Final Fantasy VII

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I found FFVII to be WAY too complicated and long for me to play, so naturally I'm in the "overrated" camp on this one. I personally preferred RPGs from the 8 and 16-bit eras since they didn't have load times and they had just the right amount of complexity to keep me invested.

If you buy it on PS3, you'll barely have load times.

^^^
Even so, that still won't make the game any less complex.

So why not use a walkthrough? It can help in those complex areas you was struggling in.

I thought he meant the plot.

FF7's system is actually pretty simple compared to some of the others (the jobs system in FF3(j) and FF5(j), the no level up system in FF2(j)) after all the characters are almost the same, since the things that were unique ability in FF4(2) and FF6(3) can be performed by anyone. Apart from cure+all pretty much all the more complicated materia stuff is completely optional (although a few enemy skills do come in handy). It's definitely an easier game than many older RPGs.

Definitely one of my favorites. And no, it wasn't my first RPG. (That would be Crystalis.) It wasn't my first Final Fantasy, either. I loved Final Fantasy 4 and 6, and Chrono Trigger. I didn't think FF7 could measure up. I was wrong. Well, half-wrong...

Final Fantasy 4 was a better RPG. But FF7 was so much more. It was a cinematic experience - A movie, redefined to be controlled. Square pulled off some very memorable scenes in FF6, but the CD-ROM propelled FF7 to a whole other level. CD quality music and cutscenes combined with great storytelling and character develpment to create a cinematic masterpiece, the likes of which gaming has not seen before or since.

This is what makes FF7 so special, and also what makes it so divisive... It's not a great game. It's great cinema. The game is just there to keep your hands busy.

I'll give you the cinematics (especially the two where they fire the cannon at the weapons in Juno and Midgar), but I don't quite agree about the music.

The boss music and Cosmo Canyon was pretty great, but for the most part although they sometimes did a good job with tying music to the correct mood (especially some of the ominous stuff) but although it "worked" I didn't really find it enjoyable or catchy in the same way as many of the tracks from FF6. For FF6 it's almost easier to name the music that wasn't great, and it did an amazing job of tying themes (and variations of them) to individual characters and organizations, which was less prominent in 7. I don't think they were able to exploit the superior technology when it came to the music to the same extent as the graphics in most cases.

I just remembered another distinctive think about FF7: the expletives!, as a kid that seemed like some pretty cool "!#%$." Oh Barrett what won't you say?

Agreed on the music. There were definitely highlights but overall the music in its predecessor was the superior soundtrack. I don't think you can really call FFVIIs music CD quality either. It didnt really strike me as anything beyond what one could achieve with a MIDI synthesiser, and that applied to all the music up to and including FFX's.

I think people underestimate how amazing FF7 looked when it was new.

The FF before that, you need to realize, was FF6 which was a 2-D 16-bit SNES game. I remember seeing the demo of FF7 at the gamestore at the mall, and being completely entranced by Leviathan's summon. It was amazing-looking! So flashy! The combat was all 3D and looked so cool compared to squashed 2-D SNES sprites!

I think the combat in FF7 is pretty fun too, so that counts for a lot. The story has some weaknesses, but the characters themselves are pretty cool and in the end that's what captured people's imaginations the most, I think.

I remember the deceptive FF:VII commercials that showed the cut scenes and pretended like they were the actual gameplay graphics. PS1 commercials would often do this because the gameplay graphics didn't look very good compared to the more powerful Nintendo 64.

OMG FF7 is one of my all time favourite games

I still remember the line they used in the commercial, it was something like
"win: you survive, lose: you can always hit the reset button"

I like it but I prefer Final Fantasy VI.

Shame that they invested in cartridges that stored less memory than the discs. Eh? =P

Especially cause the N64 discs probably would've been backwards compatible on the Gamecube and/or Wii.

I thought Final Fantasy VII was by far the best in the series, having played every other game by Square Enix as I'm a massive fan of theirs. I did, however, lose interest after Final Fantasy 10, I think apart from the games becoming stupidly hard they overcomplicated the system of play and the creatures became more and more repetitive. I loved Final Fantasy VII, it's still the game I talk about to my friends and my kids when we're talking about good games, however I don't own a PS2 any more so it's a bit of an obselete game now. The graphics on the newer games were phenomenal but I'd say that maybe they concentrated more on that than on actual gameplay....