FF7 - Is it just me...

[Garcian Smith]

Edouble24 said:

Garcian Smith said:
Why, when talking about Final Fantasy games, does nobody ever mention gameplay? (Except in the sense of "that stuff you do in between cutscenes"?) I thought games were supposed to be, you know, interactive.

Because the main thing that makes an FF game stand out is the story. My memories from FFVI and FFVII mostly come from the story/music. Regardless of what most people say FF games have been using ATB for quite a while so the gameplay hasn't changed much. If we were comparing FFVI or FFVII to FFXII people would compare the battle systems because they're drastically different. You don't even do anything in the FFXII battle system...I just kinda watched as my automated characters killed everything.

 

 But, the fact is, you're playing with the battle system for something like 35 of your 40 hours. And ATB is the most singularly awful RPG battle system I've ever used. (Though that may just be because I've never played FFXII.) It's slow, cumbersome, and simplistic, and there's tons of better battle systems out there, in and even before the 5th generation. Games like Dragon Quest and Shin Megami Tensei resolve turn-based battles at lightning speed in comparison, without all of the waiting. The Lunar games (which came out around 1992) feature faster-paced battles, positioning effects, and could be faithfully recreated on an SNES, sans cutscenes. Even the Grandia series has combat which could basically be described as ATB with several layers of complexity added, and the first Grandia game came out around the same time as FF7. 

Point is, ATB is horrible, and I really don't know how so many FF fans can overlook that.