Summary: Some brief parting thoughts on Final Fantasy VII.
(Also, poll on "Advent Children" liveblog time this weekend!! http://strawpoll.me/4405269
I’ll break this down the same way I’ve broken down similar game wraps.
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Protagonists
Very strong on this front. A diverse group of personalities, usually with layered motivations and goals. I could see some people viewing Barret as one-note, purely tough, but his love for Marlene and his growing care for Cloud betrayed that. That whole main trio of Cloud, Barret, and Tifa was wonderful.
Cait Sith was probably the least interesting to me. I like Reeve, but didn’t feel like I got enough of him to understand what their relationship was, how Reeve controlled the stuffed Cait Sith, etc. And Cid I flat out disliked. There’s little that could ever justify the way he treated Shera for so long.
Yuffie was probably my favorite character, combining brashness and major sass with a deep respect and love for Wutai. So glad I ultimately found her and got to experience her Wutai story.
The whole cast though was pretty great. The one weakness I found in the system was that I ended up swapping out characters haphazardly. This means I only got to experience their personalities and stories in fits and starts, and so I feel like I missed a lot compared with FFs prior to FFVI, where the parties were locked.
(I also now know that I missed a character named Vincent. Sorry, Vince!)
Granted, this has a positive: replayability! I’ll come back to that explicitly later, but it means I get to play around with different combinations.
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Antagonists
There were three main groupings of antagonists for me: the Shinra Corporation, the Turks (part of Shinra, I know, but I still feel they became their own entity), and the more cosmic big bads of Jenova and Sephiroth.
Shinra: I predicted earlier in the game that Shinra would be the Gestahlian-style front villain compared to the greater threat of Sephiroth and this was pretty true – though a more persistent threat than the Gestahlian Empire of FFVI, which got obliterated after the first half. The various players within Shinra were remarkably well-developed, and I got the sense that it was a huge corporation that included the truly evil (Hojo, Rufus), the more lawful-neutral types like Reeve, and some good guys like the mayor.
Now that I think about it, I guess by the end you could classify Reeve/Cait Sith clearly in the good camp.
Glad we also got to see some of the rank and file guards who just were doing a job.
Shout-out also to the goofy-yet-sadistic-yet-still-pretty-incompetent Gya-ha-ha and Kya-ha-ha. <3
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The Turks: I enjoyed these more than the Shinra dudes. They were slimy kidnappers throughout, but not without a sense of honor at times. Or if not a sense of honor, a sense of principle and professionalism. They seemed loyal to each other to a degree, and all had distinct personalities.
Elena was my favorite, and seeing her interplay with Tseng was a treat. My joy in this group makes me wish I had met Vincent.
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Jenova and Sephiroth: I wanted to like these two more than I did, but I ultimately didn’t feel I understood enough about them. The set-up was great. The stuff with the clones and seeing Jenova at various times built her up as this inhuman monster, a major threat.
Seeing her in that tank for that first time… Being stuck in the Shinra Building and seeing her bloody backtrail… the whole thing. Haunting and wonderful.
Sephiroth had some great set-up too. We see him early in the game, and the flashbacks through Nibelheim filled in some gaps. His relationship with Cloud was intricate and cool too.
But in the end, it hurt things that I never got to hear Jenova say anything herself. Never got to hear the real Sephiroth say anything himself. I guess I heard him speak through his clones and ghosts and stuff, but I never knew what was real.
Major caveat: I missed a fair quantity of stuff in the game, so I totally accept that if I had seen more secrets and backstory and stuff I might have gained deeper appreciation and understanding.
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Gameplay
The main new mechanics introduced here were materia and limits. The FFV job system remains my favorite, but this goes the FFVI route of providing a mix of linearity and flexibility: some linearity in giving characters static development paths with limits and flexibility with materia.
I found myself falling back on what worked, what was easiest, and regret not exploring different materia combos and building up limits. I really look forward to fleshing this out more on replay.
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Music
Some great music throughout. Not as much that’s immediately memorable as some games, but there was a LOT of it, and I’m already enjoying going back to listen to the soundtrack.
I think part of the reason it may not have stuck as much as with prior games is because the 3D was so disorienting to me coming from all 2D FFs that I got more distracted easily, trying to orient myself.
Some favorites:
“Bombing Mission”
“The Oppressed”
“One-Winged Angel”
“Aerith’s Theme”
“Jenova Absolute”
And EASILY my favorite, the one that makes me want to smile and frolic and shit like that just by hearing it:
“Descendant of Shinobi”
God that makes me so happy. Kind of a simple little melody, but (as my eternal love of Final Fantasy V shows) simple isn’t a negative, but rather a neutral term for me. A major positive with this piece.
