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Playing Final Fantasy VII for the first time

I recommend playing on an emulator so you can frameskip the summon spells after you've seen them a few times. Probably other parts worth skipping as well, but summons stick out to me.
 
Fimbulvetr said:
One thing of note when the Limit Meter is full is that it induces a pseudo-haste effect on your ATB meter, meaning that specific character can attack more often. Sometimes it’s better to cast spells or use items instead of using a Limit Break when the Limit Meter is full. That way, you can take advantage of the shortened wait time between each move.

The first three Tiers are learned naturally by using Limit Breaks a certain number of times, and each of them contains two Limit Breaks.
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It's been a long time since I played through, but I don't think these statements are 100% accurate. Apologies if I'm wrong.

When you first get a limit break, you get the ATB haste for that one turn only. Once you choose a command, your ATB time goes back to it's unhasted value (although you still have your limit available, if you didn't use it.)

The 2 limit breaks in each tier are unlocked in 2 different ways. One is indeed unlocked by using the other one a certain amount of times (8?) The other one is unlocked by killing a certain amount of enemies (80?)
 
Rahxephon91 said:
I'd just watch Spirits Within at that point. It looks better and not being AC is a plus.
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Spirits Within is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. The female protagonist was kinda hot tho.

AC is by far the better movie, even if its plot doesn't make a lick of sense.
 
sponk said:
i had to immediatly stop playback, emotion overload. This game is having its 15th birthday this year, you guys are aware of this? I still remember having this game a christmas present, and I still cherish that copy to this day.
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15 years... and Jurassic Park is almost 20 year old :(
 
Aeana said:
It's always interesting to see people give reasons why they don't think the game as good as it was before. I guess I just don't think that way. I (re)play older games with their original times of release in mind, so replaying FF7 now feels pretty much the same as it did back in 1997. And I replay it all the time, though not since 2010 when we had a thread here about it.

Also, the very first GAF Plays thread was for FF7, and is the only one I really consider to be successful at all. We had more than 10 people replaying the game simultaneously, and I really enjoyed that. Wish we could do it again.
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Same here. Even if its something I'm playing for the first time on PSN, those games click with me the same as they did 10-15 years ago. Its awesome.

FF7 won me over when this song came on for the first time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gXV72Zcq4o
 
It amazes me how so many "grown up" gamers love to use this game as a punching bag to demonstrate that they've moved on to more legit expressions of the art. As though, if they insult it emphatically enough, people will really believe that it wasn't the most important thing to them at one point in their lives.
 
The soundtrack and atmosphere are top notch. Probably my favourite video game soundtrack. The story is pretty complex and the dodgy translation can make it hard to follow. Gameplay is pretty much like other jrpg's of the era, though the material system is fairly good.
 
BosSin said:
Has OP given his thoughts on the game?
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Nah, he's infamous for posting and running.

Slappers Only said:
It amazes me how so many "grown up" gamers love to use this game as a punching bag to demonstrate that they've moved on to more legit expressions of the art. As though, if they insult it emphatically enough, people will really believe that it wasn't the most important thing to them at one point in their lives.
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Look, I'll be frank; the writing is shockingly bad. I definitely can see it being a pretty easy target for the kind of posturing you're describing just because everything is so epic and over the top. When you're a kid you get dazzled by the breadth of the world and story so it can be startling to go back to something like that and discover that the finer details don't hold up to the type of scrutiny we tend to be more inclined towards as adults. I feel the same way about a lot of The X-Files, for example.

It's definitely an engaging story, don't get me wrong, but it's engaging because of the setting and premise rather than the dialogue and characterisations, which are actually pretty ridiculous at times.
 
Slappers Only said:
It amazes me how so many "grown up" gamers love to use this game as a punching bag to demonstrate that they've moved on to more legit expressions of the art. As though, if they insult it emphatically enough, people will really believe that it wasn't the most important thing to them at one point in their lives.
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I don't think anyone in this thread that liked FFVII is denying if they were a fan at some point.

