FFVII
Oh, dear. Final Fantasy VII.
Ooh look! It's Cloud with his ridiculously long sword. Battling enemies and saving the world as I assume he usually does on a good day if he hasn't picked up 13 other girls from the other town he just traipsed through.
I've been playing this game for the last few days. Into the very early hours of the morning. The amount of people who hail it as the Best Game Evar Ohmygosh What I Don't Even is just ridiculous.
Good points? Superb music, good battle system, and considering I'd been playing Final Fantasy in 32-bit previously for the whole of my life, the 3D view really did make a change.
And yes, I do know who dies later on because I was dumb and saw a spoiler, but don't tell me who it is just in case there's two of them.
But, bad points. There are several.
Firstly, I'm a little put out that anyone can use magic. A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, there were character classes. There were magic-users, and there were...people who were good at beating you up, probably because they'd had loads of practice at school. If you were a magic-user, you could do magic like there was no tomorrow, and your physical strength was about the power of a Jelly Baby. If you were the fighting sort, you had no hope of magic. None.
But now, you have Materia, and apparently ANYONE can do magic. Your strength falls a little, but you won't notice because you have OHMYGOSH LIGHTNING SKILLZ. Now, if anyone can do magic, it's starting to sound like it's being replaced. It's losing its significance. True, near the end of FFVI you could get Espers to do magic for you but that was a special case.
At least give them some character classes!
Cloud can keep his crappy sword and Lightning and Ice. Tifa and Barrett can take on Fighter class and be denied magic altogether whilst they walk around looking like boxers punching people in the face. Aeris can be a White or Black Wizard since she has the designated crappy stick which is completely useless.
Secondly, in the battle system you can't seem to see the names of whatever monster you're fighting. I'd LIKE to know whether I'm fighting an Ogre or a Beach Ball or a Giant Regurgitating Gummi Bear. Apparently they don't tell you here. They've decided it's not that important since you're about to kill them. But it IS important. You're fighting enemies throughout the game, and you don't even know what they are. You don't know the names of the bosses unless Shinra suddenly appear out of thin air before the battle and announce to you what robot they're trying to kill you with.
Besides, it happens in games - you fight a Slime in the beginning at Level 1, and then near the end of the game they change the colour a little and it's like a Giant Fire Slime which is more powerful. But here? You wouldn't notice. All the enemies seem the same. They, too, have lost their significance.
Thirdly...random encounter rate has gone WAY down. I understand that when you're lost you'll get frustrated if you have to fight enemies all the time. But when I'm trying to train it's getting irritating.
Fourthly: this is the main reason.
Atmosphere. Don't get me wrong: I LOVE the atmosphere. It's beautifully created and very well done.
It's just so bloody gloomy. And dismal. And depressing. And dark.
For example, you start out walking along a gloomy street or something like that. You then blow up a reactor. When you go back to the slums (yes, there aren't any towns, there are SLUMS) everyone is wailing about how their lives are gone. Jubliantly, you march out and blow up another reactor. The scene gets even more gloomy. To make things worse, Shinra turn up and blow up the main pillar, thus plunging the slums into even more mess.
I haven't reached Level 20, so forgive me if the game suddenly turns bright and colourful forty minutes from now. But it hasn't. It's just gloomy. You're walking around dark paths, falling into sewers, blowing up reactors (yes, power plants are gloomy too) and it's like one huge circle of depression.
Actually, the only time when it looked colourful at all was when I got to Aeris' house. Flowers. Yes.
That's another thing - you wander through the slums, all of these ransackled houses and really gloomy paths, and you go around the corner and Aeris' house is sitting a fucking garden like some bloody mansion. I bet everyone is paying her rent.
This game is still really addictive, but it's not the best game in the world. It really isn't. And Cloud's sword. He needs a new one. That Buster Sword is shit. He has to literally hack at someone with it, and I keep wondering if that gigantic sword is actually an illusion and Cloud is really holding a blunt pencil in his sheathe.
Then again, I might be just at a low level.
On another thought, I only downloaded the first CD, so I might be missing out on some stuff. Haven't a clue what though.
