Final Fantasy VIII

I’m beginning to understand that my taste for games in the Final Fantasy series swing more towards those on the underrated side. Not only that, but my fondness for those that are highly regarded wavers and is yet to be determined. Of the games I’ve played (disregarding those from Final Fantasy IX onwards), I really enjoy Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VIII, two of the more underrated games in the series (and divisive, in the case for Final Fantasy VIII). On the other end for those that are highly regarded, including Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VI, and Final Fantasy IV, I really only have a strong attachment to Final Fantasy VI. For the purposes of this blog, this is the ideal outcome if I could have chosen one.

Looking ahead for the games I have yet to play in the series, how the games are regarded varies significantly. From my perspective, those that are typically highly regarded include Final Fantasy IX and Final Fantasy X. Those receiving low review scores and poor reception typically include Final Fantasy XIII. And then you have the others, which are loved by many but just as often loathed to the point of considered the worst of the Final Fantasy games. These include Final Fantasy X-2, Final Fantasy XII, Lightning Returns, and Final Fantasy XV. I have played four and finished two of the seven titles listed in this paragraph. I view these games favorably, but haven’t played any of them for at least ten years, some going back to high school. How I view them now could be completely different. If I take my reception of the first eight games in the series and assume the trend will continue, it will be very interesting to see how I enjoy and rank the later games in the series. I’m personally looking forward to all of them.

The point was already made above, but I will reiterate: I really enjoyed Final Fantasy VIII. I went into the game with mixed thoughts and ideas. Growing up, Final Fantasy VIII seemed to get disregarded and shamed when compared to its PlayStation brethren Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy IX. Articles and reviews I would read dismissed its story and characters and criticized the battle system as clunky, broken, and overall too difficult to use. However in recent years I began to see more people putting Final Fantasy VIII in a positive light, and praising the battle system for being unique and innovative. All I knew when starting up the game was that the battle system was one that incentivized the player to take time to learn, and that the plot took place in a more modern civilization bordering on the future.

I had originally typed out over a page worth of thoughts on the evolution of the Final Fantasy games from I through VIII from a technological and societal impact. However I decided those thoughts would best be laid out in a separate blog post, independent of this blog post. I’m not sure if that writing will ever be published on here.

As explained in my previous blog post, the version of Final Fantasy VIII played was the Remastered version on my Switch. Besides updated textures and graphics, this provided me two large benefits over some of the previous games I played. First was that being the Remaster, I was able to play at 3X speed. This was a huge boon, and made drawing magic simplistic and enjoyable. Running through the hallways of schools or dungeons was no longer a slog. If there was any downside to the 3X speed, it was being so fast that I still had to pay attention. What I mean is that at normal speed it was slow enough to be able to watch a YouTube video or read some articles online, yet boring enough that I wish I could speed it up. At 3X speed battles and drawing were lightning quick, but meant that looking away at a distraction resulted in getting hit by an enemy or characters waiting for inputs. I’m not complaining about the speed increase, it’s just an observation.

The other benefit to the version I played was the portability of the Switch. I love playing Final Fantasy games on the TV, but really enjoyed being able to play it on a handheld when the TV was occupied or when lying in bed. The only issue with playing on the TV is losing headphone capability. I really wish the Switch Pro Controller had a headphone jack port like on the Dualshock 4. Even though I might not have enjoyed some Final Fantasy games as much as others, I believe all Final Fantasy music should be heard at the best quality possible; which for me is with headphones. My TV has good audio output, but music tends to be much louder and not as clear as headphones. Plus I have a train that runs behind our home about 200 feet away, passing by every few minutes.

Speaking of music, Final Fantasy VIII really surprised me. Like other aspects of the game I wasn’t expecting much, but I would say I really enjoyed almost all of the music in the game. Only two tracks I can remember were as good as the rest, one of which was played while piloting the Ragnarok. It felt very repetitive, and made me want to land that much sooner. The other was the Deling City track. It’s a good song; I won’t argue that it’s bad. However it’s even more repetitive than the airship theme. I was annoyed to be forced to listen to it again and again while trekking through the city for various quests. For the length of time it took me to map out Deling City in my mind (not even including the sewers), I could have used either a different song or an extended version of that track.

