Why all the hate on FFVII?

[TheDrunkNinja]

Okay, I'll admit it, Cloud isn't exactly the "emo" stereotype, and that description you gave is right on. He's just the most bland, uninteresting hateful lead character with no redeeming qualities and virtually no depth or character arc that a franchise should be ashamed to have as their flagship captain.

And the hell of it is, this series went on to copy and paste his character into their games from then on.

Oh, and since someone is going to post this anyway, I might as well get it over with:

 

[Darkauthor81]

Before FFVII, the final fantasy games were virtually unknown to mainstream gamers. Fans of 1-6 were part of a small niche, a tiny club, proud of being unique. Then VII just exploded, bringing in all kinds of new people ignorant of the games history and more in love with flashy graphics then story and RPG elements. It was like all the newbies were trespassing on the old guards turf.

A clash was inevitable.

It's strange that these games are considered RPGs. Since you don't actually have any choice or control over the story what so ever.

Not that I'm ragging on the game. I love FF7. I just found it strange that, just because it has a level system, it's considered an rpg despite giving the player no freedom to express themselves in the game.

 

[moretimethansense]

Citizan sniiiips!

While I agree with you (especially about the first point), and I do like the game I feel the need to point out, Sephiroth is NOT doing "most of the work himself" he spends most of the game hiding while sending clones and bits of Jenova to do his dirty work, matter of fact I'm not sure you see the real him at all till the fight in the life stream.

As for why?
Tey arte idiots, anyone that uses the word Emo to describe anything they don't like ANYTHING automatically loses all respect fropm me, they obviously don't know anythiong about the charecter in question/ weren't paying attention if that's all they can come up with.
I've seen the protaganist of Persona 3 called emo, the entiraty of the game is about making freinds, how freindship makes you stronger, helping people through their problems AND being resolute and never giving up hope.
How in the holy fuck is that emo?

 

[ShatterPalm]

Hate? I haven't seen any hate for FFVII, but than again I don't use Facebook and don't read stupid comments on YouTube, so that might have something to do with it.

Otherwise, I can think of several reasons:

1) Different tastes for different people.
2) People playing the retarded PC version
3) People not liking JRPGs, with FFVII being THE JRPG.
4) People playing it now for the first time (i.e. not when it came out) (although so did I and I really like it)
5) People hating everything other people like, out of principle
6) Trolls
7) Maybe the game is not really THAT good (not unlike HL2 for example, also a lot of deserved hate)
8) Other reasons

Well, the trick is you've gotta look for 'em. The the reason I brought it up was heavily induced by the "Who's the greatest video game character?" contest that one Peanut3423 from youtube and a few of his friends put together over on the Chaos Theatre. Him and his collegue JoshScorcher are noted haters of FFVII, but with that one exception I respect their opinions a lot.

 

[Dratis]

The reason I think people get all to happy about Final Fantasy 7 is its the point when the characters themselves stopped being as important as how good they looked.

The cutscenes are okay for telling a story but isn't the first to actually have cut scenes. It was just the first final fantasy to have them in full motion 3d stuff. Which is its the first to have 3d period. Even Final Fantasy 4 had cut scenes. When the Lunar Whale gets summoned, that is a cut scene. It doesn't have to fancy or shiny for it to be a cut scene. Just because I have to press the A button for the next text screen to come up don't disqualify it.

FF7 is also where they start making everyone able to do everything which you see in most of the Final Fantasy series now a days. Part of what lets you find out things about a character is their abilities. When Terra gained her Esper form it was both a grand reveal as well as a development point. She started to find out who she was and why she was being hunted. As well as she gained some confidence in herself because of it. Cecil when he changed to Paladin from Dark Knight was a big thing in the story. He was finally following his heart and being his own man and growing up into an actual adult as well. Able to confront the wrongs his kingdom was doing as well as able to start up and take the blame for the wrongs he had commited under his kingdom.

The fanboys are also another part of why people don't like Final Fantasy 7. Since it was alot of people's introduction into the series they always remember it in Golden light and can't see the flaws in it like one should be able to. Some of their zealous defending gets on peoples nerves and that can go for any group of fan boys. Cloud through most of it is an emo. There is a reason why in Final Fantasy 7 Advent Children the ending is a big deal because Cloud finally Smiles. There is even a song in the sound track named after it. Now a character being an emo is no big deal overall just as long as its good in the story. He is angry through most of it, angry at both himself and at Sephiroth but they don't really put any actual time or information into the development of the character. You wouldn't even know that he gained some self confidence if you didn't look into it. When Sephiroth gets the Black Materia from you he easily controls Cloud to make him do it. But at the ending when you've defended Sephiroth and he tries to take over Cloud's body Cloud denies him control showing that he as a character is suppose to have developed. Its not told in a way though that it would be easy to see so its not good story telling.

