FFVII overrated (full essay)
Oct 17, 2009 0:51:51 GMT
Post by arbitor365 on Oct 17, 2009 0:51:51 GMT
I know i already posted a topic like this but i had some extra time in school during my computer classes so i typed this up. i just had to give it its own topic
1) basically, the only way FFVII contributed to the RPG franchise was by making the "leap" to 3D graphics. Nothing else in the game was innovative or fresh. The ATB bar battle system had been used for 3 games up until that point. the materia system was surprisingly similar to FFVI's. the spells and attacks were very similar to previous games. The futuristic setting had already been used in FF6 and all FFVII did was dump a bunch of black paint on everything and dirty things up. Don’t get me wrong, the gritty environments look nice but you are looking at 90% of the game. Really, there is nothing innovative except the graphics. What people do is, they see the new 3D graphics and consequently they see originality in every aspect of the game. the battles are 3D now!! so logically they are innovative!! the world map is 3D!! that makes it innovative!! the storyline is in 3D!! that makes it innovative!! the pattern continues. in all actuality, the only thing that it did was take what we had already been playing for 6 games, changed the storyline, and sugar-coated it in fancy 3D graphics.
2) (this is my favorite) Many, Many people are under the delusion that if FFVII didnt come out, we wouldnt have 3D RPGs like we do today. please, stop lying to yourselves. half a dozen 3d RPGs were in the making during the same time as FFVII. It didnt take a marketing, and game designing genius to see the potential in 3D rpgs. Everybody knew 3D RPGs were coming, everybody was working on them and everybody had big plans for the genre. Its not like when FFVII came out, game designers were like
“wow!! A 3D RPG!??! I never saw that coming!! We would have never thought of making a 3D RPG unless FVII came out!!”
FFVII just happened to see the light of day first. A more common delusion is that it paved the way for 3D RPGs and was a model for future games. Like i said before, FFVII did nothing to improve he genre except use better graphics. It followed all the same formulas and ideas of previous RPGs and FF games. It did not show us anything that future 3D RPG designers couldnt come up with on their own. It was the bear basics of a 3D RPG. the absurdity is that so many people get wooed by FFVII's graphics that they consider it to be one of the most innovative RPGs of all time but when an RPG with actual gameplay innovation and originality is released, they scoff at it.
3) the storyline is so amazingly overrated. I dont even know where to start. The game introduced flashy new characters and grungy new environments. This was impressive to FF fans because the new graphic capabilities allowed a better look into the final fantasy world. I will admit that this is FFVII's strong point. style. and this is where things get fucked up. People take one look at the style and flashy design and become attached to it. They dont truly care if there are truly deep and believable characters or plots with substance. They just want to fall in love with it because they have been wooed by, once again, the graphics. When it comes down to it, cloud is just a whiny ungrateful immature wuss of a hero. He really doesnt have problems. he is surrounded by friends and women who care about him and he is fighting for a good cause and a purpose. But what does he do? All he does is whine about how he doesnt know who he is and how his life is a lie. He should switch places with Tidus. Tidus had fucking problems. he never had his father's approval and he became an orphan once his father disappeared. His entire world is destroyed (literally). He is thrust into a world that he is not familiar with. He joins a party of warriors protecting a summoner named yuna. They are going to slaughter the evil creature known as “sin.” He falls in love with the summoner but it turns out she is going to die once they reach the end of their journey. To make matters worse, turns out his father was forced to become "sin," the monster which yuna will have to give her life to kill (basically his lover and father will kill eachother). then it turns out he isnt even truly real at all and that if he saves yuna he will disappear forever and not even have an afterlife. And that is exactly what happens. i mean.......... holy shit. his life sucks. and does he sit there and bitch about it? no. he fucking preservers, grows more mature and saves the one he loves at the price of his own soul's existence. How the fuck can people sit there and scoff at this guy and give cloud, the whiny emo kid, the title of "best final fantasy hero." it is a joke. the only thing cloud has is a self-centered attitude, a big sword and an inferiority complex. by the end of the game he hasnt even really matured at all. now, dont get me started on sephiroth. he is, without a doubt, the most overrated villain ever made. his motives make no sense. I mean, he goes insane because he finds out he is an experiment and is the son of jenova? What? did he think he could jump 10000 feet and cut buildings in half due to skill? it makes no sense. He pretty much just goes evil spontaneously. his motives make no sense. He really isn’t a villain that you can relate to. I can think of a million better villains than sephiroth. Here’s one off the top of my head. Darth vader. He is someone who actually has a reason to turn evil and he is a character people could relate to or sympathize with. He was just a normal person forced into an abnormal life driven by his own ambition. He can never get the approval he desires and he is torn between love and power. he loses everything including his own body and in the end he is left with nothing but anger and sorrow. right there, is a much deeper villain than sephiroth. Yagami Light is a way better villain than sephiroth. talk about someone you can sympathize with. many people (including myself) dont even consider him to be a villain, but rather, a politically incorrect hero. That is a much better written character. The fact that you can actually be with him or against him shows that he has a lot more depth and is less cliché than sephiroth. then you look at sephiroth who basically like
"Hello. im evil. I dont fully know why. I guess its because i didnt know my mother and im just a tool of an evil company. just because of that, I want to destroy the entire earth by dropping a meteor on it. mwaahhahaha-oh no!! the power of the light!! arrgh....."
