To both lovers and haters of FF7

[Flying Arrow]

using symbolic terminology as short hand for plot elements. At its best its very avant-garde, at worst its overly pretentious and I feel VII goes back and forth with it depending where you are in the story. I felt it was a great tool for making the player move forward but the answers themselves were not as rich and complex as the symbolic terms used would suggest.

Gonna have to ask you to explain yourself on this one. Examples?

If anything it gets extra points by instead using terminology from FF's own mythos.

I love the in-references. One of the things I loved about XII was the naming scheme for the imperial fleet ships. Not sure why, but I get a kick out of it, especially when the names are used fittingly (Dreadnought Leviathan or Air Fortress Bahamut). It makes it feel very tied into the tradition of FF while still doing things differently. For the same reason, I loved XIII at first for its use of the Esper naming scheme for all the major "functions" of Cocoon.

I would say Cloud's double plot twist identity issues were not only a bit left field but poorly stretched out in the plot out for the sake of having another big plot twist. Hell, VII is one of the few games in the series that has a plot twist for another plot twist. First revealing Cloud not to be who he is and then another that says he is who he says he is just with a few important oversights. To me, this felt a bit tacky and definetly left field. I would have actually been happier had Cloud actually been an attempt to make a real clone of Sephiroth.

My good man, here will we just have to agree to disagree.

I will agree with you on the love triangle, its very complicated and I liked the fact its a bit more low key than other romances in the series that feel like they need a huge romance subplot. VII's is actually not in your face about the romance like the other games. Aerith teases Cloud about dating him and having feelings and Tifa has her fawning moments but really the game doesn't make it go past a few conversational pieces here and there. Even the date scenes are more of a personal conversation as opposed to a romantic getaway.

I really like how Aeris is characterized as just a young girl who likes a guy. It's refreshing. Sure, the plot involves her in a Big Purpose, but up until the end (of her, that is) she seems more interested in stealing Cloud away from Tifa. Another touch I liked was how well Tifa and Aeris got along, despite being rivals. If this detail wasn't handled properly, it might have drastically changed the tone of the game.

I usually feel they learn their lesson but then something like XIII comes along and shows me they are still trying.

XIII couldn't have gotten everything more wrong if it tried. Not that I see any kind of merit in SE trying to copy VII, but XIII really got everything... wrong. It's like they took the most superficial elements of the other games and thought that alone they would make a good Final Fantasy.

the second disc and beyond was rather disappointing for me and I felt the games quality fell apart.

I actually really enjoy the second disc. But who knows. That might be because I've played through the first disc way more times than the second (corrupted memory cards and general busyness).

Kitase said that FF is usually made for a younger audience in mind

At first, yeah, because games were generally only for kids. With VI and VII (hell, even with IV), the series showed attempts as being more than 'just for kids.' VIII looked like it was taking a huge leap in the mature-themed direction, but ultimately they chickened out. I'm even of the belief that VIII was originally intended to be vastly different than it turned out. I bet at some point someone stopped everything and said, 'This is too radical. We need to take it back to basics a bit' - hence monsters on the moon and time compression and all the actual character intrigue being thrown to the side. I'm not sure why Square stopped trying with the mature thing. It's probably just easier for them, in the end.

Maybe its because I'm old now and more difficult to impress.

Maybe this is true for me, too. But I also get blown away by things that are good, still. If a company came around and really put their effort and care into making an intriguing, engaging RPG again, I'm certain I'd fawn over it. There were a few great RPGs in the PS2 era. My personal favourites are DQVIII and FFXII. Both very good games, but thinking back, I enjoy them for completely different reasons than why I enjoyed the PSOne era of role-playing. XII was great in the way that V is great - solid and fun gameplay. DQVIII I loved because, despite being an excellent game, I saw it as basically what I'd been hoping for for years as a young kid who loved NES/SNES/Genesis adventure games. It's just a perfect 3D rendition of the atmosphere and feel of those old top-down RPGs. Thing is, though, neither game captured my attention because of their stories, which is the reason I was so into RPGs during the SNES/PSOne days. Maybe I'm getting too old to appreciate them, but I think it's more the fact that RPG story-telling was fresher and more enjoyable before everything (action games, FPSs, etc) got all fancy-shmancy with their own stories. Aside from a few exceptions, most RPG stories these days are pretty damned bland and been-there-done-that. Also, voice acting be damned!

Vivi

might be the best character in the whole series. As much as I love Cloud and Aeris, Vivi is just awesome and easily the best thing to come out of IX. If it weren't a pre-requisite for FFs by that point to have a male and female lead get together, I'd say Vivi should have been the main character. What better way to pay homage to the whole series than with a main character who is basically the series' most iconic image. Well, maybe a chocobo side-kick... How awesome would it have been for FFIX to be a simple four-and-only-four-party-member game starring Vivi, a chocobo, a runaway princess (Garnet) and Steiner (if only to keep referring to Vivi as 'Master'). Vivi would obviously be the black mage, Garnet would be the healer/supporter in a white robe and hood, Steiner a knight, and the chocobo would be a mix of unarmed and Blue Mage and would provide the player with tips and advice along the adventure using only a series of Warks and Kweehhs that only Vivi can understand for some reason (the Chewbacca to Vivi's Han Solo, if you will). "What's that, Boko? I should use my fire spell on this ice wall?"

But seriously, Vivi rules. I'm just about wrapping up my playthrough of VII. Usually when I play one FF game, I feel compelled to continue the series from that point. I'm kind of interested in playing through VIII... but I'm not sure how long that will last once I get into the thick of it. I might just skip to IX because it's looking pretty damned tempting at the moment.