Retrospective: Final Fantasy VII

Edge: Overblown, inconsistent and incoherent are all fair criticisms of FFVII. It’s also understated, consistent and coherent. Like Whitman, it stands above mere critical vocabulary and declares: ‘Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself.’ Utterly modern in setting and narrative, to the point of making ecology the dominant concern, FFVII also contains elements from Greek, Roman, Norse and Irish legends, incorporated explicitly in names and quietly in incidentals. It has been credited as being partially responsible for the success of the original PlayStation – and accused of being the most-returned game in retail history. It is a remarkably rich and varied achievement, and has more or less become an industry of its own, inspiring prequels and sequels in print, films and games. But, after all that, is it a great game?

[GeofferyPeterson]

Greatest Playstation One game of all time!!!
http://www.icybrian.com/gam...

[salazarnaruto52]

Final Fantasy IX is :)

[HarryMasonHerpderp]

Man I love me some FFIX! they were all great on the PSOne though in my opinion.

[Magicite]

I must agree, FF9 and Chrono Cross are the greatest, ofc FF7 is top-notch too.

[Kos-Mos]

Xenogears because of the content.

[Mankey]

One of the most influential RPGs ever made.

[randomass171]

Needs to be remade last year.

[ritsuka666]

One of the most influential RPGs ever made.'''

Good joke bro....

[Mankey]

Regardless of weather or not you like the game or not, or even if you thought it was good or bad, the influence it has had is most certainly evident.

[TongkatAli]

If this was a Nintendo game he wouldn't be saying this. He owns himself with every comment cause his bias just reeks like my pee when i eat asparagus.

[ThatEnglishDude]

My personal all-time favorite game. Not the best title I've ever played, but certainly my most favorite. I have more memories attached to this game than any other and have replayed it more times than I care to count. I love it!

[Drithe]

Article is stupid. Without question it is not only a great game, but the single most influential single player rpg of all time.

[mezati99]

i actually got last night on steam

[randomass171]

I heard that version has mods that lets you play it more like an HD remake. Now that's something. :P

[KonsoruMasuta]

It was a really good game, although it did have it's issues.

- Some of the mini games were terrible.

- Some of the battles dragged on for too long.

- The game would let you wander around around for hours with no clue where to go and what to do.

I really didn't get the big "wow" everyone for from some of the things in the game. The thing that drew me in was the fantastic story... Oh, and the summons, the summons were epic. I also liked that it was a little darker than the other games in the series. I enjoyed this games though, it is a work of art.

[DragonKnight]

Great game, no doubt, but IMMENSELY overrated. It's been my experience that the people who call it the best, or the most influential RPG ever, started playing them with FFVII.

[KonsoruMasuta]

I honestly like FF6 a lot more.

[goldwyncq]

It IS the most influential RPG ever. Not the best one mind you, but no RPG has ever come close to the level of influence this game had on the RPG genre as a whole.

[DragonKnight]

I disagree.

FFVII borrows heavily from other RPGs, even other FF games. It simply released at the right time and had good marketing thanks to Sony.

[TheGreenMan]

Dragon,

I agree that FF7 is overrated in terms of delivering an unrivaled gaming experience, but goldwyncq is correct in stating that no other console RPG has been as influential. I've been playing RPGs since the Dragon Warrior (Quest) days, and I will tell you that no other RPG had the impact that FF7 had when it dropped. If you typed the game into a search engine, you would get literally hundreds of fan-made webpages.

Arguing against the influence of FF7 is like saying that Michael Jordan wasn't the greatest basketball player of all time. No, he didn't win the most rings or score the most points, but he single-handedly had people glued to their TV sets. And when he retired, the NBA tried hard to fill the void he left. The gaming industry did the same thing with FF7, which led a glut of JRPGs trying to capture the "FF7 magic." This ultimately caused market saturation and JRPG burnout.

The point is FF7 is not perfect - it's far from it. It's not my favorite RPG or even my favorite FF game. But when it comes to impact on the gaming community, there are few other games that stack up.

[DragonKnight]

I still have to disagree. Saying that FFVII was influential implies that what it did carried on into other games, and really it didn't.

It was a game that came out at the right time, but its story was already outdone with older FF games, it's gameplay was nothing groundbreaking, the character roster consisted of way too many pointless members, and about the only thing you could say that it did better than any other RPG of the time was all in the presentation. Maybe in terms of presentation you'd have something there because, graphically and musically, there were no RPGs previously that pulled off what FFVII did, but that's literally it.

Imagine if something like Legend of Dragoon were to be released before FFVII was. It would be the same deal. All that was important was the timing, not the game itself.

That's why I don't consider it to be the most influential RPG ever. Nothing it did carried on to the future, not even in FF games as FFVIII was vastly different than FFVII.

