lol YES as a matter of fact i doOriginally Posted by Wolf Kanno
Now I'm certain you will have a lot to say on my point and I look forward to it. This really is a quality debatebut i'll try to be brief with each point.
1. With regardes to Sega CD, you're right, and that's something i want to bring up everytime someone says "interactive movie" that every FF has scenes where you don't do anything. My point was that Sega CD was one approach to the capabilities of CD, and Playstation and Sega Saturn were another. FFVII was the first modern video game in that it combined both aspects in the right ratio.
2. I am not downplaying any of the earlier games. II and IV were both very revolutionary games. Especially when you consider their eras. But the differences between the first 6 games are much much smaller than their differences with FFVII. I am trying to illustrate the change, the entire basis for calling something revolutionary.
3. To this day I am still ashamed to say I've never beaten Chrono Trigger. But you're absolutely right that much of VII was influenced by what was accomplished in that game. But the issues dealt with (as much as I played) barely go further than skin deep. Like you said, there were limitations on these games, and they weren't able to thoroughly explore, explain, and allude to these themes as much as they did on FFVII.
4. Xenogears is one of the deepest RPG's of all time, but its place in this discussion is irrelevant due to the fact that it came after VII.
5. The fact that you call FFVII a fluke makes me question as to whether or not you were playing video games at the time (i'm sure you were). This game drove people nuts when it came out. There was nothing like it. If you were even a casual gamer, you couldn't escape it. Magazines couldn't stop talking about it, and it pervaded almost every discussion on video games for quite a long time. I remember my little brother watching me play it all the time for the sole reason that he wouldn't be left out of everyone in his school talking about it.
6. This follows from 5 in that it wasn't a fluke because of its brilliant marketing campaign, which you speak of later on (so why do you call it a fluke?). One of my professors, who has a Ph.D. in Political Science, brought FFVII up in our class on Public Opinion & Propaganda, due to it having a marketing campaign unlike any other game before its time. It was advertised on television, in comic books, magazines, even playboy. Square knew what they were doing, and this illustrates my theme that VII revolutionised FF, RPG's and video games
7. And this follows from 6 - that Square knew what a big step they were taking. There were over 200 artists employed for this game alone. They were breaking new ground in the FMV scene, with the types of illustrations they were using with the pre-rendered backgrounds, the development alone of this game is like nothing ever seen before. They needed to see a return on that and they were able to do it.
8. VIII wasn't the revolution, it was the first game (first FF) to come out AFTER the revolution.
I'd just want to end saying that when you look at FF before and after FFVII it is two completely different things. You are correct in pointing out that it was the culmination of many aspects that were pioneered before it - ATB, battle screens, character driven stories, etc. But in many ways, it completely changed the way these games were made - the backgrounds, 3d character models, use of FMV, sound format, scope and depth of issues covered, disc format, etc. For someone to say that FFVII didn't revolutionise the series is very odd and peculiar to me.
I think i've pretty much said everything I could possibly say. I'm gonna fall back for a little bit in this thread and see where other people take this. But I just want to remind everyone that the point of this thread is how much FFVII revolutionized the series, so when I see/hear people say not at all, I find it redundant for me to even have to come in here and provide examples of how it is.
