I would not have been as kind to FF7 as this author was. By any modern measure it is a bad game. The raw story material and the character design is fantastic. But the gameplay. The gameplay is so tedious the author couldn’t even continue without modifying the game.
I think the main problem with 13 is that it doesn't give the illusion of freedom. I finished FFX for the first time recently (having previously gotten stuck on Gagazet Seymour), and it's almost as restrictive as 13, it just hides it better with cities, temple puzzles, and the sphere grid. In 13 there's no illusion about the fact that you have no choice but to keep running straight down the hallways, and leveling up only at the pace the game allows. A little misidrection or a few minigames would have gone such a long way to break up the pacing.
Totally agree; I started replaying 13 somewhat recently, and just felt worn down after playing for a few hours. The nonstop battles with no real break between them just isn't fun, despite the game having amazing aesthetics.
yeah, one of my problems with Japanese properties in general is this obvious design by committee thing and budget issues that turn great pitches into incoherent nonsense by the end
you can basically count on one hand how many anime style or Japanese gaming properties don't go off the rails and finish the initial story.
Final Fantasy VII is a prime example, the world building at the beginning of the first game in the “VII” franchise is fantastic. In such an arduous funnel, most people see that. But then there’s vampires, dueling identities, ridiculous backstories that cause continuity issues and separate subsequently released games for each, pretty much just ignore the final boss in the first game and the resolution in the post cut scenes, because now there’s multiple universes for no reason with no foreshadowing whatsoever. like. stop. there was no cliffhanger or loose ends.
they even got fans jumping through mental hoops about the definition of “remake” to rationalize the unnecessary ridiculousness of breaking the story even further for no benefit, but in 4k. they could have just done the exact same story without the kingdom hearts nonsense but its like someone at Square can’t be fired for some dumb distinctly Japanese reason.
It seems like you’re talking about the modern FF7 Remake, which is actually an alternate universe version of the original FF7 series.
The original didn’t have a lot of the bits you are calling out because it wasn’t trying to retcon in 20+ years worth of story buildup, and is a much simpler story.
That’s not to justify the complexity of the FF7 lore. I think it and Kingdom Hearts are both ridiculously over complex now, but that people delineate between Remake and the original because of that huge divergence in story.
The article and rest of the comments are about the original game.
I was referring to the first game until I was referring to the remake. read it again?
I find the first game charming and evocative, while acknowledging there were some parts to expand upon, loose ends even, but the way they did that definitely jumped the shark.
Ah my bad. I misunderstood what the subject was in the paragraph when you talked about the “first game” and the criticisms after, since they’re largely scoped to the remake rather than earlier games in the franchise.
When I played it in college - I recognized that playing it fair and square would create undue competition for my studies.
I used the hex edit cheats to max out my characters, and breezed through it in 23 hours. A great decision. I got to experience all that plot, all the mini games, and only compromised the combat build aspect of it. The last battle, even at max stats, was not a cakewalk. There were weapons I still have not defeated.
They don't like the encounter rates. It definitely got annoying at times, but the encounters and leveling up have been part and parcel for this genre of RPGs.
Personally I'm the delayed gratification type where I'll level up to a point where I steamroll all the bad guys in the main storyline. Even high encounter rate areas aren't bad when it's a one hit kill.
I'd do that pretty much every playthrough when I got to the woods where you find Yuffie. I'd farm limit breaks up to lvl3 on the groups of 5-6 little bug guys that you can run into. By the time I'd get my limits to 3 they'd all be pretty OP in terms of their level.
I played several FF games a few years ago for the first time and felt like this for almost all of them (all on the Switch, don't remember which numbers offhand). The gameplay elements were just clunky and I gave up on those a few hours in, though I did complete X. Haven't done X-2 yet though.
