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h2ohno on 24 March 2018
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The_Liquid_Laser said:
Alara317 said:

I dunno, I defend it because I do think it's a great game, and I'm replaying it and still enjoying it, but it's not the best game ever. The graphics are pretty ugly, the gameplay is super simplistic, Sephiroth is trying WAY too hard to be cool, and there are a lot of problems with the story concerning the two main characters (Cloud and Sephiroth). 

That said, the rest of the storytelling and writing is well above average. It was a game way ahead of its time in many respects, and I have to commend it for that. But like I said, it gets a lot of undue praise for simply being the first of its kind in many respects, same as Ocarina of Time.

Yeah, I can agree with that.  Both FF7 and Ocarina came out about the same time, and both are often treated as the first in the series, even though neither clearly is.  I have heard that one reason FF7 and Ocarina get so much attention is that they both came out at about the same time that the internet was becoming popular.  Since they were both popular games when people started using the internet, they are treated as the first in the series.

One thing I don't understand about Ocarina though is that it doesn't get the same level of hate against it as FF7.  I have yet to play it, so I guess I will have to try it out first.  But FF7 gets both a lot of love and a lot of hate.  Ocarina just gets a lot of love.  Not sure why that is.

FF7'S primary innovation over its predecessors is its presentation, which while impressive in 1997 aged immediately and looked primitive by 1998.  In terms of gameplay it used the same active-time system used since FF4, the same kind-of open-world structure as every FF game before it, and an evolution of the esper system from FF6 in the materia system.  The only thing that was really new was the limit break system, which while neat was hardly revolutionary.  It's a great game, but looking back it was not an innovative one.  The game also receives a bit of hate for changing the setting from a more fantasy-based world like previous games to something leaning more towards science fiction, though FF6 was already starting along that trend.

Ocarina, while sharing the basic structure of A Link to the Past, featured several innovations that greatly changed how 3d games would be made, most notably the lock-on camera.  Z-targeting was a revolution in game design and fixed a flaw which had been inherent in 3d action games up to that point.  Even if someone doesn't like Ocarina, they usually still respect it for its innovation and the way it changed how videogames would be made from then on.  With FF7, the pre-rendered cutscenes and backgrounds don't engender the same sort of respect.

Another reason could be the characters.  Link is a silent player-insert, which is pretty hard to feel much of anything towards.  Cloud has a ton of dialogue and a full personality, which makes him easier to both love and to hate if you feel he doesn't work or is obnoxious.

Last edited by h2ohno - on 24 March 2018