Final Fantasy VII: Overrated?

[Wolf Kanno]

You also forget about Master Materia which offers only benefits. All magic on Barret with no consequences. In comparison to your earlier example; sure you can remove the materia and Barret doesn't have them anymore whereas Sabin retains it but lets be serious here... Who uses Sabin as a mage? Hell, I would argue restricting him to magic is a handicap for the player.

Feel free to change Sabin for any other character . I just used him as an example because he was the first one to come to mind.

I just had to make a joke about it.

As far as the Master Materia goes, granted, it does offer only benefits, but how easy is to get it? It certainly is not something you obtain by following the main course of the game. It involves quite a bit of effort and time to get your hands on it and by the point you get it, I would say that it isn’t that relevant. I mean, if you are able to beat Emerald weapon without it, or if you already have all summons mastered (for example), what advantage does it really adds? By that point you are not going to be using Shiva, Ifrit, Ramuh or any other summon with the exception of the most powerful ones nor will you be using Ice, Fire or Bolt in place of more powerful magic.

The same can be said of all the other FFs to be honest, but I feel the time it takes to make Master Materia is actually not as hard as some feel. Magic and Command materia are quite easy if you know a good leveling spot (same as V, VI, X, and XII). Summon not so much but then again, who need 3 Knights of the Round? Personally, I never felt magic materia was all that important except for using in conjunction with Element and Added Effect Materia. Command Materia in conjunction with Ultimate Weapons (plain broken) makes magic obsolete. Hades, Bahamut Zero with Quad magic and Knights of the Round; these are just a few materia's that hold no tactical value cause they basically mean instant win.

The Enemy Skill materia while useful does not comes with all skills in it. You have to not only have it equipped but also must face some particular enemies and endure one of their special attacks in order to learn that skill. Add to that the fact that even if you learn an ability like Aqualung from a monster, it is not passed down to all your Enemy Skill materias but only to the ones you have equipped and if the skill hits a single target, your chances of learning the skill get lower. If you don’t know where and from whom you obtain the different skills, chances are that you will miss quite a few, something that will eventually lead you to balance things out between magic and Enemy Skills, especially when some Enemy Skills like Magic Breath actually heal some enemies.

The problem with your argument is that you are assuming its a first playthrough. I would agree you are right under those circumstances but I'm talking about a second or third playthrough when you finally understand the system better. You get two Enemy Skill materia fairly early (Shin-Ra building and Junon) and most of the broken abilities are fairly easy to obtain once you know where to get them due to experience. Manipulate and Control are your weapon of choices when gaining such skills and Cait Sith comes equipped with one in time and shows up relatively early in the game, as opposed to getting the Fake Mustache in VI or leveling the Tamer class in V. I'm not even out of the first disc in my current file and I have 3/5 if not 2/3 of all the Blue magic in the game. Hell the three most abusive spells (Magic Hammer, White Wind, and Mighty Guard) are openly used by their monsters, so it doesn't take long to figure out who you need to manipulate.

I also would like to point out that VII's version of White Wind and Mighty Guard are far more broken than earlier and even later counterparts. With HP materia, White Wind makes even the magically challenged uber powerful healers and its ability to remove all status ailments makes it even more useful. Only in VII does Mighty Guard cast haste on your party as well.

My problem with the battle system overall in VII is that its really cool in the beginning where you are quite restricted. Yet due to overpowered materia, Limit Breaks, and equipment, the whole system falls apart. It offers strategy but the game lacks challenge to ever need to use it as well as overpowered abilities and options that makes forming intricate strategies a waste of time.

Well I agree on some points with you here. The game, the enemies in particular, is quite easy and lacks challenge. This lack of challenge probably ends up hindering the potential of the materia system. However, I don’t see this lack of challenge as something that emerges from the materia system itself but more from the overall difficulty of the enemies you face. Given the wide range of possibilities that the materia system gives, I think that they should have made the enemies or at least the bosses in such a way that their stats vary depending on your level or even on what sort of materias you have equipped, very much like the attack “Aire Tam Storm” of Emerald Weapon, which does damage based on how much materia you have equipped; or they could simply just make the enemies a bit harder than they are. Hopefully if they do a remake the difficulty of the game will be increased.

I agree that the enemies lack difficulty, it was a problem I felt appeared first in its predecessor. Granted the difficulty issues are far more terrible in later installments (VIII and X respectively) but like VI I felt the average difficulty level made the flaws in the gameplay more apparent. Even if the enemies were a bit tougher, it wouldn't change the fact that Level 3 and up limit breaks, Ultimate weapons, 2x/4x Cut, Slash-All and KotR are insanely broken in comparison to earlier games.. They are relatively easier to obtain, and as Bolivar pointed out, the Materia system allows you to experience their power immediately in some of the cases whereas in previous installments you had to earn such power and even then few were as blatantly broken. As I said earlier, I like the idea behind the materia system but too many factors (mediocre difficulty, overpowered end-game abilities and broken materia) make it unable to reach its true potential.

Anyway, good post Wolf Kanno. Nice to see more intelligent points raised about the game

Thank you, its nice to see more well thought out debates. I'm certain, Bolivar and The Crystal are bored with me and my cynical view.

VII was a step back for me from that. I felt like there was no difference between the characters, and the one person who truly stood out, was killed. It's my biggest problem with the game, and will always be my biggest problem with the game. I felt the battle system was a step back from VI.

