IGN: Is Final Fantasy VII overrated? spoilers, for FFVII, FFVI, and Lost Odyssey

retro.ign.com/articles/958/958466p1.html

It looks like one editor says no, but the other says yes, bigtime.

And to answer the question...YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Its not only just hugely overrated, it is the most overrated game of all time.

I do like the game and I think it has the best combat system in the series. But the story has to be one of the worst in the series and the games graphics have aged poorly. I rather be in the medieval themes of IV and V, the steampunk theme of VI, the european futuristic theme of VIII, the ****c theme of IX, the south asian tropical theme of X, and the sky city theme of XII than be in the ugly cyberpunk theme of VII. Only some setpieces in VII look great, such as the Ancient City where Aerith is killed and Yuffie's town. The story has little heart (except for some scenes) and wild and all over the place, unlike the other FF games, ESPECIALLY VI and X. While the killing of Aerith was stunning and well done, its not like they haven't killed playable characters before, some characters in II, alot of characters in IV including twin kids Porom and Palom, a party member in V, Shadow and Gogo in VI. Other than a couple of scenes with Aeris and Tifa, the game has no heart. The story is also heavily metaphysical and confusing, unlike VI's simpler but more effective story. Barrett is just an awful character and the translation is poor as well. Sephiroth is also an overrated villian, a cool looking one, but he is no Kefka. But when the game came out, I liked it. Like I said, the battles are well done and revolutionary, although the summons last way to long. But after I beaten it twice and played the newer ones as well as VI, I just don't connect to it as much as the others, and it is the story and characters that make VII weaker in my eyes. XIII needs to be like VI, light on the metaphysics (enough to tell the story), but heavily on the humanity.

Lost Odyssey is a good example of what FF games should go back to. Like VI, it focuses on the characters and it has very humanistic themes, some which I think are even better than VI in some areas. I actually think Lirum's death was more tragic than Aeris's death in VII. The crew is better too, I rather play as Kaim and his crew rather than Cloud and his...their characters are just so overrated.

victim's of the hype machine...

I guess FFVII is so praised by fans, that new player might think they will achieve some kind of nirvana by playing it. And then they get disappointed.

Just ignore the fanbase, Final Fantasy VII is a great game, but not if you play it with "CLOUD KUN IS SO KAWAII DESU!!!!111" in your head.

I still think its a good game that I love but really I dont think I would put it in the top 5 in terms of the series.

Most games from that era that did something special and popularized it are remembered as these fantastic beacons of light that can never be bad.

I just look back on games like FFVII and OoT and wonder how people ever liked them at all. Games I remember fondly from that time were games like Vagrant Story, Parasite Eve, Super Smash Bros. and Mario 64.

I think people fail to notice some of the better things about the games. The real dirt on FF7 is that it marked the beggining of a sort of golden age in gaming or at least in RPGs. It was groundbreaking in the respect of consoles of the time and drew untold new leagues of fans to the RPG genre and consoles as well.

The golden age I speak of is that RPGs got so hyped that 6-7 blockbuster rpgs came out a year as well as tons of other games in between that were of replayable quality. If you wanted a good game in other genres they flourished as well with so many new customers so their was lots of quality titles on the markert.

FF7- was just fun, which is something we all needed in an RPG at the time. It also marked the beggining of another trend we would see become popular in games wihich was stuffing them with minigames.

FF8 - was very realistic in terms of graphics but was lackluster among other brighter FF titles.

FF9- had some extremely lovable characters that made the story worth following.

As for the rest:

FF10 - Graphics gallore at the time, interesting story.

FF10/2 - While the game often reminded you of a cheap 1970s porn flick it had a very streamlined battle system where characters acted simultaneously instead of in turn but still kept battle turn based.

FF12 - Kept the battle formula from 10-2, good story like in 10 and 7, and made leaps and bounds in terms of the combat system which for the first time abandoned the act and wait strategy. The game arrived far to late in the PS2s life cycle to be noticed.

So to sum up what I'm saying, FF7 just had a notable positions in a time when the gaming industry started to flourish. My personal experience of it back then was that I almost never bought a game that wasnt good and worth what you paid for it. Right now the gaming industry is devoid of as many robust titles as back then and now sometimes $50 just isnt worth it anymore. Companies have loadedthe market with crap games for insane prices right now. RPGs are extremely rare especially good ones. So I guess all us fanboys like to reminisce about the good old days.

