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So uh, FFVII kind of sucks?

WoJ

Member
Your loss OP. I replayed through game a few years back and felt it held up great. It's one of the best and most influential games of all time. I need to play it again. I love the remake too. Was my personal game of the year last year.
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
so uh, BossLackey BossLackey kind of sucks?

Just playing, yo. The remake is so completely different from the original that it's obviously possible that one or the other will appeal to different target demographics - which means inevitably there will be people on the Venn diagram in the spot OP finds themselves in, where they like one game but don't like the other.
 

Pimpbaa

Member
It was a downgrade from FF6 for me. The SNES was when the series was at it’s peak IMO. But I don’t think I could say 7 even remotely sucks. Midgar kinda drags the game down, but once you are out of there it is pretty damn good.
 

TheInfamousKira

Reseterror Resettler
It was a downgrade from FF6 for me. The SNES was when the series was at it’s peak IMO. But I don’t think I could say 7 even remotely sucks. Midgar kinda drags the game down, but once you are out of there it is pretty damn good.

FFVI and FFVII are the two pillars of the franchise, with the first five as a solid foundation. I feel like the two are more closely related than they get credit for, from gameplay mechanics and end game party potential to the central villains bearing a deity/corrupted religious icon motif. Seph and Kefka even have a couple of moves in common? (Maybe a couple, definitely Heartless Angel, it's been years since I've played VI) and even similarities in ambience and tone. Both get dark. Both are set in a x-punk era. Narshe looks like it was the first job the construction workers at Midgar took. Same oppressive, mechanical, claustrophobic Feeling.

I mean, I value both as my favorites of the series (maybe IX or XII closing in third) but I definitely feel like these two titles are the closest "brothers," in the series.
 

poodaddy

Gold Member
I agree that FF7 is overrated, can't fault you there. There are many great FF's, it's not even in the top five for me. That being said......the remake is a rancid dumpster fire, so I hard disagree with you there.
 

20cent

Banned
You're not alone, I'd even say that (most) Squaresoft games always sucked for me.

Could never play a RPG without being bored to death until I've tried other studio/publishers.
 

DonF

Member
At the time I was blown away by the graphics and cut scenes. The game was like a playable movie to my dumb kid mind.

Now it feels dated, but it's still good. There is meat there, a clear battle system, progression and world building.

I love the remake too, but it's incomplete and its dependant of the player having played the first game and crisis core and some more media. I don't like that square enix practice of creating more media. I want a focused, complete experience. And only the original offers that.
 

Imtjnotu

Member
Finally, I've found someone who makes worse threads than me.
Emotional Damage GIF by Jennifer Accomando
 

njean777

Member
While I prefer the Remake and like the ATB system. I will always respect the original FF7. It was my first JRPG that I ever played/beat and still is my favorite to this day. I won't ever forget the emotion of beating Safer Sephiroth after losing a bunch of times and being turned into a toad.
 
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radewagon

Member
Fka2OKe.png



FFVII (and FF in general) was kind of a white whale for me growing up. Feel like I played everything but FF. When picking up my PS5 earlier this year, I got the heavy hitters on the console and that included FFVIIR.

I. Fucking. Loved it. Couldn't get enough and then it was over before I knew it. Knew definitively then that I just had to finally play the original.

I'm no stranger to old games. Grew up on the NES and every console forward (and PC) and still often play games older than this. But dear lord this game has problems that I think stem from it being the first 3D title in the franchise and it's protracted development cycle. I actually quite like the way it looks, especially the in-battle character models, but could we please decide on character style? There are 3 vastly different looking character models depending on whether you're in battle, out of battle, or watching an FMV. It's odd. The constant shuffling of party members is aggravating (something that I hated about Remake). The ATB system feels like the worst of both worlds. Instead of feeling exciting, I feel rushed to make decisions AND it's also boring. Press x to win. Didn't quite do enough damage? Change the spell. That's it. That's the combat. Also, the constantly changing camera angles screw up who you're trying to target half the time.

Walk 10 feet. BATTLE!
Walk 10 feet. BATTLE!
Walk 10 feet. BATTLE!

A lot of older JRPGs had randomized battles, but it's so egregious here. This alone is reason enough to put it down IMO. I'm literally afraid of walking in slightly the wrong direction in the open world.

