Final Fantasy VII is considered by many to be one of the best, if not even the best, game in the entire Final Fantasy series. In my opinion, it's not a horrible game per se, but I'm not a big fan of it either, for many reasons.
My initial experience with the game was less than positive, as it left me with a quite sour impression. To understand why, we have to go back to the time when I played the game for the first time, in the early 2000's.
I had previously played Final Fantasy VIII, as well as Final Fantasy IX. All three of these games are for the same console generation, namely the first PlayStation. My primary notion of what a (at that time) "modern" 3D Final Fantasy game should look like was shaped by these two games. At the time, FF VIII looked absolutely fantastic.
It might not look like much by modern standards, but you have to remember that this was the era of the first PlayStation, and the year was 2000. In that time period, in that context, the graphics of FF VIII, as well as its prerendered cutscenes, looked absolutely stunning.
FF IX, for the same console, was also very good-looking, even though the visual design was rather different.
As mentioned, this is the background I had about the (at the time) "modern" 3D Final Fantasy games. Believe it or not, I didn't actually know what Final Fantasy VII looked like, graphically. While the internet was already in full form in the early 2000's, and I had internet access, I was still completely unaware of what the game looked like.
When I first started playing the game, I was seriously thinking if it was some kind of joke.
It was surreal. I was wondering if this was some kind of prank, some kind of really weird April's Fools joke being played on me, or something. No way the game looked like this. Even the prerendered cutscenes (which in FF8 were absolutely fantastic) looked like complete ass.
It slowly dawned on me that yes... the game does really look like this. It's not some kind of joke, or some kind of weird in-game hallucination, where the characters start looking like this for some reason, but later the actual graphics are revealed. No, it's like this all the way through.
I'm not making this up. For like the first hour or two I played the game I was kind of hoping that this was just some weird intro thing, like some kind of weird dream sequence, or someone's imagination, or something, where the dream is being represented by chibi characters, and that the actual real graphics would appear at some point. But nope. The more I played the game, the clearer it became that it would be like this in its entirety.
It was a disappointment. I might have played the games in the "wrong" order, which had put my expectations on technical quality too high, but still, it was a disappointment.
The other major problem was that even though I hadn't got myself "spoiled" on the graphical look of the game, it was pretty much impossible to not having been spoiled about the biggest twist in the game. This meant that since I knew what would happen eventually, I didn't emotionally invest at all in the character involved. Since there was no emotional investment of any kind, the whole sequence where the twist happens felt completely hollow and emotionless. Even boring.
Overall, as a game, as a JRPG, I didn't find it all that great. Definitely not the worst JRPG out there, and not even the worst Final Fantasy game out there... but it was mostly quite meh. I just didn't understand, nor have I since understood, what was so great about it. It was just... meh.
In retrospect I do understand one reason why I found it quite meh even back then: The complete change in setting and tone compared to previous games in the series.
All six of the previous games were high fantasy games, set in some kind of fictional universe based at large on medieval Europe and Japan. You know, your archetypal high fantasy setting. Perhaps the only exception to this is, partially, Final Fantasy VI, which already started showing more sci-fi influences in it (by having steampunk-like magitech machinery and technology). However, it was still mostly pure high fantasy, with the magitech part not being extremely intrusive or tone-setting. (And, in my opinion, Final Fantasy VI is the best game in the entire series.)
But what started a bit with FF6, they went full swing in FF7. Where FF6 is like 90% fantasy, 10% sci-fi, FF7 is more like 95% sci-fi, 5% fantasy. This was a very radical change in setting and tone.
I'm not very fond of this kind of setting in JRPGs. Unfortunately it appears that Square is set-on in making all Final Fantasy games use this 95%/5% sci-fi/fantasy setting (with the only exception being FF9, which was almost pure high fantasy. But that game was a deliberate throwback anyway.)
What started with FFVII has continued with FFVIII, FFX, FFXIII and FFXV. (I have not played FFXII, which I understand is more fantasy once again. It might be an exception. The remaining two are MMORPGs, which I have zero interest in.)
I'm actually not looking forward to the upcoming FF7 remake, especially since it seems to follow this obsession by Square Enix of removing every possible traditional JRPG element from the Final Fantasy franchise, which they started with FFX and have continued all the way to FFXV, which has almost no traditional JRPG elements of any kind (although it's not even nearly as bad as FFX and FFXIII were in this regard.)
In my opinion, the last good Final Fantasy game, the last actual Final Fantasy game, was the 9th one. After that... they took the FF7 formula and went way too far with it.