FF7 is no means overrated, if anything it started the RPG craze of the 90's and made way for some of the greatest RPGs after it.

As for LO its probably one of the best RPGs we've had in 2-3 years (havent played it yet but it looks awesome).

I think people fail to notice some of the better things about the games. The real dirt on FF7 is that it marked the beggining of a sort of golden age in gaming or at least in RPGs. It was groundbreaking in the respect of consoles of the time and drew untold new leagues of fans to the RPG genre and consoles as well.

deep_sea_six

When FFVII was launched in the states, it outgrossed the leading movie that week (which was GI Jane IIRC). This was a huge wake-up call to SCEA which prior to this had a really negative view of RPGs, to the point of alienating the companies that made/published them - such as Working Designs. Even on the SNES and Genesis RPGs weren't nearly as numerous in the States as they became after FFVII.

So however we might try to write-off FFVII, for every JRPG that we want to say is better, none of them has contributed to the worldwide (i.e, outside of Japan) success of the genre like FFVII has - that's got to be worth something. The game couldn't have acheived what it did without having something going for it.

FF7 is no means overrated, if anything it started the RPG craze of the 90's and made way for some of the greatest RPGs after it.

As for LO its probably one of the best RPGs we've had in 2-3 years (havent played it yet but it looks awesome).

I think the best part of VII is that its such a 90s game.

People were starting to be very concious of human impact on the planet, and VII's focus ont he health of the planet and real world parallels were delightful.

The big bad corporation aspect of the game is also very 90s and I enjoyed it.

No, it wasn't the greatest RPG ever. It had a horrible translation, was sometimes silly in the plot department, but it was definitely a good RPG with loveable characters.

[QUOTE="Ballroompirate"]

FF7 is no means overrated, if anything it started the RPG craze of the 90's and made way for some of the greatest RPGs after it.

As for LO its probably one of the best RPGs we've had in 2-3 years (havent played it yet but it looks awesome).

texasgoldrush

Imo okami is a better zelda game than TP.

I think the best part of VII is that its such a 90s game.

People were starting to be very concious of human impact on the planet, and VII's focus ont he health of the planet and real world parallels were delightful.

The big bad corporation aspect of the game is also very 90s and I enjoyed it.

No, it wasn't the greatest RPG ever. It had a horrible translation, was sometimes silly in the plot department, but it was definitely a good RPG with loveable characters.

I think the best part of VII is that its such a 90s game.

People were starting to be very concious of human impact on the planet, and VII's focus ont he health of the planet and real world parallels were delightful.

The big bad corporation aspect of the game is also very 90s and I enjoyed it.

No, it wasn't the greatest RPG ever. It had a horrible translation, was sometimes silly in the plot department, but it was definitely a good RPG with loveable characters.

hakanakumono

Yes, it is overrated. But does that suddenly make it a horrible game? Can't there be some sort of middle ground? Sure its rabid fans are annoying, but that doesn't stop Final Fantasy VII from being a high quality game.

I consider FFVI quite poor, so I never understood the hype behind that.

FFVII, was just a masterpiece. I don't know what you people want out of it. The game had excellent pacing, story, and characters with solid and original (instead of copying DQ for a change) battle system.

FFVI had a game that poor pacing, few good characters and few absurd characters, and broken system called esper system that you can exploit.

seriously, FFVI was not up to par compared to other fine JRPGs Square put out during that era. Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, etc were all better games.

FFVII was the self destruction of the JRPG genre on so many different levels. It prioritized presentation over role playing elements and was such a huge success that it launched a copy cat frenzy that saw devs just trying to make flashier games and more turn based menu tweaks when time could have spent trying to evolve the genre in another direction. Now any little change done to this formula is seen by people as JRPG's copying WRPG conventions or they can stay the course and have critics pan them by sticking to the same matrix for decades. smerlus

FFVII was the self destruction of the JRPG genre on so many different levels. It prioritized presentation over role playing elements and was such a huge success that it launched a copy cat frenzy that saw devs just trying to make flashier games and more turn based menu tweaks when time could have spent trying to evolve the genre in another direction. Now any little change done to this formula is seen by people as JRPG's copying WRPG conventions or they can stay the course and have critics pan them by sticking to the same matrix for decades. smerlus

Oh reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaally?

