Akalistos said:
LogicNProportion said:
Tactical Fugitive said:
Hello dear Escapists. Please explain why Final Fantasy are good games. Because, you see, I have played a few of the FF titles, I've even gone through the trouble of beating FF VII, which I was told, was oh so special, and you know what? I don't get it. The main character is almost always annoying and stupid, the dialogues are lame (ok, maybe bad translation on older games is to be blames), the story is always mostly the same and everything in general is ridiculously naive. I can only compliment the art style and the music, which are pretty good - but that ain't the main parts of an rpg.
And what the hell is the big deal with aeris's death? Good riddance!
Meh, for me the characters are too underdeveloped to care about them.
So tell me, why do you like Final Fantasy games? What's so special about them?
O_O Hahahahahahhahaha!
To get on topic. Why something is hyped and why it's good/enjoyed are different things.
First of all, everyone has different taste, and just because someone likes FF, doesn't mean they like ALL the FF's! I love 6 and 7, but 12 13 are disgusting to me! It's about the little things.
The one you played, 7, will always be a milestone and a big deal for 2 reasons. First, it was one of the first RPG's that were in 3D, which was pretty cool. Second, it was the FF that made the series mainstream.
Speaking of which, most fans of 7 were fans of it when it first came out. And just like it being 3D was a big deal back in the day, most of the stuff you saw as no biggie were as well, such as Aeris/Aerith's death, cut scenes, the story, etc.
Personally, I still love the environment and story of FF7. While a lot of them share similarities, it's no more than BioWare games do. If anything, FF7 is special because it probably has the most filled out environment. There's a LOT of background stuff they try and cram in there to explain how things work, from the planet to mako to engines. And while most people find it obnoxious, I'm a text-whore, so it's for me.
Not so much the characters, but they all helped me get through a crappy time in my life, and thus, I'm a proponent for competent remake, etc. As such, Cloud and Sephiroth will always have soft spots in my heart.
Glad you liked the art and music, that's always something that FF delivers on.
As for gameplay, again, it's all about taste. I wish I could see more turn-based stuff on today's market, but no such luck. But, I'm cool with it. I'm pretty vast in my tastes when it comes to gaming.
Overall, I love the older FF's, ironically til 8, where things got so convoluted, it disappeared up it's own ass. Though, 10 is an exception.
As far as hype goes, you should never follow hype. Be excited about it, but there's always hype about everything, and it you let it catch you, you will only become disappointed in the end...
I think most people love it because it's their first RPG (In my case, it was FF9 and i found it much better) but i can understand why he don't like it. Hell, i don't like it and here's why.
1) Bland Character: They all act one dimensional through most of the game. Most of the description that I can make for any character is about 3 to 4 word max. Worst yet, the only one with a legitimate reason to fight is Barret (till it evident that Sephiroth want the apocalypse later in disk 3). Before that, they all got bullshit reason to go along.
Cloud: Money
Tifa: Cloud
Caith Sid: Job description... (Somehow i can't see a spy nor a office worker using a robot on top of a robot... it's just to stupid)
Cid: They took his plane (that was payed by, owned, used and serviced by Shinra)
Red XII: Father issue / request (He should have stay in Gongaga with the old man. But the old man told him to understand the world a be like his father (spoiler) he needed to travel.
Yuffie: Loot... her's and yours. (It's imply that she need that to return his village into a fighting force against Shinra... but they didn't even move during the second attack at Shinra's tower nor she have given said loot to her people making it Pointless!)
Vincent: He had a Nightmare... I'm not kidding. He just got a nightmare.
Sephiroth: He want his mommy to acknowledge him. (what i can't understand here is why. Beside, he most have known later that he was just infused with more of her DNA then most people. Better yet, it doesn't matter because he's a clone and the original body still lies in the deep of the Nibleheim Reactor with Cloud original body on top of him.)
That will be all for now.
I would say those were over-simplified, but that wouldn't even be correct as most aren't even accurate...
Cloud: Money, true, but money is a powerful factor. Keep in mind that he became a mercenary not just because he and Zack planned on doing it when they got to Midgar, but because he's DRIVEN to. He literally can't stop himself, because he's not himself. Later on in the game, he's doing what he's doing as party of his vendetta, and discovering himself. Plus, in the choice that is accepted as canon, Cloud made a promise to Tifa to always protect her. And let's not forget that once Sephiroth skewered Aerith, his mind was definitely made up...
