I vote that some brave soul test your theory.

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/02/22/final-fantasy-vii-ported-to-the-famicom-finally/ 

On a more serious note, though, I can't agree with your post on this one. I definitely belong to the old-school final fantasy fan side of things, and think VII is responsible for destroying the direction of the series. That said, the game definitely did adopt itself to the new era quite well. Final Fantasy VII added in quasi-three dimensional backgrounds, CG sequences, over the top summons, and the Limit system. I don't much care for the latter three, and the first one was executed fairly roughly, but I don't think you can argue that RPGs were ever really the same afterwards. In my mind, that's mostly a detriment, but I was absent when the industry asked people what direction RPGs should go in, so my loss.

''I definitely belong to the old-school final fantasy fan side of things, and think VII is responsible for destroying the direction of the series''.......... why? so on one hand you guys say it didn't revolutionize rpg gameplay, but on the other hand you say it ruined the series, but how is that possible if they gameplay didn't change as much as you wished? and Square also pushed the limits on FFVI and Chrono Trigger grafik wise, or would you rather not have great artwork brought to life in a game, or would you rather not have those cutscenes and CG's which you have in any game now? make up your mind (and my enter button on my laptop is broken so i can only written on one very long line :(

Once a AAA title, always a AAA title, imo. The kind of greatness in Okami doesn't fade in 2 years, my friend.

...and FYI, Final Fantasy VI is still a contender for best game of all time and it's graphics, I'm sure, would make an Kyros lol. Final Fantasy XII is considered a AAA title, and Final Fantasy VI is MUCH better imo.

And games like Chrono Trigger?

Are you telling me that Chrono Trigger isn't a AAA titles? Cause I disagree. 

I just said it's not my cup o' tea.  Neither were FF 1-6.  However, I have played 1-3, 6, and 7, so it's not like i've  just not experienced them. I just have other preferences.

Regardless of my preferences, however, can we really say that FF7 embraced the third dimension as well as the other games mentioned (once again, not commenting on MG/MGS)?

It's not that FF7 didn't have 'revolutionary' aspects to its gameplay (although I would deem it more evolutionary than revolutionary, thats just my opinion), it's just that everything 'revolutionary' about it could just as easily have been done in a 2-D, sprite-based game (as evidenced by NoName's link [thanks for that ] ).  It's not bringing the gameplay into a third dimension; it is keeping the gameplay 2D and adding 3D graphics.  That's not necessarily a bad thing; Sonic and the Secret Rings was pretty fun, once you got past some early control issues.  But when the argument is talking about providing new ways to play a game, keeping the old way of playing games doesn't really count. 

Also, is anyone mentioning Dragon Quest in the same vein as Ocarina of Time and Metroid Prime?  I personally don't consider it that highly, but once again, not my cup o' tea.

Just reiterating: I am not saying that the game didn't have any changes; I am just saying that it did not really expand gameplay to a whole new dimension; pretty much everything done in the game could have been done in the old style as well, which is exactly what the original poster was saying about games that made the 3-d transition based on graphics vs.  gameplay.  FF7 skews heavily towards the graphics side, as gameplay could have been done (mostly) in a 2-d game.  OOT, MP, and I assume MGS would be a fundamentally different game in 2-d. 

In any case, back to Okami, because this argument is worthless and offtopic.  The post Ajax was responding to originally even said that FF7 wasn't the best example.

so we should always aprreciate Chrono Trigger and FFVI so much, but somehow FFVII is a no no for many so called old-school rpgers (like myself actually, but I don't live stuck in the SNES era), and the unlogical 'logic' in this all has something to do with great grafix and thereby the gameplay is not as good as that of FFVI and Chrono Trigger somehow, but no one can say actually why the gameplay or the games CT and FFVI are better, who can prove or show that the gameplay of those games is better than FFVII's?................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. no one cause it's nonsense, FFVII has got as good as a gameplay as FFVI and CT,..  so grow up and stop hating FFVII because it went from Nintendo to a Playstation console, and because so many new and younger gamers love it, so many older gamers just bash it to differ themself from a new generation and see themselfs as real and old-school..

Where did you get the NPD Okami's figure ?

EDIT: Never mind I found it. So maybe WW has sold around 500k units. 

@Ajax. Did you read alpha_dk's comment?

"Neither were FF 1-6."

So clearly going to the playstation is not the issue.

To me, the game fades because you can't skip the slow parts, once you've seen them a half dozen times, which is a problem with most RPGs, though. And a lot of games. This is why the skip option is nice.

As for revolutionary, no the game was not. Nor did it need to be. JRPG gameplay was almost unknown in the west, so it was good that some game made western audiences notice.

The revolutionary part was the presentation.

I wasn't talking directly to alpha's comment actually..

I, for one, dislike how irrelevant the characters were in FF7.

Your character selection was worthless.  Minus limitbreaks and a few points of damage for weapons, every character was just like every other character.  Character selection didn't matter at all as long as swapped materia.  Even stats didn't really matter.  Level-ups were never noticeable at all.  If you needed more HP, screw leveling, just get the HP Plus materia and use it until you didn't need to anymore...etc.

Chrono Trigger didn't do that.  Everyone was unique.  Chrono was the epitome of lightning.  He was fast, powerful, and deadly.  Frog and Marle were water, they healed.  Frog was the offensive version and Marle was the defensive version.  Robo was Robo and Ayla was Ayla, they were so awesome they didn't even need elements... they just kicked arse.  

Likewise, in Chrono Trigger you actually needed strategy to win some fights.   In FF7, there was NOTHING I couldn't power my way through except for the Midgar Zolem (which was became beatable ~19-21 if you spent time upgrading the right materia).   I think most of this is the result of the power curve.  Chrono Trigger had a more linear curve, you leveled you got stronger.   Meanwhile FF7 had a more arcing power curve that spiked upward every time you got new materia.