Final Fantasy VII: Pre-Game Thoughts and META

[auronlu]

I wrote a "Before I start playing" post Saturday night, collecting my thoughts about the game. So that's here.

Final Fantasy VII Playthrough: Introduction.

And tonight, while putting together notes for my first playing session, I had a fit of PULLING IT ALL TOGETHER.

Final Fantasy VII: MORE OF SAME about how FFVII is actually exactly like all the Final Fantasies that came before it except II.

(This is a short somewhat tongue-in-cheek post)

So where did my evening go?

Comments

[samuraiter]

*chuckles*

Your evening was well-spent, apparently. I am duly amused.

[cumuluscastle]

Isn't block-head Cloud just hideous? I like to get my little sister (15 yrs my junior) to come over and play old FF games and I have a lot of fun saying things to her like, "FF VII was revolutionary! Look at the 3D models" and then she laughs at me. She also thought it was hysterical that I found the water at the beginning of FF VIII so realistic looking when I first played it.

Do you want to known where I got stuck in FFVII for several hours (okay my gamer cred is more in question than yours)? SECTOR 6. Do you know, that screen with the robot hand and the crane and the buckling pavement and that stupid wooden plank that you can walk underneath on one side, but walk ONTO on the other side? It took me so long to figure that out, getting blown up by walking houses with inexplicable arms and rockets. This Sector 6 trivia on the FFWiki made me feel a little better though. I guess I am not the only one to have this problem: http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Sector_6

[lassarina]

You are far from the only one with that problem; I had a strategy guide with MAPS and I still got lost there.

[auronlu]

I'm running around that dratted claw hand right now, and that is one of the many places I got lost on my first playthrough. I must've poked that crane a hundred times thinking that i had to move that board to get across. (Even more embarrassing, I could not find Aeris' house! the first time I played. I hadn't gotten the idea that the lit areas indicated egress).

RIVEN spoiled me for graphics for years. It was all pre-rendered with small quicktime animated bits (or larger ones), so they didn't have to worry about rendering anything on the fly. I remember going down to the lagoon and just standing there, listening to the pretty music and watching the water.

[cumuluscastle]

Ahhh good times. Worst is I had to watch my husband play it for the first time and just breeze on through there. I told him how I used to get stuck and he just laughed.

[akycha]

There's a certain logic to all human-designed dungeons and mazes, and FFVII is where I learned to figure it out (I almost never get lost in any FF dungeon or map, now). It's a weird kind of pattern-matching.

What really gets me are randomly-generated dungeons. I really cannot deal with those, they suck the fun out of dungeon-crawling like depressed vampires.

[akycha]

PS I thought the block-heads were hideous too, even when I played for the first time. "Why can't they look like they do in cutscenes?" I wailed. "These blocky characters don't even HAVE HANDS!"

I was totally sucked in by the background graphics, though.

[mintywolf]

I haven't played FFVII yet, but I want to read your playthrough. Hopefully I'll be able to follow along. So much of the plot has become part of gamer culture that I'm not really worried about spoilers. (I met a guy in high school who was STILL mourning Aeris, even five years later, and I was like "Wait - she dies??" The robotics team/video game nerds I ate lunch with started giving him a hard time for being the one to break the news to me.)

I've started it twice but didn't get past the beginning either time, but I feel like I haven't had the opportunity to give it a fair chance. The first time was when it first came out and my uncle showed it to me by recommendation of his brother, thinking it seemed like something I would like. But I was at a family gathering and there was a lot going on. My cousins brought over that same copy to my house fairly recently, but I really want time to get to know it by myself without anyone watching over my shoulder.

Also I admit that I had trouble connecting with the blocky polygon graphics too, even back in 1997. And yeah I find urban decay settings really uninspiring. I felt like the Vile Peaks part of FFXIII went on FOREVER.

I think you might really enjoy Skyrim. It has some of the most beautiful outdoor settings I've ever seen in a game, and an excellent voice cast. I spend a lot of time in the game just wandering around in the wilderness discovering hidden areas. Also, you can marry any eligible NPC regardless of your gender!

[auronlu]

Oh! I will keep in mind that I have one person less conversant with the whole danged game than I am. I have made a few mistakes since I've watched Advent Children more often than I've played through the whole original game. *cough this is where the diehards lynch me ahem*

Ooo, another game on my To Be Played list. That does sound lovely. (And I so agree with you about the well-named Vile Peaks.)

Right now, after this FF marathon, I have Katamari, Persona 3, both Dragon Ages and Kingdom Hearts 1.5 (I never played 1) sitting around, plus a Tomb Raider that I gave up on b/c I've gotten too arthritic and crave more story and have too much latent anxiety to deal with what happens when Lara falls from a great height.