Holy Meteor, Batman!
YES! Another Final Fantasy bites the dust!At least they seem to be getting easier with each instalment.
Well, well, well. I've browsed through some dictionaries in my time, but it seems the English language does not have enough superlatives to describe this game.
IT IS ALL THAT, yo! This has to be one of the best games ever created by mankind, it has everything!
Great Story, Drama, Great Gameplay, lots of variation, Humor, lots of secrets and sidequests with great rewards, basically everything that made Final Fantasy 6 so damn good, only with a better story (that's right) and a cast of characters that is easier to deal with for the simple fact that there aren't so damn many characters.
The intuitive Materia system, which allows you to equip skills and magic on your weapons and armor, means that any character can jump in at anytime and still have good abilities, instead of having to build up from scratch.
This was, you never feel totally screwed when a character you have been neglecting is forced into your party.
What is also has is really really LOUSY Midi. God, it hurts the ears.
A real shame, cos the music itself is awesome, this is really one of Uematsu's best, it's just that it sounds so hideous and glaring at times.
After Final Fantasy 6 which squeezed phenomenal sounds out of the old SuperNES, everyone was more or less expecting great things from the PSX. you know, being a CD-operated console and everything; people had their minds set on Orchestral Soundtracks, but they get the aural equivalent of a root-canal.
Secondly, the localisation is really really HORRIBLE. This game was translated by blind wombats, by the look of it. Blind Wombats, that don't even know Japanese. Very fortunately I have the (extremely LIMITED) Final Fantasy VII Memorial Album which has the majority of the script in Japanese, and you can really see how incredibly inept and just plain WRONG a lot of the translations are, causing for what may seem a convoluted story, whereas it does in fact make some sense. Some.
Now crappy Midi and lousy Dialogue do not mean you have a bad game, nor does it detract from its perfection, because, logically, music doesn't affect the gameplay, and the stupid translation is not present in the original Japanese version, so how can it suddenly be a worse game then?
There's 3 versions of this game you need to keep in mind though:
1. The Original Japanese version
2. The Western Version
3. The Japanese remake of the Western Version, Final Fantasy 7 International!
Dear god, that last one spurred a whole new fad in Gameland, which is only being kept alive by Square I think. Bastards. Release an imperfect game in Japan, perfect it for the West, and rerelease in Japan! Rinse and Repeat, ad nauseum.
Anyway, they added a LOT of stuff to the Western version, making it a considerably better and more sensical game, so the Japanese decided they wanted some of that stuff too, and they released the International version, which is not plagued by the inane dialogue of the Western version. So, ultimately, the third version is by far the best and is the main reason I'm giving this game the Perfect Score of 10.
There is a reason this game is what brought world-wide recognition for the FF series, and the reason is that it's Goddamn Brilliant. There is also a reason that this is the one Final Fantasy that Square is trying to squeeze every penny out of, with the upcoming Advent Children movie, and a slew of Spin-off games on multiple platforms, and the reason is that, for once, they did EVERYTHING right in a game.
Except for the Midi.
Speaking of which, I've been thinking of hosting Mp3's since I'm always rambling on about the music, without providing examples, but unfortunately, I can't host audio files here, so I'm just going to Link directly to sites that can. MUHAHAHAHA! Man, I'm going to be in trouble.
Logically I can only do this for games I can find on the Net, but hey, whatever.
So without further ado, my three favorite tracks in the game:
J-E-N-O-V-A
You can hear the Cry of the Planet
Perfect Jenova
Next up, FF VIII! I love Roman Numerals!
posted by Ingen! @ 2:38 PM
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