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Features High Points Low Points Final Fantasy Releases Preface Review The story of FF7 is nothing new: You control a party with "Good Intentions" on a quest to stop evil and save the world. Sure, some interesting things happen, but I am so sick of "saving the world" that if I have to do it one more time l'll retch! So few games break away from the "Good-Guy" mold - only two come to mind at the moment (Deception & Dungeon Keeper), and IMO they didn't go anywhere near far enough into the idea. I don't consider games like Wario Land to even touch the mold. Despite the fact you play an alleged "bad-guy", nothing is done to truly define that character as more than a Mario Clone. If a game cannot have a full-fledged role of playing evil, I'd gladly settle for a game that gives you the OPPORTUNITY to commit a few great atrocities (and no, l'm not talking about killing things - we see enough of that in games already). The only refreshing moment I can think of is Order of the Griffon's option to burn down Taverns, and that Masterpiece was killed by the gaming consumer before it could rise from it's coffin. To make a long story short, FF7's story is far above almost all games from other Genres but it's very average, if not below average for an RPG. The setting is definately not my cup of tea, but l'm sure MANY people will feel right at home with it's futuristic setting. I have always and will always prefer medieval fantasy and present-day settings. As for the music, It's good, maybe a bit above good, but nowhere near great. FF4, 5, & 6 (as well as dozens of other games) killed FF7 in the Music department IMO. The "Boss Music" on Previous FF games really got me in the mood for a great battle, but FF7's basic battle and Boss music do nothing for me. I admit, it has some very enjoyable tunes, such as the Gold Saucer music and the Highwind theme, but it's too little, too late. It wasn't long before I used Mute and started listening to my favorite 80's bands while playing. The graphics and effects are where this game shines the brightest. It has highly detailed and realistic playing fields & polygonal battle scenes/charcters/world-map. However, it's new graphic attempt at "3D" causes many poor camera angles, confusing movement (you should never have to push up to go down or right to go up and so on unless these directions are preset in stone for the entire game), and VERY difficult manual searching for "secret items", which there are very few of anyway (most items and materia are laying in plain site, which really upset me - what happened to the huge secret areas to get the greater "items"? Where are the "Legendary" battles to win Bahamut's favor, as well as the other summoned monsters? Definately not in FF7...). On top of this, IMHO, despite how well-done and detailed the graphics are, they just don't cut the mustard for me. I greatly preferred the Beautiful Hand-Drawn art of FF4, 5, & 6 over FF7's mixture of Polygons and art - sure, they weren't as "high-tech" or "advanced", but they were much more beautiful and enjoyable to me. Believe me, I don't like bashing this game, because it truly is FANTASTIC and I think just about everyone should own a copy, but if we keep letting companies get away with all of these cuts and lowered standards, pretty soon well be left with nothing more than "the latest technology" and no true appeal. The "new" battle system is what infuriated me the most. The new "Limit Breaks" are nothing more than a stolen idea from Lufia II's "IP" system, which I thought was done MUCH better. Next, I'd REALLY like to know why a team of charcters in each scene is now cut down to three!(?) In FF4 it was five, in FF 5 & 6 it was four, but now three is just too far. How about equiping your charcter: What the hell happened here!? You can only equip one weapon, one "piece of armor" and one accessory. Forget about the Materia for a moment! Because of this, there's no way you can equip a shield, a weapon in each hand, or hold a weapon with 2 hands to increase damage like the previous FF games, and of course you cant equip a helm either, and your materia will never solve this dreadful mistake. From what I can gather, Square did this to make the game more "simple" so it could appeal to a wider audience - however, even if they did accomplish this, they lost a huge amount of depth and my respect at the same time. Now, onto the Materia: Sure, some of it creates some great effects and commands, but 99% of it just laying around in plain sight, and therefore, IMO all of it feels like plain useless garbage, no matter what it can do. When I EARNED Bahamut's power in FF4 I felt a great feeling of triumph because you DO have to earn it, as well as items like the Gem Box/offering and the esper "Crusader" in FF6, and the 8 "legendary sealed weapons" in FF5. To put the icing on the cake, the jittery hyper-active characters in the battle scenes give the game a "sloppy" feel that l'll never grow accustomed to - even in FF1 the characters stood and attacked in a "firm" proud fashion. Sure, if you were fighting a Behemoth you probably wouldn't stand still, proud, and firm, BUT THAT'S THE POINT! Games lately have constantly been pushed farther and farther into the realm of reality, and I don't know if everyone shares my opinion, but I want the game companies to STOP NOW. I don't want realistic, one of the main reasons most people play games is to escape reality - we want to play things the way we like 'em, NOT the way they really are. FF6 introduced so many great new ideas