That's funny because AFTER FFVII came out, JRPG took a huge stride and became main stream of gaming.

Not to mention that's when many unique ones came out like Xenogears, Shadow Hearts, etc.

Also thanks to presentation heavy formula JRPG used, it is when the story of games really started to matter and actually gave more weight to the games itself. Which is important to gaming these days.

And JRPG took major turns since FFVII by trying to do many other things. Wild Arms series tried to bring unique methods of dungeon crawling by adding some puzzle platform like elements to it, Suikoden came out and taking JRPG to whole other direction by adding different perspective to the story and having that building army sims to it.

[QUOTE="smerlus"]FFVII was the self destruction of the JRPG genre on so many different levels. It prioritized presentation over role playing elements and was such a huge success that it launched a copy cat frenzy that saw devs just trying to make flashier games and more turn based menu tweaks when time could have spent trying to evolve the genre in another direction. Now any little change done to this formula is seen by people as JRPG's copying WRPG conventions or they can stay the course and have critics pan them by sticking to the same matrix for decades. TriangleHard

Oh reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaally?

That's funny because AFTER FFVII came out, JRPG took a huge stride and became main stream of gaming.

Not to mention that's when many unique ones came out like Xenogears, Shadow Hearts, etc.

Also thanks to presentation heavy formula JRPG used, it is when the story of games really started to matter and actually gave more weight to the games itself. Which is important to gaming these days.

And JRPG took major turns since FFVII by trying to do many other things. Wild Arms series tried to bring unique methods of dungeon crawling by adding some puzzle platform like elements to it, Suikoden came out and taking JRPG to whole other direction by adding different perspective to the story and having that building army sims to it.

[QUOTE="TriangleHard"]

[QUOTE="smerlus"]FFVII was the self destruction of the JRPG genre on so many different levels. It prioritized presentation over role playing elements and was such a huge success that it launched a copy cat frenzy that saw devs just trying to make flashier games and more turn based menu tweaks when time could have spent trying to evolve the genre in another direction. Now any little change done to this formula is seen by people as JRPG's copying WRPG conventions or they can stay the course and have critics pan them by sticking to the same matrix for decades. smerlus

Oh reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaally?

That's funny because AFTER FFVII came out, JRPG took a huge stride and became main stream of gaming.

Not to mention that's when many unique ones came out like Xenogears, Shadow Hearts, etc.

Also thanks to presentation heavy formula JRPG used, it is when the story of games really started to matter and actually gave more weight to the games itself. Which is important to gaming these days.

And JRPG took major turns since FFVII by trying to do many other things. Wild Arms series tried to bring unique methods of dungeon crawling by adding some puzzle platform like elements to it, Suikoden came out and taking JRPG to whole other direction by adding different perspective to the story and having that building army sims to it.

Sales is precisely what made JRPG main stream.

FFVII nearly sold 10 million and FFVIII alsoaround 7~8 million. Number that has never been reached by JRPG.

Even highly successful JRPG games like FFVI only hit around 2~3 mil.

Ever since FFVII came out, JRPGs were sold at much MUCH higher rate than previous years. Considering how poorly Dragon Quest series were sold when it was called Dragon Warriors in the States, that's huge jump.

You call them niche games but many of them turned into franchise. Suikoden reached 5th game, Persona series are going really strong, and Shadow Heart franchise had 4 games. That's pretty steady production and that means they managed to put up some sales.

The reason why Xenogears sequels not out is because the creators of Xenogears left Square. They made spiritual sequel called Xenosaga. Xenogears was great game, but it's a stain in Square's reputation since it was incomplete game. Obviously Square would not make sequel to a game that shames them. Considering 4 games came out under the name Xeno on home consoles, I'd say that one did pretty well even if the spiritual sequel was much weaker compared to the original.

Put it that way, then Fallout series were most certainly a niche game until Fallout 3 which managed to get some budget for a change, and considering Fallout series is one of the bigger WRPG franchise, then we can call entire WRPG genre a niche genre, in your definition.

And considering the story of how most WRPG goes, 8 year old boy that could make a crow laugh by playing national anthem in armpit farts fits quite well. There is only so much generic set up for story can go, especially with same ol' gameplay setting and dungeon & dragons formula.

