I’ve Never Played a Final Fantasy; Shall We Give It a Go? Continued…

Written by kanbu33 | November 9, 2009

There are several hallmarks of truly a great game. I’m not planning on voicing them all now, but there is one that in particular that applies, even now, to “Final Fantasy 7″; any game that can anchor you to one spot for in excess of six hours has to be good, whether or not you can figure out exactly why. The only reason I can deduce, other than the hypnotic effect of the art design, is that its one of those “greater than the sum of its parts” scenarios.

Last week, I received some really good feedback about my “Final Fantasy” post, so I figured the best way to weather it all was by doing a follow up. First off, to anyone who suggested an alternate “Final Fantasy” to play, thanks, but no thanks; as I said before, nostalgia is a big part why I’m endeavoring to do this, and while “FFX” could well be a diamond encrusted marvel, its simply not a big enough step back if that makes any sense. I might play “VI” if things continue to slide or my monetary status improves, in the meantime “VII” is whats about.

I must say though, I really don’t think the game suffers for the lack of voice acting; yes, it’s true that the text scrolls can become obscenely tedious the second you have to read them more than once, but I’m a real stickler for being charmed by games, and between the music, locales, art design, etc, “FFVII” is incredibly charming, with the scrolling text just adding to that beautifully childlike innocence that surrounds all the headf*ckery.

The game has brought me to one quite worrying conclusion, in that I might potentially be able to enjoy turn based combat. It hardly seems fair to rag on the combat system in “FFVII” for seeming outdated, because it is, but that’s the thing, astonishingly it holds up quite well, and, as long as the backdrops, enemies and boss battles all vary up nicely, it can be a long time before the cold hand of boredom creeps in, and even thats not much of a problem unless your dying continuously.

Since last time, being a hares breathe outside of the Shinra building, I’m now standing next to a dilapidated rocket; I’ll leave you all to figure out what that means in terms of progression for yourself, its definitely not halfway. I might do a round up on this when I’m done with the game, in the meantime, good day.