Why does everyone love FFVII?

[AgentNein]

Reasons why I enjoyed (and still appreciate) FF7:

ATMOSPHERE: I'm surprised I haven't seen anybody mention the atmosphere. Midgar is the single most well-realized location I've ever seen in an FF game, and once you left Midgar you found a bleak world losing its soul (both figuratively and literally) due to technology. Every location in the game goes back to this unified theme of quite simply entropy taking hold. Sure, the whole 'dank and dirty' thing has been run into the ground by now, but at that time it felt fresh.

PACING: Excellent pacing. I rarely finish a J-rpg, but I finished FF7 because I never felt that it lost sight of the overall plot arc. I always felt like the crew was racing against time to catch Sephiroth. Very rarely did it go into the direction of "okay, the worlds going to end but we've got to find five berrys for that crazy old man!".

CHARACTERIZATION: I keep on hearing that these were simple generic characters, I found most to be deceptively deep. We had cloud, asshole loner badass dude. At some point in the game you realize this is all a self-manufactured facade of a kind of losery guy. Aeris, tragic heroine who turns out to be the real hero in the story. Sephiroth, badass villain who simply turns out to be a tragic pawn of mad-science. You sort of felt bad for him because he's just been endlessly screwed with. I could honestly go on. Things like Advent Children honestly do a disservice to the game, taking some honestly fleshed out characters and turning them into caricatures.

ART DIRECTION: both in character and world-design. I appreciate the works of Nomura before he went batshit insane with the zippers and stuff. In this game we're given characters that are iconic, slightly exaggerated and over the top without looking like japanese fashion models. I mean, Cloud? Sephiroth? Barret? All of these are very iconic designs. Also in terms of location, we had fantastic places like Midgar, the Sister Ray, Wutai...

MUSIC: Gyah, almost forgot. I loved the music in this game. From the Midgar theme to the Turks theme to Shinra, to the music when you're flying around towards the end of the game. I'm sorry, I don't know the names of the songs.

 

[-Orpheus-]

This was the first decent console RPG I ever played and while I now prefer others, even others in the same series, it will always have a special place in my collection for introducing me to the genre.

 

[Cuniculus]

Though, against the fun side of the argument: Yes, it might have been fun, but come on... really THAT fun? From what I have seen of the game, you pick a move, run over, hit the person, they hit you with the move, repeat.

How could this possibly be more fun then any game made by the current standards of gaming? Sure, it was fun back when it came out and it was compared to what was out at the time... but it can't honestly be considered a great game for these times.

Well, by that argument none of the current FF games (save maybe 12) would be fun either. Nor would games like Lost Odyssey or Blue Dragon, or heck even KotOR or the Baldur's Gate series, as those feature much of the same "choose attack, wait for it to happen".

For most turn-based RPGs the fun lies in the strategy of the fights. Not the normal everyday encounters you hit while leveling, but the bosses and the special enemies at the end of the game. Also the constant discovery of new equipment and leveling up is slightly addictive.

For others, it's the story - there are naysayers, but the storyline of FFVII was pretty solid. Some enjoy it because it was the first RPG they played and/or the first FF game they played, and since they had no prior experience it very quickly rose to the top.

For me it was a mix. I played it about a year or so after it came out, and it was my first RPG so I was pretty impressed with everything. I have yet to be as impressed with a story from a FF game (though VI and Vivi's sub-plot from IX come close).

Well that's sort of my point. There are games that have the classic turn based fighting, which I didn't mean to say was bad (I played Dragon Quest VIII and it was eighty hours of that)... what I mean is that of all the turn based games we have now, with all the depth they represent, surely something is better.

 

[Cuniculus]

Sorry, I irrationally hate things too, and not always because they are simply cool. Just saying that this seems to be the case with FFVII is all.

And no, this is the one that FF Advent Children was made after.

As a non-fan, I don't know the timeline, so that doesn't mean a whole lot to me.

I just get sick of being told "Bah, you only hate [x] because it's popular!"
Because that's stupid.

Stupid and petty, yes, but people do it. I can sort of understand. All you ever hear about something from the time it is announced until a year after it comes out is how awesome it is, and how it's the best ever... and not just one person says it, everyone says it. You don't really hate the product, you don't really hate that it's popular, you hate the fact that people won't shut the hell up about it.

 

[EscapeGoat_v1legacy]

Personally, I've always loved RPGs, so trying Final Fantasy VII was a given.

And yes, I admit it, I loved it. I don't know about greatest game ever, but it's damn good.

The gameplay is fun, for a start, although I'm one of those people who find turn-based gameplay (and the like) to be tense and exciting.

The story and setting were epic. There's really no need to say anything about them, although the plot tended to get a bit convoluted at times. Thank goodness I'm an RPG fan, though, since an average RPG plot twists mroe than a pretzel in a blender.

Everything else is good, only the graphics have dated, really.

 

[Christemo]

Sephiroth.

 

[duchaked]

The same reason people love half life 2 or halo or any other game. Some just find it fun, some like the story ect. Simply nostalgia or just personal taste, hell I tend to see more haters than fans really.

yeah after a while, good/popular games seem to just gain a lotta haters (well, that's the Internet haha)

 

[Cuniculus]

To be honest, I usually at least play a game before I pronounce it shit.
Like Halo. I've played all three of those.
And I was bored as all hell after thirty minutes.

It might just be me.

I agree, I played Halo, was not impressed, THEN I declared it a mediocre game.

 

[-Seraph-]

I agree, I played Halo, was not impressed, THEN I declared it a mediocre game.

One day, I'll find out which Final Fantasy had the monkey-boy in it.

Final Fantasy 9

 

[-Seraph-]

Final Fantasy 9

Where did you come from?

Oh nowhere, just thought I'd help you in remembering said game. I'll go back to my corner now...

 

[Jade Rotaski]

I have to say for me personally its for the story; FF7 has one of THE best stories for a game Ive ever had the pleasure of playing through its smart witty and at times makes you emotional the characters were well rounded and had their own personalities, each and their own different past histories and goals and yet somehow they join together to defeat a greater evil than the one they were after originally.

Sure the graphics these days suck ass but that means nothing if the battle system plot and character development is good and I think for me it makes up for its flaws ^^

 

[-Seraph-]

Final Fantasy 9

Where did you come from?

Oh nowhere, just thought I'd help you in remembering said game. I'll go back to my corner now...

No, no, you probably belong in this thread more than I do.

But thanks.

Where you trying to remember it in hopes of playing it again or something? Just wondering.

 

[EMFCRACKSHOT]

Never played any of the final fantasy games and i dont ontend to. Advent children was a good film though

 

[Symp4thy]

It's most western gamer's first RPG experience.

That's just not true at all. There were hundred's of RPG's out for NES, SNES, PS1 and even Gameboy before FFVII came out. And many of them were popular.

And the main problem is that it's not a true role playing game. All the roles are picked out for you. Making your own Cloud is not an option you are stuck with a schizo mental case for hours upon hours. Nothing you do influences the game's story.

This is true, however it doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad game.

 

[Moccamonster]

Well, that would depend on what kind of 'best games ever'-list it is.

You can judge games by what they are right now, compared to all games, or what they were for their time.

FF7, for it's time(!), was a huge leap forward for the RPG-genre with a totally different style, radical shift in story, overhauled combat system and a pretty good storyline.

But in this generation of gaming, we've come to expect gritty settings, innovations in combat, well-rounded characters etc.

But if you're asking best games ever, you'll end up with FF7 a lot, because it just did so much for the genre. Arguably, this could've been done by another game, but still.

But judging it with todays standards, it just another rpg with no real value above current-gen games.