into RPGs, such as the "Blitz" command which allowed you to to use your dexterity AND brain in a single game, the ability to create/customize your menus, font colors and window borders & window backgrounds - there was even a multi-Player battle option! Of course, this was all removed in FF7 - now the only thing you can do is change the color of your window. What about those cute little creatures we've come to know as the "Moogles"? Nope, they're not Moogles anymore, they're "Mogs"!! How can you create a species in the FF and Secret of Mana series after all this time, and then just completely change their name with the snap of your fingers?! Square, if you're listening, I'd REALLY love to hear the answer to this one. I'd also like to know why many of what appeared to be dogs would "meow" to me. For a game on 3 CD's you'd think it would be one of the longest games ever, but unfortunately, as far as RPGs go it's one of the shortest and most linear ever - some people seem to like linear games, but I for one do not like being forced to do anything. In FF6, as soon as you get the second airship, the entire world of Ruin is your's to explore how and when you want - almost the entire world of FF7 must be explored in the same order every time, even when you have the Highwind (AirShip) and a Gold Chocobo because you've pretty much been everywhere by the time you get them! As for playing time, it took me around 30 hours to COMPLETE it (not finish it, but complete it, meaning I did EVERYTHING there is to do, including getting all my characterss up to level 99, nearly maxing out all their stats with "source" items, and finding all materia and items), if you do this on FF6, it takes 70-100 hours (yes, there is a LOT of stuff everyone seems to neglect when they play this game through, and all those wonderful 500KB+ FAQs have even missed tons of material). While games like Might & Magic 2 take at least 300+ Hours for even the most seasoned gamer, and offers complete freedom from the beginning to end. What about the spells? Well, they didn't do a bad job - they have exactly the same number of basic spells as FF6 did (54), but this time around, a lot of them are B.S. spells - for example, in FF6 there was one very powerful "Quake" spell, but in FF7 there is Quake, Quake2, and Quake3, which gets pretty tiresome when they do this to EVERY element, even their Sub-elements, and because of all these extra senseless spells - yep, you guessed it - they cut MORE out! There's no longer a spell to damage an opponents MP or to drain them, there's no near-death spell (no, l'm not including Enemy skills yet) like whirlwind, no Vanish or Multi-Image spells (these were EXTREMELY important), or spells to get you out of dungeons or warp you to towns. Basically what the new spell list boils down to is just a bunch of attack spells that have almost identical attack power, and a few cure/restore spells, and now Ultima has been reduced to a pathetic looking "gas spell" that can no longer pierce an enemies defenses and is MUCH weaker (speaking of that, now there is NO piercing attacks!). Yeah, there's a couple time and defense spells too, but where's the Imp spell and super-strong imp equipment? What bothered me most about spells though was the fact that the spell materia MUST be equipped in order to cast the spell - you can't learn all the spells and retain them after unequiping what you learned them from (like the espers and equipment in FF6). The Summon spells LOOK spectacular, but soon enough you're going to get very tired of watching the 3-minute Knights of the round table summon spell and the 2 minute Bahamut Zero spell, which gives poor results anyway. The least they could've done is give you an option to turn off the Summon animations so battles wouldn't take a few months when you were tired of looking at them. I'll admit, they are very impressive at first, but after you've cast a Summon spell a few times you will be extremely sick of waiting through the sequence. You won't see any cool items like a Mirage Vest, Paladin Shield, Snow Muffler, BloodSwrd, Economizer, Moogle Charm, or Undead Armor either, so don't hope for them. Like I said, the Materia will create a lot of interesting effects (none of the effects of the items listed above though), but it is simply unfulfilling because of how pathetically easy they're obtained. It's hard to believe that after all the negative things I've had to say about FF7 that I still think it's a Fantastic game, but it IS! It simply isn't in the same league as FF4/5/6, Might & Magic, or many of my other favorite RPGs, but unlike them, FF7 deserves a place on EVERYONE'S shelf because it's made for such a wide array of gamers and is light-years ahead of every NON-RPG game on the PSX. It's not a work of art like FF4/5/6 and you don't possess an entire world and total freedom like Might & Magic, but it IS an experience that you will enjoy and not regret. I particularly enjoyed the Gold Saucer and Racing/Breeding Chocobos, and for this alone I think the title is worth buying. However, seasoned RPG players like myself who have *completed* everything from Hillsfar to King's Field can't look away from the senseless butchering between FF6 and FF7. Quite frankly I'm amazed that the "Professionals", such as EGM and Gamefan did not acknowledge ANY of what I pointed out - perhaps these so called "Professionals" aren't truly veteran gamers. If that's not the case, I shudder to mention or even think of why they didn't... OVERALL SCORE © Game Domain 1999 |
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