What's the most overrated game ever in your opinion?

[The_Liquid_Laser]

h2ohno said:

The_Liquid_Laser said:

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.

Final Fantasy 7's biggest contribution was presentation, but presentation is a lot more than graphics.  I would actually say that FF7's main innovation is "how" it told a story.  On paper, FF6 is actually a more interesting story than FF7 (and actually a lot of games are more interesting on paper), but FF7 makes their story come to life, because they really know "how" to tell a story.  They do this in a lot of ways.  For example part of it is cinematography, like the opening scene to FF7 still looks interesting today even though the graphics are dated.  Part of it is how the game lets the player make certain choices.  If you chose to take Aerith on a date or have her in your party, like I did, then the story actually becomes more impactful.  And of course a lot of the "how" comes from using all of the storytelling techniques that they developed from the first 6 Final Fantasy games.

And the thing is that in this respect Final Fantasy 7 actually has been really influential, too influential in fact.  Ever since FF7 came out, I've seen more and more cutscenes in almost every video game.  I am kind of sick of all the cutscenes really.  Because most of these games are only copying FF7 on the surface without really telling an interesting story.  And then you have games like Uncharted, which actually do tell a pretty good story, but even then FF7 still does a better job.

It's not influence that FF7 is lacking.  But if a person doesn't like story in their games, then I can see how they would say FF7 is overrated.