Putting the "J" in the RPG, Part 3: Playing Final Fantasy VII
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filfre.net
I borrowed the same friend's PS1 and had a blast with Resident Evil 2. Then he lent it again for FFVII.
When I started it,it seemed so stupid. Short, polygonal characters, lots of text and no context. Still, I kept on going. I discovered a whole new world of video games I hadn't encountered before. Began slowly immersing myself into it, and reading up on it at the middle school library's PCs. (486 running win 3.11 and slooow thrashing pagefile due to what was probably 4mb or less of RAM). Once I got started, there was no stopping me. I bought the official strategy guide, learned how much fun the materia system was, got emotionally involved when Aeris (Aerith) died, and spent more than 100 hours in that first game, and with some internet sleuthing, used the mega potions glitch to help me fight the mega bosses. At that point, the final boss was a cakewalk, with the most powerful summon a few times.
Lest one thinks it's nostalgia talking, I ended up playing it again twice more all the way to the end throughout the years.
The remake held my interest for a bit, but didnt like the new combat system, so lost interest . I'll try and pick it back up when the 2nd part, Afterbirth, is released.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/401920/The_Binding_of_Isa...
I really wanted to like FF7 Remake but stopped around 2/3 way through Midgar.
I don't know whether it's my lack of patience with with single player RPGs at this age, or whether it was just not a good game. I find I can only really get into the odd competitive multiplayer game these days because of the community & friends factor.
That said I always found I enjoyed FF7 much more after getting out of Midgar and having a semi-open world to run around in, versus the more on-rails experience of Midgar. I suppose I'll give the next installment a go.
FF7 story is bland, simplistic, characters are semibaked. It is a product of its era, with meant poorly written characters and stories.
As a teenager, I had plenty of time to explore the ins and outs. Nowadays, especially since I hit 40 recently, I realize I don't have the patience for such nonsense, either. My Steam backlog is at almost 3000, meaning I'll need a few more lifetimes to do them justice. Nowadays I'll just focus on one or two games till I finish them, and sometimes, when not tired or sleepy, sample others. The thought of games like Factorio fascinates me, but also turns me off. Especially the rogue-like genre games.
Square has updated, I believe, all their FF series games with this in mind. These features are optional and can be enabled/disabled on demand, as well.
The old one had a very interesting materia system, that is still unique.
I'm like you, I have 1000 games to play and I usually go super deep in what I play, so it's rare I finish anything before 50 hours. Given that, I'm at a beautiful point where I cannot play games that are just good, only great games.
I do love factorio, although I think dyson sphere program is better (lighter and more interesting). In 2020 people were complaining about lack of games, while I had my incredible year with Ori and the blind forest, ori and the will of the wisp, dyson sphere program, hollow knight and xcom 2. That was my best year probably.
Sorry for the wall of text. All of this to say, square enix doesn't innovate, I prefer indie gamea, gameplay for me it's everything. Plot is nice, but i'd rather watch on youtube if the gameplay is average.
And yeah, if there is farming that's not fun, I drop the game or occasionally I look for cheats to skip the farming.
This allowed me to play monster hunter iceborne endgame, which requires thousands of hours, in single player and by enjoying it way more (very strategic when changing build doesn't cost a fortune). Had a great time with it, but I was about to drop it when I realized how much farm it needed
Throughout Remake, the game toys with the knowledge and expectations of the player who's familiar with the original - in ways that are sometimes moving, subtle, beautiful and elegant (e.g. Chapter 8), sometimes ridiculously clumsy and terrible (e.g. Chapter 17). But it is written so that a new player wouldn't even know there is a whole layer of the story that they have missed. That is why so many players who don't know the original never even realise, even after they finish Remake, that it is not a "remake", in the sense of a modern version of the original; the word "remake" in the title is wordplay, and the game reveals itself to be a requel. I've watched quite a few streamers start with the Remake, love it enough to go back to play the original, love it, then go back to replay the Remake - and start seeing this whole layer that they didn't see before, didn't even realise was there. It would be a lot better if Square Enix were honest and clear about this, but I guess they know they would sell far fewer copies if they told everyone how much of the story depends on knowledge of the original and its spinoffs. It doesn't mean Remake can't be enjoyed on its own - it's written so that its story makes some sense on its own - it's just that you miss out on a lot if you don't know what came before. (I mean, they're now saying that Rebirth can be enjoyed on its own too, without having played Remake. What they never bother to make clear is that "can be enjoyed" and "best enjoyed" are very different things.)
