Is This Really the Greatest Final Fantasy Game Released?

One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to complete Final Fantasy VII (FFVII) and to mark this achievement I have decided to write up my views on this game. I should also point out that this blog will contain spoilers from the game, so you have been warned.

If you have been reading my blog over the last year you would know that while I was growing up I did everything that I could to stay away from anything that could be classed as popular or well talked about and this is true for the Final Fantasy series. I did while I was growing up play a bit of Final Fantasy VI/III on the SNES but I never fully completed it back then but when I look back on it now I can see that I wasn’t too far from the finishing the game, but with the hype around Final Fantasy VII onwards I just stayed away from the series.

Now back in February I decided that I would start playing Final Fantasy VII and didn’t finish it till the end of April, it has now taken me till now to write up this blog due to that fact that every time I ended up writing about FFVII my opinion ended up changing. The reason for this was the fact that the more I wanted to how good this game was the more I discovered that I just couldn’t didn’t like it.

Yes this may come as a shocker to all those that love FFVII and those that like all types of RPG’s (Role-Playing Game (like myself)) but every time I through I liked something and then tried to explain why I liked it I discovered that I just didn’t. You could say that it was because I was over analysing the game or looking for away to dislike the game but that wasn’t the case because while I was playing the game I made sure that I had my Laptop with me writing everything that had happened at each point of the game, from characters to story.

After I completing the game I discovered that I had more questions than answers when it came to the story and the only way that I could get those answers was to spend a few days after completing the game looking for those answers on the Internet. While reading up on the story I discovered that some of my questions could have been answered if I went and completed some of the side quest that I didn’t find or know about while I was playing.

An example of this was when it came to how Tifa was able to get out of her home town of Nibelheim after Sephiroth attacked and destroyed the town. You only find out the answers to this questions when you go back to Nibelheim and start examine Tifa old house, while examine you will discover a note that has been placed on her Piano which examples how she got from Nibelhiem to Midgar. I understand that an RPG needs to be open so that everyone can play it in their own way but I just found that a lot of the questions that I had were to do with the story and it would have be nice if at some point in the game it actual mentioned this side quest a bit better.

If there was on thing that really put me off the game was the main character Cloud, the problem that I had with him was the fact that he had no interest what so ever with what was going on around him until he hears the name Sephiroth. I am aware that Cloud makes it very clear in the first hour of the game that he will only do jobs as a long as the money is good but when you are given a choice and his top answer is him not wanting to help why would give me the chose. The best example that I could give would be when Cloud has to save a young woman called Percilla by perform CPR on her but Cloud makes it very clear that he doesn’t want to help her but the game will only allow you to continue if you do choice to help her. I know that RPG’s are all about giving the player a choice but why made me play as character that doesn’t want to do anything.

There are other problems that I have with the game, which start with the story and go all the way down to the some of the controls. What I mean when it comes to the story is the way in which it is told to us, an Example of this would be that Cloud has a problem with Sephiroth but it doesn’t explain why Cloud has this problem with Sephiroth till much later in the game but when you do learn the truth you also discovers that everyone that did survive the events at Nibelhiem were then experimented on or killed which then leads to how did Tifa get away and why does everyone believe that Cloud is a clone and so one. There are so many twist and turns within this game that you just get lost as to what is true and not and a lot of what needs to be explained isn’t explained in the main quest or side quests.

Yes there was a lot wrong with this game but there were some stand out points that I really enjoyed. Some of the best bits came from the other characters that are within your party, good examples of this would be some of the other characters had believable past which made you relate to the characters more and you could see why they were upset or why they wanted to help. Examples of this would be Tifa, Barret and Cid and the reason for this was because you could see how much they had been thought to get where they are now.

Another part of the game that I did enjoy was the music, in some parts of the game the music fitted the mood perfectly but there were one or two tracks that to me I just didn’t like but that is normal for most games.

I wanted to believe that this game was as great as everyone had made it out to be but deep down I didn’t like it and the reason for that is because I have played better JRPG that have been done better in every way from the characters to the story. This game may have allowed a lot of people to get into JRPG’s and this could be the reason that this game is praised so highly but for me this game just didn’t know where it was going and made you control a character that just didn’t care about anything else than revenge. I will admit that revenge can be a very powerful way to push a story forward but if your story is all over the place and the main character doesn’t want to get involved in what is going on you just feel disconnection from the game and its characters.