Tifa: She's a powerful, driven woman who wants to do what she can help. She's very motherly, so not only is she going to help AVALANCHE, an anti-Shinra group (Shinra took everything from her), but she would stick around anyway for Marlene, Barret's adopted daughter. She sticks around for Cloud, because she knows something isn't right, and as she says, even though she didn't care much for Cloud for the majority of their time they were in their childhood, when Cloud left for SOLDIER, Tifa pried for any info she could to see if he got anywhere. Plus, and this could be said for any of the characters, if you had god-like powers, and knowledge of the planet in danger, and knowledge of the means to stop it, would you not give it a shot, especially with Tifa's morals?
Cait Sith: Mogs/Moogles are common sights in Final Fantasy games, and the amusement park of sorts, the Golden Saucer, would probably have such cute, cuddly imagery. Chances are, the big Mog Reeve's robot (the cat) sits on, was always autonomous, as some sort of attendant. Reeve's good with robots, chances are he could reprogram it, especially since Golden Saucer is run by Shinra. Same technology. Using a cat on the Mog as a hook to blend in is exactly what a spy would do. Plus, the Mog is obviously physically strong. This helps the cat compensate for it's weak body, when it would come down to combat situations. Later on in the game, none of this really even matters! Reeve has a change of heart, and then acts as a double agent because of his guilt from working for such a corrupt company. However, he makes note to tell Barret that AVALANCHE is hardly better, having killed people in destroying the mako reactors. It shows that before all else, Reeve is for the people, not the planet.
Cid: Shinra stole his dream of being the first man in space. His dream! His only dream a country bumpkin like him could look forward to! If that doesn't give any resentment, then I don't know what would. Deep down, Cid is fatherly, and looks out for people. He certainly didn't crisp Shera, which ended up actually doing more damage to his dream then even Shinra. When you meet him, he has nothing else left, especially since Rufus just showed up not only to NOT reinstate the Space Program, but to steal his last pride and joy, the Tiny Bronco (the plane). Having become a Shinra fugitive by resisting the president and it's army, and escaping with well-known terrorists, he has no choice but to join the enemy of his enemy. He's an old man, he doesn't have much left to look forward to anyway. His last blaze of glory, in his mind.
Red XIII(13): A personal vow can be very powerful as well, even more-so than cash. Red's or Nanaki's, is to be better than his coward-father. Red is also not only part of a race that is VERY close to the planet, but he was raised by people very close to the planet as well. Once his grandfather dies, and he finds out his father was warrior, just like him, he makes another vow to protect the planet, even if it is to kill him, just as his father died protecting him and Cosmo Canyon. Shinra also abducted him, experimented on him (and with Hojo, that means torture without any humane concern), and tried to have him force-breed with a girl dumped into his tank. His retribution of how he feels about Shinra should be clear as soon as when his cage opens, he leaps on Hojo in an attempt to tear out his throat. In expanded information, on his episode of the Anime Special On the Way to a Smile, it shows he also wishes to leave a legacy, as his race is long-lived, he knows he will out live all of friends and 'human' family. The only person he can confide this to is Vincent, who tells him that he will even out live Red! The two make a promise to meet at least once a year then, as friends.
Yuffie: As an optimistic, brave girl who has had to grow up with a devastated homeland thanks to Shinra, she simply wishes for her proud people to gain independence once more. As said earlier, she knows the means to at least TRY to achieve victory, so as a strong person, she will do so. In this case, it is the conquest to collect materia, and use it. Now, materia is powerful, but anyone knows it's not THAT powerful. She's just one girl. However, she is also disappointed that so little else of her people care, or rather, are too afraid or apathetic to do anything. She wishes to ignite a fire, perhaps, with will lead to a full-blown revolt. And while they would probably fail...she is at least acting for what she believes in. Unfortunately, this means she wants YOUR materia, and thus, why she travels with you for the first half of the game. For the second half, she is told by her father, if you did her event, to travel with you and to stop Sephiroth, so then they may take down Shinra. In the end, Cloud and co. kill A LOT of Shinra personnel. Why wouldn't she want to travel with them? So many opportunities...
Vincent: Out of all of those half-assed descriptions you gave, this one made me rage more than any other. You obviously have NO IDEA who Vincent really is. Vincent is a figure who was betrayed by his own romanticism. In fact, because of his at-first-complacency, and then, because he did not simply stomp out Hojo (he was a Turk, basically CIA/KGB, he could have within legal rights), he was the cause to Sephiroth, and the current crisis of the game. This inner guilt of his sins, coupled with the convenient chance to strike against his past failures is damn good reason why he would come out of his coffin to put some holes in a few choice people. In fact, the previously cited rule of "If you had the power, would you not try?" applies to him more than anyone. He's by-far the most powerful character of the heroes (in the fluff, not gameplay) because of his transformations and his near-immortality. And let's not add on the factor that he COULD be Sephiroth's dad. Vincent is the only one to confirm that Hojo is the father, and this might have been to shove off some self-guilt for the time-being.