Then there's the shoehorned "mini-games" that aren't even kind of fun and half the time the game does such a poor job of communicating to me what I'm supposed to do that I succeed by trial and error rather than specific effort.

I greatly enjoyed everything up until getting to the open world where my enjoyment quickly fell of a cliff. Cloud is cool, Sephiroth is cool, Midgar is cool. But that's not enough to float this game for me. I think if I continue this game it will strictly be for the sake of completion since I'm anticipating Rebirth and I'd like to know where they deviate.

I understand why it was such a big deal at the time. FMVs, badass villain (in looks at least), cool guy with big sword, 3D graphics. But damn. Shit's overrated as hell.
Tom Hardy Bait GIF
 

Rykan

Member
I'm sorry. I say this with all due respect, but this post seems like an unhinged mess of a rant that seems to completely gloss over the fact that you're playing a game that is like 25 years old at this point.
I'm no stranger to old games. Grew up on the NES and every console forward (and PC) and still often play games older than this. But dear lord this game has problems that I think stem from it being the first 3D title in the franchise and it's protracted development cycle. I actually quite like the way it looks, especially the in-battle character models, but could we please decide on character style? There are 3 vastly different looking character models depending on whether you're in battle, out of battle, or watching an FMV. It's odd
It's not odd, it's a technical limitation. The only art style difference is between the out of combat models and the combat models. The combat models and CGI models use the exact same art style, the CGI ones are just vastly more detailed for obvious reasons. Having characters look vastly different in and out of combat was normal for its time period, it's just a bit more striking in FF7 because it was a graphical marvel for its time. Just take a look at other RPG's of its era. Wild Arms. Suikoden. Breath of Fire. Dragon Quest. All fantastic games, but all of them clearly far less ambitious when it comes to graphics than FF7 was.
. The constant shuffling of party members is aggravating (something that I hated about Remake).
Why? It's part of the story in the first section of the game. Cloud is split up from his party members several times throughout this section of the game. It makes perfect sense that characters come and go from your party. This is only a thing in the beginning of the game. You have access to all of your characters for the rest of the game as soon as you leave Midgar, save for a small section near the end of the game. This complaint seems to suggest that you didn't get very far into the game.
The ATB system feels like the worst of both worlds. Instead of feeling exciting, I feel rushed to make decisions AND it's also boring. Press x to win. Didn't quite do enough damage? Change the spell. That's it. That's the combat. Also, the constantly changing camera angles screw up who you're trying to target half the time.
Okay so which one is it? Are you feeling rushed to make decisions, or is it press x to win? Why would you feel rushed to make decisions if it's just press x to win anyway? There are three different ATB settings in the config menu, one of them pauses the ATB bar while you scroll through magic, items etc.

The camera angles is such a non issue. The camera only moves during spell effects/summons and limit breaks. If this is such an issue for you, then change the ATB to "Wait". Having said all of that: I agree that the combat in FF7 is nothing special. None of the FF games before 10 have interesting combat. It's all very functional, but none of it challenging or deep.
Walk 10 feet. BATTLE!
Walk 10 feet. BATTLE!
Walk 10 feet. BATTLE!

A lot of older JRPGs had randomized battles, but it's so egregious here. This alone is reason enough to put it down IMO. I'm literally afraid of walking in slightly the wrong direction in the open world.
It's not any more egregious than in other RPGs. In fact, the encounter rate is reduced significantly when compared to FFVI. This also kind of suggest that you didn't get very far in the game. You will soon get access to chocobos and several vehicle that you'll use for most of the game.
Then there's the shoehorned "mini-games" that aren't even kind of fun and half the time the game does such a poor job of communicating to me what I'm supposed to do that I succeed by trial and error rather than specific effort.
All of the minigames are incredibly simple and straight forward. Skill issue.
 
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ResurrectedContrarian

Suffers with mild autism
As much as I enjoyed the experience of the remake, the actual gameplay of the original is 1000 times better.

Random Battles are part of a long established risk / reward system. It goes all the way back to tabletop RPGs, doing a hexcraw through a dangerous terrain and wondering if it’s worth pushing a bit further to see what’s ahead when your supplies & HP are dwindling.

