Way back in the mists off time.......
I first got Final Fantasy 7 (FF7) at a time when all the other Playstation (also on PC) games that I was playing lasted about 20 hours from start to finish, some even less (I'm looking at you Resident Evil (12 hours) and Resident Evil 2 (6 hours!!!)). I was getting increasingly irritated at paying £2 per hour and more per game. Fair enough - some of these games, like Abe's Odyssey & Exodus are fantastic games that I could quite happily go back and play again even now.
I'd watched a friend play a bit of FF7, he had been playing for 12 hours and had hardly even scratched the surface, so off I went a bought it.
The game starts with a mercenary (you) helping a terrorist organisation. (That statement sounds like the game is some first person shooter but nothing could be further from the truth.) But then continues with probably the most in depth story of a game that I've ever player. I've never played a game where I actually really care about the characters in the same way as you would with a good book, film or TV series, rather than just keeping the game character alive so you can complete the level or game. The bit where (SPOILER)....
Graphically the game varies drastically from fantastic to quite poor. The rendered backgrounds look quite amazing, even beautiful in places. The FMV interludes are stunning for the time (1997) and still look pretty awesome today. However the in game characters are fairly blocky, but against the cool backgrounds it doesn't seem to matter.
I don't even know where to start on the game play, there is just so much to do but you there are only a few times when you really feel rushed, mostly you can explore at your own pace. And explore you can, after leaving the city of Midgard (after 10-12 hours)
you have a continent and eventually a whole word to explore, also with several modes of transport including finally, if you are lucky and your breeding skills are up to it - a gold chocobo.
Most of the criticism about this game is the random battles, which do occur very regularly, what these critics seem to forget is that battles give you experience and gil (money) so therefore you get more powerful. I personally think the battle system is fantastic as you can take your time and think about what you are doing - there is no rush at all on the correct setting, but the best bit is the customisation of the weapons with Materia (basically magic gems, but that's like saying a G5 Mac can work out 1+1).
Then there is the summons Materia - how many games can you summon a huge dragon (amongst other things) to come and blast the hell out of your opponent's? You want the Norse god Odin to turn up and cut you enemies in half? Then find that materia. The 12 Knights of the Round Table might just pay your adversaries a visit and each do massive damage.
Going back to the beginning of this post. I've played through this game three times. The first time took me about 80 hours to complete it. The second time about 100 hours. The third time I decided that I wanted to do everything and find everything - with this game that's no easy task, getting the gold chocobo alone can take hours, but it was worth it - that took about 160 hours.
I haven't even mentioned the wonderful atmospheric music and of course Moogles!
To summarise - play it. Once you've played that then there is always:
Final Fantasy 8(PS,PC) - very good
FF9 (PS) - which I didn't really get into
FF10 (PS2) - Brilliant
FFX2(PS2) - didn't like as it seemed to move away from everything I liked about the games
FF11 (?) - haven't played - an mmorpg
FF12 (PS2) - haven't played....yet - its sitting on the shelf ready and waiting
and the previous older games FF1-6 which are available on various nintendo consoles and handhelds - SNES, GBAs, DS.
Then there is always the prequels and sequels:
The movies
Lots of other games including:
Note: I haven't played through FF7 for 2 or 3 years so some of the information for this post may not be 100% acurate as it was taken from memory.
I first got Final Fantasy 7 (FF7) at a time when all the other Playstation (also on PC) games that I was playing lasted about 20 hours from start to finish, some even less (I'm looking at you Resident Evil (12 hours) and Resident Evil 2 (6 hours!!!)). I was getting increasingly irritated at paying £2 per hour and more per game. Fair enough - some of these games, like Abe's Odyssey & Exodus are fantastic games that I could quite happily go back and play again even now.
I'd watched a friend play a bit of FF7, he had been playing for 12 hours and had hardly even scratched the surface, so off I went a bought it.
The game starts with a mercenary (you) helping a terrorist organisation. (That statement sounds like the game is some first person shooter but nothing could be further from the truth.) But then continues with probably the most in depth story of a game that I've ever player. I've never played a game where I actually really care about the characters in the same way as you would with a good book, film or TV series, rather than just keeping the game character alive so you can complete the level or game. The bit where (SPOILER)....
