Just started playing ff7 again for the first time in about 5 years

[darkchrono]

And it is really amazing me again (since I have pretty much forgotten alot of the actual dialogue of the game) how well put together the cast of characters really are.

I know that ff7 does not really have the most intriguing story in the world (in fact when you think about it the story is rather simplistic). But most would agree that the real strength of ff7 is the character development and how much fun it is to learn things about the characters.

So is there any other game out there that can rival the ff7 cast of characters in terms of how well put together they are and how strong the character development is.

[edczxcvbnm]

Xenogears blows just about every game out of the water as far as character development goes and anyone who has played the game will most likely agree.

[Azure Chrysanthemum]

Xenogears blows just about every game out of the water as far as character development goes and anyone who has played the game will most likely agree.

Yeah pretty much.

[Germ Hamee]

I actually thought the charactor development was the weakest quality of FF7. I'll jump on the bandwagon and say Xenogears.

[darkchrono]

You guys also though have to remember that Xenogears was about twice as long (and had about ten times as much dialogue) as ff7 did. So of course Xenogears characters are going to be more developed.

But let's put it this way. Half way through the game of Xenogears are the characters as memorable or developed as the ff7 characters were.

I am sure if the ff7 characters were given 70 hours of development (opposed to the 40 or so they received in the ff7 game) I am sure their development would have blown the Xenogears characters out of the water.

In my opinion this is the difference between Xenogears and FF7 (which in my opinion are the two best RPG's out there). Xenogears has a much much much more developed plot than ff7 does. And its characters receive so much screen time that you will be bound to find out alot about them. But the quality of the development while it is taking place in Xenogears doesn't come close to the quality of ff7's development while it is taking place.

I say that Xenogears wins hands down in plot development. But FF7 wins out in the quality of character development.

[NeoCracker]

Though I havn't played Xenogears, I thought Xenosaga had the best character developement out there. Every villian you fight pretty much has a story that unfolds for you, they really don't leave anything out. OF course it falls in the same lines as Xenogears from the sound of it, and expands to three games. But meh, its still awsome.

[Dell]

WhatEver. FFVII is the best out there.

[Dreddz]

*Joins link of hands*
Xenogears

[Raistlin]

Lunar SSSC has better character development. And the Suikoden series has just all-around better games.

[a nirvana fan]

Shouldnt this be in the Final Fantasy VII section?

Anyway I have never played Xenogears but I do want to as I've heard by many people it is a very good game. hmmm.

[Madame Adequate]

Yeah, really can't argue with Xenogears. But I think other FF games put up a good showing.

And as Wes says, Suikoden is just all-around better.

[Agent Proto]

I found Tales of Symphonia to have a pretty good character development.

[edczxcvbnm]

You guys also though have to remember that Xenogears was about twice as long (and had about ten times as much dialogue) as ff7 did. So of course Xenogears characters are going to be more developed.

But let's put it this way. Half way through the game of Xenogears are the characters as memorable or developed as the ff7 characters were.

I am sure if the ff7 characters were given 70 hours of development (opposed to the 40 or so they received in the ff7 game) I am sure their development would have blown the Xenogears characters out of the water.

In my opinion this is the difference between Xenogears and FF7 (which in my opinion are the two best RPG's out there). Xenogears has a much much much more developed plot than ff7 does. And its characters receive so much screen time that you will be bound to find out alot about them. But the quality of the development while it is taking place in Xenogears doesn't come close to the quality of ff7's development while it is taking place.

I say that Xenogears wins hands down in plot development. But FF7 wins out in the quality of character development.

Then FFVII should have been as long as Xenogears if it wished to have the same quality character development that Xenogears did. The quality of the development was better in gears by the way. More background info on all of them as well as how the events changed or shaped their views.

[nik0tine]

Xenogears blows just about every game out of the water as far as character development goes and anyone who has played the game will most likely agree.

Yeah pretty much.