Every exploration should carry high risk and danger, else it’s just boring. Why do I even care to explore every last corridor in the remake... is the game just putting me through a series of defined steps, or can I actually *play* by making bets and having stakes?

Different scale no dels for different situations (fight mode scale, exploration scale, world map scale) is also a classic RPG mechanic from tables. And it works. It puts more burden on your imagination to “see” how these different scales fit together.
 

Chastten

Banned
I wouldn't say it sucks, but it's definitely overrated, always has been. And the fans are among the most obnoxious in the industry, even more so than platform warriors.

It's a decent 7/10 game that came out at the right moment. I mean, I can still remember the commercials on TV. Those FMV's were easily the most impressive part of the game, and leagues better than anything we'd seen before. The main villain finally attracted girls to the genre as well, so there's that too. Everything else about this game is kinda average though. It's just that for most people this was their first actual real jRPG so those memories will always remain.
 
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DGrayson

Mod Team and Bat Team
Staff Member
If you like or can deal with turn based random battles it is amazing, but if you cannot i can see how you wouldnt like it. I personally love it and the story is still great.
 

01011001

Banned
FFVII is a terrible game, there's a reason the HD releases added options to disable almost every game mechanic, because they all suck.

"battles are brain-dead, so we included an option for infinite Limit meter!"

"random battles are fucking annoying, so we give an option to turn them off!"

"everything is slow and and drags on for too long, so we implemented a 3x speed up feature!"

it's basically an admission of guilt these remasters.
a shit game that was overhyped when it first came out, blinded everyone with it's prerendered backgroiand FMV sequences, but ultimately is just so much worse than many older RPGs, including FFVI, and ultimately is pretty flawed in almost all gameplay related aspects
 
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Spaceman292

Banned
Fka2OKe.png



FFVII (and FF in general) was kind of a white whale for me growing up. Feel like I played everything but FF. When picking up my PS5 earlier this year, I got the heavy hitters on the console and that included FFVIIR.

I. Fucking. Loved it. Couldn't get enough and then it was over before I knew it. Knew definitively then that I just had to finally play the original.

I'm no stranger to old games. Grew up on the NES and every console forward (and PC) and still often play games older than this. But dear lord this game has problems that I think stem from it being the first 3D title in the franchise and it's protracted development cycle. I actually quite like the way it looks, especially the in-battle character models, but could we please decide on character style? There are 3 vastly different looking character models depending on whether you're in battle, out of battle, or watching an FMV. It's odd. The constant shuffling of party members is aggravating (something that I hated about Remake). The ATB system feels like the worst of both worlds. Instead of feeling exciting, I feel rushed to make decisions AND it's also boring. Press x to win. Didn't quite do enough damage? Change the spell. That's it. That's the combat. Also, the constantly changing camera angles screw up who you're trying to target half the time.

Walk 10 feet. BATTLE!
Walk 10 feet. BATTLE!
Walk 10 feet. BATTLE!

A lot of older JRPGs had randomized battles, but it's so egregious here. This alone is reason enough to put it down IMO. I'm literally afraid of walking in slightly the wrong direction in the open world.

Then there's the shoehorned "mini-games" that aren't even kind of fun and half the time the game does such a poor job of communicating to me what I'm supposed to do that I succeed by trial and error rather than specific effort.

I greatly enjoyed everything up until getting to the open world where my enjoyment quickly fell of a cliff. Cloud is cool, Sephiroth is cool, Midgar is cool. But that's not enough to float this game for me. I think if I continue this game it will strictly be for the sake of completion since I'm anticipating Rebirth and I'd like to know where they deviate.

I understand why it was such a big deal at the time. FMVs, badass villain (in looks at least), cool guy with big sword, 3D graphics. But damn. Shit's overrated as hell.
Your opinion sucks and you don't know how question marks work you clown
 
i'm playing through it for the first time right now. i did have a PS1 but VII completely passed me by.

graphics aside it seems to hold up well for a game from the 90's. i'm enjoying it but i do have to use a guide at times lol because i'm too dumb to figure shit out.
 

