Nibelheim Flashback

[Slothy]

The reason I like it to this day for the simple fact that it uses one of my favorite methods of getting a point across in video games: Using the actual gameplay to showcase a story point. The game builds up Sephiroth to be a bad ass super solider, and watching the amount of damage he dished out and capabilities the character had drove that point home. If he was capable of such feats five years ago as a "good" guy, imagine what he can do now!

I like that part too. Shame it's over in the first five minutes or so, and everything after it is nothing but linear exposition for an hour or two.

Again, then why replay the game at all? There are plenty parts of the game where there is linear exposition. If that's a problem then why replay ANY RPG from the late 90s on?

Most games don't lock you on a path that is nothing but exposition for a couple of hours on end. I don't mind replaying games again and even experiencing stuff I've seen before. That's not the problem. The problem is that you do absolutely nothing as a player except sit and watch for hours. That's literally it. The most player agency you get is walking from one piece of exposition to the next. It's not experiencing the story in that segment that's the problem. It's that that's all you do for an incredibly long time with nothing to break it up. It's not so bad the first time when it's all new. It is when you want to actually PLAY the game again. It utterly kills the pacing for every subsequent playthrough, which leads me to believe the pacing wasn't that great to begin with, it's just more apparent when you play it again.

It's the same reason I won't ever go back and actually play Xenosaga again. If your exposition is so long that you give the player the option to save and take a break part way through then it's too long and you've failed as a game designer.

[Jinx]

Okay, I hate that scene, but you're really exaggerating. It's like, an hour at most.

[Slothy]

I've never actually timed it and it's been several years since I attempted to playthrough the game last, but I'm pretty sure it was more than an hour. And even an hour is too long. And if it is actually an hour at most then that means it felt a lot longer than that to me on subsequent playthroughs and that really just makes my criticism of it more damning, not less.

Hmm, you're right. I just checked an LP on Youtube and it's about 40 minutes minimum. But I'm not sure how anyone can defend forcing a player to sit through 40 minutes of story before they get to play the game again. It's a video game, not a TV show. If they'd interspersed the sequence with some actual gameplay it wouldn't even be a problem. But they didn't. There's nothing that happens during that whole segment that you as a player need to do. It really does just decide to stop being a game for 40+ minutes. I find that unacceptable.

EDIT/PS: I also really wasn't trying to just be a dick or exaggerate about the length of this sequence to make a point. I honestly remembered it being/feeling a lot longer than 40+ minutes. I'm legitimately surprised it isn't longer, even if I do think it's still too long.

[Sephex]

The reason I like it to this day for the simple fact that it uses one of my favorite methods of getting a point across in video games: Using the actual gameplay to showcase a story point. The game builds up Sephiroth to be a bad ass super solider, and watching the amount of damage he dished out and capabilities the character had drove that point home. If he was capable of such feats five years ago as a "good" guy, imagine what he can do now!

I like that part too. Shame it's over in the first five minutes or so, and everything after it is nothing but linear exposition for an hour or two.

Again, then why replay the game at all? There are plenty parts of the game where there is linear exposition. If that's a problem then why replay ANY RPG from the late 90s on?

Most games don't lock you on a path that is nothing but exposition for a couple of hours on end. I don't mind replaying games again and even experiencing stuff I've seen before. That's not the problem. The problem is that you do absolutely nothing as a player except sit and watch for hours. That's literally it. The most player agency you get is walking from one piece of exposition to the next. It's not experiencing the story in that segment that's the problem. It's that that's all you do for an incredibly long time with nothing to break it up. It's not so bad the first time when it's all new. It is when you want to actually PLAY the game again. It utterly kills the pacing for every subsequent playthrough, which leads me to believe the pacing wasn't that great to begin with, it's just more apparent when you play it again.

It's the same reason I won't ever go back and actually play Xenosaga again. If your exposition is so long that you give the player the option to save and take a break part way through then it's too long and you've failed as a game designer.

I could make the argument that all Final Fantasy games are just walking from one point to another, just to see more exposition. The fact that you can run around and get in a battle with the same set of enemies per area adds to variety, but that's just another form of linearity to me. This fact doesn't bother me, and while I agree the flashback is more restrictive, I only view it as a minor inconvenience. It's not something to dread, nor is the sequence even that long.

My thing is that there are tons of long exposition sequences in this game where you are simply clicking through dialogue boxes with no or little player movement, so why does this particular part get so much flack? I don't mind this sequence either, but why don't I hear the same complaints about the part where Tifa and Cloud explore his subconscious? Or before that when Sephiroth mind screws Cloud. Again, no problem for me, but when you have to move your character a little more instead of clicking through dialogue boxes, THEN it's a problem?

