Should I play FF7?

[Sir Frog]

Is Final Fantasy 7 overrated? How often does it come up in actual conversations? When you speak of it, don't people give you a funny look?  Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Final Fantasy 7 simply has a huge fanbase online?

[Sentenal]

Not simply online, but in any gaming-circle.

[Sir Frog]

Not simply online, but in any gaming-circle.

Perhaps, but in my experience, fanboyism is exclusively online where people can easily congregate based on similar tastes.  A similar phenomenon is the recent Tarantino revival. Sure, his movies had a second surge with the release of Kill Bill, but only online would you find a highly concrentrated group of younglings who think Pulp Fiction is the best movie ever.

[Silvercry]

Play it.  I promise you will enjoy it.  And when you get right down to it, isn't that all the reason you need?  It not the purpose of video games to have fun playing them?  Whether you define fun as busting a cap in some hapless pedestrian’s @$$, a'la GTA, or by spending 50+ hours fighting random monsters in the latest FF, or almost that long watching - I mean playing   - Xenosaga One and Two, is irrelevant.  So long as fun is had.  And FF VII is fun.

By the by, when/if you get around to FFVIII, a word of advice: Pay attention during the Junction tutorials.  If you even halfway master that system, every foe in the game save for one optional boss will be your b*tch.  If you find yourself summoning GF's every move for every battle, you aren't playing it right.

Oh, and I hope you like card games....

[V_Translanka]

Firstly, FFVII is only fun if you like the endless mini-games...otherwise? Meh...But, as you said, that's all up to the player, I guess...

Also...Summoning GFs is all that FFVIII is about...Fight won't get you nearly as much damage (rock it, Diablo!), Magic ufcks w/your stats (& your overall number of Magics in general), and Item...well, it's just Item...Except for the final boss, you should find yourself Summoning and becoming a master at tapping that O button like a fiend w/o a fix. So, unless you're using some system that I have no idea of, mastering FFVIII's system was pretty easy, as I recall...Just Summon, Summon, Summon. Maybe you meant "If you find yourself not summoning GFs every move for every battle"?

[Silvercry]

Also...Summoning GFs is all that FFVIII is about...Fight won't get you nearly as much damage (rock it, Diablo!), Magic ufcks w/your stats (& your overall number of Magics in general), and Item...well, it's just Item...Except for the final boss, you should find yourself Summoning and becoming a master at tapping that O button like a fiend w/o a fix. So, unless you're using some system that I have no idea of, mastering FFVIII's system was pretty easy, as I recall...Just Summon, Summon, Summon. Maybe you meant "If you find yourself not summoning GFs every move for every battle"?

This is exactly what I'm talking about.  Using GF's constantly in FF VIII is the calling card of someone who doesn't understand the system at all.  Sure, on disk one, you can do more damage by whipping out Diablo, or the Brothers and tapping O like a crack-addicted monkey.  But by the time you're 1/4 of the way through disk two more power magic can be drawn, along with GF's that enable you to Junction more magic to more stats.  That my friend is how you get stronger in FF VIII.  I don't think I used a GF at all after disk two, ’cept for maybe Cerberus for Double/Triple on the entire party, Doomtrian for some status aliments now and then, and Eden because it just looks so damn cool.

You do have a point about magic in FF VIII.  Don't bother uisng it.  Even the upper levels spells like Flare and Meteor don't do that much damage.  They are better spent  boosting stats.  Pretty much the only useful casting spells in the game are Aura and Scan.  But when you're hitting for 3000-5000 points of damage without triggering the gunblade, who needs magic anymore?

[nightmare975]

The only thing that was good in FFVIII was Laguna. He was awsome! His battle music had a really upward beat to it. A lot better than Squall's music.

[V_Translanka]

Ok, maybe if you raise your Attack stat more than your Magic stat...Maybe it depends on how you play...I don't remember using Fight much unless I had my Desperation Attack/Limit Break thing...But then again, I don't remember a lot of FFVIII...>_> Ironic? Although, I seem to remember doing the Gunblade trigger thing a lot...maybe I'm remembering wrong...but I thought I mostly did Summons...@_@

[Legend of the Past]

There's two words word that'll ruin the life for all you constent GF users out there: Sorceress Adel.

[SilentMartyr]

Are graphics really so important, or does their popularity simply indicate an easily hornswoggled userbase? If we're talking about the innate quality of a game, popularity contests are a poor judge. Just look at the successes of, say, reality television. Is that quality programming right there?

No.

But if you're trying to determine the best game of all time, or judge two games from separate generations against each other, that implies that there exists an absolute standard for gaming.  Therefore, the only fair way is to judge a game based on its merits.

• Direction
• Premise
• Plot
• Music
• Gameplay
• Characters
• Graphics
• Interface
• Replayability

In that order, those qualities comprise the "absolute standard" for judging a game. Of course, some games don't have the various elements, or minimize them. It's a tentative list; you're welcome to improve upon it; but my point with it is that graphics are hardly the singular determining factor in the quality of a game. Now, in the appeal of a game, I must needs make an exception for the lowest common denominator, but let's not confuse quality with appeal.

I whole heartedly disagree with that order. Personally I think that they are all equal in terms of importance. But to have replayability dead last is preposterous(sp?). Especially coming from a Chrono Trigger fan!

[Lord J Esq]

A game that is not playable in the first place, is of no replayability value. Replayability goes last because your first goal is to make a game that people will buy in the first place.

[SilentMartyr]

I don't want to buy a game that I will play once and then never want to play again. They go hand in hand really, you want to make a game that people want to play, and play again, and again, and again....

[Lord J Esq]

I don't want to buy a game that I will play once and then never want to play again. They go hand in hand really, you want to make a game that people want to play, and play again, and again, and again....

Yes, I'm not arguing with that. That's why replayability is on the list, after all. My point is that for a game to be playable twice, it first has to be playable once. It first has to contain the substance that'll make players say "Wow, I want to play that again." And what sorts of things would make a person say that? The other things on the list. It would be a logical fallacy to say that a game's replayability is based on its replayability. Replayability is, in that sense, a meta-quality. The real stuff is the other stuff, which therefore rightfully goes higher on the list.

[Azarath]

I think you should play FF7, it's the best FF game in my opinion.

[V_Translanka]

Yeah, the only way that Replayability could even possibly be higher would be if somehow there were unlockables/extras that actually improved upon any of the previous qualities/merits.

Oh, and Legend of the Past...That's when you whip out yer Auras & Holy Wars and bust a Desperation Break (I like the sound of that now) cap in her (& the following bosses') ass.