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Final Fantasy VII, fifteen years later...for the first time.

3/27/2013

6 Comments

 
I was the last person on the planet to play Final Fantasy VII.

"The best Final Fantasy in the series!" they claimed. "The greatest game of all time!" they shouted.

"I don't own a PlayStation and am not shelling out $70 for a used copy of the PC version!" I exclaimed.

Fifteen years of that. Fifteen years of every other Final Fantasy—first the original, then Mystic Quest, IV, Adventure, VI, V Advance, VIII, I & II Dawn of Souls, and III. Fifteen years of a gap in my RPG lexicon where "Materia" and "Limit Break" could have been. Fifteen years of avoiding spoilers, in the hopes of someday playing the game for myself without having everything ruined already.

Well, more like fifteen seconds of that last one. I don't think the Internet stopped blurting out FFVII spoilers until Portal came along to fill their mouths with cake and lies instead.

There were certain things I knew. I was supposed to instinctively hate Yuffie and Cait Sith—no one likes you! I knew there were suit-clad Turks, and a motorcycle chase, and some minor thing that happens to Aeris that's probably irrelevant anyhow. A friend of mine got me the soundtrack to Final Fantasy VII within a few years of the game's release, so I knew—at least, according to the track names—all the major locations and events of the game. Surely there was a horse race where they'd steal a tiny bronco.

When Square Enix announced a revamped PC re-release in 2012, eventually putting it on sale for something like a paltry $11, I finally found my chance to download the legend. After sitting on my (digital) shelf for close to half a year, I booted up Final Fantasy VII for the first time at the end of January 2013. Just shy of two months later, I am no longer the last person on the planet who hasn't played Final Fantasy VII.

Turns out my wife hasn't played it, either.

With so much hype surrounding this highly venerated game—and with my track record of rating any Final Fantasy game after the first three I played on a scale of "meh" to "barf"—expectations were high that I'd be tossing this on the pile of overrated games I've suffered through in the name of keeping up with the mainstream.

Every once in a while, I like it when I'm wrong.

Don't let me get all gushy yet. I couldn't stand most of the minigames and quick-time events—I despise losing at things when I've been given vague instructions, five seconds to prepare, and have my controller configured in a way that's totally logical for regular gameplay but awkward as all get-out for special events. Switching around equipment when changing party members is a clunky affair. Half of the best equipment in the game has some awful flaw that counteracts the benefits—we can't just have "improves defense" or "improves defense and reduces elemental damage by 1/2"; we've got to have "improves everything but defense, which plummets so low you'll probably wind up dead if you use it."

Oh, there's more.

Movement is needlessly inconsistent—depending on what screen you're on, holding UP might move you up, right, left, or even down, and there's never any rhyme or reason to it. Cloud saves ("Cloud" saves. Funny, Square Enix.) are incredibly unreliable, taking as long as 10-15 minutes to sync up with the server before I can freaking save my game and go to bed. Quantum physics is easier to grasp than the infuriating task of breeding and racing Chocobos. (My original sentiment was, "Chocobo racing and breeding can go suck a Pepio Nut," but I felt that was too crass.)

What was I saying? Oh, right. How much I loved Final Fantasy VII.

A story centered around the characters. Not a series of random battles with some story shoehorned in around it; not a string of situations that drag the characters along for the ride; but a story where the action is clearly driven by the words, actions, and desires of both the good guys and the bad guys. Best of all, there's legitimate character development for everyone from Cloud and Sephiroth all the way down to the random townspeople whose dialogue changes once the world is clearly in peril. I actually cared about the people in FFVII, and that's rarely happened in a Final Fantasy game since FFI, where I named my white mage after myself.

Random battles that don't waste your time, and scripted fight sequences that don't feel contrived. FFV forces you into a random battle every three or four steps. FFVI foists an out-of-nowhere boss battle on you at any opportunity (Ultros, anyone!?). FFVII never lets the fighting overshadow the story; if you get into a battle, it's because it makes sense within the context of a story for a battle to happen. It's not just because you're in a dungeon, and fighting is what you do in a dungeon.

The Materia system. Magic that you can level up and pass around? Yes, please. Counterattacks, status effects added to your attacks, and an ability to learn all the crazy special powers your enemies use, like Beta and Big Guard and Pandora's Box? Heck, yeah. By the end of the game, I had Cloud decimating the masses with Deathblow on all enemies plus a regular slash as a follow-up, and Yuffie (yes, Yuffie—I enjoyed her backstory and appreciated her quirkiness) alternating between mugging enemies to restore MP and casting Ultima (twice in one turn!) to restore HP.

Limit Breaks. Tifa jacked up on every Strength Source in the game, kicking the ever-living snot out of an oversized dragon, is one of life's little joys.

Actions both great and small that impact some part of the game later on. At first, the completionist and perfectionist in me rankled at the thought of ruining my chances of a perfect game because I did or did not buy flowers from that girl at the beginning. However, after looking up the complexities of how some things affect other things, I got to be pretty intrigued by the replay value potential, not to mention the story value. Why, yes, Barrett. Let's do go on a date tonight.

I could go on. The long and short of it is that I was impressed by Final Fantasy VII—by the gorgeous cutscenes and deliberate breaks from tradition that made it so unique in its day, and by the exemplary pacing and balance that few other games in the Final Fantasy series (that I've played) even come close to. I see plenty of flaws, but I also see where someone who grew up with this game would've been able to overlook them, and even embrace them with repeated playthroughs. On a matter of principle, the original Final Fantasy remains my favorite for the time being—for the simplicity, the challenge, and for not aggravating me with dysfunctional cloud saves and snowboarding in my RPG—but darned if FFVII isn't the better game, once all the pros and cons are weighed. At the very least, FFVII is enough to tip the scales enough to say that, yeah, I really am a Final Fantasy fan—I'm just not wild about some of the games.