that is sephiroth in nutshell. so you must be wondering
"hey asshole!! if you know what youre talking about and these really are shallow characters, how come they have become iconic RPG characters?!"
the answer is simple. graphics, finesse, anime hair, style and........ big swords. thats about it. It’s the same reason why overly popular shows like naruto and one piece have become iconic. People like the way they look and they will continue to delude themselves into thinking that they are deep characters. Since when does a character’s popularity make them well written? There are plenty of characters that get a lot of attention and who are famous video game icons, but at the same time their personalities are not deep. Characters like this would be Mario, Samus, Captain Falcon, megaman and so on.
4) Nostalgia truly blinds people. Many, many many people played FFVII as a kid and it was their first RPG. From that moment on they swore their allegiance to it and would perpetually become fanboys. People closed their minds to other franchises and grew a habit of attacking all RPGs aside from FVII. This is what gets under my skin. There are so many people that have played FFVII and maybe 1 or 2 other RPGs (at the most) and confidently claim that FFVII is the greatest RPG ever made. No one except a few people would dare talk about this game honestly or say anything denouncing it of its fame.
5) The main reason why it is overrated is that……. It is just simply overrated. For all the reasons I have mentioned (graphics, nostalgia and anime worship) people have practically sworn their eternal souls to this game. Its like you cant even mention RPGs without some fanboy chiming in about FFVII. FFVII gets so much undeserved attention and so many undeserved spots on RPG top ten lists. This in itself does not bother me too greatly. People can like whatever games they want whether they are overrated or underrated. The problem is that this hype has overshadowed far, far superior games (even other FF games). This causes a lot of good games to go unnoticed and I hate to see so many people missing out and thinking that FFVII is the best game the genre has to offer. Every day, I see my favorite games bashed and compared to FFVII as if FFVII is a model of which all RPGs should be modeled after. It is insulting and the bias this causes in the game reviewing community is staggering. I was reading one review of Legend of Dragoon and the person mentioned FFVII in every single paragraph. And these weren’t big paragraphs. In all he mentioned FFVII over 20 times. This is what FVII has created or rather, the rampant fan boys have created.
That’s it for my ranting, guys. Im not trying to look for flaws in FFVII. FFVII was the first RPGs I played as a kid but im not going to let nostalgia blind me to the fact that there are much better RPGs out there. FFVII is not a bad game, in fact it was pretty good for the time. Do I think that it is an icon that should be recognized for ages to come, no. Would I recommend this game to someone new to the genre, no. Frankly there are way better RPGs out there and I would recommend them before I would ever recommend FFVII. Here is a list of RPGs that I find to be superior to FFVII
Legend of Dragoon – I could go on all day about this game. In fact, I might just make a whole topic comparing this to FFVII. It basically trounces FFVII in every sense of the word. Lets see:
1) the graphics are amazing and reveal that FFVII did not tax the PS1’s true capabilities. It was released only 2 and a half years after FFVII and it looks like its on a totally different console
2) The story. It has much more build-up. It has better twists. It doesn’t rely on grungy style and fancy characters to compensate for lack of plot. Also, the idea is very original and has very unique aspects (unlike FFVII which was reliant upon already predominant themes of the FF franchise)
3) the gameplay. It was one of the first RPGs to incorporate coordination and skill. Instead of just mashing the x button through all your battles you actually have to control the attacks. You use carefully timed “X” button mashes to execute combo moves called “additions.” Also when the characters are in dragoon from, they have a different style of “additions” which is also pretty innovative. Overall, the gameplay takes you out of your comfort zone and really makes the game more engaging. You wont get bored of this game any time soon.