The characters and story in Final Fantasy VIII I also enjoyed for the most part. Although I feel like some characters lacked depth and wish I knew more about them because most of the cast felt essential to the plot. Obviously Squall is important, and for the most part he was written well and stayed true to his archetype throughout. He stays vitally important to the story and is fleshed out until the credits roll. After him the characters are still interesting but lack a good arc, save Laguna. I like Rinoa and the role she plays alongside Squall and Seifer, but would have liked even more information about her for how important she becomes. Seifer starts off strong, yet feels like another Aerith who disappears halfway through the game after he’s under Edea’s control. Quistis seems important at the beginning of the game but is quickly dismissed as a vital part of the team. I didn’t use her much so maybe I missed some of her conversation pieces. Zell has some good moments especially when in his hometown. I liked how people reacted differently when he was in the party and gave a neat background behind the bumbling student that everyone saw at school. Selphie and Irvine were two of the more weakly portrayed characters with very little background given. For the importance Selphie plays as a transfer from a school without Guardian Forces, and Irvine as the non-amnesiac plot pusher, they really didn’t get enough screen time. I had both in my party pretty often as the third leg and still didn’t get much dialog with them. Finally there’s Edea and Cid. Edea comes full circle in the story, possibly the most interesting character in the game. Her arc is completely fleshed out, well beyond those found in a Squaresoft game at that time, and the story took me off-guard. I was pretty surprised to have her added to the team and really wanted to keep playing to see where it was going. It’s one thing to add a character like Magus to the team, yet another thing entirely to add to the party what is viewed to be the only antagonist in the game. I’m sure it had been done multiple times in RPGs before Final Fantasy VIII, but I had yet to see it in a Final Fantasy game. Except maybe Golbez in Final Fantasy IV, but by the time the player realizes who the actual antagonist is they also understand Golbez is not the real enemy; the same cannot be said for Edea. Cid however, never gets his story finished in my opinion. I never really decided whether he should be considered a good guy, or a pawn that couldn’t face the reality of the eventual future and danger he’s putting others, children even, into. Did I miss some plot wrapping up his story?

I’m not forgetting the non-main cast. I give the developers credit for how Laguna, Kiros, and Ward were introduced in the story, to the confusion of the player. My first thought was I missed some story or a quest somewhere. These guys were strange but I wanted to know more. Originally I figured their story was taking place elsewhere on the planet and were sharing minds somehow, but it didn’t take long until I started questioning the ‘when’ of their story. Forward or backwards in time, that I wasn’t sure of for a while. The slow reveal of the fate of each of these characters was one of the more enjoyable stories in a Final Fantasy game up to this point, behind only Final Fantasy VI. The eventual meeting between Squall and Laguna was an overall great scene that made me both happy, and excited for the story to push towards its final chapter. It was only made better by the ending credits cut scene, fully wrapping up Laguna’s story. Which was much better than simply seeing a far future Red XIII looking onwards with his family.

The story isn’t perfect though. I have a major grievance with how the story wrapped up. I’m a sucker for time travel. I love time travel in all sorts of media. As mentioned in the last blog post, Chrono Trigger is my favorite game. Another of my favorite games in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I really enjoy Doctor Who, and Interstellar is one of my favorite movies. Some of my favorite book series involve time travel. For me, if one is going to include time travel in a story, then it must be kept simple, or based around science and logic. People have found flaws in the time travel with all of my previous examples, but for the most part they’re either sound in their implementation or simple enough to look past the errors. I cannot look past the time loop in Final Fantasy VIII. I’ve even gone online to see what other people think, and I do not agree with Edea having used compressed time to sidestep a potential plot hole. When Edea passes her powers down, the compressed time won’t matter once time decompresses. The loop will start again. The game tries to argue that she uses compressed time to avoid the loop, but I just don’t see it working that way. My problem with a time loop isn’t just missing an ending; it means a beginning technically never existed either. I don’t like paradoxes like that, especially in video games which are supposed to have a clear ‘beginning’ and ‘end’ which take place at some interval in the world timeline. I still really enjoy the story Final Fantasy VIII, but I let out a long sigh during the scene of the powers being passed down. It’s going to keep bugging me, but I can forgive it to remember the enjoyment I got out of the game.

And I sure did enjoy the Junction system. Yes I can agree that it took some time to understand (tutorials were so long). But the functionality of the system was pretty robust, yet simple. I don’t see why people found it so complicated. Instead of having MP, the player draws magic from the enemy, and can later use said magic the amount of ‘draws’ they have. Not a difficult concept. Maybe it doesn’t seem so complicated because I already played through Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy III, both of which also have a system of using magic ‘charges’ instead of a general MP pool. Final Fantasy VIII seemed like an advanced version of the magic system found in those two games. It’s crazy that I didn’t realize the similarities until I was writing this. I was not a fan of the magic system from those two games, but Final Fantasy VIII seemed much more generous to the player. The ability to store 99 of a spell, and the ease to which the player can acquire necessary spell ‘draws’ makes the game much more playable than its antiquated predecessors.

I’m normally already attracted by acquiring all of the summons and special weapons in Final Fantasy games, yet being able to obtain more junctionable abilities from the Guardian Forces kept me exceptionally interested. I spent much more time in the menus of the game than most of the previous entries in the series because I was continually fooling around with the junctions for optimal set-ups on each character. I skipped a large amount of the abilities because I didn’t find them useful to my play style, yet I appreciate the options given to the player; I spent a minimal amount of time refining magic, items, or cards. I can see how the game could have a large amount of replayability, and fun self-restricted playthroughs.

Difficulty-wise, I mostly lean towards the game being on the easier and fairer side. However I have two gripes that I feel should be discussed. First is that I do not like enemies scaling alongside the player. This had a direct effect on not only boss battles and the abilities they use, but also the acquisition of certain spells. I’m already a player who typically shies away from games with a scaling system, and wasn’t aware of this heading into Final Fantasy VIII. It wasn’t until around level 25 or so that I learned how the player’s level has an effect. Thankfully I had the junction ability to avoid random battles, which I am extremely grateful for. Honestly, more RPGs should have the option to turn off or avoid random battles. Logically it may not make sense in some game worlds, but is appreciated to choose when to level. Anyways, using this ability I greatly reduced my experience earned, but unfortunately was unable to avoid passing the level 30 threshold that I read about online. Most games in the series reward the player for repeatedly defeating enemies and gaining experience points, but it feels like in this game the player is penalized for battling and grinding too much. And for how much grinding for spell drawing (without refining), it’s almost unfair to penalize the killing of enemies and rewarding experience points. I turned most enemies into cards, but that took up an ability spot on a character, and didn’t necessarily stop an enemy from accidently being killed. Maybe there was another skill that reduced all experience gained down to zero that I missed?

My other frustration came from the final boss battle. Not only was it difficult, but the party was randomly split up. This was a major headache because I had not given Guardian Forces to half of the characters. These characters were almost useless in the battle, and were basically damage sponges for the short amount of time they were alive. Had I known going into the battle how things would play out, I might have changed the Guardian Force and junction compositions. But there’s no way to know about this besides being told beforehand, or fighting the battle and dying. Neither of those is very fair. And no matter how the player sets up their team, the characters coming out during the battle is still random, to my knowledge. To top it all off, it’s a final battle in a Final Fantasy game, so of course it’s both long and there are multiple forms with no indication of the end. I beat it on my first try but was only out of sheer luck. Most of the characters died quickly and I didn’t even spend turns reviving them. The majority of the fight basically came down to Squall and Rinoa, one doing damage and the other throwing out defenses and Haste. At one point Rinoa died and Squall was just about to be killed, and the RNG gods smiled upon me by calling in Angelo for the just-in-time revival. Another time Angelo came in and I was excited to receive aid, and what did he do? Searched for treasure and found a Hi-Potion for Rinoa. Gee, what a good boy. The fight dragged on with too many forms, and ultimately was a letdown for the game, if only for the amount of frustration and powerlessness I felt throughout the battle. I guess the joy I felt watching the boss finally fall partially made up for the pain.

So that about brings me to the end of the game, and the end of my thoughts as well. I had a great time with the majority of the game. Good story, good cast of characters, a fun battle system, and pretty good music to go along with it. I would highly recommend anyone who it’s into RPGs to play through it, especially if they want to see what the Final Fantasy developers can do to take the series in a different direction. As usual, I have added the game to my rankings list, here is how they now stand:

Final Fantasy VI

Final Fantasy VIII

Final Fantasy V

Final Fantasy II

Final Fantasy IV

Final Fantasy VII

Final Fantasy III

Final Fantasy

The game ranks pretty high on my list, which was a bit of a surprise when I started to question where it would go. It just barely sits above Final Fantasy V, but those top three are well above the rest. I would say Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy IV make up the next tier, and could swap positions being they are polar opposite games. Then the last tier has the bottom three games. I admit Final Fantasy VII is much better than the other two, but still deserves to be in the “poor” tier instead of “good”.

From here on out, things will be a bit more interesting. I’ve played a large amount of Final Fantasy IX, and have beaten Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2. If my feelings stay the same as they were when I played/beat them over a decade ago, they will all rank near the top. I wonder though if Final Fantasy X and its sequel are too linear for my tastes these days? And I don’t know how I will feel about the sphere grid after playing Final Fantasy games with more freedom for leveling and job class choice? I look forward to playing every game in the series from here on out, and I imagine will have a much easier time putting my thoughts down and posting them.

Final Fantasy VII

Here is a review of Final Fantasy VII. Nope, no good introduction for this blog post. After years of not having written about games, or even anything outside of work, it has been really hard to get back into this. But I’ve already broken my golden rule…twice. After I finished Final Fantasy VII, I should have immediately written my review. Thoughts, analysis, dissection, whatever this has become. Yet I had difficulties putting my feelings into words, for reasons that will be apparent down below. Aggravated I couldn’t express things clearly, I moved on to Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII.

I’m not sure if I would call it karma, but soon thereafter my PSP went to shit. I wasn’t very far into Crisis Core, thankfully, but I no longer had a way to continue that game. Thinking about writing my blog post about Final Fantasy VII, again I couldn’t write. Months went by while I played other games, though it kept nagging at me. I mean how could it not? I set out in January 2013 to beat every Final Fantasy game in chronological order, writing a blog post after each one. Just under halfway done, while even at the worst pace imaginable, it was still happening!

Side note here. Having lost the ability to play Crisis Core, I later realized that things worked out for the best. Technically I wasn’t supposed to play Crisis Core after Final Fantasy VII. First off it’s a prequel, so I would have already messed up my order. Playing it afterwards was intentional. Yet I set out to play all the games in chronologically released order. So I actually shouldn’t be playing Crisis Core until after Final Fantasy XII but before Final Fantasy XIII. Which while odd, does make sense. With the future releases of games between Final Fantasy VII and Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, technology changed, development teams changed, and ideas of what a Final Fantasy game “should” be drastically changed. While I shouldn’t call it evolution (even though I use that word often in these posts), yes, there has been an evolution to the series between the two games that needs to be analyzed before I can dive into and experience Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII.

Moving on…I was about to get into how after a handful more months, I broke my rule again and started Final Fantasy VIII. It was the temptation of the release of Final Fantasy VIII Remastered that pushed me over the edge. The updated graphics looked great, but it was probably the 3X speed addition that got me to play it. And beat it. So now I’m two posts behind, and really eager to play Final Fantasy IX. Having played Final Fantasy IX in high school I remember how much I enjoyed the game. And Final Fantasy IX was one of the games in the series that was driving me to beat prior games, so it’s taking quite a bit of restraint not to start it.

So here I am, forcing myself to write this post about Final Fantasy VII. I cannot let myself get further behind. Already I have forgotten a great deal about the game, which is a real bummer, because I had, let’s say, many choice words about my experience. Also a couple months have passed since finishing Final Fantasy VIII, and I’m beginning to forget things about that game as well. To be cliché, not all is lost- literally, not all my thoughts are lost. I did manage to write down some notes about Final Fantasy VII. When I had written the notes, I don’t know. Could have been while I was playing the game, could have been after I finished. Both are likely true. All I know is that the last date saved on the document is in February 2018. This document will be the basis of my thoughts, a refresher, and hopefully I’ll be able to extrapolate on these ideas.

So let’s finally begin. First off, I played this on PlayStation 3. This was the updated version of Final Fantasy VII that I believe was released on PC, with slightly better graphics than the original. Not the Remastered version with even clearer textures and models or 3X speed. And obviously not Final Fantasy VII Remake, which wasn’t even out when I played the game. I would like to play Remake though, I’m very curious to see what has changed, and it obviously looks gorgeous. Maybe by the time I finish the series, probably around Final fantasy XVI, they’ll have released all of the Final Fantasy VII Remake chapters and I can play them as a “whole” game. We’ll look back on this post one day and laugh…at my accuracy.

Anyways, back to Final Fantasy VII. Honest thoughts- I didn’t really enjoy the game. I know, blasphemy! I just felt like the game never really clicked for me. The story, the characters, the gameplay, the music, they all just felt…meh. Final Fantasy VII fans will think I’m crazy, and would probably tear into me about how amazing the story is, how revolutionary it was for the time, how great the graphics were at the time, and “oh my the material system! How amazing is THAT!” But really, I don’t think it holds up over time. Yes, I agree it probably was revolutionary for its time. I will give it that. I believe Final Fantasy VII, along with a couple other role-playing games, pioneered the way forward for the genre, especially on the Japanese side. Is that statement based on fact? Probably not, but they’re my beliefs.

I think one of my big issues is that the game has had so much praise over the years, I knew going in that it wasn’t going to live up to that standard. This is personal, anecdotal evidence, so take it how you want. But often when I read articles or comments online, the majority of people who believe Final Fantasy VII is the best RPG (and game, occasionally) had experienced Final Fantasy VII as their first RPG. I personally believe that the game has more biased fans than any other game out there. This is a bold statement, as gaming groups stand fervently behind certain games. There’s just so much nostalgia playing into people’s thoughts, and honestly, I question if people have really gone back and played it, and compared it to other games both within and out of the series, and within and out of the genre as well- it’s hard to define what a RPG is anymore.

I’m sure you the reader are thinking wow, he’s really laying in hard against the fan base. But that’s the thing, I think the fan base is a big part of the problem. Very rarely do I hear about problems with the game, any criticisms whatsoever. And honestly that should raise eyebrows. No game is perfect. Before I get into my own criticisms of the game (and it’s not all bad, I mean it’s a good game), let’s turn the finger back on myself. Let’s talk about the nostalgia factor. What’s the first RPG I ever played? Okay so it’s actually Super Mario RPG, but I only played a few hours of it. The answer should be Chrono Trigger. But the point I’m making still stands. My favorite game, a RPG, happens to be the first RPG I ever played. So yes, I’m biased too, and I understand how nostalgia can play into loving a game. I praise it whenever possible, and nod my head in agreement when I see it near the top of “Best RPG” lists. The difference is I understand that again, no game is perfect. For example, I find that some ages in Chrono Trigger aren’t as fleshed out or enjoyable as they could be, like 2300AD. I think that certain attacks are borderline pointless in most fights, such as those that hit enemies in a line; you cannot actively move your character or enemies. I think Magus is interesting, but I don’t enjoy using him in battles. Marle is annoying, period. The cause and effect changes between time periods are cool, but used too sparingly. The music is amazing, I’ll fight you on that one.

It may seem I have gone off on a tangent, but I’m trying to give my thoughts and get the point across, that I don’t see enough criticisms of Final Fantasy VII, and that bugs me. It irks me that it gets massive praise, so much praise that fans screamed for years for a Remake, until Square Enix caved in and understood it’s easy money (but in all seriousness a lot of time and work went into the Remake). Chrono Trigger does not need a remake, nor do other great games. Why does a great game need a remake? What does that say about the original? Why are the most ardent fans not asking these questions?

Okay. I’m done with…that. I think I just gave substance and meaning to the title of my blog. And here I thought writing this would be difficult. The feelings I mentioned came back. *Sigh* Look it’s a good game, I just couldn’t get into it. I have issues with multiple things.

Let’s get something out of the way. This game looks like crap. I’m sorry (am I?), I’m not seeing what it did for its time. The backgrounds look pretty good usually, but I’m not expecting much because they’re rarely animated, nor do they have 3D modeling. So I’m going to judge what is actually animated and moves, which is the characters and enemies. And the characters look like junk. Do you know what characters and enemies look better? Those from Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage. Yeah that’s right, low blow. Sure, there were four years between the releases of the two games, so I’ll give Squaresoft that. And by then both Final Fantasy VIII and Final Fantasy IX were out, and had much better character models. So it’s really actually a blow against Aidyn Chronicles (deserved), but I’m going to stand behind my joke. Cloud’s arms should break like twigs. Barret doesn’t have an arm cannon, he has a block arm that shoots things. The FMV scenes were great. But that’s not gameplay. The updated character models on the remastered version of the game look good though.

Speaking of character models, let’s talk about the characters themselves. This could be a large reason why I didn’t enjoy the game as much as the previous entries. I didn’t enjoy playing as any characters. Cloud is annoying and lacks character, even after finishing the whole game and understanding his story. Tifa is smart, but cares for Cloud too much and can be whiny. Barrett is sort of annoying- I honestly only played with him at the start of the game, and dropped him after that. That’s on me. Aerith has a personality I know nothing of, and is gone anyways. Red XIII, I like. He has more backstory than most characters. But still pretty boring as his story is minimal and only in two sections of the game. Yuffie is neat with her longer backstory, but written perhaps to be too childish. Cait Sith is sort of interesting, but I found their attacks a bit unconventional so I didn’t use them enough to uncover more of their story. I enjoyed their twist however. And Vincent’s story felt underdeveloped, unfinished. I do intend to play Dirge of Cerberus to learn more about him, but I shouldn’t have to. No really, I shouldn’t play it.

The story was pretty good? It felt disjointed. The player spends a good amount of time in Midgar (at least a new player does), and while the story starts slow, it feels good. Things happen, the plot gains traction, the player finally gets to leave Midgar. And at that point the player, myself, thinks wow, and that was just Midgar. I have this whole map to explore, and I know I’m going to return to Midgar at some point. Hours later I find myself bored, going from town to town, pushing the story forward without any big surprises. It felt like I was going to new towns because I had to, just to push the plot along. Every time I went off to explore somewhere new just because I could, I didn’t find anything interesting. This is coming from someone who acquired all of the summons in the game. They didn’t really feel like side quests, they felt like random extra bosses with a neat and helpful reward. That’s not to say prior Final Fantasy games didn’t do this, almost all of them are guilty of the extra bosses and super bosses that feel like they were thrown in post-production (I mean obviously not in this case, the summons are integral to the material system). But coming off of Final Fantasy VI, where every side quest felt almost mandatory, that missing a character felt like missing part of the game? It seemed like Final Fantasy VII had the plot in place and was telling a somewhat intriguing story about Cloud, Soldier, Shinra, Sephiroth, Aerith, what materia actually is, etc. But then lacking the cohesion to push the player forward besides “we’ll find what we need in that town, let’s head there!” followed by “this town is no longer safe, let’s move on.” The past three Final Fantasy games had something to drive the plot and make the player want to continue. Final Fantasy IV was basically “Everyone in your party is sacrificing themselves and the world is about to go to shit, what are you going to do about it?” Final Fantasy V was basically “The world is literally tearing reality apart and your friends are dying, what are you going to do about it?” Final Fantasy VI was basically “The world has been decimated. We’re lucky to be alive but things are only going to get worse. We have to end this.” Final Fantasy VII, on the other hand, felt like “So there’s a meteor about to crash into and destroy Earth. It’s imminent, buuut we don’t know how imminent. You should probably go kill those guys, so Earth can stop the meteor. What? No, you can’t stop the meteor. You need to stop those guys. Stop staring at the meteor. Also Cloud is having another identity crisis.”

