this thread will be filled with my whiny comments. this whole thing is one giant spoiler for crisis core and ff7. if you havent played either of these games then stop reading or continue at your own damn risk. this will be a killer long post.
ive been a huge fan of ff7 ever since 97. it was the first playstation game i ever played, the first game i ever saw with full motion videos, the longest and most fun game i had played at that point. to date it is still the game ive most played and enjoyed. with that said, its probably clear that i had very high expectation going into the entire ff7 compilation crap that square is doing. even still, i marched in with my predisposed opinions firmly kept in check, waiting till i finished the game to say my piece.
to start, the combat system was interesting, using a reel system that they had played with in other ff games (explored as limit breaks). it added an extra element to the game that made combat enjoyable and exciting, the first time in ages where i wanted to get into a battle rather then just hold the attack and wait till its over. there was no text command boxes to go through, just open materia graphics and constant active battling. as great as this was the reels became annoying after several hours, activating when i was a hit away from finishing off an enemy or forcing me to watch the same sequence over and over when i could of finished the battle easily by just attacking. overall this system was great, something new in a game that needed it.
fan service was played in the menu, giving me familiar sounds and materia choices. the fusion was a nice touch though it got rediculess and pointless for the main game early on. there shouldnt be any reason to have 100k hp or to fuse things to give you 999% x your current stat bit. even after a few missions i found i became far too overpowered for the main game, making the combat in those sections to be boring.
missions are the exact point that sank the originality meter. the first few where nice, move from point a to b and pick up treasure and fight monsters till you get to the boss. i quickly learned that not only was this repetitive task made boring through no real story added to these missions (yufie side quest was a notable exception as where a few other missions) but they recycled the same small number of maps, only changing chests, monsters, and where inside that map you could travel. with 300 missions it ended up becoming incredibly boring and lame to traverse the same lame zones and destroy the same enemies with varying stats. my brain explodes at all the missed opportunities that could of made this system better.
it was very clear from the start that this game would be fan service. i enjoyed the little touches that where gleamed from the original, little things that a hardcore ff7 player would instantly recognize and smile. in the same token a lot of story holes where filled, yet by the end many more where open and had me wondering why. ill address those later on.
one of the biggest gripes i had through the whole thing was the name change for aeris to arith. i understand that the original name was arith and due to translations it ended up getting botched. it just keep driving me nuts to have the different name said. just stick to the same name as the other games - i have this same issue with WoTL. other then the name i found her character very well done, better then i expected and it definably answered the many questions i had about her past when i first played ff7.
with bias for cloud, i found myself wondering how id take the love relationship with zack and aeris. by the end of the game i realized that their connection was stronger then cloud had ever had with her. i think that even aeris was using cloud as a substitute for zack since he was so similar to him. it felt more natural for zack to be with her then cloud which could be due to better story telling, or perhaps that is how the writers intended it to feel to begin with. i was very impressed with this.
what i was not so impressed with was the rest of the story. advent children felt very out of place as far as connectedness with ff7; crisis core felt just the same. the plot just seemed like a wtf style of writing. where i expected the elements to be woven in to what i already knew, i found that much of it was just suddenly there (and i knew that by the end every new char or element they weaved would have to be destroyed and buried). i dont recall ever hearing of that apple, or a few of the more important additional towns (though i could accept that they wouldnt be important in ff7 and thus be unmentioned). it felt like the plot was being driven by two separate factors - a need to give fan service in in the explain what happened before ff7, and a need to create some kind of excuse for the plot to move forward. i know that the game must stand apart from ff7, but to do it this way just was meh to me. it was like two separate plots where being woven - one that made sense, and another that was more nonsensical and out of place. other then stealing some common elements from ff7, it really had no business in the world of ff7.
the portrayal of sephy didnt tickle me either. i felt the first image of him in soldier destroyed a great deal of the vision i had for him. how they could betray him this way is beyond me, and to act as he did seemed very out of place for his role in the rest of the game and in that of ff7. i did however like the niblehiem section, finally opening the door to my understanding of the jenova project and why seph would lose it there.
zacks role was another story. he is exactly as he should of been, just the right flavor for the role designed for him. though the story of how he got the buster sword was bla.