KungFucius

King Snowflake
C'mon. Old games sometimes are just too dated to play after playing dozens of modern games for decades. FFVII, while great at the time, aged poorly like most of the games from the late 90s. This is why Square decided to remake it. Random encounters were the worst and almost always interrupt exploring in a way that is angering. None that I played were as bad as Skies of Arcadia. I remember stopping that game because of them.
 
According to the video he posted, he's actually playing the old FFVII demo that came packaged with Tobal No. 1.

I don't remember it much, but often demos crank up the difficulty or random encounters to give the player more time in a small segment of the game. Maybe that is part of the issue?
 

Majukun

Member
it doesn't suck by any definition of the word, but it merits did get amplified by when it was released, but same came be said for a lot of games
 

Fredrik

Member
The original is old and random battles can be annoying but it’s still a great game.

The remake is a completely different game, plays like a bad third person action game and a bad RPG, I don’t understand what they were aiming for. The visuals are nice though and nostalgia from music and certain areas are nice.
 

Jigsaah

Gold Member
Chrono freaking Trigger.
Good call. Was Chrono Trigger before or after FFVII. I wanna say after or maybe close enough that it doesn't really matter. Yea but Chrono Trigger was brutal too. I give the edge to FF only because of the cinematic presentation of the event. I don't remember if Chrono Trigger had the same but I'm thinking it didn't have CGI cutscenes. Been too long, am I mistaken?
 

rodrigolfp

Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
Good call. Was Chrono Trigger before or after FFVII. I wanna say after or maybe close enough that it doesn't really matter. Yea but Chrono Trigger was brutal too. I give the edge to FF only because of the cinematic presentation of the event. I don't remember if Chrono Trigger had the same but I'm thinking it didn't have CGI cutscenes. Been too long, am I mistaken?
Before. 2 years. Real time Crono being disintegrated >>>> potato cutscenes/CGI that belongs to movies. :messenger_tongue:
Why not just have enemies on the overworld like any good rpg does
But then it would not suck so much anymore.
 
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ResurrectedContrarian

Suffers with mild autism
Random encounters are great, actually. Still a critical element of any good tabletop RPG as well. The broader world should be dangerous, every few steps should have another diceroll to see what comes upon you.
 

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
Random encounters are great, actually. Still a critical element of any good tabletop RPG as well. The broader world should be dangerous, every few steps should have another diceroll to see what comes upon you.
FF7 is a story based rpg not a tabletop one, I think it's fair to be able to skip battles if you want to explore the story
The funny part is that I actually really like ff7 and feel the game really ramps up gameplay wise after a while, but the random encounters are fucking awful and dated even for the time (earthbound had overworld enemies and that came out on the SNES)
 

Jigsaah

Gold Member
Before. 2 years. Real time Crono being disintegrated >>>> potato cutscenes/CGI that belongs to movies. :messenger_tongue:

But then it would not suck so much anymore.
I don't know if I played Chrono Trigger when it first came out. Those days I would get games on Christmas and my Birthday or my brother's birthday, so there's a good chance I wasn't even aware of Chrono Trigger until after I played FF7.
 

Mung

Member
Nah, both the original and remake are great, just in different ways.

And playing 25 year old games for the first time and judging them in that way is pointless. Who knows what people will think of the games we loved from this year in 2047.
 

Filben

Member
All what OP says only that Cloud isn't cool (at least in the remake). Introverted emo dude who does nothing but grunt and act either shocked or ignorant. Nothing he says or does makes him gain any sympathy.

He's good with a sword, and that's it.
 

NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
I actually quite like the way it looks, especially the in-battle character models, but could we please decide on character style? There are 3 vastly different looking character models depending on whether you're in battle, out of battle, or watching an FMV. It's odd.
You seriously can’t imagine the technical reasons behind this? I can accept most of your post as personal preference, but this is indefensible.

Random battles were also MUCH more aggravating in FF6. I don’t care how good most of FF6 is, the encounter rate is atrocious and as soon as I get to the caves on the mountain I always call it quits. I only ever finished that game once.
 

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
You seriously can’t imagine the technical reasons behind this? I can accept most of your post as personal preference, but this is indefensible.

Random battles were also MUCH more aggravating in FF6. I don’t care how good most of FF6 is, the encounter rate is atrocious and as soon as I get to the caves on the mountain I always call it quits. I only ever finished that game once.
IDK, FF VI’s battles aren’t exactly deep, strategic affairs either, but at least there were no load times and the animations were very quick.