4) the visuals are waaayyy better. Apart from being graphically superior, they bring you to a lot more interesting locations. At one point you have to go through “the valley of corrupted gravity.” There are rocks floating everywhere and you have to jump on them and youre going upside down and doing crazy shit. It tries a lot harder to make more engrossing environments than FFVII ever did.
5) a few other random things. music. I always found LOD to have better music but apart from that, it has an OST over twice the size of FFVII’s. Also, there are a lot less translation errors. You should also note that Legend of dragoon is about twice as long as FFVII.
FFX - I found this game to be the best of the series. I already reviewed this game so go check it out. I might make a more in depth review eventually
Chrono Cross – same console, better gameplay, better environments, better characters, more innovation. What else can I say?
FFVI – The last of the 2D FF games. I will tell you that I didn’t play this as a kid but even playing it a few years ago, I was impressed with it. It is a game too good for words. Go play it for yourself, you wont be disappointed.
Persona 3 - a true RPG masterpiece. I know, it’s a bit unfair comparing FFVII to later titles like this but it truly is a better and more innovative game. True, graphics weren’t a huge stretch but it did utilize a lot of anime style cutscenes which were pretty cool. The storyline was a lot less cliché than FFVII, the characters were deeper and the ideas were more intriguing. By my standards, Persona 3 was more innovative than FVII because it improved and created countless features not just graphics. In my eyes, that is more important.
Seiken Densetsu – The gameplay is awesome the characters are cool and the bosses are insane. It was originally only released in japan but you can find the SNES rom translated on the internet. though it is technically on a inferior graphic level to FFVII, I still consider it to look better. Everything in that game is clear, smooth, well made and distinguishable. Just compare these 2 pictures and tell me which is more visually appealing.
1) basically, the only way FFVII contributed to the RPG franchise was by making the "leap" to 3D graphics. Nothing else in the game was innovative or fresh. The ATB bar battle system had been used for 3 games up until that point. the materia system was surprisingly similar to FFVI's. the spells and attacks were very similar to previous games. The futuristic setting had already been used in FF6 and all FFVII did was dump a bunch of black paint on everything and dirty things up. Don’t get me wrong, the gritty environments look nice but you are looking at 90% of the game. Really, there is nothing innovative except the graphics. What people do is, they see the new 3D graphics and consequently they see originality in every aspect of the game. the battles are 3D now!! so logically they are innovative!! the world map is 3D!! that makes it innovative!! the storyline is in 3D!! that makes it innovative!! the pattern continues. in all actuality, the only thing that it did was take what we had already been playing for 6 games, changed the storyline, and sugar-coated it in fancy 3D graphics.
2) (this is my favorite) Many, Many people are under the delusion that if FFVII didnt come out, we wouldnt have 3D RPGs like we do today. please, stop lying to yourselves. half a dozen 3d RPGs were in the making during the same time as FFVII. It didnt take a marketing, and game designing genius to see the potential in 3D rpgs. Everybody knew 3D RPGs were coming, everybody was working on them and everybody had big plans for the genre. Its not like when FFVII came out, game designers were like
“wow!! A 3D RPG!??! I never saw that coming!! We would have never thought of making a 3D RPG unless FVII came out!!”
FFVII just happened to see the light of day first. A more common delusion is that it paved the way for 3D RPGs and was a model for future games. Like i said before, FFVII did nothing to improve he genre except use better graphics. It followed all the same formulas and ideas of previous RPGs and FF games. It did not show us anything that future 3D RPG designers couldnt come up with on their own. It was the bear basics of a 3D RPG. the absurdity is that so many people get wooed by FFVII's graphics that they consider it to be one of the most innovative RPGs of all time but when an RPG with actual gameplay innovation and originality is released, they scoff at it.
