Final Fantasy Seven sucks.

Gonna go off about nerd stuff today.
A friend of mine linked an article from Cracked.com earlier about various things that we probably should stop caring about, Final Fantasy Seven is on that list and I couldn't agree more, in fact I think the article doesn't go far enough. Here's my thesis:

FFVII is an objectively bad game, with terrible design decisions all around, appalling art, even for the time, and a story that makes zero sense and doesn't really know what it wants to be.

There is some forgiveness to be had, it released in 1997 and we didn't have access to an RPG of any sort of depth or complexity at the time on the Playstation. We didn't know that things could be better so we jumped on it. But, to paraphrase another thing that is worse than we remember, they were so caught up in if they could do it, they didn't bother to think about if they should.

The Playstation offered unheard of power for a gaming console at the time, the ability to use CD's for a game was a pretty big deal and the consoles graphics ability actually was a lot better than FFVII showed off, as we would find out with other games. I think the developers jumped on the technology and hit the sweet spot of being the only game in town so people convinced themselves they love it, but the damn thing was a mess, discounting the graphics, the characters were pretty much awful, if nothing else Square must answer for years of Cloud Stryfe imitators, he is the prototypical grumpy protagonist with communication issues, a dark past, memory problems, and a deep connection with the end boss that you better believe we are going to hash out in a series of unskippable cut scenes before the game ends. Also the unreasonably big sword wielded by someone who judging by body mass alone, should tip over when he tries to draw it, I don't care how strong you are, if you weigh all of ninety pounds, you are gonna lose your balance swinging a seventy point sword around.

Gonna just skip over the robot cat that pilots a giant mascot costume and the demon vampire guy who could challenge Cloud to a brood-off and have a good chance of winning, as well as the erudite cat monster who just sort of shows up.

There's also the vaguely racist caricature and the underage girl with a crush on the main character to deal with, so thanks Japan.

I hate all these people, the writing gives them not one ounce of charisma and if the villains weren't cartoonishly evil I wouldn't even contemplate rooting for them.

Gameplay is okay I guess, except the best spells and abilities have ludicrously long animations which are unskippable. But so much of the game isn't devoted to gameplay if that makes sense, there is a vast time sink called the Gold Saucer which pops up a few hours in and it just completely pulls the plug on any sense of urgency or drama that the game might have developed, vigorously encouraging the dreaded minigame side track.

The game doesn't know what it wants to be, is it a send up of fantasy adventure tropes like the previous games kind of were? Not really but every once in a while it shows a level of self awareness like they did, is it a love story? Not after the first couple of hours it ain't, is it a farce? The crossdressing bath house scene and a few of the side characters would seem to indicate that, but usually the main character is relentlessly serious that these bits are just mood whiplash, speaking of the main character, Cloud never moves the plot on his own, things happen to him, all the rest of the cast make him do stuff, but he doesn't show an ounce of initiative and must be browbeaten basically into saving the world, I hate him so much.

Actually I hate that trope in general, you know the one, the village/city/country/universe is in danger, one person is needed to help stop the deaths of thousands, he pretty much always refuses to help because... I don't fucking know why, the situation invariably will end up killing him too unless it is stopped, eventually he gives in, either dragged out by the rest of the cast or forced in when the enemy decides to do something that hurts him personally. The elves in Lord of the Rings are a great example of this, refusing to do jack until it is almost too late and thousands have died unnecessarily.

In conclusion, Final Fantasy Seven was a bad game, and the trends it set make for lazy and derivative story telling, from a writing perspective it was the start of a decline in the series that continues to this day.

There is a remake coming soon, I am interested in if they do anything to improve it other than a much needed graphical update, I suspect they will not.