I have always classed RPG’s as a way in which we can escape our world and feel like we are doing some good in another world but when it comes to FFVII I just felt like I wasn’t doing any good and that I had to fight the wishes of the main character himself. Should this game be classed as the best JRPG and used as a template for all RPG’s in the future? My answer would be no and my reasoning behind this is that there are far better JRPG’s and WRPG’s out there now that have better story than this game.

I know that a lot of fans of this game will say that I am wrong but I ask you to go back and play this game again as if you have never played it before and then tell me what you think of it, don’t allow your nostalgia of this game cloud you.

Until Next Time

Character Development

Over the past three weeks I have spend a large amount of my time writing very long blogs to which I am sorry for, on the Mass Effect series, starting with my thoughts on the series ending to how I got into the series and why I have enjoyed it so much.

While writing last week’s blog I touch on in very little detail the character development that takes place within the series and that a series can only survive if it can find a balance between the characters, world and story. An example of this that I would like to use would be any television show you watch, the main reason that you watch these shows is for the story and its characters and over time if those character don’t show any change or the story stays the same you will at some point become bored with the show and leave. If the show runners are able to create a balance between these two facts you will then be able to bring more people in to the series and give those that are watching a reason to return to the show the next time it comes back on and Mass Effect has done this very well.

The one thing that I would like to point out before I go on, is that once a series reaches its conclusion on its own terms you have to have created something within that time frame to give those that have invested time into your show a reason to come back and re-watch it even though they may already know the outcome. Examples of this would be the story and characters from Babylon 5, the comedy and relationship of Chuck and the story of Battlestar Galactica 2003. As you can see from my examples, each show I have listed also has a reasons as to why I would go back and revisit them.

As I have stated a moments ago Mass Effect has found a way in which to create this balance while at the same time giving those the chance to invest in the story and its characters. For me the first game created balance between the two very well, while the second game forced more on character development and the final game going more into story development.

I know that a large amount of the fan base will disagree with me but that is a topic for another time, today I just want to have a look at the characters themselves. The one theme that always come up in both the original and the second game is that you spend a large amount of your time talking to your crew members about their past and getting to know them, but the way in which the game makes sure you are not being over loaded with information is by only telling you so much before stopping and then only carrying on after you have completed another mission. Each time you interact with them you find out a bit more information about them while at the same time discover how they got to where they are now, plus you also get this feeling that you are helping them with their past.

By the time you arrive at the third game the character development that has taken place in the previous two games slows down so that the story can take a more centre stage but also allowing for those characters to grow and come to terms with their own actions.

The way in which the series gets you involved with the characters is to try and get you to sympathise with them along with allowing you to try and find apart of you within these characters. A great example of this would be Mordin Solus, when you first meet him you discover that he is a doctor who wants to give back to the galaxy before he dies. As you start to get to know him you find out that he worked for his races Special Forces while at the same time improving upon the Krogan genophage that was created by his race long ago. By this point you discovery that he is helping to create genocide on another race and that his reasoning behind all of it is statistics, when you do meet up with him in Mass Effect 3 you discovery that he has decided to help cure the genophage because he wants atone for what he has done, I won’t spoil what happens next but in just two games you end up caring what happens to him and that in some way you have had a hand in making him realise the error of his ways.

Another great example would be Thane, when you first go looking for him all you know in advance is that he is a contact assassin but just after a few moments of seeing what he can do you get this picture that he is a ruthless killer while being a very holy person as heart. Just like with Mordin when you finally do start talking to him you discover that he has an incurable disease that is killing him and that he wants to connect with his son and make up for lost time.

Again there a more character within the series than those that I have just spoke about and each one is completely different from the next but it is the way in which the writers have been able to create these characters so that we can relate ourselves to them while caring about who they are and what happens to them. This to me is good writing and this is just one of the reasons this series will stand the test of time and why so many will come back to it again and again, if it wasn’t for the story or the characters themselves I don’t think this game series would have been as successful as it is.

Until Next Time

Why a month of content?

If you have been following me on Twitter then you might have seen a tweet from me talking about Mass Effect March, you might also be asking yourselves what am I on about and if you do then you might be asking yourself why am, I making a whole month of content for just one game series. Well the reasons why I wanted to spend the whole month talking about this series is one, that I want others to know how I got into the series and why I like the series along with everything that has happened over the last year, I thought that I would at least try and shrine a positive light back on the series.

