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