Barret: Shinra took everything he had; including his right arm, except for his best friend's daughter, Marlene. And...that's about it. His cause is simple revenge, plus the small bonus of helping the Planet. He doesn't think his way through anything, as Reeve mentioned in my previous example, and out of all of them, while having a good reason, he has the least amount of reason to be committing this hard to something. This just shows, if anything, that he is a good man with his heart in the right place. Sometimes, that's all you need to confront something you disagree with.
Aeris/Aerith: Aerith, while dying in-game, probably had one of the largest burdens out of the whole party. She is the last in a race of people attuned with the Planet, charged with protecting it. Let's forget that despite appearing to take everything in stride with a steady smile and aura of optimism, Shinra killed her father as a baby, killed her boyfriend (Zack), killed everyone near her out of surveillance, abducted her and her mother, Ifalna, more torture/experimentation, killed her mother, and destroyed her people's world around her (plus she would know of this, as Ancients/Cetra could speak to ghosts, as she spoke to the spirits of her ancestors). Yeah, let's just forget all of that, and stick with her racial obligation that is reminded to her day-in, day-out by her dead ancestors, that she must protect the planet. And so, she went out alone, not wishing to bring harm to any of her friends, and died in the cause. And even in death, she gave Cloud and the others strength multiple times, Cloud meaning to live on, and her will being strong enough to cast Holy, which was one of the only reasons the planet wasn't blown to bits in the end. In a bitter-sweet motion, actually, Holy is a spell that is said to destroy EVERYTHING that does harm to the planet...including humans. So it was really the lifestream that really did the dirty deed to rescuing everyone in the end...
Sephiroth: One of the most symbolic characters in gaming. People who enjoy/despise him for 'looking as he does', etc are entitled to their opinion, but if you don't get what the whole character is about, then you're really missing out. I'm not going to list all that here, but I'm going to try my best of why HE himself did what he did. First off, your details here made no sense...at all. Okay, so Sephiroth, when he first went insane, was because of the JENOVA cells within his body, being taken control of JENOVA, which he had visited earlier that day, giving him some mind-fuck as is, because that was told to him by Hojo to be his mother. (Lucrecia is Sephiroth's real mother, but he was never allowed to see her, and vice-versa.) Seeing such a monster to be his mother helped him study up on his 'heritage', which were really poorly researched notes done up by hack-scientists who wrote the stuff down before they found out what JENOVA truly was. In this research, Jenova (I'm tired of writing in all caps) is classified as an Ancient. Humanity betrayed the Ancients long ago, and with Jenova seeing an opening in Sephiroth's will, basically brain washed him into leading him in the right way to 'kill everyone to avenge their species'. But first, Sephiroth takes a stroll to Jenova's tube, to release his 'mother', which leaves himself open. He basically gets bisected by Cloud (which is probably why he ditched his legs later on) and falls into the lifestream, which is actually souls, and the pure knowledge of those souls. For years, Sephiroth rides along the lifestream in the planet, his hatred, rage, and strong will allowing him to live, until he is carried to the Northern Crater. In his time in the lifestream, he learns so many things about the planet and magic, but not once did he learn he wasn't Cetra. However, he also forgot fragments of himself in an attempt to survive mostly intact. Lastly, his will gaining so much power, he was actually able to take control of Jenova. From his mako-crystal prison, Sephiroth's will allows him to take control of pieces of Jenova and those with his cells around the world. While he is himself, because of his destroyed memories, he is still influenced slightly by Jenova's behavior (she's actually a form of virus colony) and that is to exterminate the inhabitants of the planet, gain in power, and then spread. By the end, there is still speculation of who was in control: Jenova, or Sephiroth. In Advent Children, Sephiroth has forgotten more of himself, but still retains Jenova's instincts and drive. He also retains his hatred for Cloud and the world. In fact, he didn't even have to materialize himself in Advent Children with the three brothers. He could have just done the thing with the lifestream, safe in death, and gone on with his goals. He's driven to revenge that much. As far as his character, he is highly arrogant, and it has been stated that the only way he was beaten in Advent Children (after actually becoming stronger) is because not only was he at 1/3 strength (all three brothers were supposed to combine with the remaining 'alive' Jenova cells), but also because he toys with Cloud instead of killing him when he had the chance. He also has a god-complex, and Eudipus-complex (he 'loves' his 'mother', but hates his father, Hojo), a messiah-complex, and a bunch of other negative traits. Before he turned 'bad', he was actually a pretty nice guy, if not a bit cold and reserved.
And THAT is why I believe, sir or madame, without a shadow of a doubt in my mind, you did not do your research correctly, nor actually played even the first game. I don't mind people saying their opinions, but when you state such as you did as facts, action had to have been taken.
Good day sir!
TL;DR: You suck at research.
