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FF7: what they did right and what went wrong after.
Mizzmo
Member UncommonPosts: 133
When people talk about beloved games in the history of gaming you will be hard pressed not to hear Final Fantasy 7 mentioned. I remember FF1 on the NES and how it blew my mind when I played it many many years ago. The Final Fantasy series was great and then Final Fantasy 7 came along on the PS1 and took us all for a whirl. The gameplay was amazing and there was so much depth to it (and many discs to not get scratched) and people in general were nuts about it. Then FF8 came out and I was pissed how it turned out. FF11 was "OK" at best, though I didn't play it for long. Then FF13 came out. I got excited and bought it for my ps3.....then sold it back to the game store very quickly. I bought FF14 and found it to be the worst game I have ever purchased.
So, what did FF7 do right and what went so wrong afterwards that we ended up with FF14? I think 99% of people on this forum can agree that FF14 is a very very bad game.
Share your FF7 thoughts about what they did so right. And then share why you think FF14 turned out so bad.
Comments
I never really played FF7 because my cousin broke disk 2. -.-
But I liked it! Comparing disk 1 ff7 to disk 1 ff9 and disk 1 of ff8, I liked 8 most followed by 9 then lastly by 7. I think the constantly changing class/combat system is a square thing so I dont hold them against that. And I DID continue to enjoy the combat system from beginning till 13. I hated 11 and 14 combat system though because of the annoying controls x.x
But yah so with that down, the combat system is typical square with changes.
Next up is the world. Square tends to randomly mix their fantasy and technology aspects. I think 7 actually hit a nice sweet spot comparable to ff6 which I also enjoyed. The general feel you get from the first disk was quite nice and I liked the tone set through it. Compared to other final fantasy games, this tends to be one of the few gameswhere you actually know the enemy from the beginning (sephiroth and jenova)
You didnt know the enemy in the beginning with the rest of the final fantasy games IIRC.
As for the mommas boy erm..."Villain" (HES STILL A MOMMAS BOY!) I didnt like sephiroth. I did like his long hair though! I very much prefer kuja (hes hawt! @_@ ) and Kefka (hes the only one who successfuly destroyed the world iirc)
Anyways! I enjoyed FF8 and FF9 more than 7 so...What felt like where they went wrong was x and onwards. They pretty much slowly killed the world travel and I found it very constricting o.o Everything else pretty much stayed the same except for the open world-ness. I actually tried the combat system in FF13 and found it to be enjoyable o.o but I havent actually played it. Just killed a boss on my cousins game in about 30 mins so..yah! I loved the battle direction and I hated where they went in terms of maps.
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FF 7 is clearly the top of the serie, and it have been sliding downwards ever since.
I think it is mostly because of the story and the characters. It seems like SE have been running out more and more of inspiration since. This is common in music, after some albums many musicians just get burned out and get worse and worse.
Also, a lot of the mechanics (particualrly combat) havn't aged that well and while they try to improve it's turn based combat is an oddity today but were very common in the old days. Some things just feels old and outdated.
SE needs to try to get back into making better stories and characters people actually remembers. They should also consider dropping the turn based combat.
Easy answer: The guy who made ff1-8 big went away, also the guy who made the great musik. ähm Hironobu sakaguchi..
Once the top dog was out, ff-series went down the rain. Its normal u cant expect his followers to have the same visions.
I hated ff8, bcz it was different then ff7 (my first). But once u got used to it, (had to paly it a few times to like it) it was a good ff-serie. ff8 was not bad, had some great soundtracks and summons, but ofc not as good as ff7 in whole.
For me the ff series died with ff9. Ff9 was the last good one.
bought ff10 when it went out on ps2-bundle. (my first ps2 game). Could never like it, never played it trough. At that point, i noticed, ff serie has died. Since then never bothered with new ff-titles. I know they suck, before trying them.
Even this ff13 , good lord, was that shit boring. Sometimes oldschool is newschool. I say back to the roots, offline games should be played like offline games. We grew up with them, we want to die with them.
I think what FF7 did different was it went from a predominantly 2D rpg console field to a 3D game
and it still provided a massive game in which to explore... most games of the day either went massive or 3D.. not both
FF8 was just an "improvement" of FF7 (i dont feel that but w/e ;p)
if FF7 had the same kind of graphics as 8 ... one of the things i really wish they'd do is an updated version of 7... its still imo.. the very best of all the FF games that i've played...