<spoilers>It is wrong by the original story, but Remake doesn’t follow the original story - it is more along the lines of “what if sepiroth projected himself back in time to mess with the timeline and ensure that his original plan succeeds?”. Most of Part 1 features weird ghost things which block any attempt to stray from the original timeline, but they die at the end of Part 1, so I’m expecting Part 2 to go far further off the rails</spoilers>
1. It's a remake which completely diverges story wise and gameplay wise from the original. So not a great thing off the bat, because it's a "remake" which is really a new game with an FF7R coat of paint on.
2. The game was needlessly padded out to try to justify why they split the game into multiple installments. That might've been fine if the new content was good, but instead there is so, so much boring filler content which exists just to pad the length of the game. It's a 40ish hour game iirc, and at least half of that could have been cut (and the game would've been better for it).
3. The story goes way off the rails and ends up with some fourth wall breaking stuff that is just plain amateurish in its writing quality. And to add insult to injury, the fans of the original who wanted a faithful remake are not so subtly implied to be the villains.
4. The combat is... ok for what it is. I don't like action combat. But it's very poorly tuned. For example, take Air Buster, a boss fight that takes a few minutes in the original. In FF7R, it's a 10 minute fight. It's the same basic strategy - it's weak to thunder, so use that a lot (and your abilities that add stagger, which is obviously not a thing in the original). Then the boss will be staggered, and you can unleash limit breaks to do big damage. The problem is, it's 10 minutes of just doing that. Nothing new or interesting happens, just hit the boss with chip damage until it's staggered, then do real damage for a few seconds, repeat for 10 minutes. It's not horrible as a system but it's really badly tuned.
So yeah, you're not missing anything with FF7R. It's just a really bad game, which isn't worth your time or money.
JRPGs are just much more open about feelings. It's really hard to describe. I'd actually even say that you can see that across all japanese games really regardless of the genre.
This happens to a lot of game companies though. Turnover leads to teams with no connection to previous games in the series and with that a loss of connection to what made the games so special.
Still love it, but its interesting to notice in retrospect.
And FF7 was new (to me at least) in what it aped so it's all fine and cool.
It's ok though, in the 90s, homaging Blade Runner in Japanese media was a total belt onion -- something people did because "it was the style at the time".
It's even weirder and more fascinating than that. Turnover eventually leads to teams made of people who were fans of the original series, and the risk there is that their own interpretation of the series can become a navel-gazing love letter to the superficial stuff that floats on top of their memories (e.g. references, callbacks, tie-ins, inside jokes, and memes) while neglecting the underlying qualities that made them fall in love with the series in the first place.
As someone that wanted to get into anime and Japanese media in their 30s, this characteristic has majorly turned me off from the most anime, manga-derived games and JRPGs. I just cannot stand their lack of subtlety and nuance in writing.
It is a major and understated expression of the Western-Eastern cultural divide. In the Western world adults tend to appreciate sophisticated stories, maybe too much so, while, from what I understand, the traumatic break from happy school life to overly-rigid business Japanese culture is the reason why even grown adults tend to find refuge in late teen/school-age drama. Most Japanese animated media is made of, but not strictly for, 17 year olds in their senior year of high school fighting the universe and God himself.
I think this is what made FF8 and FF9 quite approachable, but then 10+ were jarring with the overly vocalized characters, verbalizing every slight emotion.
I think this is what led me to appreciate a less-is-more personal opinion on video game storytelling. Voice acting can sometimes be incredible. But often it’s just in the way.
I think SquareEnix agrees with me, as they’ve kept the line in retranslations of the game.
It’s like reading a CYA book rather than a movie, I want to imagine their voices, not listen to some goofy voice actor.
Thank said, I think FFX did a decent job at it.
Given that flatness, I always found the voice acting awkward. I much rather read it.
With text only, I imbued the game with a little imagination - not unlike reading a book - and also found the weird translations let my imagination fill in the gaps
I think in general though there's this weird paradox in games that things we think we enjoy can make games worse, yet it feels bad to try to 'fix' now. I think the best example would be quest waypoints in various open world games. It's absolutely painful to play without them now, but on the other hand when one actually had to pay attention to your quests and goals, it resulted in vastly more satisfying gameplay compared to what's gradually turned into some weird ritual across a million games of fast-travel to nearest location, bee-line to colored dot, skim text, repeat.
No idea who first said the quote (that's been attributed to Gabe Newell) but it's just so true: give players the opportunity to, and they'll optimize the fun out of your game.
I think in general there’s a problem with gamers who demand that their games give them nothing but good feelings all the time. They don’t want to experience sadness, sorrow, heartbreak, fear, stress, or frustration. They just want the game to feel like a Christmas party that never ends. How dreadfully boring!
