Final Fantasy VII either. I never found it anything more than boring and annoying. The music is nice but that's the only nice thing I can really say about it. Most of the characters annoyed me, the story seemed to be all over the place, and the gameplay for me was horrible. I've never been a fan of turn based combat in any iteration. The only reason I even played Final Fantasy VII was because a friend of mine in middle school wouldn't shut up about it. For over a year she would hound me to play and no matter how many times I would say no she would persist.

She was absolutely crushed when I told her I hated it and was glad *Confidential* was killed.

 

[FalloutJack]

Snip

Interesting. So, I have ask. Would you say the same about Final Fantasy 6? A world at war with an unapologetically evil empire that enslaves both humans and espers for power and control? A world that was actively brought to ruin by an idiot with a make-up problem and a severe wardrobe malfunction? As serious as FF7 is, its predecessor could be downright depressing. Lots of people died! Let's see here...

Spoiler: Death count compacted for space

The first town was brought to its knees by Terra, Biggs, and Wedge...and then Biggs and Wedge were killed.

Speaking of Terra, her parents are dead, she was a slave, and a great many Espers (her father's kind) were also killed.

Everyone in Cyan's area was poisoned except for him, including his wife and child, whom he also failed to rescue from the Ghost Train.

Locke lost the woman he loved twice. Similarly, Setzer also lost someone important to him, as did Sabin lose his martial arts master.

If you didn't wait for Shadow before escaping from the flying continent, he dies.

Celes has it pretty bad. Losing one of her fellow generals to the decidedly wackier one, and then watching the empire she worked for kinda' crumble as it's twisted by that same jerk, she was left stranded on an island with Cid, the great engineer...who will DIE if you didn't figure out the Guide Dang It with the fish, and then she will attempt to commit suicide (and fail) before getting on with the story.

Of course, natureally, the world of ruin takes everything up to eleven. Kefka's a god-head who's reshaped the entire world, killing millions-to-billions, plus he regularly blasts things around the world because he can, killing more. Demons and dragons are everywhere, bloody cults have shown up, people are starving all over the place, and Zozo is still chalk-full of compulsive liars!

So, when I look at the world of FF6, the seventh game isn't all that harsh.

Honest question...why didn't games like Phantasy Star, or Ultima, or the OTHER Final Fantasy games, have that same impact? They all had epic stories, and PS AND Ultima had big character deaths...so what changed?

I tend to think that Phantasy Star DID have impact. I enjoyed the hell out of those games.

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

Looks like I'm the one who's going to be "that guy."

Final Fantasy VII is (and always has been) poorly written. It has a spot in gaming history because it is a pioneer, not because it was particularly good. No game before it had attempted to tell a story on as grand a scale as FF VII, and that alone makes it worth remembering.

Honest question...why didn't games like Phantasy Star, or Ultima, or the OTHER Final Fantasy games, have that same impact? They all had epic stories, and PS AND Ultima had big character deaths...so what changed?

Good question. If you ask me, it boils down to commercial success. Phantasy Star IV in particular, is a fine RPG and one of the hidden jewels for the Sega Genesis. But, it didn't have the same type of marketing that FF VII got, and it still didn't have great writing. In fact, I would argue that video game writing is only just now starting to have the same quality as other mediums.

Also, those other games, while epic in scale, simply weren't as BIG as Final Fantasy VII. When it comes to scale, Final Fantasy VII simply dwarfs everything that came before it. No one had ever made anything like it. It took the formula from Phantasy Star and earlier Final Fantasy games, and turned the volume knob up to 11. The sheer scale, along with the marketing, made it one of the first big hits of the PlayStation, above and beyond anything that had come before.

The PS1 was one of the most important stages in gaming history, and FFVII was one of that platform's crown jewels - so its reputation/place in gaming history comes down to a helluva lot more than a death scene.

I was talking about the story. You're right in that FF VII had more going for it than that...the scale, the revolutionary graphics, and the musical score are all memorable. But I hear so much gushing about how great the story was, and I'm having a hard finding reasons for it besides that one scene.

 

[Denamic]

So the game successfully accomplished what it was supposed to? Cool. If you don't like that type of setting...

Spoiler

Games and fiction in general don't have to make you feel happy. Sometimes, it aims for making you sad. Sometimes, it's for making you downright miserable. It's an emotional experience. Some people don't like horror movies because they don't like being scared.

 

[Mister K]

Well, other people mentioned things that I think, so I'll be brief.

Not every story makes you feel good in the end, and sometimes author of one writes it to BE depressing. Now that I think about it, FFVII had (has?) a strong environmental/anti-corporational theme and the ending you mentioned probably shows that since Midgar didn't change it's ways it died of/was abandoned.

But also, it wasn't particularly well-written story. I never played it during glorious days of PSOne and I've played it for the first time about 3-4 years ago and while I didn't think that this game was as bad as people that hate it say, it also did not live up to hype. Character designs, the steampunk-ish setting, materia system and battle system were rather nice, but the story wasn't always great.

To sum it up, some games/books/movies/whatever are supposed to make you feel negatively.

 

[Kajin]

Can't say I agree with the people who say the story was poor. I always thought it was a great, if really convoluted, story. When I first played it as a kid I barely understood it at all but when I went back a few years ago and replayed it on the PS3 I understood it well enough and thought it was pretty great overall.

 

[darkcalling]

I thought it was ok at best but I wasn't playing it when it was new. pretty sure I didn't get around to it til after FF9 at least.

My biggest problem with it is overexposure. Everyone considers it this giant landmark game that changed everything but for me it really didn't. Does it deserve a spot in "gamer history"? probably. Does it deserve the frankly ridiculous number of spinoffs, psuedo sequels, prequels, etc? no. just, no.

Also I hated Aeris. She was a useless character in combat whose only specialty was healing. Due to the materia system there wasn't any reason a more useful character couldn't do her job when healing was necessary and still do their own. I applauded when she died, (the game came out when I was in junior high the time for spoiler warnings has passed.) not because i thought it was a well done story beat but because i'd never have to look at her stupid purity sue face in my lineup again.

Though I am glad it's getting a remake if only so I can stop hearing people beg for one. that got annoying fast.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

I played through FF7 when I was about 14, and it blew my mind. To be honest I've always been sort of afraid to go back and play it again, only to find myself saying "what the hell was I thinking?".

That being said, it was basically the first CRPG I played through, so that may have had something to do with it.

But anyway, I liked the oppressive atmosphere of the game. For starters, it really helps sell Sephiroth as being this guy who is the biggest bad-ass who ever walked the planet, by making him seem virtually invincible. The cartoony anime style actually helped to make the serious scenes feel more impactful, and overall it captured being 'epic' so friggin well. I remember when you finally left the big city (can't remember it's name) and prior to that I had been thinking how huge and cool this game once. When I realized that I literally had an entire planet to explore now, my jaw hit the floor.