A Contrarian View of FFVII

This week is seeing the commercial release of Advent Children, so it's appropriate to see Jeremy Parish discussing the original game. However, he's got a slightly different take on the game than you might be used to. Seen via GameSetWatch. From Parish's article: "What better way to sell to people than by speaking directly to them? Cloud Strife is the everynerd -- wrapped up in delusions of greatness when allowed to take things on his own carefully-selected terms until he sees the world for what it is and is forced to come to grips with the fact that he's actually completely pathetic. That's your average game-obsessed message board dork in a nutshell: the petty tyrant of a tiny little niche of the Internet but a failure in real life. It's the kind of parable Jesus would have been proud to have shared with the hungry masses between bites of magical fishloaf, the cigarette ad of nerd coming-of-age stories -- a promise to nerdlings that if you face down your demons, accept your failures and struggle to move beyond them, you'll save the world and your childhood crush will fall madly in love with you."

Comments

Contrarian?

[EggyToast]

I thought it was already established that there were a large number of people who didn't like FF7 when it came out, and more who changed their mind as time went on?

For many people, it was the first Final Fantasy game that they played, so it's obvious why there are many who hold it in high regard. But it's sluggishly paced and the characters are mostly interchangeable towards the end game, despite their roles (or lack thereof in some cases) in the story.

Re:Contrarian?

[zerocool^]

The problem you mention in FF3/6 is simply that the game will level you up too quickly; or, more accurately, there are a number of sidequests in the World of Ruin that people won't pass up on. Think: If you were playing it for the first time, would you sit there and hammer away at Intangir on Gogo's island in the World of Balance before the floating continent? I wouldn't. Or, in the world of ruin... would you try to get every character + Umaro and Gogo? Nope, I would have stopped once I had a good compliment of Celes, Sabin, Edgar, Terra, Shadow, Mog, and maybe Gau.

People get overpowered in FF3, and then wonder why the game gets lame. You're not supposed to be able to do 9999 damage 8 times per round with Genji Glove + Offering! You're not supposed to be able to cast 3 ultima spells per round for 4 MP (magic box / economizer, Ult. Haste Ult. Ult.). You (and I) are overpowered by the end of the game BECAUSE we love it so much that we explore every nook and cranny. We do the phoenix cave. We beat all 8 dragons. We get Tritoch and beat doom gaze. We upgrade Odin to Raiden. We de-curse the cursed shield. We do Elbot's rock. We get the Water Rondo.

If you were speed running the game, it would be much harder.

~Will

Mod TFA down

[Rob T Firefly]

(-1 Flamebait)

Er.. WTF

[Turn-X Alphonse]

"The petty tyrant of a tiny little niche of the Internet but a failure in real life"

Maybe it's just me here.. MAYBE.. but isn't life a meaningless exercise of not dying untill you die..? Surely being a failure at life means you're oh.. DEAD!

Maybe we should stop judging people on their job/material goods and go "Hey this guys doing something he enjoys, he's not doing too bad really is he?" Life is not what you own, what you buy or what you want to buy.

Re:Er.. WTF

[linvir]

As a journalist, it's his job, nay, his duty to inform the likes of us mere readers of our most shameful shortcomings. I don't understand why people like you are always wasting our time with these 'independent thoughts', when people like this are already being paid to pre-fabricate opinions and ideas for us.

Get over your stupid little philosophy, sit down, shut up and consume. Maybe if you weren't such an ideological insurgent, the elders would have already picked you out to work as a supplier of opinions alongside the eminent Mr. Parish.

You go ahead and come up with some 'original idea' to counter my arguments, I'm not afraid. My masters in the gaming press will protect me from tyrants like you! Your military training and superhuman strength (apparently you everynerds are all soldiers now) are no match for my robot-like obedience!

Go ahead, be contrarian.. but...

[The Living Fractal]

It's ok to be contrarian. You have every right to form an opinion. But I can't help but say I detect a degree of hypocrisy when I read this:

"That's your average game-obsessed message board dork in a nutshell: the petty tyrant of a tiny little niche of the Internet but a failure in real life."

I mean, is it just me, or does it seem like this is exactly what this guy represents, within the context of the very article he has written about it?