And I'm someone with moderately decent spacial awareness in video games and real life, and maps are incredibly useful.
Thanks, this describes my take perfectly as well.
That aside, it was a decent read, and in the end he said what I was hoping he'd realize: It was a game targeted at a particular demographic, though potentially enjoyable by anyone. The easter eggs which he chose to ignore are a part of the "openness" of the game that makes it feel like a more immersive world - I remember farming chocobos for hours in order to get the golden one, which would let me get the Knights of the Round summon.
As the author realizes but doesn't quite say, it was a product of its time. It is amazing as a video game the same way Zeppelin and Black Sabbath are amazing rock and metal - their sound is more impressive when you realize they were the vanguard of a new way of music. Seinfeld is "just" a nihilistic comedy like dozens of others, but it was first.
Some of these games are considered so great as a bandwagon effect, but I say that in a kind way: It's part of the common culture of gaming, and so experiencing it (and hopefully enjoying it) brings you into a familiarity with the subculture, the same way one has probably watched Star Wars or Star Trek to be a "sci fi" geek.
I think back and I find that not that many modern games have the same influence on me as those older games from my childhood - I don't think it's necessarily the quality of games has gone down, FF16, Tales of Berseria, YS VIII are all exceptional RPGs, but it might be that we have so many entertainment options these days that truly memorable games get lost when there's always something new around the corner.
Yes you can switch off the fighting but that other system is very broken and it’s nothing like the Orginal.
My favorite game from SNES era is probably Tales of Phantasia though (the DeJap fan translation) - the gameplay mixed with a fun story across 2 different time periods was an amazing experience. I probably have FF5, 6, Chrono Trigger, Fire Emblem 4, or Star Ocean somewhere in the 2-6 range.
Now we're awash in a cacophony of copycat indie devs who flood the market with cringeworthy half-finished games that can only copy the wonder of the FF series.
We at-least have hope with stunning remasters like Star Ocean Second Story R, which has that feeling of depth, progress, story, and nuance.
Luckily the indie developers (and even teams within Square Enix) have taken up the mantle. Chained Echoes, Sea of Stars, the Star Ocean Remake, the Tactics Ogre remake, Crosscode, the Seiken Densetu 3 remake, Live A Live, SaGa Frontier 3, the Octopath Traveler games - they're quite good, and that's just in the last few years! Maybe not to everyone's taste, but they are well made games and there's no shortage of good stuff to play.
FF1-6 & 9 had very distinctive characterization and art styles, with out of proportion characters. A lot of it was forced by technical limitations of the NES/SNES, but it's a style that we grew to love.
7, 8, and the rest -- not so much; it's a much more mainstream aesthetic.
The FF games you loved were created by the two talents at the heart of FF: series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi and legendary composer Nobuo Uematsu. They left after X. I think the soul of the franchise left when these two did.
I played FF12 about 12 years ago and I couldn't name you a single character (or remember their personality/story) or hum a single music track. I played FF7 25 years ago and there's a few music tracks I still remember, and I can name most of the characters (though it helps that they're popular in gaming culture).
Story is still a bit of a mess, pacing wise, but its voice acting has aged well (unlike X).
It’s a different game to the classic run, but I would rank it up amongst my favourites in the series now.
Yah... sigh. The world also moved on; while my kids did play FF6 recently, there's a lot of treadmill crap that modern gamers are not accustomed to.
I played The Last Story (which was a commercial failure), and it felt a whole lot like FF9 to me.
Materia is on of my favorite systems, too, it made getting new weapons, armor, or materia more exciting than other games because you'd usually have a new way to combine the skills you want, or a far stronger attack with worse skill slots.
Putting the "J" in the RPG, Part 3: Playing Final Fantasy VII - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38736161 - Dec 2023 (1 comment)
Putting the "J" in the RPG, Part 1: Dorakue - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38306057 - Nov 2023 (89 comments)
you can basically count on one hand how many anime style or Japanese gaming properties don't go off the rails and finish the initial story.
Final Fantasy VII is a prime example, the world building at the beginning of the first game in the “VII” franchise is fantastic. In such an arduous funnel, most people see that. But then there’s vampires, dueling identities, ridiculous backstories that cause continuity issues and separate subsequently released games for each, pretty much just ignore the final boss in the first game and the resolution in the post cut scenes, because now there’s multiple universes for no reason with no foreshadowing whatsoever. like. stop. there was no cliffhanger or loose ends.
they even got fans jumping through mental hoops about the definition of “remake” to rationalize the unnecessary ridiculousness of breaking the story even further for no benefit, but in 4k. they could have just done the exact same story without the kingdom hearts nonsense but its like someone at Square can’t be fired for some dumb distinctly Japanese reason.