[KentaRawr!]

Well, I put my last life-line on the audience. Let's hope it works...

Xenogears, and that's my final answer.

[Zeromus_X]

Yes, alot of RPGs can. :cat: *coughFFVIcough*

[darkchrono]

As I said earlier Ed. Xenogears had more development in it than ff7 because it was a much longer game. But the quality of the development while it was taking place was better in ff7.

The characters in Xenogears were not quite as captivating or interesting as the characters in ff7 were.

Quality of development does not mean by the end of the game which rpg had more development. It means while the development is taking place simultaneously which one is better. And in that regard ff7 beats out xenogears hands down.

[edczxcvbnm]

I say no it doesn't and I am sure most will agree with me again. You are stating it as fact when it is your opinion.

I say it is my way based on my preference. Sure, I could go into how I think you are wrong because almost all villians have a back story that gets explain in detail which takes up that other 30 hours of time thus making the time you characters are on screen that much better and in sync with FFVII. Or how they actually go back in time and explain the events of 500 years ago which doesn't have much bearing on your character's development in the game.

Sorry but I think you are wrong. I also think the quality of the characters taking place simutaneously is better in gears.

[Rengori]

FFVI and IX had a great cast of characters, as well as Disgaea (PLAY IT NOW!) and DQ8 makes me smile.

[Lindy]

I'm sorry, are you playing a different FF7 to the one I did?

You know, the one with the incredibly generic party setup, minimal characterisation and pitful storyline?

One or two scenes describing a character's backstory != characterisation.

You've got the tough-but-silent guy who steadily opens up, the cheerful slutty girl, the cheerful but not slutty girl, the big tough guy, the weird non-human character, the loud tough guy, the tough-but-silent guy with a DARK PAST and the ninja girl from a Japanese-ish locale.

In fact all of them have some kind of HORRIBLE AWFUL SECRET which they overcome in the progress of the game, it's sickening.

There's very little variation in the male characters, and the same applies to the females as well, not to mention the repetition of their character types from numerous games, films, books, whatever.

FF7 is a pathetic game, on all counts, and is only good for it's boss battle theme.

Xenogears, Lunar, heck freakin' Final Fantasy Tactics beat down that broken shell of a game.

[bipper]

Xenogears blows just about every game out of the water as far as character development goes and anyone who has played the game will most likely agree.

Yeah pretty much.

And what lindy said. It made me cry to hard to quote it up though :(

[Zeromus_X]

I'm sorry, are you playing a different FF7 to the one I did?

You know, the one with the incredibly generic party setup, minimal characterisation and pitful storyline?

One or two scenes describing a character's backstory != characterisation.

You've got the tough-but-silent guy who steadily opens up, the cheerful slutty girl, the cheerful but not slutty girl, the big tough guy, the weird non-human character, the loud tough guy, the tough-but-silent guy with a DARK PAST and the ninja girl from a Japanese-ish locale.

In fact all of them have some kind of HORRIBLE AWFUL SECRET which they overcome in the progress of the game, it's sickening.

There's very little variation in the male characters, and the same applies to the females as well, not to mention the repetition of their character types from numerous games, films, books, whatever.

FF7 is a pathetic game, on all counts, and is only good for it's boss battle theme.

Xenogears, Lunar, heck freakin' Final Fantasy Tactics beat down that broken shell of a game.

Although everyone is entitled to their opinion, would it hurt to not use such generalizations? Unless you just hate the game so much and think of half-assed reasons why you hate it. It'd be better to say that you just hate it, without giving such reasons, if that's all you'll come up with.

And don't complain about stock characters. Those type of characters were pretty fresh during that era; and it's inevitable that that type of character would be used in another media in some form anyway.

There are RPGs with more complex plots than FFVII, obviously, but that doesn't mean that the game isn't deep. :cat:

[Lindy]

I'd hardly consider calling into question the supposedly "strong" character development "half-assed reasons", when it's the heart of the argument.