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Art/Graphics
It DEFINITELY took me a while to get used to the 3D style. Exploring was a major challenge for me throughout, but the later it got, the more I got used to it. Which is a good thing, since this is probably the style going forward for all FF games past this.
The enemies were drawn well, and the cinematics blew my mind. So well used. My worry/hope is that they’ll continue to use them moderately going forward. I ended up hesitant to use some of the summons because they just took SO LONG. Short and sweet please.
Another positive/negative: the robots. Pretty much all of them were awesomely drawn, but they all kind of bled together for me.
Oh… except for the WEAPONS HOLY CRAP I LOVED THOSE.
Those of you who have read my series know that I am kind of obsessed with giant monsters – which entrance me and terrify me in equal measure. Especially giant sea monsters. The Weapons in the second half of the game delivered these in spades, and represented most of my favorite art in the game. ESPECIALLY Sapphire Weapon’s attack on Junon. Holy cats. That was the BEST.
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Length
One of the shorter games of late, about 37 hours. I don’t see this as a bad thing, and it was short because there was so much optional stuff I just missed. Which leads me to…
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Replayability
MASSIVE. Most of my negatives for this game come because it’s so bloody large, so expansive, with so much to explore and try out. New party combos, the near entirety of the Gold Saucer, new party members (again, sry Vincent!), new limits, new materia….
Just so much. Major, major positive.
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Story/Theme
Two things immediately jump out at me about this aspect: the world building and the party’s general averageness. Those are major positives. The big negative for me was the complexity.
World Building: This game took FFVI’s steampunky theme and dialed it up to 11. Magic and materia were a part of this world in a way they weren’t in FFVI, and they blended with high technology to create something unique. I love this so much.
Midgar especially was a work of art. The whole multi-sided pizza, echoed in Junon’s lower/upper segments, was great. It was also probably one the few FF games where wealth and poverty were such a huge thing. They were touched on briefly in FFVI’s Jidoor/Zozo, but were absolutely core to FFVII.
A Common Party I mean, clearly this is an overstatement. Cloud was infused with whatever Jenova was (an alien?), cloned by Hojo from the supersoldier Sephiroth. Aeris was the last of the Ancients.
But Tifa was a woman who could punch well. Yeah, she was trained by a master, but ultimately wasn’t a martial arts wizard or whatever like Yang or Edge. She had some serious game, but was a bartender who could kick ass. Barret was a miner whose town got screwed by a giant corporation and wanted to right things, often through questionable methods.
And Cloud was really just a wanna-be, a guy who couldn’t hack it until he got scienced-up by Hojo.
Unlike the similarly common party of FFV, they weren’t given Chosen-One narratives by an external force. They decided to take action. This was great.
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Complexity: Like simplicity, complexity is a neutral descriptor for me. It can be done well or less well. I don’t think this was done badly. But remember that I’m coming at this game from a blind perspective, and on first play, I felt more confusion than I would like. It felt a bit like Doctor Who’s series six, where the emotional impact and my affinity for certain characters and their development was hindered because there were just so many loops and twists and reversals.
I still feel like I only sort of get the difference between what was real and fake, and who knew what and when and why.
To reiterate: as with so much of this game, this seems like a negative that would be MASSIVELY allayed by replays where I knew where to go and what to watch for. Like rewatching Memento/Inception.
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A Very General and Subjective Pretty Please Don’t Kill Me Ranking of the FF Series So Far
1) FFVI. No game ever impacted me the way this has, and the esper system was great. So was the music and story and absolutely everything.
2) FFV. The story was goofy and minor compared to VII, VI, and IV, but the characters were adorable, the tone was light and cohesive, the crushing moments were beyond crushing (oh god galuf still tears just thinking about it), the music was top notch, and the job system was unbeatable.
3) FFVII. The world-building and raw depth of this game put this above the great but all too linear FFIV for me.
4) FFIV
5) FFIII
6) FFII
7) FFI
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Final Note
Thank you to everyone who read, lurked, commented, and nunned. Your support is invaluable, and every view you give is support. I’ve gone back and read some of the rot13 at times, and I can say without a doubt that you are all EVIL SADISTS AND I LOVE YOU. < 3
To show my love, have some acapella "One-Winged Angel" video I found with a random cat popping in:
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Next time: Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children” LIVEBLOG WOOHOO! I’ll put up the threat on Mark Spoils (markspoils.com, for those of you coming seeing this post on coldrungaming.blogspot.com). It’ll happen this weekend.
This post will be up for the next day, and on Thursday morning I’ll post the winning time. I ordered the DVD through Amazon, but there are some Advent Children playlists on YouTube as well.
Vote here for when you’d watch! (Please only vote if you have interest in joining the liveblog )
http://strawpoll.me/4405269