So overall as an RPG the reason people give it such heck is because of the Fan boys. If they didn't try and go out of their way so often to talk about how great it was and how its the best final fantasy. Most people would probably just say its okay and that it was where Final Fantasy as a series started to decline. But the Fan Boys can't let it be at that.

 

[ShatterPalm]

what? I thought everyone knew that O.O

 

[Xander_VJ]

Before FFVII, the final fantasy games were virtually unknown to mainstream gamers. Fans of 1-6 were part of a small niche, a tiny club, proud of being unique. Then VII just exploded, bringing in all kinds of new people ignorant of the games history and more in love with flashy graphics then story and RPG elements. It was like all the newbies were trespassing on the old guards turf.

A clash was inevitable.

As I explained in the previous page, that's not the case at all.

That's just some delusion the oldest FF fans have in order to feel their opinion has more weight.

 

[sylekage]

I've never hated FFVII, I've just hated Final Fantasy as a whole. Well, not really "hated" but I'm not a fan of Rpgs. Though I have seen the movie, witch was awesome, and I know some of the background for the characters. I just don't like rpgs

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

I am just going to get this out of the way now. Making a thread like this rarely if at all helps. Mostly threads like this fan the flames and invite the trolls over to dinner.

OT: I do really like the game. If I didn't play FFVII I wouldn't of played any of the others and would of missed out on a great series. Yes FFVII was where it betrayed its fantasy roots although FFVI could be argued was the start of that or harbinger of change.

I like the graphics dammit. They make it look like FFVII:Lego. If you don't like it that is fair enough but this is graphics they are closest thing to conventional art in games. That means that it is relatively subjective. It gives the game and instantly recognisable look to it that is fairly unique.

What also annoys me is that every feel the need that it is relavent to say in any thread that is tangently related to FFs and JRPGs that they find FFVII overrated. Yes we get it the internet gets it FFVII has become overrated. Regardless, it was a milestone in the series. Whether the series has gotten better or worse is again opinion but it was the first 3d title and it did give way to a lot of other changes. Example WRPG style like customisable characters with no true battle style.

Yes the game has been done to death with sequels but don't blame the original game for that. It didn't go "Hey Square wouldn't it be a great idea to over market me and shove me down the world's throat with lots of pointless spin offs?". Is it really fair that one game is ruined due to this? I personally don't think it should be but many do.

Anyway I will always be a fan of the game you're a free to dislike it just have an actual reason other than these half baked shitty copy paste arguments.

 

[userwhoquitthesite]

"Because Cloud's emo and Sephiroth is a mama's boy."

Cloud isn't emo, and you are correct about that. Cloud really has one emo moment, when he blames himself for handing over the black materia to sephiroth, and that whole scene, which, in context make PERFECT sense, what with the mind control and identity-shattering revelations, and everything else

Sephiroth, though, is a bit more complex. He may not be a "mama's boy" in the normal sense, you do have to remember that a large part of his motivation is the psychological want for a parental figure, which develops into a full-blown psychotic break after his OWN identity-shattering revelation. He loses trust in his adoptive father figure (already on shaky ground, since he feels abandoned after gast's death) and latches on to the one true thing he knows: Jenova. His relationship with the alien organism is, in all honesty, fairly oedipal, despite all interceding factors.

Really though, the reason to hate FFVII is as someone else said: its cool to hate things everyone else likes. FFVII was sooooooooo popular, and now it gets a backlash.

Really, FFVII is one of the better 3D FF games. I cant play through 9, so I can't judge it, but VIII and XIII were atrocious in every aspect, and FFX had a good story hampered by at times terrible dialogue and spotty voice-acting. XII was a-fucking-mazing but takes seven hours to start and well... I'm Captain Basch. VII had plenty of weak points of its own, but as long as its story is better than X-2 (game was great. story kinda blew. still better than FFVIII in every way) I'm gonna call it a win.