My one regret is not getting to play this sooner, and that's entirely because of the spoilers. I played the game differently than I would have if I'd've been able to go in blind. I knew Aeris wasn't going to make it to the end, so I left her out of my party whenever she wasn't mandatory—why waste good XP on somebody who won't be around long enough to enjoy it? From the little bit I'd pieced together over the years, I figured Cait Sith would run away with all my money and Materia at some point and never be seen again, so I left him out of the party, too. (WRONG.) I kept comparing the PC port's instrument set to the one used on the official soundtrack I had, and kept coming up disappointed with most of the music. I even guessed at some of the events in the cutscenes because of the musical cues I recalled from listening to the soundtrack all this time. I've never played a game with so many outside factors influencing my enjoyment of it, and I'm really sorry it had to happen to this one.

Guess I'd better play Mass Effect before I figure out why I should be angry at the end of the series, huh.
6 Comments
Anonymous
5/27/2013 02:15:57 pm

I still haven't played this either.

Reply
Nathaniel
6/7/2013 06:28:26 am

Well, what are you waiting for!? EVERYBODY'S played it by now! ;)

Reply
Matt Link
2/12/2014 06:19:31 am

"I actually cared about the people in FFVII, and that's rarely happened in a Final Fantasy game since FFI, where I named my white mage after myself."

Haha, for some reason, that part really had me cracking up :)

FFVII was a truly fantastic game, and groundbreaking at the time of its release. Even playing it right back when it was first released, big parts of the story like Aeris's fate were still spoiled for me, so you're definitely not alone in the assessment of outside factors influencing the way you play, now or back when.

I actually made it through the game nearly twice. The first time I almost reached the end, only to have my save file corrupted... that was a rather painful uggghh, but the game's story, memorable characters, as well as the consequences of the in-game choices were so fascinating to me that I didn't really mind replaying through it.

I did like the mini-games, though in hindsight, it was more of the novelty of having the games tied into the main-game I enjoyed than the actual games themselves... you're right, the controls for them were pretty bad/vaguely explained.

I will say though... Emerald Weapon still scares the dickens out of me to this day. It might just be because I have a very real fear of giant squid-like creatures in deep water, or the fact that it's technically the toughest boss in the game, but finally destroying it in that delayed red "boss defeated" glow after numerous painful attempts was not only gratifying but therapeutic.

I would call FFVII my favorite Final Fantasy game, although that judgment would be flawed seeing as I've never beaten any of the other entries and only went beyond dabbling with a couple of them. I don't know... I played through disc 1 of FFVIII... though the characters didn't hold my interest for long. Some friends kept telling me that IX and X were really good, although I never got around to trying X (Tidus's voice acting turned me off), and there was something about the art style in IX that I had a difficult time getting into (despite that entry sort of tying the nostalgic feel of the NES/Famicom/SNES era with the detailed look of the newer titles). V had a great battle system (which was expanded further in FF Tactics), but like you pointed out... too many random battles kept it from staying enjoyable. I realize some of these reasons seem petty for not pushing through the games, but perhaps I just need to retry them again. I did hear that IV and VI (which I missed out on back in the day) were considered the best entries by most fans I've met.... what are your thoughts on some of them?

Reply
Nathaniel
2/13/2014 03:09:48 pm

Glad I'm able to amuse you. :)

Corrupted save files are the worst! One of my friends gave up Golden Sun for a similar reason: at the very end of the game, just before entering the final dungeon, he used the "save anywhere" feature to save his game in town. When he returned to the game, he was permanently lodged inside of the townsperson that had been standing next to him.

Inside. A townsperson.

Dunno if you read my writeup of FFVIII on Exfanding, but I am not the biggest of fans:

http://www.exfanding.com/2009/11/old-habits-die-hard-and-have-extra.html

Thing was, I really liked the dynamic between Squall and Rinoa...but then you spent half of the game NOT with Rinoa, leaving Squall to babysit or be babysat by his entourage of novelty characters who never seemed to develop much more of a personality or relationship with anybody else.

FFIV is my third-favorite of the eight main games and two spinoffs I've played; the game mechanics, variety of characters, superb music, and interesting locations make up for any shortcomings in the overall storyline and occasional dungeon crawl fatigue. It takes a while to really pick up steam, but it's worth sticking with it.

FFVI is one that's been a perennial contender for Best SNES RPG and, up until maybe a decade ago, Best RPG of All Time. I appreciate several aspects of the game but find it to be deeply flawed and grossly overrated. The short version is: too many characters, poor communication of several key objectives and details, easy-to-miss optional material that's not really optional if you want to have a chance of beating the game, everything about the Coliseum, and the fact that NOBODY BOTHERS TO WARN YOU THAT THE FREAKING DINOSAUR USES ULTIMA.

Reply
SwordHMX
5/2/2014 08:57:19 pm

You are not the biggest fan of VIII? I'm going to spank you! In all seriousness, I actually didn't play FFVII until last September. When I quoted the Sephiroth theme during the Megathon, I only knew it from Kingdom Hearts.

What do you think of Cait Sith overall? I think Reeve is the third most heroic person in the game, after Aeris and Tifa.

SwordHMX
5/3/2014 07:24:48 pm

You didn't pay any attention to Aeris, eh? Demons Gate must have been brutal.

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