one character i cant decide on is cissni. who the **** is she? in ff7 there is no mention of her, no female turk until elena. what happened to her? where is the record of her going to gongaga and speaking to zacks family as she said she did? she just walks into the plot and disappears entirely by the end of the game. could they of at least alluded to a conclusion for her? it seems they tossed her in to add that third leg to the love triangle crap square seems to worship so much. that has to be embedded in japanese culture or something, since they have used that lame plot device to create fake tension since their first final fantasies.
inconsistencies are elsewhere in this game. most notably is the nibleheim scene where you dont get tossed onto the pod, where everything else that happens just seems too creative for what really occurred. i know how cloud would picture it is meant to be different, but this was very different and though the key events did happen, how they happened was changed and where a bit over dramatized. the lame plot additions that where genisis and angeal really didnt have any use in this bit of the plot. it felt like someone spliced the lion king over top of a scareface reel and was expecting the result to be a masterpiece.
when i first pieced together that end scene with cloud and zack i pictured cloud to still be wonky from the mako poisoning and thought his mind would screw everything up and create the illusion he followed. the over dramatic scene with zack added elements that didnt stick for the rest of the game - that "follow your dreams" crap and giving cloud more information then makes sense. the original fit much better in the grand scheme then this scene did. cloud would recover from the poisoning and find zack dead - not half alive to inspire crap that cloud would never repeat or exhibit the entire ff7 game. out of every past scene cloud would recall, it seems very odd that he would not recal the final moments of zack but the hazy ride to midgar. speaking of which, who the **** put a highway right outside of cosmo cayon then eliminated all traces of it for ff7?
other gripes are more minor and not deserving to be mentioned in this already too large sea of text. ill just mention that over all i enjoyed the game, though i found it deficient in many areas and wonderfully spectacular in others. for a fan service game it lived up to much of its expectations, adding a new view to the story i already very much enjoyed. i only wish square would of given it a bit more polish and re-thunk the mission design and much of the crapy plot. though having 50% of the game as a fmv was nice, id of happily of accepted a bit less with the space devoted to propping up some other elements.
i do want to play that game that centers on the turks, or at the least read a plot synopsis of it.
ive been a huge fan of ff7 ever since 97. it was the first playstation game i ever played, the first game i ever saw with full motion videos, the longest and most fun game i had played at that point. to date it is still the game ive most played and enjoyed. with that said, its probably clear that i had very high expectation going into the entire ff7 compilation crap that square is doing. even still, i marched in with my predisposed opinions firmly kept in check, waiting till i finished the game to say my piece.
to start, the combat system was interesting, using a reel system that they had played with in other ff games (explored as limit breaks). it added an extra element to the game that made combat enjoyable and exciting, the first time in ages where i wanted to get into a battle rather then just hold the attack and wait till its over. there was no text command boxes to go through, just open materia graphics and constant active battling. as great as this was the reels became annoying after several hours, activating when i was a hit away from finishing off an enemy or forcing me to watch the same sequence over and over when i could of finished the battle easily by just attacking. overall this system was great, something new in a game that needed it.
fan service was played in the menu, giving me familiar sounds and materia choices. the fusion was a nice touch though it got rediculess and pointless for the main game early on. there shouldnt be any reason to have 100k hp or to fuse things to give you 999% x your current stat bit. even after a few missions i found i became far too overpowered for the main game, making the combat in those sections to be boring.
missions are the exact point that sank the originality meter. the first few where nice, move from point a to b and pick up treasure and fight monsters till you get to the boss. i quickly learned that not only was this repetitive task made boring through no real story added to these missions (yufie side quest was a notable exception as where a few other missions) but they recycled the same small number of maps, only changing chests, monsters, and where inside that map you could travel. with 300 missions it ended up becoming incredibly boring and lame to traverse the same lame zones and destroy the same enemies with varying stats. my brain explodes at all the missed opportunities that could of made this system better.
it was very clear from the start that this game would be fan service. i enjoyed the little touches that where gleamed from the original, little things that a hardcore ff7 player would instantly recognize and smile. in the same token a lot of story holes where filled, yet by the end many more where open and had me wondering why. ill address those later on.
