Wow, still alot of stuff goin on here, like Mullet said, 90% of it is pretty damn good, one of the best debates i've seen in the FF game forums in a minute...

First I just wanna clear somethin up

Quote Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno View Post

Now you mistake my sentiments about FFVII as blind fanboy jealousy but it can equally be argued that your thoughts about the other games in the series in comparison to your beloved VII is the same thing. You just can't let any other game be better than it or be told that it did it first. So your point is moot. I don't hate VII, is it overrated? hell yes but I would even throw in my beloved VI as overrated. I can see that VI isn't perfect can you for VII?
Nah man, please don't misinterpret me as saying those things. I don't consider you, Mullet, Avarice, Boko, (well, I think Boko's had alot of negative influence) as being fanboys, because you all come in here and give solid reasons for your beliefs. But I think there's a little bias in there, just like i'll gladly admit that I have alot of bias in that this game really changed my view on games, and raised the bar for what it takes for a game to satisfy me. But my point is, please, don't think i'm downplaying your arguments to jelous or fanboyism, i really think this is a great debate.

First off, Kanno, you mistook what I said, my whole "history of the CD console" was NOT about Sega Saturn, it was about the SEGA CD. It was an add on to the Sega Genesis, and like I said, it was the first, or the first mainstream attempt at a disc-based console system. If you go back and look at those games, they TRULY WERE interactive movies,were you make really small decisions in an almost text-based format and then a mini movie will play until you make your next choice. This was one of the first ways in which game developers tackled the possibilities of disc games.

My point should follow, that squaresoft looked at this strategy, then looked at PSX games, which were mostly either large or long games w/ few or manditory cut scenes, FFVII used both at just the right porportions and gave birth to the modern video game. THAT'S REVOLUTIONARY. Do you disagree?

Resident Evil is a great example, but for the most part, it follows what i was saying for PSX games. It was basically following the same principle as Doom, except it was 3rd person. There were very small rooms, so even though it was pushing the boundaries of games, it was still very much confined within the same traditional mindset of game developers pre-FFVII.

Also, once again, I have to say that comparing how revolutionary the previous FF games were to FFVII is unplausible and rediculous. If you take all the first 6 FF's together in one group and compare them to VII, you'll see that the differences between those games, although they seemed great at the time, are extremely miniscule compared to the differences to VII. In that sense, FFI is less revolutionary than FFVII because you can throw DragonQuest and the other NES RPG's into that category and still see that the differences between those games and VII is still massive whereas in comparison the differences among them are like baby steps. The word REVOLUTIONARY implies change, drastic change, and it's hard to argue that VII didn't provide that.

Goldenboko, about our argument on deep, I agree with what you're saying 100%, FFVI is is a very emotionally moving game. I'm a young man, but I'm not afraid to admit that there are a few FF's that made me cry/want to cry, and VI is one of those games. But My whole point about the the writing and the deepness of it is to illustrate the REVOLUTIONARY change that it provided. Social Commentary is something that was absent from video games, at least in the popular sphere, especially dealing with it philosophically and eruditely (is this a word?) like FFVII did, so I consider that to be VERY revolutionary. VI also (and i realize that this is not your favorite) dealt with many issues, but I think it was VII that brought them to the forefront because it dealt with so many different things, environmental issues, the effects of science and technology, militarism, nationalism, capitalism, cultural conflict and resistance, and while VI and previous games may have touched on these things, they were only able to do just that - touch on them. VII brought them to the forefront and added an artistic credibility that isn't present in previous games and THAT'S REVOLUTIONARY.

There's more to say, but I would address Kanno again, the key here is change, and you say that IV and II also set the bar for RPG's, but how drastic is that compared to VII? After Final Fantasy VII I witnessed entire sub-genres of RPG's die out. Before that game there were many different systems and battle systems that RPG's employed, but after this the genre almost became synonymous for menu-command and turn-based battle, in one way or another, many RPGs that follow emulating FFVII's ATB system. Strategy RPGs were my favorite kind of RPG due to everything that was built in to them, and after FFVII, I saw this artform completely disappear off the market. Except for Final Fantasy Tactics, which to me was the last hurrah for the sub-genre, and I would agree with you in many ways when you said that FFT is probably the best work in the series, but that's another debate.

I have 9 minutes to eat lunch before my next class so i gotta jet, i'll check up on this later.