And I don't see what better there is to use other than generalisations, when the characters in the game themselves are generalisations of stereotypical RPG characters.

If you think FF7 is deep, I suggest you stop considering paddling pools suitable for swimming.

[Zeromus_X]

Maybe those characters are re-used today, however, in FFVII's era, they were one of the first sets of characters to start those stock characters. :cat:

[Lindy]

Except FF7's characters are repeats of those in FF4~6 and other SNES era games.

Try again.

[TheAbominatrix]

Yeah, those character stereotypes were nothing new. Not only are they pretty much staples in every other media form (books, cartoons, movies, etc), they'd already been used multiple times in games. I really dont think VII's characters brought anything new to the table.

Honestly, while X wasnt a perfect game, I felt it had more realistic characterization... in the sheer fact that it isnt full of huge overblown character changes, but some of them grow and change and come to terms with things. Again, not saying it's perfect, but I liked the subtle changes as opposed to the big life-changing nonsense we see in most games.

I liked Fire Emblem's character development.. again, it's minimal, and you have a lot of different people in the party, but I liked that you could explore aspects of other characters by talking to them on the battlefield.

Star Ocean: The Second Story was good too, lots of little things revealed.

Xenogears would have to be the winner, however.

[Zeromus_X]

Except FF7's characters are repeats of those in FF4~6 and other SNES era games.



Then compare all the FFIV-VI characters (And other RPGs, etc.) to VII. There may always be a 'dark and mysterious' character, or a 'cheerful and annoying' character, or a 'non-human' character, but they won't all be the exact same character, is what I mean. And, it's pointless to complain about it, these characters have been used before, and most definitely will be used in RPGs in the future.

And, FFVII doesn't have the most complex plot of all time, but that by no means does it have a shallow plot. There are plenty of titles (previously mentioned by others) that would have a more complex plot then it does. :cat:

But now, I don't really care anymore. I'm not going to convince you of anything, so just complain about it all you want to :cat: I don't feel like trying to get people to get over little complaints to just at least enjoy something, and focus on the positive of it, without having to dissect the game and all it's small faults. Sorry for interrupting the thread :cat:

[SoulTaker*]

I cant say for sure, which is better, I have never played Xenogears before, though from the praise you guys are giving it I should. FFVII is my game though so i might be a little biased. Their both tied at 9.5 on IGN, although FFVII is ranked #2 alltime. Put it this way, I prefer Cloud to Tidus type characters, tough anti heroes to pretty boys.

[darkchrono]

Ok I will go into why I think the character development has better quality in ff7 than in xenogears.

Though the characters in Xenogears are deep and you find out alot about them the plot sets that trap on them (which many rpg's are guilty of) of creating characters that are put into odd situations and end up doing things that are a bit strange and unusual and out of character .

-18 year olds don't lead a ship and command a group of people in hopes of trying to take back his kingdom.

-16 year old boys are not part of a monestary

-16 year old girls are not part of a convent type atmosphere and are definitely not considered one of its leaders.

-18 year old girls do not command military units within an army

-29 year old men are not considered to be all knowledgeable and wise about the world

-People do not receive the title of Bishop by the age of 34

-29 year old men do not command an entire army for a country.



Now why I feel FF7's development is of better quality because it's characters are much easier for people of our world to relate to because they take on the personalities and have are dealing with the same kind of issues that people in our world deal with.

They pick a very good location to introduce you to the characters-i.e the slums- which is a location that everyone who plays the game can relate to and they can relate to how the people in those slums act because they know how people in the real world act in the slums.

They can understand why the Avalanche members want to get revenge on their government-because they feel that they have been repressed- And Avalanches way of getting that revenge seems very understandable.

Now after the Midgar section of the game all you basically do is just travel around finding things out about Sephiroth (which is not an over the top scenario thought up by the writers). And during that time you learn how each of the characters relate to each other in very good detail and why they want to join eachother in the fight. And also a very intriguing love triangle develops between Cloud, Tifa, and Aeris.