The original didn’t have a lot of the bits you are calling out because it wasn’t trying to retcon in 20+ years worth of story buildup, and is a much simpler story.
That’s not to justify the complexity of the FF7 lore. I think it and Kingdom Hearts are both ridiculously over complex now, but that people delineate between Remake and the original because of that huge divergence in story.
The article and rest of the comments are about the original game.
I find the first game charming and evocative, while acknowledging there were some parts to expand upon, loose ends even, but the way they did that definitely jumped the shark.
I used the hex edit cheats to max out my characters, and breezed through it in 23 hours. A great decision. I got to experience all that plot, all the mini games, and only compromised the combat build aspect of it. The last battle, even at max stats, was not a cakewalk. There were weapons I still have not defeated.
Personally I'm the delayed gratification type where I'll level up to a point where I steamroll all the bad guys in the main storyline. Even high encounter rate areas aren't bad when it's a one hit kill.
FF8 is actually so bad as to possibly turn this person off the series entirely IMO. Bad characters. Questionable, easily exploitable battle mechanics. Terrible, nonsense story with some of the dumbest “reveals” of virtually any game ever. It’s a kinda of neat setting and world, but just used so so so poorly.
For anyone that has played them but wants to, I still recommend 10 with a mod to give everyone experience every battle (spoiler, 10 still had the “haha gotcha for not levelling everyone equally” annoyance that was popular in JRPGs of old).
I'd put Vagrant Story, Chrono Cross, and maybe Final Fantasy Tactics too, I've never had a chance to play it though.
Suikoden II, Suikoden, Final Fantasy 7+9 WOuld be next for me.
Final Fantasy VIII is just weird: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1njLpZDfUCQ&list=PLihy8fVYWA...
No. of titles: 3 (Sky) + 2 (Zero/Ao) + 5(Cold Steel) + 2(Kuro) + 1(just announced)
All stories happen in the same word in near time frame (within several years/decades not after hundreds/thousands of year)
Good point. I've played Pokemon and South Park: Stick of Truth, so maybe I've had enough of a taste of JRPGs to know what they're about.
I wonder if the grinding was because content was expensive to produce, so it's a lazy way to add gameplay, and their target market is kids who will happily grind if it's a video game (vs. a piano).
I still haven't finished it, but I got further in FF6 in the past year than I did before, thanks to that. (I have very little patience for grinding.)
FFX to me is the pinnacle of the FF turn-based battle system. That said, it IS over 20 years old.
I think there's some game genres which, if you didn't grow up on them, you might not enjoy them. Kinda like how you have to eat sushi a few times before you start liking it. I think turn-based JRPGs are aimed at people who enjoyed those games in the 25 years ago. The Metroidvania genre, even more so.
I think people tend to recommend X these days as the first one for newcomers primarily because it has voice acting and relatively modern graphics, so it's more approachable in that respect. X is my favourite FF, alongside VII, but that doesn't mean it's best at everything, even compared to other FFs. For me, its strength is primarily in its storytelling (which includes things like writing, music and cutscenes) - but all that really takes quite a while to fully reveal itself. I don't personally actually think too highly of X's gameplay. The turn-based combat and the sphere grid are ok, but for me not the best even in the FFs (though I know quite a few people who consider it the best, so it's all personal taste). The temple "puzzles" are terrible. It has some truly terrible minigames (although Blitzball is really great - it just has a terrible tutorial). And it's not as if there are no flaws with the storytelling either - the party members are not on the whole as good as in some of the other FFs, and it was the first FF with voice-acting, so there were some infamously awkward moments. But its storytelling highs are some of the highest I've ever experienced in games - I am still in awe of the sheer beauty of some of its best moments. I mean, it's a game about a giant whale, that makes many people sob their eyes out, fall in love with it, get tattoos for it, etc. But that is also very much personal taste. Are you enjoying the music? Did you like the music and the environment in Besaid? Did the scene of Yuna performing the sending do anything for you in Kilika?
7 and 8 suffer from too much arbitrariness for me, 10 is just the right kind of mixture of weirdness with proper storytelling for me, and with 12, Final Fantasy started to become bland.
X-2 is silly but I at least sympathized with the characters. The entire party in X could be eaten by Sin for all I care.
I guess it’s really preference as I can stomach old Western CRPGs such as Ultimate and such.