Taking a way the great characters and character development of ffVII.

How good is the actual plot of the game. From what I remember the major chunk of ffVII was put into developing each of the main characters (which they did a very good job of). But when you take the characters out of the equation the actual plot of the game really sounds extremely basic. Avalanche destroys a couple reactors. They find out Sephiroth is loose and decide to start chasing him. They spend much of the rest of the game traveling from town to town finding things out about Sephiroth until at the end of the game they finally catch up to him and beat him.

When you think about it that is about the gist of the entire plot of the game. And when you think about most of all the good parts of the game take place while they are either developing a character in the present or developing a character through a flashback.

But Take LOTR for example. You have the extemely simple Good Vs. Evil. All the "Good" guys are fighting Eachother and need to realize a Greater Evil among themselves is to the East. Very Cliche(Accented "e")

none of that actyually happened

they blew up 2 reactors which is WAY less than a couple

cloud decides to go after him and drags everyone else into it, red xiii is only travelling until cosmo canyon (or so he says)

you don't really find out much about sephiroth in some of the towns
wutai? aint go nothing on no black caped man
corel? they too poor to care about some guy with a sword

also they catch up to sephiroth plenty before they actually beat him
he doesn't walk very fast


also there's the whole meteor/lifestream/planet/evil corporation deal going on that i wouldnt classify under character development

isnt a "couple" 2 anyways? :D

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Originally Posted by Not At All Reno

none of that actyually happened

they blew up 2 reactors which is WAY less than a couple

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:: points to the post above mine ::

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Originally Posted by Not At All Reno

you don't really find out much about sephiroth in some of the towns wutai? aint go nothing on no black caped man
corel? they too poor to care about some guy with a sword

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One of the NPCs in Corel mentions a fellow in a black cape with a "1" tattoo walking toward the ropeway station. While the guy wasn't Sephiroth, he was one of the black-cloaked experiments from Nibelheim and his familiar garb bore looking into.

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Originally Posted by Not At All Reno

also they catch up to sephiroth plenty before they actually beat him he doesn't walk very fast

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On each of those occasions, he was letting them "catch up with him."

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Originally Posted by Khimbar2775

isnt a "couple" 2 anyways? :D

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Yes. XD

Of course the plot itself (sans characters) is rather linear. That's an FF staple.

Hang on a minute... Lets not be too vague hear, I haven't played in a long time and I'm writing quickly so this is pretty much bare minimum plot. SPOILERS:

Aeris dieing
Nibelheim's story
You aren't actually chasing Sephiroth for about half of the game
There is a love story in there

It depends also on who's plot you analyse. AVALANCHE's isn't that complex, although it isn't exactly basic, you have four deaths within it, a spy, the progression from rebel group to individuals pursuing there own interests in saving the world, the whole ShinRa parts, the history of the group itself...
If you take Cloud as the main plot focus you throw in HUGE amounts of plot, from backstory, love interests, mental instability, rivalry, loss, revenge, insecurities...
If you look at the plot as revolving around the world, you have a 2000 year long story going on with catastrophies, the extinction of a race, the rise of industry and its effect on the planet and its inhabitants...

Man I gotta play that game again...

well, you do have a pretty good gist on it all, maybe missing a few points here and there, but you covored all the basics definately. And yes, you SHOULD replay the game! :D

darkchrono has a point but hes slightly twisting facts abd simplyfying thing.that is the basic plot but sephiroth is not the only enemy .what about the turks and shinra.give them some credit.in some ways i agree with with you but you have simmplyfied it down to the basic plot and practically ignored the bit inbeetween the intro and end.

All I have to say whether you think it's the story, the characters, or other factors (personally I think it is all three), Final Fantasy VII is if not the greatest, one of the greatest games there is, and it should be replayed more than twice.

I agree, thr games basis would be crumbling without the characters. Clouds would make the game a tramatic experience

Reflecting on the topic some more, wouldn't any plot simply suck if you took away its characters and their development?

Well, I guess not (Deus Ex would still be good), but that's because its plot twists are story generated, not character generated. Taking the characters out of FFVII would also remove all the plot twists (i.e. Cloud's insecurities, Aeris dying, Barret's fight with Dyne, Cid's rocketship, Red XIII's father, Seto, the list goes on).

A Deus Ex fan! I never hear that discussed on here! Thats another game i should replay, is Invisible War any good?

Hehe, on topic... I think the game might survive without the character development, it would need to change the way it is told a LOT, but the Jenova and Shinra stories are fairly good on their own, each town comes with a story too (maybe not Kalm). It wouldn't have been nearly as good, but the plot for FFVII ignoring character development is still pretty damn deep, and it is possible for basically personality-less characters to work in an RPG (FFI).

In summary, FFVII kicks ass.

Unfortunately, I haven't played Invisible War, but I've been told it's just as excellent as the original overall, but it lacks the depth that the original had in terms of storyline. But yeah, Deus Ex kicks ass. :D

And yeah, I was mainly considering the party's story. The way Jenova and Shinra intertwine do add something to the story that's not character-driven, although technically their roles in the stories are driven by their associated agents (i.e. Shinra - Rufus, Scarlet, Heidegger, Reeve, Turks | Jenova - Sephiroth).

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Originally Posted by Khimbar2775

isnt a "couple" 2 anyways? :D

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....i've been living a lie