3) the storyline is so amazingly overrated. I dont even know where to start. The game introduced flashy new characters and grungy new environments. This was impressive to FF fans because the new graphic capabilities allowed a better look into the final fantasy world. I will admit that this is FFVII's strong point. style. and this is where things get fucked up. People take one look at the style and flashy design and become attached to it. They dont truly care if there are truly deep and believable characters or plots with substance. They just want to fall in love with it because they have been wooed by, once again, the graphics. When it comes down to it, cloud is just a whiny ungrateful immature wuss of a hero. He really doesnt have problems. he is surrounded by friends and women who care about him and he is fighting for a good cause and a purpose. But what does he do? All he does is whine about how he doesnt know who he is and how his life is a lie. He should switch places with Tidus. Tidus had fucking problems. he never had his father's approval and he became an orphan once his father disappeared. His entire world is destroyed (literally). He is thrust into a world that he is not familiar with. He joins a party of warriors protecting a summoner named yuna. They are going to slaughter the evil creature known as “sin.” He falls in love with the summoner but it turns out she is going to die once they reach the end of their journey. To make matters worse, turns out his father was forced to become "sin," the monster which yuna will have to give her life to kill (basically his lover and father will kill eachother). then it turns out he isnt even truly real at all and that if he saves yuna he will disappear forever and not even have an afterlife. And that is exactly what happens. i mean.......... holy shit. his life sucks. and does he sit there and bitch about it? no. he fucking preservers, grows more mature and saves the one he loves at the price of his own soul's existence. How the fuck can people sit there and scoff at this guy and give cloud, the whiny emo kid, the title of "best final fantasy hero." it is a joke. the only thing cloud has is a self-centered attitude, a big sword and an inferiority complex. by the end of the game he hasnt even really matured at all. now, dont get me started on sephiroth. he is, without a doubt, the most overrated villain ever made. his motives make no sense. I mean, he goes insane because he finds out he is an experiment and is the son of jenova? What? did he think he could jump 10000 feet and cut buildings in half due to skill? it makes no sense. He pretty much just goes evil spontaneously. his motives make no sense. He really isn’t a villain that you can relate to. I can think of a million better villains than sephiroth. Here’s one off the top of my head. Darth vader. He is someone who actually has a reason to turn evil and he is a character people could relate to or sympathize with. He was just a normal person forced into an abnormal life driven by his own ambition. He can never get the approval he desires and he is torn between love and power. he loses everything including his own body and in the end he is left with nothing but anger and sorrow. right there, is a much deeper villain than sephiroth. Yagami Light is a way better villain than sephiroth. talk about someone you can sympathize with. many people (including myself) dont even consider him to be a villain, but rather, a politically incorrect hero. That is a much better written character. The fact that you can actually be with him or against him shows that he has a lot more depth and is less cliché than sephiroth. then you look at sephiroth who basically like
"Hello. im evil. I dont fully know why. I guess its because i didnt know my mother and im just a tool of an evil company. just because of that, I want to destroy the entire earth by dropping a meteor on it. mwaahhahaha-oh no!! the power of the light!! arrgh....."
that is sephiroth in nutshell. so you must be wondering
"hey asshole!! if you know what youre talking about and these really are shallow characters, how come they have become iconic RPG characters?!"
the answer is simple. graphics, finesse, anime hair, style and........ big swords. thats about it. It’s the same reason why overly popular shows like naruto and one piece have become iconic. People like the way they look and they will continue to delude themselves into thinking that they are deep characters. Since when does a character’s popularity make them well written? There are plenty of characters that get a lot of attention and who are famous video game icons, but at the same time their personalities are not deep. Characters like this would be Mario, Samus, Captain Falcon, megaman and so on.
4) Nostalgia truly blinds people. Many, many many people played FFVII as a kid and it was their first RPG. From that moment on they swore their allegiance to it and would perpetually become fanboys. People closed their minds to other franchises and grew a habit of attacking all RPGs aside from FVII. This is what gets under my skin. There are so many people that have played FFVII and maybe 1 or 2 other RPGs (at the most) and confidently claim that FFVII is the greatest RPG ever made. No one except a few people would dare talk about this game honestly or say anything denouncing it of its fame.
