Gotta Beat 'Em All! (VII)

It has currently come to my attention that I have never, in my entire life, beaten a Final Fantasy Game. Being a member of a Final Fantasy Forum, this news disturbs me. Therefore, I have made it my sworn mission to play through every main FF title (minus XI and XIV, for obvious reasons) I shall excuse myself from playing XIII for *shudder* other obvious reasons. but for now, I am starting with (arguably) the most famous and popular of the titles so far, FF7. If I put any spoilers by accident...Well, I don't really care, I'm reviewing a game and I'm not a professional, so stuff will probably slip through

So far, it's been pretty good to me, pretty well developed characters, decent combat system, nothing too dissappointing, but nothing too overwhelmingly amazing, either. I've played bits and pieces here and there, and have seen the AC movie, played Crisis Core, and seen parodies, spinoffs, and other such things, and it makes me think: how did they pull so much dark, brooding crap out of this game? There are some downright silly moments in here, so far, and some of the scenes and parts have been kind of funny, even. But when I look at advent children or kingdom hearts, it amazes me how someone like Cloud from this game can be that emotionless. Every word out of his mouth seems like this monotone scream of, "Check me out, I dress in black and don't care about stuff, aren't I badass?" Cloud even seems downright silly at times in this game. He put on a Dress to sneak into some assholes place to save Tifa! Sure, it was not without a certain level of disdain for the idea, but even so he still goes through with it! So far I've just gotten past the part where The pillar explodes and drops the plate on section 7 ( i think thats right). So far, I'm enjoying the game. It's not on my top 20 list, but it's playable. hopefully I'll be wowed by some later parts, as I've heard almost nothing but praise for this game.

i had to wait months to get VII... i'd already completed X and X-2 by the time i got it, and the only reason i did get it was because i heard it was the 'best'... problem was... i thought it was CRAP

It's been...decent so far. nothings really upsetting me, but some of the minigame bits are really irritating

VII mainly gets its praise because it was one of the first ones people played, and of course because of the famous ending of Disc 1. Nice to know someone else feels more or less the same way I did about Cloud's personality change in Advent.

My opinion, VII is good but it's not the best. It's my fav for introducing me to the series but if you're talking the best FF then I'm going with X

IT IS THE BEST, and I agree with the Cloud personality thing, they went a bit overboard with his sour grapes attitude, when clearly in the game he has a much more dynamic character, and has a "cooler" air about him. The minigames in ff7 are one of the best things, how could you hate them? FF10 was good, but it fails to compare to ff7 in my book...so many things done right, very little done wrong

I enjoyed VII, but i don't think it's the best game. I still haven't beat it (I'm stuck with Omega Weapon T.T).
It is still awesome. The characters are amazing and I love how they're all completely different and have their own background story.

It's one of the best. Definetly not the series best.

You considered replaying it after our discussion the other night lol? I told you, it's not bad. It's just WAAAAAYYYY overrated.

Yeah, I thought about it fter we talked about it and decided to give it another shot. It's not that the minigames are bad, but some of the controls for them aren't clearly defined enough. At the moment, I am in the desert-prison thing under the town of...corel? is it corel? I can't remember. the place where you meet Cait Sith. The prison place there. A little while back, I was disguised as a soldier or whatever and was performing in a parade for Rufus, the new president of the Shinra (By the way, everytime they call it "The Shinra" it makes me laugh. Idk why, It just makes me think of them pronouncing it weird, like "Them guys is in the Shinras with the soldiers and the ancients and the man with the VERY BIG SWORDS!") anyway, so there were 2 minigame like things connected to it. For the second one, I had to just press buttons when he asked me to press buttons. Easy enough. But the first one involves me going to the back of the section of soldiers that are passing and try to blend in. this proved impossible, as I would be pushed out of my cover and would try to go to the back, but that asshole sergeant ,or whatever the fuck it was, was not impressed with the way that i attempted to do EXACTLY WHAT HE SAID. and then the motions that I had to carry out were weird, i had to...release the button to do that thing with my gun? I didn't get it, and failed at whatever I was supposed to be doing. Well whatever, it's just certain things like that that get on my nerves. but whatever, combat's still good, characters are ok, but all in all? I've seen much better games for the PS1. Like FF9. I only played a bit of it, but that game was actually pretty fun while I was playing it. Cinematics were good, characters were engaging. I dunno, I mean, I LIKE FF7, but It's clear to me that nostalgia has clouded Many peoples minds with regards to it. Oh, and sephiroth is not that great. I mean he's powerful, but so are a bunch of guys I've seen in other games that do shit like him. His character? Not so much "Badass god of mortals with powers beyond my comprehension". More like "Prissy Mama's Boy with a father-related complex and a short fuse whose compensating for a hell of a lot with that sword of his." Then Again, Clouds sword is pretty frickin huge too, which says a lot about him as well.