So in my opinion FF7's simplistic storyline made for very realistic characters and allowed you to get to know characters you could relate to.

On the other hand Xenogears complicated storyline tended to put it's cast of characters in rather odd situations. And though it was interesting learning things about them it didn't allow them to develop a cast of characters that the gamers could relate to.


And to top it all off though Xenogears soundtrack was good. FF7's soundtrack was absolutely timeless as far as video game music goes.

Who could ever forget Aeris's theme playing while she died and Sephiroth's theme to boot.

[Lindy]

I don't get how in the hell you could relate to FF7's characters any more than Xenogears', when they're in an equally outlandish situation, unless of course you live in a world controlled by an evil corporation siphoning life out of the planet and spend your days chasing after a man in black.

Your suggestion of relating more to the characters? Entirely moot.

And realism? I hardly think discussion of a game set in a world entirely different for our own warrants the suggestions of REALISTIC characters.

Oh and the fact that all the characters in Xenogears have been linked continually through every cycle of reincarnation? Yeah, I'd say that was a good reason they're all together, compared to "OMGZ SHINRA IS EVIL, LETS BEET 'EM ;(".

[darkchrono]

Well let's see. Shinra was basically taking on the role of the government (or governing the city). And lots of people are controlled by their government like that (or have been in the past).

And all they were doing was trying to find out things about a person who they deemed as the bad guy or one of the bad guys. Compared to in Xenogears where they have 13 year old girls piloting superhuman gears that nobody in the world can pilot.

[edczxcvbnm]

HEY! That 13 year old girl is more like....6000 years old or something.

Also all the things you say that do not happen have happened...for the most part in our history of the world from Alexander the Great to Joan of Arc are just 2 example that throw the 'never happen' crap out the window.

You know what would never happen...magic. All these games are /xxx.gif/xxx.gif/xxx.gif/xxx.gif :laugh:

[Lindy]

Not to mention that she wasn't a girl, she was a nano-tech robot.

And then there's the little girl Maria who pilots Seibzehn, but it contains the brain of her...father, was it? So he's basically controlling it more than she is, not to mention the fact that she's a child genius anyway.

[The Devourer Of Worlds]

Xenogears blows just about every game out of the water as far as character development goes and anyone who has played the game will most likely agree.
Yeah, too bad everything else about the game is pretty half-arsed.

[DMKA]

Xenogears blows just about every game out of the water as far as character development goes and anyone who has played the game will most likely agree.
This is true, as much as I hate to admit it.

[Captain Maxx Power]

Xenogears blows just about every game out of the water as far as character development goes and anyone who has played the game will most likely agree.

I disagree. It's character development is good, but it's not the best ever.

[Raistlin]

Lunar SSSC has the best character development. This is a basic fact of life. The sky is blue, the sun is hot, Cid's Knights are like shinra, and Lunar SSSC has the best character development.

[darkchrono]

Well as far as Joan of Arc goes you have about 600 years of embellishment going on there.

Joan was a very charasmatic individual and did convince people that God would help them win. I don't know if we really know how big of a role she really had in the battles though. And besides, people ended up turning on her very quickly. I don't know how old Alexander the Great was but I believe he was older than 18.

Anyway, you had to go back through almost a 1000 years of history to find two individuals. Whereas Xenogears had about 5 times that many in one time period alone.

[Germ Hamee]

Dude. It's called fantasy for a reason, even if you want to ignore the fact that young people were far more capable and "adult" a couple hundred years ago than they are today. You may not relate to it, but that does not by any means make it impossible.

I seriously thought that the charactors and music were the absolute weakest in the series. The plot was decent, and I enjoyed the world, but otherwise I wasn't very impressed.