Heh , it's obvious to see why FF7 was so great compared to what came after it. Square took 3 years between FF4 (FF2) and FF6 (FF3) on the SNES , then 5 years for FF7. Then greed took over or I don't know wtf happened , but they released FF8 ,9 , 10 within 3 years after FF7. Stopped following the FF's after 9 was released , didn't had time to finish FF8 and boom they released 9. I don't need any rubbing in. 8 and 9 were pretty bad , 10 did a come back with blitzball and Auron , but had way too much "love" in it , 10x2 was a complete joke. 11 was a good mmo until lazy / EZ mode kicked in. 12 was like I was playing the role of a pedophile.
Bottom line here is , greed took over and I highly doubt we'll be seeing any quality RPGs from Square anytime soon. For us north americans that is. Asia will still have their Hentai FF's , with no story line and typical Asian grind fest. Sales alot over there , but not here in the western continent.
Well personally my favorite was FF6, but FF7 was still pretty good. One of the things I really didn't like that changed in FF10 and horribly obvious in 13 was the lack of an overworld. You just kept running down a path, with 10 having a detour or two you could take, but that was all. While 12 was....meh, at least it had a fairly exploreable world. FF13 good lord they showed that they couldn't possibly care less even if their lives depended on it make the game more linear. You couldn't talk to npcs, they did away with towns, I hear that the light might have made a tiny bend like 25 hours into the game, i stopped playing 9 hours in after getting sick of it. It might have also been the characters too. FF6, despite having a rather large cast, gave each character their on unique thing that made them....them. The same can be said with 8, 10(i hardly played 9), and 12, and that these characters were generally likable in one way or another. While 12 had some rather forgettable characters, and I rather disliked little miss suicidal girl Yuna in 10, they at least had redeeming characteristcs that were shown early on.
FF13 I just wished within those 9 hours that Lighting and Hope would die, painfully and slowly. Snow, weird 14yr girl, and black dude with a bird in his hair were....more or less forgettable.
Now for the music, I think all the way up until after 12 the music was rather good. From what battle music I heard in FF11(never got far) it at least changed every so often when you switched zones, and that town in Valkrum Dunes had some good music. Heck 12 had my favorite varient of Gilgamesh's music. FF13 I don't think even deserves to be considered having music, with a stupid battle music to begin with that not only never seemed to change between areas, but the boss music sounded the same as normal music. I do apologize if my post is more or less my undying hatred of 13, still trying my best.
Anyways, while I suppose they are now an artifact, I think world maps helped add to the game. By this I mean sidequests. I know FF games without a world map had these, but it was more or less, use a guide and make sure you snag these while passing through. 12 did a fairly good job on still sneaking them in by revisiting areas and going to deeper parts of the dungeon, but the streight path you had in 13 and more or less had in good chunks of 10 seemed to make that pointless. Anyways thats just my opinion.
I echo MAkii as well..
Nobuo Uematsu (music) and Hironobu Sakaguchi(designer) left
I still find 8, 9, and 6 to be better than 7. 6 is by far my favorite overall FF game. Combat Wise, I loved x-2 lol. I was missing the class based system and they brought it back for x-2 and that amde me happy xD everything else about it..not so much though lol.
Ken - I saw my cousin ragequit several times when he was in the part where only lightning and hope were in the teeam and hope was the leader xD
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Haha yeah, that more or less happened to me, with me only being able to somewhat laugh that Hope was like, were doomed Doomed DOOOOOOOOMED! Maybe someday when I'm not in school or looking for work I will finish the game, but until then, it sits along with my old games collecting dust.
Ah, didn't know the lead designer left after 8 or whatever. That explains a lot. SE needs to get that guy back. lol.
CAnt. Hes making the last game for the wii before retiring and those freaks at nintento are supposedly going to keep it as japan only
Its called "The Last Story"
Edit : There have been no announcements with regard to a North American release, although the fan-based localization movement, Operation Rainfall, has been pressuring Nintendo of America for a localization of the game, along with Wii titles Xenoblade and Pandora's Tower. [21]
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FF7 was one of those overrated games that deserved to be overrated.
It was just that good.
FF8 was also extremely enjoyable.
From 1-10, they followed through, tride and true to the series, never skipping a beat in quality.
