Ok, so I've posted here a little while now but I thought I'd finally actually make my first topic here heh. I've been thinking about this topic a while now and it's just something I gotta pickle you people with.

I regard FF7 as quite possibly my all-time favourite videogame, I think it was the game that introduced me to the concept of real storytelling in videogames, it was amongst the first RPG's I'd ever played, and a totally new experience to me when I first played it aged... trying to think heh, around 12 or 13.

Whilst I love this videogame so closely to my heart, and still visit it from time to time despite playing the thing to death, I know all too well there's alot of heated debate over FF7. It was the game that introduced alot of new players to the Final Fantasy series, myself included, and I have the impression that the FF players from previous NES and SNES generation titles have feel a bit of hatred towards FF7 for the direction it took the series in. By that I mean the whole Sci-Fi oriented theme, and putting alot more empaphis on growing love stories in the game (come on admit it, you all loved Aeris no matter how annoying the bitch actually got!).

Over the last year or so though, especially with the milking of FF7 with the likes of Advent Children (an exception I'd say cos it is wicked), Dirge of Cerberus, Crisis Core etc etc, I've noticed a more consistent hatred towards the title growing from many people, some of which I've seen on these forums too.

I guess the question I'm ultimately getting to is this: Is it now cool to hate FF7? I dunno, maybe I'm aiming at this in the wrong way but it almost seems to me now that it's a popular thing to do to diss FF7 becaus everyone else is doing it too.

What's everyone think? I'm not a mega-hardcore FF fan, I thoroughly love 7 and 10, really enjoyed 8 and 9, but I've next to no experience with the pre-7 titles, apart from playing through all of... I think FF4 on the PS1 collections (FF4 was the one with the final boss fight on the moon wasn't it? Heh) so maybe my appreciation of the series as a whole could be very different...

It's popular to hate Final Fantasy 7 while pleasuring oneself to Mass Effect screenshots.

It's just the whole "JRPG" vs. "WRPG" thing.

FF7 is where most Americans learn to like the series, so it's the game they now hate most besides FF12.

It's generally "cool" to hate FF in general, but FF7 was getting a lot of hate almost from the day that overrated game was released because the massive amount of noobish drooling fanboys it created that flooded the interwebs with their ugly Sephiroth worshiping nonsense.

The older FF7 becomes, the more people get into gaming and RPGs in general, and the less those people are impressed with it. I guess the milking doesn't really help either.

Haha, yikes Claude, not sure if that's a controversial reply or not! :S

I do know the series, especially more recently than any other time has gotten alot of stick, but I do think the fanbase and loyalty to the game is well founded. I'm not a huge RPG player so my knowledge of the genre isn't too widespread, but I don't see how the series as a whole can be so passionately hated.

 As for MontanaHatchet's mention of JRPG's v WRPG's, FF7 was really the title that really brought me to RPG's in general even if I haven't played many. Yet I have found that I've never been able to get on with WRPG's. There's something about them in general that just doesn't hook me at all! Am looking forward to giving Mass Effect a go on PC though.

I never liked Final Fantasy 7

Well you'll have to excuse me, I do have some animosity towards FF7 fanboys. I have daily run-ins with them, almost all arguments revolving over something stupid like how they can't accept the fact that FF7 wasn't the first 3D RPG, etc.

Heh, I do love FF7 but I'm certainly not preachy about it to the levels of fanboyishness! What is it about the game itself you didn't actually like Claude, or was it a case of actually liking it but being driven away by the fanbase itself?

Ahh sorry, double post. My new router is killing me!

A little of both actually. I do like the game but I find myself putting it down more than defending it because of the sheer mass of fanboys both on the interwebs and in journalism (a OPM fanboy reviewer claimed that FF7 made Wild Arms "irrelevant," it's idiocy like that which I hate). I also think the game is flawed in areas that seem to either be ignored or universally worshipped (Sephiroth is one of the worst villains in an RPG ever).

Hey, I love JRPGs.

I still think FF7 is a crappy Final Fantasy game.

Average RPG.

Horrible FF game.

Pretty much most people who liked Final Fantasy games before 7 disliked 7 because it was a big drop off from 6.

Plenty of people who were introduced with 7 due to the giant marketing blitz tend to overrate it do to it being their introductory RPG.

The only real advantage it had was FMV's and 3-D over 2-D (if you call the ugly 3-D models an advantage)

While it was downgraded in about every other single way you can rate a game... plot, gameplay, character depth and development, music, comedy, stereotyping...

For example look at IGN's latest top 100 list. I believe both Final Fantasy's 6 and 4 were placed ahead of 7.

The only reason 7 is on the list is it was the first big 3-D one and the introduction of FMVs.