[darkchrono]

I really think young people would be more capable of doing physically tasking things today than they were a couple hundred years ago with all the weightlifting programs and othr things they have going that they did not have going then.

[Lindy]

Yes, nothing to do with the fact that all work back then was manual labour, compared to now where young people are endlessly lazy and have most things about their lives automated.

Yes, all about the weighlifting.

God, do you even THINK before you type out a message?

[bipper]

Lunar SSSC has the best character development. This is a basic fact of life. The sky is blue, the sun is hot, Cid's Knights are like shinra, and Lunar SSSC has the best character development.

I completley agree. The little scene where they [FFVII cast] all introduced themselves to President Rufus sums up the character depth perfectly. 'And I am a flower girl from the slums!' :p

FFVII was bitter eyecandy for the time. The world made that game - ironically it is what kills its predissesors.

I have seen some beutifully designed characters though. The designs seemed very conceptual in thier imagry, and the relative symbolism they all offered to the characters. Smokin Cid was a taboo badass as well... godiluvthatguy.

Bipper

[darkchrono]

Well Lindy you must be thinking about all those people who sit on there couch and watch tv all day long. Where as I am thinking about people who actually go out and work out and keep their bodies healthy.

You throw out insults before you think Lindy.

[Lindy]

You do realise that's most people these days? The complete laziness aspect? Compared to everyone bar the rich and powerful being involved in manual labour in thems tharr olden days, and even then if you're talking medieval times then most nobles would be trained in martial combat as Knights.

Back then it was top heavy to physical exertion, now it's top heavy to a complete lack of it.

Again, think before you post, maybe the logic will seep into your brain one day.

[darkchrono]

Lindy I don't really think you know what you are talking about. Have you been around sports teams of highschool, college, or the pro levels.

Those guys have some of the best work ethic around. You go out for a sport and then find out how hard it is to go to school all day long and then bust your butt in practice for three hours or so. And then go home and do your schoolwork.

Those guys are anything but lazy. Don't think that just because you might be in a situation where everyone you see is fat and lazy that everyone is like that. Because there are tons and tons of athletes out there that are anything but what you just described.

And those athletes ARE physically more capable than young people were hundreds of years ago.

Again you throw out insults before you think through things Lindy. Try not to next time.

[Leeza]

Okay, the two of you can stop now.

[Germ Hamee]

I really think young people would be more capable of doing physically tasking things today than they were a couple hundred years ago with all the weightlifting programs and othr things they have going that they did not have going then.

-.- How is this relevant? I'm assuming you were referring to my post, because this kind of came out of nowhere. I wasn't referring to how physically abled people used to be, but more how mature they were. Many children were married and had children before you were learning how to drive a car. People had to grow up a lot faster than they do now, which is why it's not that farfetched for an eighteen year old charactor to have a very high position.

In any case, I don't think Aeris or Red XIII lifted that many weights or engaged in too many afterschool sports activities. I'm guessing this makes them unrealistic and unrelateable?

[darkchrono]

I wrote that because you said that I was choosing to ignore the fact that people were far more capable hundreds of years ago.

You can say that people were more mature hundreds of years ago if you are talking about them taking over their dads farm. Or them choosing to have a kids at a younger age.

But when it comes to worldly matters certain young people's of today's age would probably be more capable. You have to remember back in the day kids were not worldly at all. What they knew about the world encompassed about a square mileage of probably 20 miles or so.

Where as kids of todays age know what is going on throughout the entire world. So when it comes to worldly matters kids of today would probably be more capable of handling a situation. While when it comes to choosing to settle down and have kids at a younger age kids hundreds of years ago would be more mature about that kind of stuff.

[KentaRawr!]

This isn't about excersize. It's about RPG's and their character development.

And for the record, Lindy, I am very fit! Look at how fast I type! :D

[edczxcvbnm]

No one has a gun for a hand. THE GAME IS /xxx.gif/xxx.gif/xxx.gif/xxx.gif IN A CAN!