FFVI is so much better, seriously.
Ooh look! It's Cloud with his ridiculously long sword. Battling enemies and saving the world as I assume he usually does on a good day if he hasn't picked up 13 other girls from the other town he just traipsed through.
I've been playing this game for the last few days. Into the very early hours of the morning. The amount of people who hail it as the Best Game Evar Ohmygosh What I Don't Even is just ridiculous.
Good points? Superb music, good battle system, and considering I'd been playing Final Fantasy in 32-bit previously for the whole of my life, the 3D view really did make a change.
And yes, I do know who dies later on because I was dumb and saw a spoiler, but don't tell me who it is just in case there's two of them.
But, bad points. There are several.
Firstly, I'm a little put out that anyone can use magic. A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, there were character classes. There were magic-users, and there were...people who were good at beating you up, probably because they'd had loads of practice at school. If you were a magic-user, you could do magic like there was no tomorrow, and your physical strength was about the power of a Jelly Baby. If you were the fighting sort, you had no hope of magic. None.
But now, you have Materia, and apparently ANYONE can do magic. Your strength falls a little, but you won't notice because you have OHMYGOSH LIGHTNING SKILLZ. Now, if anyone can do magic, it's starting to sound like it's being replaced. It's losing its significance. True, near the end of FFVI you could get Espers to do magic for you but that was a special case.
At least give them some character classes!
Cloud can keep his crappy sword and Lightning and Ice. Tifa and Barrett can take on Fighter class and be denied magic altogether whilst they walk around looking like boxers punching people in the face. Aeris can be a White or Black Wizard since she has the designated crappy stick which is completely useless.
Secondly, in the battle system you can't seem to see the names of whatever monster you're fighting. I'd LIKE to know whether I'm fighting an Ogre or a Beach Ball or a Giant Regurgitating Gummi Bear. Apparently they don't tell you here. They've decided it's not that important since you're about to kill them. But it IS important. You're fighting enemies throughout the game, and you don't even know what they are. You don't know the names of the bosses unless Shinra suddenly appear out of thin air before the battle and announce to you what robot they're trying to kill you with.
Besides, it happens in games - you fight a Slime in the beginning at Level 1, and then near the end of the game they change the colour a little and it's like a Giant Fire Slime which is more powerful. But here? You wouldn't notice. All the enemies seem the same. They, too, have lost their significance.
Thirdly...random encounter rate has gone WAY down. I understand that when you're lost you'll get frustrated if you have to fight enemies all the time. But when I'm trying to train it's getting irritating.
Fourthly: this is the main reason.
Atmosphere. Don't get me wrong: I LOVE the atmosphere. It's beautifully created and very well done.
It's just so bloody gloomy. And dismal. And depressing. And dark.
For example, you start out walking along a gloomy street or something like that. You then blow up a reactor. When you go back to the slums (yes, there aren't any towns, there are SLUMS) everyone is wailing about how their lives are gone. Jubliantly, you march out and blow up another reactor. The scene gets even more gloomy. To make things worse, Shinra turn up and blow up the main pillar, thus plunging the slums into even more mess.
I haven't reached Level 20, so forgive me if the game suddenly turns bright and colourful forty minutes from now. But it hasn't. It's just gloomy. You're walking around dark paths, falling into sewers, blowing up reactors (yes, power plants are gloomy too) and it's like one huge circle of depression.
Actually, the only time when it looked colourful at all was when I got to Aeris' house. Flowers. Yes.
That's another thing - you wander through the slums, all of these ransackled houses and really gloomy paths, and you go around the corner and Aeris' house is sitting a fucking garden like some bloody mansion. I bet everyone is paying her rent.
This game is still really addictive, but it's not the best game in the world. It really isn't. And Cloud's sword. He needs a new one. That Buster Sword is shit. He has to literally hack at someone with it, and I keep wondering if that gigantic sword is actually an illusion and Cloud is really holding a blunt pencil in his sheathe.
Then again, I might be just at a low level.
On another thought, I only downloaded the first CD, so I might be missing out on some stuff. Haven't a clue what though.
FFVI is so much better, seriously.