Graphically the game varies drastically from fantastic to quite poor. The rendered backgrounds look quite amazing, even beautiful in places. The FMV interludes are stunning for the time (1997) and still look pretty awesome today. However the in game characters are fairly blocky, but against the cool backgrounds it doesn't seem to matter.I don't even know where to start on the game play, there is just so much to do but you there are only a few times when you really feel rushed, mostly you can explore at your own pace. And explore you can, after leaving the city of Midgard (after 10-12 hours)
you have a continent and eventually a whole word to explore, also with several modes of transport including finally, if you are lucky and your breeding skills are up to it - a gold chocobo.Most of the criticism about this game is the random battles, which do occur very regularly, what these critics seem to forget is that battles give you experience and gil (money) so therefore you get more powerful. I personally think the battle system is fantastic as you can take your time and think about what you are doing - there is no rush at all on the correct setting, but the best bit is the customisation of the weapons with Materia (basically magic gems, but that's like saying a G5 Mac can work out 1+1).
Then there is the summons Materia - how many games can you summon a huge dragon (amongst other things) to come and blast the hell out of your opponent's? You want the Norse god Odin to turn up and cut you enemies in half? Then find that materia. The 12 Knights of the Round Table might just pay your adversaries a visit and each do massive damage.Going back to the beginning of this post. I've played through this game three times. The first time took me about 80 hours to complete it. The second time about 100 hours. The third time I decided that I wanted to do everything and find everything - with this game that's no easy task, getting the gold chocobo alone can take hours, but it was worth it - that took about 160 hours.
I haven't even mentioned the wonderful atmospheric music and of course Moogles!
To summarise - play it. Once you've played that then there is always:
Final Fantasy 8(PS,PC) - very good
FF9 (PS) - which I didn't really get into
FF10 (PS2) - Brilliant
FFX2(PS2) - didn't like as it seemed to move away from everything I liked about the games
FF11 (?) - haven't played - an mmorpg
FF12 (PS2) - haven't played....yet - its sitting on the shelf ready and waiting
and the previous older games FF1-6 which are available on various nintendo consoles and handhelds - SNES, GBAs, DS.
Then there is always the prequels and sequels:
The movies
- FF: Spirits Within
- FF: Advent Children (a direct sequel to FF7 - woo hoo)
Lots of other games including:
- FF: Chrystal Chronicles (several versions)
- FF: Tactics (several versions)
- FF: Chocobo Tales
- FF: Crisis Core
Note: I haven't played through FF7 for 2 or 3 years so some of the information for this post may not be 100% acurate as it was taken from memory.
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17 comments:
I've got Abe for the PS2 and I don't get it at all. Mind you, I've just completed doggy dash (or doggy doo, as I fondly refer to it) so that illustrates the level at which I am operating.
Still love crash bandicoot on my i-phone and got a neat little air hockey game for two players for irritating people in waiting rooms. Which I did yesterday!
If you say so... :-)
Abe is great. Perhaps you need a guide for it.....
Perhaps I just need a knock off version of final fantasy for the pc to try out...
I hear there's a little summat waiting for me :)
i love my vet games they are great.
i will get round to final fantasy 7. i really enjoyed 10 that was an awesome game. xxxxxx
I'm gonna stick to farm frenzy (even though I have to do meat packing when I'm a veggie) cos FF7 crashes my PC every time! Not that I'm ungrateful, you understand...
Thats a bugger. There may have been a patch included which you have to apply. I can't remember as its a long time since I installed it. I could always lend you the Playstation version if you want.
Update:
There is a patch here (8.6mb)
http://www.download.com/3640-7539_4-10122632.html
which will get it working, you will also need to set the exe files to Windows 95 compatibility (Properties)
Now with farm frenzy and cake mania, you just press 'play'...
But will it give you the same level of enjoyment??
How far did it get before it crashed?
I've just installed it on my laptop and after running the set up program and changing the compatiblity to Win 95, its working fine without using that patch.
I haven't had time to do it cos of the FSP... and farm frenzy! How do I do the compatability things again???
ok, finally got round to changing properties - but still no joy. am loathe to download the patch as most of the reviews suggest it's not helpful. I guess that'll just teach me for not buying the real thing! Unless you have any other suggestions...??? It's your birthday soon, will you be buying
g33ky stuff???
It didn't work when I used the patch but worked fine with out it. I'll dig out the PS version for you to have a go on. No point you forking out £40+ if you don't like it.
Dunno yet :-)
if you don't blog summat new soon, I'm gonna scream until I make myself sick. No more comments, we want blogging material - and photos of you when you were young so we can sneer at you,
very very bored with this blog now.
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