FF11 is in its own tier. It was good; not for everyone.
(And also the birth place of the most badass midget-mage in all of video-gamery. O~Hohohoho~!)
I think it all went downhill from FFX-2 and onward. They took an extremely unconventional approach and NOT in a good way.
Its like they took the raw componenets of what we love about a FF game, threw it in a blender with a bunch of other miscellaeneous requirements and expectations, then slapped the label "Final Fantasy" on the product and shipped it to stores.
FF12 was a bust.
FF13 seemed like a step in the right direction, but the flaws were extremely obvious.
- Linear paths
- Horrible battle system
- Every little mob had F*$&ing 6,000,000 HP
FF14 was a failed FF11 2.0
- I mean, come on. You start off with a story, do some quests, then some guildleves, and then... Nothing.
- there was nothing to do! You just sit there and either kill stuff or go fishing.
And then there's the upcoming...
Agito XIII
Under the same law of Fabula Nova Crystallis, or the same world-order FFXIII was influenced by.
Nothing is clear about it yet. Hopefully it won't suck.
XIII-2
I actually have faith in this one. The main character looks cool enough.
Battle system feels a lot like kingdom hearts.
We'll have to see.
I remember playing th first Final Fantasy and even getting me and my friends into nintendo power magazine for having been among the first to complete the game. Loved #2 a great deal. One of the first very epic story's in an rpg game where you werent just a generic charachter, but instead had actual identities and storylines based on that. #3 (6 in japan) came out and they took everything i loved about 2 and honed it to perfection. And 7 was possibly the best ff though for me its a tough call since just about everything that square touched around the era of FF3 and FF7 were all just amazing. Not just the FF's but all the various spin offs as well such as FF Tactics, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Parasite Eve, Xenogears and shortly after the square enix merge with the underrated Valkyrie Profile. This period of time will always be the Squaresoft golden age as far as im concerned. FF8 was a damn good game, but it did seam like after FF8 they were on a gradual incline towards suck.
If square still had anyone with half a brain running things we would already have a rereleased FF7 on the ps3 with advent children type graphics. Its sad to see how low they have fallen.
Yeah, it do explains a lot.
But they either need him back or they should consider getting an actual author in to write the story because 8 was the last game with good characters and a nice story (even if the hero annoyed me).
But...66 was epic! And kuja was hawt! :O
Edit :
Did anyone try the pathetic excuse of a Mana game on the ps2? That was..ugh! PAinful to say the least.
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The orgional poster asks a silly question.
There is no relation between Final Fantasy 7 and 14 mechanically - nor is there, I suspect, even many of the same people working there given that there is nearly 10 years between them.
JUST DON'T FORGET that when FF7 came out..the world was much different thatn it is now....No global internet...no fast communication between gamers so everyone playing that came was basically in the dark about WHAT goes down WITHIN THE STORYLINE...People were freeking SHOCKED when Sephiroth kills Aerith. I personally started crying!!!
And that was FF7 major win....The story..And Nobuo Uematsu's fantastic music!
So for me STORY and MUSIC were the secret of FF7 success...
If an equal game would ever came out today...in 2 days someone would spoil the freeking ending and ruin gameplay for millions
hERE IS nOBUO uEMATSU'S masterpiece : 'Aerith's Theme"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dod4nENU7kM&feature=related
Believe this music will make you geel different...just close your eyes and listen to the sound of your lost innosence
Squaresoft had his golden Age with:
-ff4-9: Rank
1. FF7
Opening Theme:
Boss battle Theme:
2. FF6
World Theme:
Boss battle Theme:
3. FF8
World Theme:
Boss battle Theme:
4. FF5
World Theme:
Gilgamesh Battle Theme:
5. FF9
World Theme:
Beatrix and Steiner Theme:
6. FF4 (for me)
World Theme:
Battle Theme:
-Xenogears, Playstation 1:
Music Samples:
Opening Theme:
(The most complex story and was long time forbidden to sell in Europe due the Religious aspects!!
(From the same developer of ff7 and same music Mastermind, it inhabited some secret infos connected with the ff7-World)
(A combo-fighting System that u will never see again in that form, with Super-Mechrobots against Hard Bosses)
(Unforgettable EPIC music and, like i said, very complex story, in a very high language lvl).