Get ready little boy, for some "tl;dr"...

Lets be serious dude, this was a game from 1997 not to mention Square's first attempts at 3-D. Of course the controls are a little off and the cinematics are kind of blarf. When this came out, people shat their pants! They were like "OMG 3-D IS SO SMEXY! WHOA LOOK AT THAT ORANGE!!!"

The first part of the Junion infiltration is without a doubt impossible. Every playthrough of this game, I fail at it. The button sequence for Rufus I ace almost every time, never had a problem with it.

BTW, did you get Yuffie? My first playthrough I didn't get her until just after the Corel Prison sequence. And knowing you, you're gonna HATE trying to unlock Vincent if you want him. Honestly I think he's one of the game's more useless characters. His limits force you to loose complete control over him and his stats aren't too great until you get his ultimate weapon. Really, Vincent is really important to the story and I wish that he wasn't an unlockable character. He should have been forced to join the party and played a huge part in the game's story. I mean, he's involved with Sephiroth's birth! That's fucking important to the story! And his ties to Shinra could have been so cool and helpful. Granted he's been playing fucking Dracula for like 30 years but still he could have an impact on some people. Like the Turks admire his work when he was in Shinra, Reno doesn't hit him in battle because he admires him like how Rude won't hit Tifa in battle because he gets a boner for her. Even some ties to Rufus and President Shinra. It could have been so good to the game's story. He'd still be useless in battle but meh, at least he'd be important to the game.

Sephiroth is very hyped up but what I like in VII was the fact that Sephiroth was an important figure and constant threat to the player the WHOLE GAME. There are some FF's were there are so many conflicting villains that bump in and out of the story with little to no explination. Some don't appear until the ending of the game. Xande, Cloud of Darkness, Necron and Yu Yevon are examples of this. Ultimecia is kinda in this zone for me but her background at least made sense when she was finally introduced. Really in this game, I think the real "Major Antagonist" is Jenova. Given that you play the game beginning to end, Jenova has more of an impact to EVERYTHING rather than Sephiroth.

Sephiroth's impact mostly came from the fact that for the majority of the game you where constantly reminded "you have no chance of beating this guy". Even Cloud says there would be no way he would have survived him in combat, and when the main character you're playing admits that he doesn't stand a chance it makes you think "well what hope that does that give me".

However since most gamers now have beaten VII and killed Seph his hype has dropped, he isn't really that much of a threat in anyones mind. I mean feck it, even Sora can beat him.

Agreed about Jenova cap, especially since really and truly Jenova had the biggest moment in the game (Disc 1 ending). Though I suppose that win can be given to Seph as his stronger SOLDIER will is manipulating her.