In a way, one could say that FF7 ruined the entire franchise. It paved the way for the modern Final Fantasy games, which are just unenjoyable and retain pretty much nothing of what made the first games in the series so good.
My initial experience with the game was less than positive, as it left me with a quite sour impression. To understand why, we have to go back to the time when I played the game for the first time, in the early 2000's.
I had previously played Final Fantasy VIII, as well as Final Fantasy IX. All three of these games are for the same console generation, namely the first PlayStation. My primary notion of what a (at that time) "modern" 3D Final Fantasy game should look like was shaped by these two games. At the time, FF VIII looked absolutely fantastic.
It might not look like much by modern standards, but you have to remember that this was the era of the first PlayStation, and the year was 2000. In that time period, in that context, the graphics of FF VIII, as well as its prerendered cutscenes, looked absolutely stunning.
FF IX, for the same console, was also very good-looking, even though the visual design was rather different.
As mentioned, this is the background I had about the (at the time) "modern" 3D Final Fantasy games. Believe it or not, I didn't actually know what Final Fantasy VII looked like, graphically. While the internet was already in full form in the early 2000's, and I had internet access, I was still completely unaware of what the game looked like.
When I first started playing the game, I was seriously thinking if it was some kind of joke.
It was surreal. I was wondering if this was some kind of prank, some kind of really weird April's Fools joke being played on me, or something. No way the game looked like this. Even the prerendered cutscenes (which in FF8 were absolutely fantastic) looked like complete ass.
It slowly dawned on me that yes... the game does really look like this. It's not some kind of joke, or some kind of weird in-game hallucination, where the characters start looking like this for some reason, but later the actual graphics are revealed. No, it's like this all the way through.
I'm not making this up. For like the first hour or two I played the game I was kind of hoping that this was just some weird intro thing, like some kind of weird dream sequence, or someone's imagination, or something, where the dream is being represented by chibi characters, and that the actual real graphics would appear at some point. But nope. The more I played the game, the clearer it became that it would be like this in its entirety.
It was a disappointment. I might have played the games in the "wrong" order, which had put my expectations on technical quality too high, but still, it was a disappointment.
The other major problem was that even though I hadn't got myself "spoiled" on the graphical look of the game, it was pretty much impossible to not having been spoiled about the biggest twist in the game. This meant that since I knew what would happen eventually, I didn't emotionally invest at all in the character involved. Since there was no emotional investment of any kind, the whole sequence where the twist happens felt completely hollow and emotionless. Even boring.
Overall, as a game, as a JRPG, I didn't find it all that great. Definitely not the worst JRPG out there, and not even the worst Final Fantasy game out there... but it was mostly quite meh. I just didn't understand, nor have I since understood, what was so great about it. It was just... meh.
In retrospect I do understand one reason why I found it quite meh even back then: The complete change in setting and tone compared to previous games in the series.
All six of the previous games were high fantasy games, set in some kind of fictional universe based at large on medieval Europe and Japan. You know, your archetypal high fantasy setting. Perhaps the only exception to this is, partially, Final Fantasy VI, which already started showing more sci-fi influences in it (by having steampunk-like magitech machinery and technology). However, it was still mostly pure high fantasy, with the magitech part not being extremely intrusive or tone-setting. (And, in my opinion, Final Fantasy VI is the best game in the entire series.)
But what started a bit with FF6, they went full swing in FF7. Where FF6 is like 90% fantasy, 10% sci-fi, FF7 is more like 95% sci-fi, 5% fantasy. This was a very radical change in setting and tone.
I'm not very fond of this kind of setting in JRPGs. Unfortunately it appears that Square is set-on in making all Final Fantasy games use this 95%/5% sci-fi/fantasy setting (with the only exception being FF9, which was almost pure high fantasy. But that game was a deliberate throwback anyway.)
What started with FFVII has continued with FFVIII, FFX, FFXIII and FFXV. (I have not played FFXII, which I understand is more fantasy once again. It might be an exception. The remaining two are MMORPGs, which I have zero interest in.)
I'm actually not looking forward to the upcoming FF7 remake, especially since it seems to follow this obsession by Square Enix of removing every possible traditional JRPG element from the Final Fantasy franchise, which they started with FFX and have continued all the way to FFXV, which has almost no traditional JRPG elements of any kind (although it's not even nearly as bad as FFX and FFXIII were in this regard.)
In my opinion, the last good Final Fantasy game, the last actual Final Fantasy game, was the 9th one. After that... they took the FF7 formula and went way too far with it.
In a way, one could say that FF7 ruined the entire franchise. It paved the way for the modern Final Fantasy games, which are just unenjoyable and retain pretty much nothing of what made the first games in the series so good.
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