And writing in JRPGs has actually improved quite a bit since FFVII came out.

I still like FFVII but for different reasons. The atmosphere and music are still great, but a lot of the other parts of the game I don't like as much anymore. What was important to me at 15 isn't the same as at 25. I don't listen to the same music I listened to as a teenager either. Persona 3, Persona 4, Chrono Cross, Chrono Trigger, FFIV, and FFVI offer more compelling experiences to me now.
 
Its storytelling is still more sophisticated than most games this generation.

I mean the way that Sephiroth is introduced in a playable flashback showing how insanely powerful he is, and the whole
"in Cloud's head" sequence, leading to the pay-off revealing he was just Shinra goon #2
is pretty smart by any standards.

The big thing though is that it has character and personality to burn, sometimes goofy (Honeybee Inn and "The beautiful Bro'"), sometimes touching (the wartime reminiscence at the train station), its a cracking story.

Personally, I've always found the climax
showing the lifestream rising, with the kids peering out their windows as it approaches
among the most emotional sequences I've ever encountered.

It might be dated in both mechanics and technology, but, FFVII is still a great game. In my opinion anyone who's claiming they've "outgrown" it is just fooling themself. What they are expressing is not aesthetic growth, its atrophy and a jaded fixation on superficial technical details.
 
Hate when people bash on the writing, keep in mind that it came out 15 years ago.
Can't please anyone.

OP have fun.
 
Clear said:
Its storytelling is still more sophisticated than most games this generation.

I mean the way that Sephiroth is introduced in a playable flashback showing how insanely powerful he is, and the whole
"in Cloud's head" sequence, leading to the pay-off revealing he was just Shinra goon #2
is pretty smart by any standards.

The big thing though is that it has character and personality to burn, sometimes goofy (Honeybee Inn and "The beautiful Bro'"), sometimes touching (the wartime reminiscence at the train station), its a cracking story.

Personally, I've always found the climax
showing the lifestream rising, with the kids peering out their windows as it approaches
among the most emotional sequences I've ever encountered.

It might be dated in both mechanics and technology, but, FFVII is still a great game. In my opinion anyone who's claiming they've "outgrown" it is just fooling themself. What they are expressing is not aesthetic growth, its atrophy and a jaded fixation on superficial technical details.
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spoken like an expert. It's hardly a game that was good for its time, it shits on almost everything going on these days presentation/story wise. Between that, a nice world with a multitude of stuff to do on the side, and good gameplay mechanics. It's hard to find a flaw worth noting.
 
Rahxephon91 said:
I'd just watch Spirits Within at that point. It looks better and not being AC is a plus.
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Honestly, I think people were and are too harsh on Spirits Within. Don't get me wrong, it's a flawed, fairly plodding movie and the Final Fantasy name was an albatross around its neck, but it's far better than Advent Children. It has a lot of still-impressive design work and the story is comprehensible. AC is so spastic and nonsensical that it actually made me angry when I first watched it. Beyond that, the movie ignores everybody's character progression from the game in order to rehash those arcs with even less subtlety. Those characters it bothers to characterize at all, I mean. But I digress.

I wonder if I'd still be a fan of Final Fantasy if Sakaguchi hadn't been made to walk the plank for Spirits Within? I wonder what FF would be like? Enjoy FF7 OP. It's a great game, though it had the seeds of everything now wrong with the series within it. We didn't know it at the time, but it was the beginning of the end.
 
Combichristoffersen said:
Spirits Within is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. The female protagonist was kinda hot tho.

AC is by far the better movie, even if its plot doesn't make a lick of sense.
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The one issue I've had with people saying AC's plot doesn't make sense is that it makes as much sense as FF7's plot. They both are nuts in some areas but in their own universe I feel they make sense and can be understood (admittedly with enough views).
 
Zwei said:
This is not a Chrono Trigger thread.