With VII you get the swirl effect then the little intro animation, it’s like 10 seconds before you input any commands. Then all the animations are much longer on top of it.

BTW IIRC the chibi vs realistic character models in VII were because they had different teams working on the battles vs the overworld. FF VI, VIII, and IX used the same models in battles + overworld (or at least the same style, not sure if they were exactly the same models).
 

Toots

Gold Member
How did "press x to win" work out when you fought Emerald or Ruby Weapon?
Well technically against those bosses it is "press x to win"... or just die.
As in prepare your party for ten hours getting the good materias and leveling them up, then "press x to win" and wait ten minutes for everyone to mime tf out of anything you can encounter :messenger_grinning_sweat:
 

NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
IDK, FF VI’s battles aren’t exactly deep, strategic affairs either, but at least there were no load times and the animations were very quick.

With VII you get the swirl effect then the little intro animation, it’s like 10 seconds before you input any commands. Then all the animations are much longer on top of it.

BTW IIRC the chibi vs realistic character models in VII were because they had different teams working on the battles vs the overworld. FF VI, VIII, and IX used the same models in battles + overworld (or at least the same style, not sure if they were exactly the same models).
There’s places in FF6 where I swear random encounters can be less than 10 steps away from one another. I replayed FF7 just last year and it’s never that bad, except maybe for some bad streaks of RNG. It’s not as systematic as FF6.
I seem to remember battle loading times are much worse in FF9, but I could be mistaken.
To me the problem isn’t the time loss, it’s that in FF6 there’s instances where the screen has barely moved before you’re entering yet another battle. Makes exploration a real chore. At least the camera angles in FF7 mean you have a general idea of where to go, no such luck in FF6. Taking a wrong turn in top-down FF is just horrible.

Different teams or not, battles were clearly meant to be as spectacular as possible in FF7 with the dynamic camera and all the SFX. Meanwhile the chibi characters saved a lot of polygons and contrasted well against the prerendered backgrounds. Also pretty obvious why the CG of the cutscenes was different still, they were the highlight of the game and the polygon models from the battle scenes wouldn’t be enough for what Square was aiming for.
The reasons behind the different styles are not a mystery if one thinks about game development in the late 90s and the Japanese penchant for saving resources wherever possible. Complaining about it 25 years later is moot.

I doubt that the in-battle models in FF9 are the same as the map models. They look way more detailed and animated. But I‘m not sure. Haven’t replayed FF8 in a long time, so I’m not going to comment about that one.
 

Evil Calvin

Afraid of Boobs
Random battles. That is why I started a ton of JRPGs in the 90's and 2000's but dropped most because of that. Miserable. I loved Dragon Quest 8 on the PS2 (looked great too) but bounced off pretty quick as the random battles were just constant. Yep, couldn't walk anywhere without another damn battle.
 

IDKFA

I am Become Bilbo Baggins
I hate to say this, but the original FFVII is so dated that it's pretty much unplayable.

I find it impossible to go from the God like FFXV back to the cute graphics and archaic combat of VII, VIII and IX.

FFVII remake is a lot better, but still no where near as good as XV. It's just amazing how this series gets better and better with every game.
 

Rykan

Member
I seem to remember battle loading times are much worse in FF9, but I could be mistaken.
You are not mistaken.

I've just checked: FFVI on Snes is about 4 - 5 seconds of loading until the battle actually starts. FFVII on PS1 is about 7 - 8 seconds and FFIX on PS1 is about 15 (!!) seconds, but it's okay because it goes like DUNDUNDUNDUNDUNDUNDUN.

Nobody asked, but FFVIII is 11 seconds but about two seconds of that is characters drawing their weapon/getting into fighting stance.
 
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I hate to say this, but the original FFVII is so dated that it's pretty much unplayable.

I find it impossible to go from the God like FFXV back to the cute graphics and archaic combat of VII, VIII and IX.

FFVII remake is a lot better, but still no where near as good as XV. It's just amazing how this series gets better and better with every game.
This might be the most disgusting post I've ever read on the subject. It almost feels like satire.
 
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