SPOILER TAGS FO' FAGTASTICUM

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I admit, I agree with most of what you said, Cap'n. I did get Yuffie right after Corel prison, but vincent was pretty painless. the lock number puzzle was fairly easy, and the boss in the safe was a breeze. then it was just a matter of meeting him and going outside. i just beat that part and just left that town, so it's all still fresh in my mind. I will admit, having Sephiroth as a constant threat throughout the game, rather than pulling him out of their asses 2 minutes away from endgame was a good call. And I agree with your thoughts about Jenova, and though I don't understand some bits about it (though I'm sure I will soon) It does seem to make sense, but their threat levels doesn't address the fact that their characters are not, in my opinion, the most interesting I've ever seen from a villain. And yes, he is central to the story, but it just doesn't make him that interesting. I've seen him only a couple of times throughout the game, even though he gets mentioned every 2 seconds, so I can't really figure out his character that well. I know It's probably so I don't become too desensitized to his appearances, but I just barely know anything about the guy. I even saw him in battle around the first time I saw him in a flashback, and while he was powerful, He wasn't exactly awe-inspiring. I get that he was questioning his humanity, and a bunch of stuff about him being from another race, or born in a lab, or something, but I just don't find him that interesting. I just feel like I've seen way better villains than him, and it remains a mystery why he's currently so overrated. Maybe it's the influence of the other stuff he's been in affecting my perception of him, but he's just not all that amazing to me.

With regards to Vincent, I am pretty surprised that he's optional, it seems like he'd play too much of an important role in the story to just make him unnecessary. Also, I can already guess, after having met Vincent 2 minutes ago, where most of the Emo in FF7 stems from. He literally TURNED AWAY FROM THE GROUP, SHOOK HIS FIST IN RAGE, AND MUTTERED THE NAME OF HIS LOST LOVE TO HIMSELF just as he was about to join my party. I couldn't make that shit up. Plus, way to go giving his character any mystery. I know less about Yuffie and Cait Sith, two of the most outgoing characters in the game, than I know about this guy, and, once again, I MET HIM 2 MINUTES AGO. I mean good lord man, Just start screaming bullshit about how the darkness in your heart is full of darkness, or some bullshit like that, and you may become one of my most hated characters ever.

Damn, have you been fucking pulling all nighters again? I never got from Corel Prison to Neibelheim in a day. Mainly because I grind too much BUT STILL LITTLE BOY. You should be doing yo' math homewoik instead.

I agree with you Sephiroth is boring. Aside from being all powerful and brilliant, he's not that interesting of a person. At least with some of the other villains like Kefka or Kuja, they had personalities that really shined and made them interesting. Granted they're the two more "colorful" villains (One's a Clown, the other's a Fag), they were at least interesting and different from the "Cold, Ruthless, Paperthin Personality, What you see is what you get!" of most of the other villains in the series. Kefka was a nutjob but he would bounce back and forth between his jumpy happy persona to his downright fucking ruthless methods of tactics. Kefka usually didn't kill his enemies outright, he planned and waited for the moment to strike. It made him interesting and threatening at the same time. He is the series Joker but I like that because the Joker's a good villain. Colorful, unpredictable and just pure evil. Sometimes I'm not into the "Feel bad for the Bad Guy" in a lot of media so it's good to get a villain who's evil for the sake of being evil. Granted, there's been a lot of messed up villains who have very well done backstories but then I don't feel like I must kill this person but "Maybe if s/he had someone to love, s/he wouldn't be so evil!" moment. I don't feel good about killing this villain in a game anymore and I feel bad about doing it rather than being all gungho and destroying this evil little shit.

You'll get to Yuffie's back story when you get to Wutai which you can get to right after meeting Cid. Her's isnt' exactly too great but I like her character nontheless. And Cait Sith is actually one of the more cooler characters in the game and contrasts the party in a really good way. Cait Sith was another character I didn't like in battle but I really liked his story and his involvement with the plot. It was really interesting. You'll learn a lot about him soon.

The Cap'n wrote:SPOILER TAGS FO' FAGTASTICUM

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Again slightly agreed, I do gain some Nostalgic memories of Seph whenever I see him and remember his first impact he had on my young self but as a character he is dull. He really shines in the Nibelheim section where he's just chuckling and ranting more or less crazy sounding sh*t but for the most part his task is to stand quiet and look mean.