5) The main reason why it is overrated is that……. It is just simply overrated. For all the reasons I have mentioned (graphics, nostalgia and anime worship) people have practically sworn their eternal souls to this game. Its like you cant even mention RPGs without some fanboy chiming in about FFVII. FFVII gets so much undeserved attention and so many undeserved spots on RPG top ten lists. This in itself does not bother me too greatly. People can like whatever games they want whether they are overrated or underrated. The problem is that this hype has overshadowed far, far superior games (even other FF games). This causes a lot of good games to go unnoticed and I hate to see so many people missing out and thinking that FFVII is the best game the genre has to offer. Every day, I see my favorite games bashed and compared to FFVII as if FFVII is a model of which all RPGs should be modeled after. It is insulting and the bias this causes in the game reviewing community is staggering. I was reading one review of Legend of Dragoon and the person mentioned FFVII in every single paragraph. And these weren’t big paragraphs. In all he mentioned FFVII over 20 times. This is what FVII has created or rather, the rampant fan boys have created.
That’s it for my ranting, guys. Im not trying to look for flaws in FFVII. FFVII was the first RPGs I played as a kid but im not going to let nostalgia blind me to the fact that there are much better RPGs out there. FFVII is not a bad game, in fact it was pretty good for the time. Do I think that it is an icon that should be recognized for ages to come, no. Would I recommend this game to someone new to the genre, no. Frankly there are way better RPGs out there and I would recommend them before I would ever recommend FFVII. Here is a list of RPGs that I find to be superior to FFVII
Legend of Dragoon – I could go on all day about this game. In fact, I might just make a whole topic comparing this to FFVII. It basically trounces FFVII in every sense of the word. Lets see:
1) the graphics are amazing and reveal that FFVII did not tax the PS1’s true capabilities. It was released only 2 and a half years after FFVII and it looks like its on a totally different console
2) The story. It has much more build-up. It has better twists. It doesn’t rely on grungy style and fancy characters to compensate for lack of plot. Also, the idea is very original and has very unique aspects (unlike FFVII which was reliant upon already predominant themes of the FF franchise)
3) the gameplay. It was one of the first RPGs to incorporate coordination and skill. Instead of just mashing the x button through all your battles you actually have to control the attacks. You use carefully timed “X” button mashes to execute combo moves called “additions.” Also when the characters are in dragoon from, they have a different style of “additions” which is also pretty innovative. Overall, the gameplay takes you out of your comfort zone and really makes the game more engaging. You wont get bored of this game any time soon.
4) the visuals are waaayyy better. Apart from being graphically superior, they bring you to a lot more interesting locations. At one point you have to go through “the valley of corrupted gravity.” There are rocks floating everywhere and you have to jump on them and youre going upside down and doing crazy shit. It tries a lot harder to make more engrossing environments than FFVII ever did.
5) a few other random things. music. I always found LOD to have better music but apart from that, it has an OST over twice the size of FFVII’s. Also, there are a lot less translation errors. You should also note that Legend of dragoon is about twice as long as FFVII.
FFX - I found this game to be the best of the series. I already reviewed this game so go check it out. I might make a more in depth review eventually
Chrono Cross – same console, better gameplay, better environments, better characters, more innovation. What else can I say?
FFVI – The last of the 2D FF games. I will tell you that I didn’t play this as a kid but even playing it a few years ago, I was impressed with it. It is a game too good for words. Go play it for yourself, you wont be disappointed.
Persona 3 - a true RPG masterpiece. I know, it’s a bit unfair comparing FFVII to later titles like this but it truly is a better and more innovative game. True, graphics weren’t a huge stretch but it did utilize a lot of anime style cutscenes which were pretty cool. The storyline was a lot less cliché than FFVII, the characters were deeper and the ideas were more intriguing. By my standards, Persona 3 was more innovative than FVII because it improved and created countless features not just graphics. In my eyes, that is more important.
Seiken Densetsu – The gameplay is awesome the characters are cool and the bosses are insane. It was originally only released in japan but you can find the SNES rom translated on the internet. though it is technically on a inferior graphic level to FFVII, I still consider it to look better. Everything in that game is clear, smooth, well made and distinguishable. Just compare these 2 pictures and tell me which is more visually appealing.
