Originally Posted by Kain424
I am not a fan of bashing too many games because they almost always have fans waiting around the corner, waiting to jump to that particular title's defense.
As for this article, it became quite clear to me that the author was a bit confused as to what it was that he actually hated. It seemed to me that he hated the fanboy (and girls) and the affect that this game had on other games.
I can't say that I disagree with him on that. Every RPG now seems to have the basic plot that if you find and defeat the right long-haired pretty-boy, the world's problems will be solved. Also, now every character is a wild-haired weakling with social anxiety and inner conflict like Cloud (or his more extreme successor, Squall).
However, I would go so far as to say that the author is hugely wrong when it comes to the story of Final Fanasy VII. The plot is almost impossibly complex, often needing more than one playing of the game to take it all in and understand just what it all meant. Every character is delved into quite deeply (unlike say, Final Fantasy VI), all with immense backgrounds and problems of their own.
The music here is fantastic, so here I also disagree with the writer. Some of Uematsu's best work can be found here, namely "One-Winged Angel", which brought game music beyond the usual midi format kind.
As for the animation, it was about time that RPG's moved beyond the 2D kinds offered in the previous FFs and others. The in-game cinematics only served as an extra treat for players, adding, along with more epic storyline a better experience (instead of saying to other FFVII players, remember when so-and-so said "blah-blah", now you could say, "remember when the Saphire Weapon attacked Junon and just before he was to blast another shot he got blaste3d right in the riggin' face!?").
Final Fantasy VII was and still is and awesome experience. Were the story so bad then people wouldn't remember it, were the characters not interesting nor developed then people wouldn't remember their names. It's good when there are people like this who write such things about Final Fantasy VII. It pulls the rest of us together to remember what an awesome experience we have all shared, and yet also had personally. Go Final Fantasy VII.