When the series was first released I was still at that point in my life where I wouldn’t play games, read books or listen to music that were popular and a good example of this would be when my brother (who had moved away to go university) came down for the weekend, we as a family went out for the day and he decided that he wanted to visit our local GAME store. While we were in the store I remember him talking about how much he wanted to play Mass Effect and because of his statement and the way I was back then I decided to stay well away from the series.

It wasn’t until the summer of 2009 when I was out shopping with one of my ex-girlfriend that we both decided to stumble into a GAME store and while looking around the box art for Mass Effect jumped out at me and to make things even better it was also on offer. (At this point in my life I had grown out of the phase that I was in back when I first heard about Mass Effect). At that moment in time I remembered what my brother had said a few years back about it, so I decided to pick it up but that didn’t mean that I could played it right away. Oh-no because not long after picking up the game, me and my ex-girlfriend broke up and in the process I had to move back to my parents house and because of all this I completely forgot about the game until April 2010.

When April of 2010 arrived I had the unforeseen problem of my Laptop dying on me and because of this I knew that I need to go out and buy a new one. While out shopping for my new laptop I discovered that the shop that I was buying my laptop from was also selling Mass Effect 2 on the cheap so without knowing what the first game was like I decided that I would pick the it up. I will admit that I did have a feeling that if there was a second game in the series out on the market then it could only mean that the first one was a success.

May 2010 and throughout the summer of 2010 was a bad time for me but I also took that moment in time to at least give Mass Effect a try in a hopes that I could at least loss myself in a story, setting or place that wasn’t my own at the time. Normally if I wanted to do this I would go and play a Tales of Series game (another RPG) or watch a television programmer but I just wasn’t in the mood for either of them. Within just a few hours of booting up the game I was completely lost in the game and its story and because of this I felt like I was the main character within the series and that I was the one making the choices throughout the game.

Once I had completed the first game and because I knew that I had the second one I decided to get started and right away everything that had drawn me in from the first game was there in the second one but this time on a big and more powerful setting.

All I could do after completing the two games was to go back and play them again but it wasn’t until I was with my current girlfriend that she informed me that there were other stories set within the series in books and graphic novels. With this new information I was really pumped and since that day I have done everything that I can to get my hands on any and all things Mass Effect.

Now after this little bit of story time you might be asking yourself why am I telling you my life story about how I got into the series, well the answer to that is very simple, I wanted to make sure that everyone knew that I was late to the party and to also give you an understand that at the time I was also using the story as a way to get away from what was a dark time in my life.

Now the one thing that I will talk about quickly is that at the time I was looking for something that was set within a science fiction background and while going through the series I noticed that this series also closely resembles television show that I was drew too when I was younger and that was Babylon 5. The reason that I make this connection is because after playing the game once you can see that some of the idea that are in Babylon 5 are also within the Mass Effect series, examples that I would use are the character development and that you as a person have the ability to change the events that are happening right now. I will also be honest and say that Babylon 5 does do it on a much better scale than Mass Effect, but this isn’t the reason we are here.

As I said moments ago some of the reason that I really enjoyed the series as a whole is that you get to see some of your choices play out throughout the series along with the relationships that you have created. What I am mean here is that like with all RPG you are given choices so that you can change the story but at the same time the story will still follow the path that was laid out for it but those character around you will react to your choices differently while at the same time seeing parts of yourself within each character and this is what makes good characters. Good characters are those that you can in some form relate to them while at the same time care for them and worry what could happen to them.

One thing that does sometimes get over looked when playing a game or watching other types of mediums is the music, music is also a very important part within these mediums and if you are unable to get the music tone right for the scene then it could completely change or destroy what is going to happen next and Mass Effect series does make good us of its own music.

The last thing I will look at before concluding this blog is the story for the whole series which includes all the novels, graphic novels, games and DLC (this does not include any DLC after the From Ashes DLC) that I have been able to experiences over the years. What I mean here is that the series has been so well written that it does give you the ability to go back and revisit it again and again, just like some of your favourite films or television shows.

I would also like to take this moment to thank everyone that help create such a great series that we can all go back to again and again and that I do hope to see more of these kind of series in the future.

Until Next Time.