The real problem is all the shitty things they keep adding to the mythos.
FFVII: DoC was reverse Devil May Cry, and was fairly entertaining.
Advent Children was a nifty action flick with tasty tasty visuals. And Spider Reno.
Last Order... had okay animation.
Before Crisis: really pushed the limits of the PSP graphics capability

THAT IS THE ONLY NICE THING I CAN SAY ABOUT ANY OF THOSE. Every tiny detail they keep adding to FFVII is badly written, adds plot holes and inconsistencies, and makes me angry.

 

[Kristoffer Mattila]

All they ever did was put one little mumbo-jumbo sequence after another and when the end came i was expecting them to actually explain one little thing on what has been going on, but no.
You beat the boss.
You win!
Huzzah!

 

[scorptatious]

I personally really liked seven. Sure, it has typos within the translation, the graphics are kind of dated by today's standards, and it does kind of drag on. Other than that though, I found it to be a great game. I liked the majority of the characters, the battle mechanics, the soundtrack, the shear nostalgia I receive from playing something from my time. I loved it all.

And than I played FFIX. That game was absolutely amazing. There are so many things about it that I loved about it more than FFVII. I think it may have a place in my top ten most favorite games of all time.

As for the whole Cloud being "emo" thing. I don't particularly agree with it. It's only natural to be depressed when

Spoiler

your hometown becomes burned to the ground, your friend/love interest gets impaled by your worst enemy, and then realize that you may not be who you think you are and may in fact be just a lab creation with fake memories.

It's kind of unrealistic to have a character brush all that off so easily.

 

[Verkula]

Nah i only hate VIII, X, and everything after that.

IV was soooo awsome.

 

[ShatterPalm]

"Because Cloud's emo and Sephiroth is a mama's boy."

Cloud isn't emo, and you are correct about that. Cloud really has one emo moment, when he blames himself for handing over the black materia to sephiroth, and that whole scene, which, in context make PERFECT sense, what with the mind control and identity-shattering revelations, and everything else

Sephiroth, though, is a bit more complex. He may not be a "mama's boy" in the normal sense, you do have to remember that a large part of his motivation is the psychological want for a parental figure, which develops into a full-blown psychotic break after his OWN identity-shattering revelation. He loses trust in his adoptive father figure (already on shaky ground, since he feels abandoned after gast's death) and latches on to the one true thing he knows: Jenova. His relationship with the alien organism is, in all honesty, fairly oedipal, despite all interceding factors.

Really though, the reason to hate FFVII is as someone else said: its cool to hate things everyone else likes. FFVII was sooooooooo popular, and now it gets a backlash.

Really, FFVII is one of the better 3D FF games. I cant play through 9, so I can't judge it, but VIII and XIII were atrocious in every aspect, and FFX had a good story hampered by at times terrible dialogue and spotty voice-acting. XII was a-fucking-mazing but takes seven hours to start and well... I'm Captain Basch. VII had plenty of weak points of its own, but as long as its story is better than X-2 (game was great. story kinda blew. still better than FFVIII in every way) I'm gonna call it a win.

The real problem is all the shitty things they keep adding to the mythos.
FFVII: DoC was reverse Devil May Cry, and was fairly entertaining.
Advent Children was a nifty action flick with tasty tasty visuals. And Spider Reno.
Last Order... had okay animation.
Before Crisis: really pushed the limits of the PSP graphics capability

THAT IS THE ONLY NICE THING I CAN SAY ABOUT ANY OF THOSE. Every tiny detail they keep adding to FFVII is badly written, adds plot holes and inconsistencies, and makes me angry.

Duh... wow. did not expect a comment that was quite this detailed. Thanks man, you put that better than I ever could have.

 

[DarkRyter]

Because at some point in time, it was massively well liked.

And if there's anything we hate, it's liking things.

 

[vxicepickxv]

I don't hate final fantasy VII. I will say it's not in my list of top 3 games with the FF title though. My favorite is 4, then Tactics, then 6.

The biggest problem I have with 7 is that it didn't age well. The models now look like total crap, which makes it harder to replay than the sprite based games before them.

In case you were wondering, I started withb Final Fantasy on the NES.

 

[teebeeohh]

because cloud does not have a beard. he could be so much more awesome with one

 

[ANImaniac89]

I honestly don't hate FF VII. Its a good game with some truly memorable moments.
In fact it was the first Final Fantasy game I can remember playing,I think I got it as a gift for my eighth birthday (along with Pokemon Yellow FTW).

No what I hate is the annoying fan base and the people that worship this game as divine scripture.