Dungeons

Does anybody else think that this game doesn't have any? You know, caves or palaces filled with traps and treasures. With the exception of the north crater, ancient forest, and temple of the ancients, none of the locations in this game even come close to conforming with the traditional model of a "dungeon". Everywhere else is either part of a city, or some kind of passage you must journey through. Mt. Nibel? Passage. Great glacier? Passage. Mythril mine? Passage. Shinra HQ? Part of city. North corel? Passage.

Maybe passing through corridors of terrain with various decor to get to new sections of the map actually makes for more entertaining gameplay than passing through wide central fields on the way to remote corner locations, aka dungeons, where specific items must be retrieved. The unorthodox map design certainly makes FF7 a distinctive RPG. Would you guys say this is one of its strengths?

Perhaps; I certainly liked it better than the traditional "boomerang" (as in go and come back) dungeons. This way, you're actually going somewhere instead of getting something you need to go somewhere. A little less overused, a little less tiring.

i liked it that way, it felt a lot more like a real journey,like going through mythril mines, stoping at fort condor to rest and do a small sidequest, then go to your main target junon, fight a boss then rest

it made the story work well becuase when you arrive at a town you find out instantly whether your gonna fight the shinra,learn about someones past or just buy some weapons and head over to the next town

this is a good thing i mean in a real adventure it would be closer to this im sure.

i can think of one "real" dungeon. the cave of the GI! it is a "dungeon" as it's a cave with enemies and traps and a boss. although it is a boomerang dungeon as mentioned before

This game had plenty of dungeons. Alot of them were pretty short, and you did just pass through them, but they definitely were dungeons. I actually enjoyed alot of them, like Gaia Cliffs (nostalgic false wall passages), and the Gi Cave (monster ambushes).