one of the biggest gripes i had through the whole thing was the name change for aeris to arith. i understand that the original name was arith and due to translations it ended up getting botched. it just keep driving me nuts to have the different name said. just stick to the same name as the other games - i have this same issue with WoTL. other then the name i found her character very well done, better then i expected and it definably answered the many questions i had about her past when i first played ff7.
with bias for cloud, i found myself wondering how id take the love relationship with zack and aeris. by the end of the game i realized that their connection was stronger then cloud had ever had with her. i think that even aeris was using cloud as a substitute for zack since he was so similar to him. it felt more natural for zack to be with her then cloud which could be due to better story telling, or perhaps that is how the writers intended it to feel to begin with. i was very impressed with this.
what i was not so impressed with was the rest of the story. advent children felt very out of place as far as connectedness with ff7; crisis core felt just the same. the plot just seemed like a wtf style of writing. where i expected the elements to be woven in to what i already knew, i found that much of it was just suddenly there (and i knew that by the end every new char or element they weaved would have to be destroyed and buried). i dont recall ever hearing of that apple, or a few of the more important additional towns (though i could accept that they wouldnt be important in ff7 and thus be unmentioned). it felt like the plot was being driven by two separate factors - a need to give fan service in in the explain what happened before ff7, and a need to create some kind of excuse for the plot to move forward. i know that the game must stand apart from ff7, but to do it this way just was meh to me. it was like two separate plots where being woven - one that made sense, and another that was more nonsensical and out of place. other then stealing some common elements from ff7, it really had no business in the world of ff7.
the portrayal of sephy didnt tickle me either. i felt the first image of him in soldier destroyed a great deal of the vision i had for him. how they could betray him this way is beyond me, and to act as he did seemed very out of place for his role in the rest of the game and in that of ff7. i did however like the niblehiem section, finally opening the door to my understanding of the jenova project and why seph would lose it there.
zacks role was another story. he is exactly as he should of been, just the right flavor for the role designed for him. though the story of how he got the buster sword was bla.
one character i cant decide on is cissni. who the **** is she? in ff7 there is no mention of her, no female turk until elena. what happened to her? where is the record of her going to gongaga and speaking to zacks family as she said she did? she just walks into the plot and disappears entirely by the end of the game. could they of at least alluded to a conclusion for her? it seems they tossed her in to add that third leg to the love triangle crap square seems to worship so much. that has to be embedded in japanese culture or something, since they have used that lame plot device to create fake tension since their first final fantasies.
inconsistencies are elsewhere in this game. most notably is the nibleheim scene where you dont get tossed onto the pod, where everything else that happens just seems too creative for what really occurred. i know how cloud would picture it is meant to be different, but this was very different and though the key events did happen, how they happened was changed and where a bit over dramatized. the lame plot additions that where genisis and angeal really didnt have any use in this bit of the plot. it felt like someone spliced the lion king over top of a scareface reel and was expecting the result to be a masterpiece.
when i first pieced together that end scene with cloud and zack i pictured cloud to still be wonky from the mako poisoning and thought his mind would screw everything up and create the illusion he followed. the over dramatic scene with zack added elements that didnt stick for the rest of the game - that "follow your dreams" crap and giving cloud more information then makes sense. the original fit much better in the grand scheme then this scene did. cloud would recover from the poisoning and find zack dead - not half alive to inspire crap that cloud would never repeat or exhibit the entire ff7 game. out of every past scene cloud would recall, it seems very odd that he would not recal the final moments of zack but the hazy ride to midgar. speaking of which, who the **** put a highway right outside of cosmo cayon then eliminated all traces of it for ff7?
other gripes are more minor and not deserving to be mentioned in this already too large sea of text. ill just mention that over all i enjoyed the game, though i found it deficient in many areas and wonderfully spectacular in others. for a fan service game it lived up to much of its expectations, adding a new view to the story i already very much enjoyed. i only wish square would of given it a bit more polish and re-thunk the mission design and much of the crapy plot. though having 50% of the game as a fmv was nice, id of happily of accepted a bit less with the space devoted to propping up some other elements.
i do want to play that game that centers on the turks, or at the least read a plot synopsis of it.
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