(It was shortened from 6 CDs to 4 CDs. Lead-Developer wanted to create Xenogears 2,3,4 but didnt get the rights)
(Very deep background and character Story)
(Had Animes and Animated movies)
(A Original copy is still today around 80 bucks worth, unopened it goes for 120-180)
(Play time 50-120h)
-Valkyrie Profile, Playstation 1:
Music Samples:
Boss Music:
Dungeon Battle Theme:
( Super awesome combo system, Music, like 10 Different Endstorys
(Epic voice acting)
Valkyrie Profile was one of those games, u could play trough, and never got bored to start again
(Play time 20h-100h, depends if u do sidequests and secret-bosses).
-Chrono Trigger, super Nintendo
Music Sample:
World Theme:
Winning Theme:
( Special fighting system, where you could combine skills to make a new special move, as long as that certain player was in team. Many different combo possibilitys.)
(Time-Travel trough many time periods, in many worlds)
(You could go right with lvl 10 to endboss with your time machine, ending in a loss ofc)
(Deep Story and superb music )
-Chrono Cross , Playstation 1
Music Samples:
World theme:
Opening Theme:
( A worthy follower of Chrono Trigger, with again, awesome storyline and music)
All those games deserved my ratings of average 95+/100
Latebloomers and considerable good game, after the golden era:
-Xenosaga 1 (playstation 2)
Music Theme:
Epic:
Epic 2:
(it continued the Xenogears Story, many years later. Good music and Storyline. Worth follower)
Enjoyed 7-9, only played a few others that are earlier in the series, they were alright but I enjoyed the former more.
FFX is when things kind of took a turn for the worse. I did enjoy it somewhat, but only because of the storyline and characters. The removal of world travel though really irritated me though, that was a great feature they could've easily expanded on to future games in the series to include lots of side-adventures you could take if you didn't want to rush through the main plot.
FF12 had a slow beginning but was alright-ish I thought. The gambit system was kind of lame, and fights in general were extremely easy save for the occasional rare-mob/boss fight. Characters were very uninteresting. Character progression was very bland and poorly executed.
And FF13 I thought was just terrible. Faaar to linear, and while combat was flashy, I felt it just wasn't fun to play. Never brought myself to finish playing through the whole game. Also there seemed to be more cutscenes than actual gameplay.
I think the biggest mistakes SE have made were making the games progressively look/feel more linear, and making combat more automated and simple.
FF Versus looks mildly interesting, I read it would be bringing world travel back among a few other things, but i'll wait and see what others have to say about it before purchasing it myself when it comes out.
Edit: I take it back, FFX was a terrible game and this is why:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5FTJxfV3pc
I'm one of those people that actually puts the beginning of the decline with 7 and not with 8. 7 was where the I started to lose interest. It was an OK game, but IMO it was a big let-down from 6. 8 was just trash and 9 was like Mystic Quest without the depth. I didn't even finish 10 and haven't played any after that at all.
FF7 is the best one of the series with no doubt! Actually I've played everyone until FF11. For hardcore players, FF7 is the best because of its story. For some unreal players, FF8 is the best because of its graphics and music. FF8 is not bad, but absolutely worse than 7. 9 is also not bad. 10 and 10-2 are better than 9. That's my opinion. But when FF11 begin to be online game, I know, FF series is die... You can't hope a japanese company make a good online game, just as you can't accept the offline games from korean companies.
every final fantasy has been good- especially because of it's quality value. But it's mmos are excluded from this generalization.
When the 2 top producers of ff series left squaresoft, also the ff-franchise died with them.
I loved 6 and 10. 3,7,9 were ok. 1,2, X2 and 12 were not great, but I wouldn't say they were a waste of money.
Honestly the only bad Final Fantasy was 13 in my opinion (never fully played 4,5,8,11,14). It was far too linear, and the playstyle was worse than all before it. The story was sort of dumb, and I never really cared about the characters, nor the fate of the world. The game didn't have the depth and good story of 3,6,7,9 or 10. It also didn't have the just have fun style of x2 or 12.
"Great minds talk about ideas, average minds talk about events, and small minds talk about people." - Eleanor Roosevelt
"Americans used to roar like lions for liberty; now we bleat like sheep for security." -Norman Vincent Peale
With the exception of the mmos the final fantasy series has been wonderful.
I can't think of one that i thought was a bad game.
I even thought X-2 was ok.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing