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Inactive Let's Play Final Fantasy VII!

1eyedking

Erudite
Joined
Dec 10, 2007
Messages
3,591
Location
Argentina
Let's Powerplay Final Fantasy VII!

That’s right. The title is correct: this is a Final Fantasy VII playthrough. And yes, you’re in the RPG Codex forums. You can stop checking the address now.

This thread is the result of a poll where a number of lurking bastards (precisely 40 bastards) voted for this fellow innocent Codex forum member to give them a “Let’s Powerplay” thread about Final Fantasy VII, a game most have never played and those who did were left scarred for life - or so we’re told.

But what is Final Fantasy VII (FF7 from now on)? Apart from being the most popular scapegoat to all of what’s wrong with today’s CRPGs, it is a game that is almost universally proclaimed by the mainstream gamer audience as, quote, “The Best RPG Ever”. In fact, that’s been said so many times about the game that if someone built a BestEver-o-Meter and decided to process the input for FF7, it would literally blow the contraption to pieces. Google says so.

The question raised is…is it? Is it’s story as good as we’ve been told? Is it’s gameplay as fantastic as it’s lauded to be? It’s music as moving? It’s characters as deep and interesting?

Follow me as I play the game for my very first time and wade through screens of sprites, animated 3D battles and funky midi music so that we may put our controversial opinions to the test and either prove once and for all that the mainstream is wrong, or miserably fail and suffer in ignominy for the rest of our e-lives.

Index
1. Chapter 1: Squint Eye for the Codexian Guy (Reactor #1)
2. Interlude (Sector 7- *incomplete*)
 

1eyedking

Erudite
Joined
Dec 10, 2007
Messages
3,591
Location
Argentina
Chapter 1: Squint Eye for the Codexian Guy (Reactor #1)
(I know, I wasn’t feeling creative)


After configuring ePSXe, I’m ready to fire the game up.
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Yes, please. The screen goes black.


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I proceed to frantically bash the keyboard to no avail. Suddenly, I get treated this FMV cutscene of some stars.


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And a grrl.


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Oh, really?


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The train arrives to its destination, and after some ninja action the main character jumps off. I follow the only unconstricted route I can take.


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Some dudes approach out of nowhere - probably Barrot and his crew were too inconspicuous to be suspicious. The spikey hair has betrayed our rebel intentions. (This is in fact one of the very few occasions were you actually see the fight coming to you – and no, you can’t avoid the encounter with 1337 rat-speaking skills)


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The options are not many. Good old button-mashing proves to be the superior strategy.


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After finishing those soldiers up, I continue and meet up with some guys. We’re presented with a unique opportunity to produce some lulz.


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“I hereby shalt be known as Pointy”. Or in FF7 slang, “My name’s Pointy, y’all!”. Ehem.

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Pointy gets to the point.


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Note that Pointy is a badass.


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Borrat or whatever arrives. And we get the chance to name him!


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Due to the uncanny resemblance between every anime character ever designed, I appropriately name him “Zangief”.


zangief.jpg

Which proves my point.


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Zangief decides to subtly break the fourth wall. Thanks for the tip; I could’ve read it in the manual, you know.


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Onwards we go, and we’re treated to our first randomly-out-of-nowhere fight (these will be usual from now on). Not surprisingly, “Circle, Circle, Circle, Circle, Circle, Circle, Circle” gets us through.


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Some plot-related shit (which I’ll explain later if I’m not feeling lazy).


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Our first secret-ish item. Weird name though.


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After some pointless “Blah, blah, blah”, fighting, stair-climbing and some more fourth-wall-breaking we arrive at our first saving point. Pointy thinks it’s pointless, since I’ll be using the “Save State” feature ePSXe gladly provided. Thank you ePSXe.

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We go down the bridge-thing (where I guess the designers wanted me to go with all that linear crap) so that we can blow the reactor up.


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Pointy sets us up the bomb!


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Our hero/anti-hero/something suffers a rush (rash?) of something awful, and the first boss fight ensues…
(and yes, only Zangief saw it coming)


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Let me introduce you to a battle system perhaps unknown to you: Button-Mashing with Pause (BMwP). The premise of this system is simple. You basically button-mash your keyboard/pad until the enemy engages in a special stance where he’s either weakened or strengthened (in all Contra glory). In this case he’s strengthened (sort of), so we’re going to pause for a while (30 seconds…) while we watch our characters engage in some sort of static stoic dance. Notice the weird grammar.

Untitled34.jpg

After the tail returned to its original position and the threat is over, I proceed to button-mash my way to victory (actually I got to cast Lightning on the sucker so my actions were “Down, Circle, Down, Circle, Circle” for a change).


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A clock appears with a quite benevolent time window to escape from the reactor.


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On the way we fight some more creeps/monsters and we aid a fellow comrade.


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We backtrack to some bridge and watch the ensuing explosion of Oblivion Ga- err… Reactor #1 in FMV.


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Back to index
 

afewhours

Scholar
Joined
Dec 26, 2007
Messages
562
Location
UK
ha hah! FFVII. If you thought Plansecape: Boredom had too much tedious dialogue, you are in for the Ride. Of. Your. Life.

It's silly - it's emo - it's a JRPG... but I still played the damn thing through to the end. Final Fantasy can do that to you, hate it though you may. Personally, I would warm up to this level of fruitiness by playing some less... dramatic JRPGs first. You may be jumping in the deep end here.

FFVI is still the best of the lot.

Edit: What Jasede said. FF games have great music in general, though I'd rank FFVII a little below their overall standard. It has a couple of awesome standouts: the normal rollicking boss theme springs to mind and 'One-winged Angel' is the gold standard by which *all* end boss music is judged. Fucking brilliant.
 

Sir_Brennus

Scholar
Joined
Jun 7, 2006
Messages
665
Location
GERMANY
Hey 1eyedking, you cynical badass!

You never mention the music - but you promised. So please, please, please with sugar on top:

DO MENTION THE MUSIC!!!111oneone

P.S.: Yes, I have a sweet spot for all Final Fantasies, but the game IS hilarious.
 

1eyedking

Erudite
Joined
Dec 10, 2007
Messages
3,591
Location
Argentina
There, I corrected some grammar and phpbb syntax.

Coming up next: Sector 7. When? When I feel like it!
 

Fyz

Scholar
Joined
Mar 29, 2007
Messages
160
Does 'powerplaying' include killing every Weapon?
 

MetalCraze

Arcane
Joined
Jul 3, 2007
Messages
21,104
Location
Urkanistan
during my first playthrough years ago I already started to hate this game. emo storyline and almost twitch-based, boring combat killed it for me pretty much, though I completed it.
 

afewhours

Scholar
Joined
Dec 26, 2007
Messages
562
Location
UK
skyway said:
during my first playthrough years ago I already started to hate this game. emo storyline and almost twitch-based, boring combat killed it for me pretty much, though I completed it.

ha hah! The curse of Final Fantasy claims another victim! It's like some kind of horrible drug that you have to keep taking - even though it only results in vomiting, nosebleeds, and embarrassment.

I played FFX-2 to the end FFS.
 

Starwars

Arcane
Joined
Jan 31, 2007
Messages
2,829
Location
Sweden
There is just something about jRPGs, and perhaps Final Fantasy in particular, that also made me stay with them through the end. However, unlike many here I've always enjoyed myself, despite the fact that I feel that pretty much all criticisms against the games are true.
I don't know what the hell it is. I think they are just pretty good at storytelling itself (never mind that the stories themselves can be damn weird), I'm generally curious about what will happen next. Despite many WTF moments, and many "oh god this sucks" moment, I thoroughly enjoyed Final Fantasy 7, and I even replayed it.
So THERE!

However, for me the spell broke in FF12. I still wanted to see where the story goes, but ye gods I hated the combat in that game (even moreso than the others), it reminded me to much of my MMORPG days. I reached a seemingly endless desert portion of the game, with what felt like neverending combat.
 

afewhours

Scholar
Joined
Dec 26, 2007
Messages
562
Location
UK
starwars said:
Despite many WTF moments, and many "oh god this sucks" moment, I thoroughly enjoyed Final Fantasy 7, and I even replayed it.
So THERE!

You did *what*? You suck, my friend!

[embarrassed whisper] Actually, I replayed it twice. Once I even went out of my way to chat up Yuffie at the Gold Saucer. God, I'm pathetic - my hunger for trash knows no bounds. I'm like the spirit-eater from MotB, but for pulp. [/embarrassed whisper]
 

cardtrick

Arbiter
Joined
Apr 26, 2007
Messages
1,456
Location
Maine
Wow. Back in the day I always heard people talking about how fantastic FFVII's graphics were. But damn, this is one shitty looking game.
 

Jasede

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2005
Messages
24,793
Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
I think they meant, with graphics, cutscenes and summon animations. PSX-3D games are -ugly-. Give me SNES graphics any day.
 

Lemunde

Scholar
Joined
Jan 16, 2006
Messages
322
Starwars said:
However, for me the spell broke in FF12. I still wanted to see where the story goes, but ye gods I hated the combat in that game (even moreso than the others), it reminded me to much of my MMORPG days. I reached a seemingly endless desert portion of the game, with what felt like neverending combat.

Wow, you went further than me and I actually like the FF series. FFX killed it for me. I think somewhere in their quest for originality they were pushed over the edge into absurdity.

I still go back and play FFVII every once in a while. As with all semi-modern FFs you can pretty much button mash your way through the first few areas. I think of that as sort of the tutorial part of the game where they let you get used to the way the game plays. It's also hard to get past the cheesy translations at times. I've downloaded some re-translation hacks for some of the SNES ones and they make the games a whole lot better.

Here's my recommendation for power playing early on. There's an area east of the train station where you can fight some semi-weak monsters and get suitable experience. These monsters also drop a lot of ethers so if you horde those you won't have any problems running out of MP later on. If you have the steal materia equipped you can steal some ghost hands from some of the monsters there which have a drain effect.
 

ghostdog

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Dec 31, 2007
Messages
11,079
When you'll finish powerplaying FFVII (in a couple of months) you should powerplay FFVI and that would mean of course removing the curse from a certain fucking armor... ahaaha that would be priceless...

Give me SNES music as well! Chrono Trigger and Terranigma FTW!
+1... snes has some of the best RPG's ever made and sadly at that time noone in the western world knew...
 

Lesifoere

Liturgist
Joined
Oct 26, 2007
Messages
4,071
Wow, even with filter, the character models still look like the stuff of nightmares. Mmm, Lego limbs.

Follow me as I play the game for my very first time

Oh my god, really? I thought you'd played it before. I'm so sorry for contributing to the FF7 votes. That, or I'm going to enjoy this immensely. Schadenfreude!
 

afewhours

Scholar
Joined
Dec 26, 2007
Messages
562
Location
UK
Lesifoere said:
Oh my god, really? I thought you'd played it before. I'm so sorry for contributing to the FF7 votes. That, or I'm going to enjoy this immensely. Schadenfreude!

Ah, his JRPG cherry needed to be popped at some point. What better place to do so than in public, with experienced hands guiding his every spasm?
 

Elhoim

Iron Tower Studio
Developer
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Oct 27, 2006
Messages
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Location
San Isidro, Argentina
One thing I remember is that you can steal a pretty cool sword for Cloud in the Shirnra building, from some random enemies...
 

DraQ

Arcane
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Oct 24, 2007
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Chrząszczyżewoszyce, powiat Łękołody
cardtrick said:
Wow. Back in the day I always heard people talking about how fantastic FFVII's graphics were. But damn, this is one shitty looking game.
Some graphics never get old (PST, Frontier, Another World, Homeworld), others age horribly. Plus untextured manga characters suck really hard.

Also, Jasede needs to be apeased with Red XIII ASAP.
 

Müg

Scholar
Joined
May 29, 2007
Messages
424
Jasede said:
I think they meant, with graphics, cutscenes and summon animations. PSX-3D games are -ugly-. Give me SNES graphics any day.
As much as I love Xenogears, the sprite and non-mecha animations for characters make me want to poke my eyes out with a hot poker to spare myself the pain. Changing the camera angle in town was a sea of pixels and jaggies. It needed interpolation and anti-aliasing so bad.

Ah, his JRPG cherry needed to be popped at some point. What better place to do so than in public, with experienced hands guiding his every spasm?

FF7 is a horrible My First Jrpg.
 

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