Man I disagree completely, especially on the VII to VI comparison.

First off, the differences between characters in VII was limit breaks, statistics, and weapon classes, which are the only real divisions in VI. VI's character abilities were basically the same as limit breaks, except you could spam them every turn, completely removing strategy or variation, so I have to say if anything VII improved upon VI, not the adverse. And alot of the weapon classes in VI overlapped, so the characters aren't really as unique as you're making them out to be.

Statistics? Weapon Class? In VII? Seriously, I found the statistics in VI were far more important than VII. Materia never seemed to create major changes in my parties stats. I've played this game half a dozen times and I never noticed major changes. Its not that I don't believe they exist but I just never felt they made any difference either for the better or for the worse. The only obvious change was hp and mp and with the mediocre difficulty I never felt low hp was a serious threat since very few enemies can do serious damage until the end of the game. Cloud and Aerith are the only two characters with significant stat differences and the rest have such minor changes its like debating about the statistical difference of your party in VIII which most would agree is irrelevant. Hell stats don't mean anything once you get the Ultimate weapons.

Weapons? If you are talking about long range, it rarely had any tactical advantage except in two boss fights, which I don't consider a very compelling use of its versatility. IV made better use of long range weapons than VII did. The only person who had a gimp weapon was Aerith but its obvious she was designed to be a traditional mage character.

The Esper system in VI has to be probably the worst the series has ever seen. Every character can permanently learn every spell, and because of the time you spend, you may as well have them all learn the most powerful spells - completely annihilating uniqueness - basically every character is a mage, only a handful of the large cast get enough unique equipment to make them more than that. Not to mention that the statistic effects are so minimal, that it's really only at the end of the game (and that's if you did a considerable amount of the sidequests/grinding) that it really has any impact.

First off, their is actually enough noticeable stat differences in VI's cast to make teaching every spell a unnecessary. Outside of giving Cyan buff spells and healing magic, he's a lousy mage. Hell if VI didn't have the three uber broken weapons, Terra would be a lousy warrior. If Locke didn't have the Valiant Knife he would be all but useless cause he's an ok fighter and a mediocre mage at best. Course VI does smurf it all up with character specific super weapons but not everyone got one.

VI had a better variety of weapons and their uses are better diversified for the party in comparison to VII (though XII and V kicks both their asses imo) Outside of long range the party weapons offer little in special ability (mostly cause the materia system made it pointless to do so) occasionally you get a weapon that changes materia growth or one that powers up when an ally dies but that's it. Its left to the materia system and for the most part, I felt the game never made it practical to add elements or status elements to weapons and armor, if only cause the Elemental/Added Effect materia are few and far between. It was there but it didn't have the benefits of previous games rendering useless for all but the bored.

As for the stat growth, it is powerful and quite deep. In a first play through it might not seem like much but once you get the basics of your party down and realize how their stats affect them it becomes obvious that the stat bonuses are important and careful planning makes it useful. As I mentioned before, teaching magic to Cyan or Sabin is pretty useless sense they are lousy mages. You're time leveling your real mages can also be spent boosting Cyan and Sabin's stats like speed, strength or their HP. it only takes a few levels to notice a difference. If you are going for efficiency, its better to teach magic to those who can actually use it and boost the stats of those who need it for their special abilities. Granted, Edgar, Celes and Setzer cause a bit of gray area but overall they have quite a few customization options that allow diversification.

Which brings me to relics. Yes only a few characters have personal ones but you seem to forget that not everyone can use every relic effectively. Genji Gloves and the Offering/Master Scroll is powerful but lets face it, a few characters skills makes the combo useless. Only characters able to equip the uber broken weapons or Setzer and his Fixed Dice can use the combination effectively. Some relics can either cover up a characters weakness or or exploit their strengths, and hey guess what, the effect is felt immediate as well.

That's yet another reason why VII brought so many mainstream/casual gamers into the RPG fold - it wasn't nearly as dreadfully monotonous as RPGs had been up to that point. And I know because I played alot of them and still do.

Not monotonous? it still requires grinding to get anywhere, and if your silly enough to want high level magic, that's even more grinding. Hell, just trying to master half the materia or get spells like Ultima, Flare, and Life2 will require you to grind more than you would have, had it been based on levels. That is the main problem with materia, it is your party. It doesn't matter what your parties actual level is or who they are as long as the materia is high enough. Sure it allows you to use your favorite characters without worrying about consequences but where is the fun in that? I like using my favorite characters regardless if they are the strongest or most useful. It brings back IV's system where you need to exploit the useful traits of your characters. In example, despite how game breaking, broken the Figaro brothers are, I don't use them. Why? cause I like other characters better.

The materia system may indeed be noob friendly yes, but for people like me who enjoy deep customization it leaves much to be desired. In earlier games, certain parties or job classes work better than others, in VII it only matters what your materia is. Ultimate weapons allow everyone to do max damage even if you have been neglecting levels. By end game the only thing that separates Limit breaks is how many time they hit the enemy. Where is the strategy and fun in that?

Overall, I feel VII's system is ok, it offers the potential for strategy but the game difficulty makes alot of it pointless imo. It depends on your poison, I like VI's system better cause it offers better customization and special abilities and a system that offers permanent statistical differences; makes turning your parties into complete clones difficult. VI also suffers from overpowered abilities and a mediocre difficulty; but I feel the game offers enough for me personally to ignore these faults.