my thoughts on the game, is that it's the most over-rated videogame of all time. It was "alright" but not amazing. The storyline honestlly was crap - there are MANY better RPG out there for storyline. Some way older than final fantasy 7.
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That said, I am eternally grateful to final fantasy 7 for what it did for RPGs in western society. It was the first RPG to achieve commercial success of that magnitude. And it ushered in an era where we get more games brought over here in english for us to enjoy.
Final Fantasy 7 is average at best. I had fun in the golden saucer. And thats about it.
I hated all of the characters from the emotionless/blank slate main character (cloud), to the Big Boobs McGee, Tifa who has ZERO personality also of any kind. -- Though they did better in the movie Advent Children explaining about the characters and made them seem more likeable to me.
The gameplay was also unimaginative and unmemorable to me. I much prefer Final Fantasy 6 It was less linear and more adventurous and fun, and the scenes and moments and characters etched in my mind still to this day, such as celes in the opera house, locke and rachel, and a STRONG female character that was more than just her body IE: Terra.
Lovely game, still over-rated as are most square titles though.
The only title worthy of the hype it gets, and perhaps even deserving of more hype by Square is Chrono Trigger/cross.
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Final Fantasy 8 had another emotionless cold main character, (Squall), BUT the difference is, as the game progresses you witness his transformation and how he opens his heart. It had a pretty good story line 100 times better than 7.
While the CONCEPT/PREMISE of 7 was good, about the circle of life basically and how all things are connected, it was just executed really poorly.
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Oddly.... I really love the story in 10 and it's one of the most hated FF games and Tidus is very hated, but man, it was such a DELIGHTFUL change to me compared to the last 3 installments of blankslate emotionless characters. (aside from vivi in 9 he was awesome, but GAAWD zidane....... awful..... about as interesting as a sack of potatoes.
I also like the one with lightning, from a story standpoint, forgot the number, and people also hated it.
So maybe I'm just really weird.