Yeah, FFVII definitely looks best when played on a smaller screen. Not really a game you'd want to play on your 40" high definition TV. Yikes!
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Yup Psone games are meant for a PSP-screen. I mean FFIX on a psp is one of the best looking games I've ever seen. Can't wait for my Vita with that OLED-screen.
 
Pyrrhus said:
Honestly, I think people were and are too harsh on Spirits Within. Don't get me wrong, it's a flawed, fairly plodding movie and the Final Fantasy name was an albatross around its neck, but it's far better than Advent Children. It has a lot of still-impressive design work and the story is comprehensible. AC is so spastic and nonsensical that it actually made me angry when I first watched it. Beyond that, the movie ignores everybody's character progression from the game in order to rehash those arcs with even less subtlety. Those characters it bothers to characterize at all, I mean. But I digress.

I wonder if I'd still be a fan of Final Fantasy if Sakaguchi hadn't been made to walk the plank for Spirits Within? I wonder what FF would be like? Enjoy FF7 OP. It's a great game, though it had the seeds of everything now wrong with the series within it. We didn't know it at the time, but it was the beginning of the end.
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Square admitted with Advent Children that they did all the action scenes first and then had to tie a plot around it later. I don't have the quote on me, but they definitely said something to that effect in an interview. And when you watch the movie its obvious. Too bad the fights are just gravity defying Dragonball Z nonsense with shaky camera work that even Micheal Bay would find unacceptable.

Spirits Within is at least passable. Not great, but passable.
 
Does anybody think AC/Crisis Core/Dirge/etc ruined the mystique of it all for them? I love FF7, but I had to walk away from all that stuff, I thought it was fucking gross.

This is so tacky and soulless and shitty that I could see hating the original game by association if I actually forced myself through it
 
Acrylic7 said:
Hate when people bash on the writing, keep in mind that it came out 15 years ago.
Can't please anyone.

OP have fun.
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Not that the writing is good, but people bash more on the translation if anything. It's definitely lacking.
 
Pyrrhus said:
Yes, I agree entirely. What comes after can definitely taint the original product.
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Main reason behind my infinite frown upon the KH franchise.

worldrevolution said:
Not that the writing is good, but people bash more on the translation if anything. It's definitely lacking.
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You are right. But still, if you understand everything then it shouldn't be a problem. People talk as if it makes the game unplayable. To me that's nit-picking.
I ignore minore flaws that don't take away from the experience of the game.
 
Acrylic7 said:
Hate when people bash on the writing, keep in mind that it came out 15 years ago.
Can't please anyone.

OP have fun.
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I dunno man. Planescape: Torment came out in 1999, System Shock 2 came out in 1998, Sierra was releasing extremely well written adventure games throughout the whole of the 80s. Honestly I think a big part of it probably is the localisation, but it does grate at times.

And I am having fun!
 
0 HP said:
Does anybody think AC/Crisis Core/Dirge/etc ruined the mystique of it all for them? I love FF7, but I had to walk away from all that stuff, I thought it was fucking gross.

This is so tacky and soulless and shitty that I could see hating the original game by association if I actually forced myself through it
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There is definitely something soulless about the compilation of Final Fantasy VII. It's a cheap cash grab that did a lot of damage to the brand. I do as best as humanly possible to separate that stuff from the original FFVII, but it's impossible to block all of it from memory.
 
Crisis Core is actually a good game though, unlike the rest of FFVII's spawn. It plays it simple with a solid story about Zack. Its not bad at all. Even the into was fine. I'm not sure whats wrong with a prequel riffing off things when the character in VII is all about riffing off Zack. That and it obviously knows this is corny, hence its not even real. And well the scene is iconic, but unlike say the Star Wars prequels, the game isn't full of just taking from VII.
 
Acrylic7 said:
But the original had some charm to it. The the extra shit that nobody asked for made it bad.
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Sure, the original is good (besides the story), but BbS was good too, so not all hope is lost. KH 2 and Chain of Memories/Re:Chain of Memories, on the other hand..
 
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