The rest of it.. I tried hard to find anything meaningful. But every time I just can't help but think the author has personal experience pushing each word into the keyboard.

TLF

Re:More graphics, less gameplay

[TooMuchEspressoGuy]

I've always thought that FFVI had much more meat to the game.

I agree completely. In a smaller storage space, and with pixels rather than 3-D models, FF6 managed to tell a much better, richer, and more complex story than FF7. Every one of the many characters had his/her own personality and slice of backstory, and each had his/her time in the spotlight at some point in the game. Oh, and Kefka makes Sephiroth look like a pansy.

My Life as a Kettle

[Doomstalk]

That's your average game-obsessed message board dork in a nutshell: the petty tyrant of a tiny little niche of the Internet but a failure in real life.

Says the man who A) reviews 7 year-old games B) uses them to insult people.

Dumb.

[menace3society]

This has to be the dumbest "review" of a game I've read in a long time. To sum up his major "arguments" (and I'm committing an injustice to the civility of marital altercations the world over by using this term):

• "I don't like FF7" (not really arguable), "I'm a rational person" (debatable), "therefore no rational people like FF7" (fallacious).
  
• "It's not really an "RPG" according to the classical definition." But then, 90% of D&D sessions I've played in involved about as much role-playing as a random number generator. For better or worse, the term 'RPG' in video games refers to games like Final Fantasy. Get over it.
  
• "The characters are animated inconsistently--there are several versions of each character, with widely varying degrees of realism for each." This is, I suppose, as valid a complaint as any of the author's, but since he spends two paragraphs talking about how great the graphics are (and eventually goes on to complain about how good the graphics were) he does kind of undermine himself here.
  
• "The story is convoluted and weird." This is also true. Too bad FF7 didn't have a plot as good as the original FF, where the ultimate bad guy trying to take over the world is a souped up version of someone you killed in the very beginning, or Suikoden where the King is being controlled by an evil witch--oh wait, no, he's not, he's just love sick.
  
• "Cloud isn't a one-dimensional character who picks one of two personality types and never changes emotional state throughout the game." While technically a true statement, I'm not sure if it counts as criticism.
  
• "Sephiroth is a bizarre and incomprehensible villain, and hence inferior to Kefka." Or, to put it another way, Kefka is a 1970's destroy-the-world-I'm-evil comic book villain, and Sephiroth is a guy with his own neurosis, and motivations (however bizarre). Kefka just does it for the hell of it, really.
  

Basically, what it boils down to, is that this guy wishes all RPGs were still developed for the SNES because things like graphics, characters with personality, and entertainment are all things which subtract from a good RPG.

Re:More graphics, less gameplay

[Rei]

I know people will hate me for saying this, but Kefka was transparent. He was an Insane Evil Overlord(TM). Kill people with unneeded brutality! Destroy the world for no particular reason! All while dressing like a clown!

I just have trouble seing a character like that as a person. Now, Sephiroth, that was a "villain" I could get behind. Yes, he angsted a fair bit. But he had a plan, a purpose. He had a method to become a God that actually worked well within the framework of the game universe. He wasn't evil for evil's sake - he was purposefully evil.

Of course, here is my greatest heretical notion: that FF8 was a better written game than FF7. No, seriously, I mean it. Compare the dialogue from the earlier FFs (through 7) and later (say, 9; oh dear god, 9 was poorly written) to that in FF8.

Non-8 FFs:
A: "Oh, woe! The world will end!"
B: "WHAT?!?!?!?!!?!!!!?"
C: "Take heart, everyone, we can do it!!!!"
D: "Lets do it... together."
A: "Yes! For the world!!! If we believe in ourselves, we can do it!!!"

VIII did have its fair share of that kind of cliche (it's an FF tradition, after all), just not as much. And certainly not the entire script, as in IX. God, that was awful.

Not that FF8 didn't have its problems. Ultimecia would best be described, to borrow Miss Snark's term, as "aliens that arrive in chapter 14". Squall was deliberately hard to like, and as a video game MC, that's harder to deal with than an unlikable book MC. And lets not even get into the gameplay balance/time issues.

Of course, nothing beats Tactics. I think they were channelling George R. R. Martin on that one ;)