Well, that took just over two page for the thread to degenerate into WRPG versus JRPG. I almost want to pull the old SDG acronym out of hiding.DJ_Lae

[QUOTE="DJ_Lae"]Well, that took just over two page for the thread to degenerate into WRPG versus JRPG. I almost want to pull the old SDG acronym out of hiding.smerlus

My main problem with FFVII is that it recieves an inordinate amount of praise while truly fantastic games like Vagrant Story, Einhander, Parasite Eve 1/2, Front Mission 3 and Chrono Cross get shoved under the rug.

I consider FFVI quite poor, so I never understood the hype behind that.

FFVII, was just a masterpiece. I don't know what you people want out of it. The game had excellent pacing, story, and characters with solid and original (instead of copying DQ for a change) battle system.

FFVI had a game that poor pacing, few good characters and few absurd characters, and broken system called esper system that you can exploit.

seriously, FFVI was not up to par compared to other fine JRPGs Square put out during that era. Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, etc were all better games.

I don't have much to add but I love the Retro page of IGN. the podcast RetroCity is one of my favorites. Levi just puts so much care into everything.

Yes, Final Fantasy VII is overrated, but that does not make it bad. Do not confuse the two terms.

[QUOTE="TriangleHard"]

[QUOTE="smerlus"]FFVII was the self destruction of the JRPG genre on so many different levels. It prioritized presentation over role playing elements and was such a huge success that it launched a copy cat frenzy that saw devs just trying to make flashier games and more turn based menu tweaks when time could have spent trying to evolve the genre in another direction. Now any little change done to this formula is seen by people as JRPG's copying WRPG conventions or they can stay the course and have critics pan them by sticking to the same matrix for decades. smerlus

Oh reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaally?

That's funny because AFTER FFVII came out, JRPG took a huge stride and became main stream of gaming.

Not to mention that's when many unique ones came out like Xenogears, Shadow Hearts, etc.

Also thanks to presentation heavy formula JRPG used, it is when the story of games really started to matter and actually gave more weight to the games itself. Which is important to gaming these days.

And JRPG took major turns since FFVII by trying to do many other things. Wild Arms series tried to bring unique methods of dungeon crawling by adding some puzzle platform like elements to it, Suikoden came out and taking JRPG to whole other direction by adding different perspective to the story and having that building army sims to it.

VII didn't change the JRPG genre to focus on presentation, that was an already growing force within gaming that came with the introduction of 3D and FMV.

Game makers not only wanted to make great games but they wanted to tell great stories with solid presentations.

There's nothing wrong with focusing on having a good presentation. Ironically, looking at VII now I'd say the presentation was somewhat poor. :roll:

You're just being bitter.

Just let the game die. It has not aged well.Master-Thief-09

Graphically, of course it hasn't. Translation-wise...the same. A lot of the other aspects are still great, even if the beginning sucks horribly.

[QUOTE="Master-Thief-09"]Just let the game die. It has not aged well.Video_Game_King

Graphically, of course it hasn't. Translation-wise...the same. A lot of the other aspects are still great, even if the beginning sucks horribly.

Sales is precisely what made JRPG main stream.

FFVII nearly sold 10 million and FFVIII alsoaround 7~8 million. Number that has never been reached by JRPG.

Even highly successful JRPG games like FFVI only hit around 2~3 mil.

Ever since FFVII came out, JRPGs were sold at much MUCH higher rate than previous years. Considering how poorly Dragon Quest series were sold when it was called Dragon Warriors in the States, that's huge jump.

You call them niche games but many of them turned into franchise. Suikoden reached 5th game, Persona series are going really strong, and Shadow Heart franchise had 4 games. That's pretty steady production and that means they managed to put up some sales.

The reason why Xenogears sequels not out is because the creators of Xenogears left Square. They made spiritual sequel called Xenosaga. Xenogears was great game, but it's a stain in Square's reputation since it was incomplete game. Obviously Square would not make sequel to a game that shames them. Considering 4 games came out under the name Xeno on home consoles, I'd say that one did pretty well even if the spiritual sequel was much weaker compared to the original.

Put it that way, then Fallout series were most certainly a niche game until Fallout 3 which managed to get some budget for a change, and considering Fallout series is one of the bigger WRPG franchise, then we can call entire WRPG genre a niche genre, in your definition.

And considering the story of how most WRPG goes, 8 year old boy that could make a crow laugh by playing national anthem in armpit farts fits quite well. There is only so much generic set up for story can go, especially with same ol' gameplay setting and dungeon & dragons formula.