Enough about the story, let’s talk about the music. There are a couple good tracks, but otherwise forgettable. I cannot remember any off the top of my head that stand out, unlike most Final Fantasy games that came before it. I became annoyed by the overworld song in the second half of the game, heard it too often. One-Winged Angel is good, but not amazing like people make it out to be. Unless I’m forgetting something, it’s only played once. It’s like saying how great the final battle music is in Final Fantasy X against Jecht. A good song, but you don’t hear people raving about it years later. I really don’t have anything else to say about the music. Good, but not great. Forgettable.

Having wrecked analyzed the overhead, visual, and auditory portions of the game, let’s turn inwards to the gameplay. Specifically the materia, the differentiating factor setting itself apart from other Final Fantasy games. This is another large portion of my lack of enjoyment of this game, and at times goes in hand with the lack of character development. At the beginning of the game, the materia system seems too convoluted for what should be simple. It doesn’t start to click until the player obtains other types of materia, and tries using them together to see what happens. At this point, it’s no longer confusing but, in my opinion, boring. I know some people strongly disagree with this sentiment, and will go on about how great combining materia is, leveling it up, splitting it at max level, doubling, tripling, quadrupling its effects… That’s great, but leads to really boring characters. Everyone can do everything, only limited by what they can equip and how many slots it has. Sounds a lot like older Final Fantasy games, except without jobs and classes. In Final Fantasy III and V, the player could level all classes on all characters, but would have to choose a class for a time, and stick with it to level it and learn the abilities. Abilities that would tie to that one character. Over time the class could be mastered, and another chosen to level. Materia can be used to figuratively create a class, but it’s never tied to the particular character or a class. All the materia can be swapped from one character to another. Someone who loves this game will cry “Freedom!”, while I shrug my shoulders and say “characters lacking personality”. Having higher or lower stats and individual Limit Breaks does not do enough to give the characters individuality. I like having the option to fool around with game mechanics and try different combinations. It’s better than games like Final Fantasy IV, with written-in-stone character classes. But I want the choices for leveling characters to have consequences.

At this point, I don’t think I have much else to say about Final Fantasy VII. This isn’t so much about not having more opinions on the game; it’s just that I have forgotten so much of the details. There could be reason to argue that maybe my thoughts on the game stem from this, but I would disagree. These feelings of discontent with the game I remember often while playing. I want to stress, I don’t think Final Fantasy VII is a bad game. I just found myself bored with much of the game. Those I talk to about the game may be able to convince me of its merits in certain categories, but they won’t be able to convince me that I wasn’t bored. My rants and harsh criticisms would be less likely to be voiced if it weren’t for, what I feel, this game receiving a free pass on most fronts for its flaws. Perhaps one day, after I finish playing all of the games in the Final Fantasy series, I’ll go back and play a few of those I found to be the best or worst and see if my thoughts remain the same.

So where does this put Final Fantasy VII in my rankings? Obviously not near the top, but I still had trouble determining where to put it in relation to some others. After much consideration, here are my current rankings, likely to continue to change:

Final Fantasy VI

Final Fantasy V

Final Fantasy II

Final Fantasy IV

Final Fantasy VII

Final Fantasy III

Final Fantasy

I wish I could go back and have this written as soon as the credits ran. My criticisms and boredom would still be apparent, but I’m sure I could have presented better points with more detail. I will do my best in the future (after the Final Fantasy VIII post) to complete my writing and post as soon as possible.