I would say that FF1, FFIV, or FFX were more influential as each game did something newer, or bigger, than anything FFVII did. The difference between the first two games I mentioned was timing, and the difference between FFX and FFVII is nostalgia.

[randomass171]

FFVII is actually one of those big Sony games I missed out on back in the day. I was more into platformers, RE and things like that. I tried playing the game about five years ago and I couldn't get into it. I'd like to try it again though, mostly because I watched Advent Children and really enjoyed it.

[TitanUp]

ff7 was gret back in the day and it brought the rpg to the mainstream. overrated these days

[goldwyncq]

I like how the majority of its haters focus on its flaws alone while completely ignoring what made it great in the first place. Nowadays it's cooler to hate on FFVII without reason at all.

[DragonKnight]

I like how the majority of FFVII fanboys act like it's the greatest thing since sliced bread and that it had no flaws.

Do you want me to list the reasons it's overrated? Because there are a lot of them and you did say "nowadays it's cooler to hate on FFVII without reason at all" so clearly you want to hear reasons right?

[TitanUp]

im not a ff7 hater i think its a brilliant game imo just overrated. i can think of a few games i enjoyed that i believe are overrated now.

knights of the old republic
final fantasy 10
riddick
star wars battlefront 1

i like everyone of those games even if i feel they are overrated.

[goldwyncq]

@ DragonKnight

Sure, as long as those reasons are beyond "Cloud is emo" or "Sephiroth is a momma's boy", then I'd be happy to hear them.

[randomass171]

I'm no hater, but I had a hard time playing it when I tried it for the first time. I couldn't get a grasp on how the combat system worked and I basically got my butt kicked. Before you say "you just suck at it" let me say that, yes, I did suck at FFVII. That's why I'd like to try the game again and give it another go. A remake may also help gamers like me better engage with such an old classic.

[DragonKnight]

Alright then, where to start.

The story was awful. It was essentially a power struggle for Cloud's mind more than it was the fate of the world. In fact, one could even argue that the entire game could be a figment of Cloud's own identity struggles if they wanted to.

Cloud is an awful protagonist. He has no identity at all. Half the game is spent playing as Zack in Cloud's body. They should have made Zack the protagonist since it's been proven that he is a far more likable, and relatable character than Cloud using Crisis Core as example of his character.

Sephiroth is a pointless antagonist. They should have made Jenova the villain since Sephiroth essentially uses her to become the villain of the game anyway. I wouldn't say Sephiroth is a momma's boy so much as he's nothing without Jenova and is an equivalent cry baby to Tidus, although Tidus is more mature about it. Sephiroth is also lazy. He's supposed to be the best of the best, but you never fight him in the epic style you SHOULD be fighting him. Another area where Crisis Core does it better.

The supporting characters may as well be placeholders in Cloud's story. The have hardly any back story and no real purpose in battle. In fact you could play the whole game with Cloud alone and wouldn't have any really different experience.

The gameplay is pretty standard fare, which in itself isn't a bad thing but it's also not revolutionary. The materia system was used once, and it wasn't a completely new system as other variants of it existed in previous RPGs, just not as potentially in-depth as in FFVII

The minigames were terrible. Period.

I mean I can keep going on this. Basically, anything FFVII did, previous FF games did better in terms of everything but graphics, and graphics for that game were obviously outdone after it.

[TricksterArrow]

You fail when you try to use Crisis Core as basis for anything. The game didn't exist then and FFVII never suffered from it. Cloud's personality is pretty well established, as is said by Aerith and Tifa, who are mostly confused by his memories and facade manneirisms (absorbed from Zack) and this is mostly evident in flashbacks, which are multiple and thorough. You sir never played the game, or at least, not properly.

This is also one of the only FF games in which the leader actually questions his party of friends: "What are you guys fighting for? What are you doing here?" and they all gave their answers, were you asleep? Also, did you skip all of theirs side-missions? Everyone has at least one and some are pretty lenghty.

[Simco876]

Man I remember thinking...I'm I going to just be in Midgar the whole time? This game is going to blow...Then you get a taste of that open world. Man...Memories.

[GeofferyPeterson]

That's what blew my mind too.I thought the Shina Building was the end of the game because it took me so long to get there, then Bam! Here's another 100+ hours to play with and explore.

[ritsuka666]

Final Fantasy VI > Final Fantasy VII

Better executed story, more characters, more content, better music, insane amount of secrets, better combat system...what more do you need? Oh ,and Kefka ANYDAY> Sephiroth and shit of whine about his mother.

[TongkatAli]

You shit of whine about VII, the circle of life, VII is your mamma.

[Simco876]

Suikoden I & II > Final Fantasy II - VI, VIII-IX

XIII above don't even exist in my mind.

[Drithe]

I am reporting Dragonknight for being a NOOB! You are wrong Dragonknight ..... you're WROoooOOOOOOooooooooOOOOOOOOng ! (Shakes fist at DK).