I guess the only part I do agree with is having a long scene after obtaining the freedom of the world map.

[Jinx]

I just hate it because I think it's incredibly boring.

[Ayen]

I actually get the argument about exposition. It just never bothered me because I played games like Metal Gear Solid which paved the way for saving in-between cutscenes

So, yeah, I get why that would be a nuisance.

[Jiro]

The reason I like it to this day for the simple fact that it uses one of my favorite methods of getting a point across in video games: Using the actual gameplay to showcase a story point. The game builds up Sephiroth to be a bad ass super solider, and watching the amount of damage he dished out and capabilities the character had drove that point home. If he was capable of such feats five years ago as a "good" guy, imagine what he can do now!

I like that part too. Shame it's over in the first five minutes or so, and everything after it is nothing but linear exposition for an hour or two.

Yeah, I do agree. They tried some really smurfing cool things, which made Final Fantasy VII an even riskier project, but I just feel like it failed to hit the mark. The promise of open world exploration is immediately snatched away from you and you're immediately put into a linear flashback with a bunch of the options you've come to experience -- materia, etc -- locked off from you. It's a limiting approach. An excellent experiment, but placed and paced wrong, I think.

[Sephex]

The reason I like it to this day for the simple fact that it uses one of my favorite methods of getting a point across in video games: Using the actual gameplay to showcase a story point. The game builds up Sephiroth to be a bad ass super solider, and watching the amount of damage he dished out and capabilities the character had drove that point home. If he was capable of such feats five years ago as a "good" guy, imagine what he can do now!

I like that part too. Shame it's over in the first five minutes or so, and everything after it is nothing but linear exposition for an hour or two.

Yeah, I do agree. They tried some really smurfing cool things, which made Final Fantasy VII an even riskier project, but I just feel like it failed to hit the mark. The promise of open world exploration is immediately snatched away from you and you're immediately put into a linear flashback with a bunch of the options you've come to experience -- materia, etc -- locked off from you. It's a limiting approach. An excellent experiment, but placed and paced wrong, I think.

I don't think it is more or less linear than the rest of the game, or any Final Fantasy for the most part. Every "section" the player goes to can be defined as somewhat linear, in a way. For example, once you get to Cosmo Canyon, you can't go anywhere else once your buggy breaks down. Sure, you can not drive it to the point where it breaks down and go "backwards", but chances are, the player has done everything he/she can up to that point.

So, using the same logic, I can say the Cosmo Canyon part sucks because the freedom of the world map is taken away, and you can't go anywhere or do anything until you mash the X button through exposition by walking from point to point.

Of course, I don't have that dim of a view concerning any part of the game, but I just can't accept the "it's too linear" argument without thinking, "Then why does the rest of the game get a pass?" Every time the player advances the game, the player is essentially "trapped" in a certain area. Sounds pretty linear to me. The difference between the flashback and the "present time" is that you can go meander and lever grind or something, which doesn't offer much more freedom.

Plus, in the flashback you can go participate in minor events like rummaging though Tifa's house, or see Cloud's awkward reunion with his mother. You can also have the option to talk down to certain people, or be the friendly homecoming SOLDIER. Not too many options you say? Sounds like the rest of the game to me, minus side quests.

As far as the pacing side of this topic goes, yeah, I agree it's pretty funky to have the flashback happen right after the world map is offered to the player, but as I said earlier in this thread, there are plenty of long sequences where the player is reading a lot of dialogue and simply more of a viewer than a player. I think this sequence would have been way more out of place if it was later in the game. Maybe it could have been done earlier in the game, but such minor lengthy flashback (it seriously not that long once you have played the game once already) would have felt even more weird then.

You know what? Scrap the whole game. It sucks.

[Jiro]

Agreed. Final Fantasy VII sucks. Let's get rid of it.

[Sephex]

Agreed. Final Fantasy VII sucks. Let's get rid of it.

More like Final Fantasy DREADven. Because you dread playing it. Yeah. Suck on that.

[Ayen]

I have Stockholm syndrome, guys.

HALP!

[Mercen-X]

I think Cosmo Canyon was a fail in terms of player preference. If they wanted to ensure you visited Cosmo Canyon, they could have had you encounter a mini-boss. After defeating it, a cutscene would show you heading into CC to "recover" and be introduced to Bugen and get Nanaki's real name and after the first three minutes of exposition, you could then CHOOSE whether you wanted to go on Nanaki's vision quest with him. Choosing no would mean not having Nanaki in your party, maybe temporarily, maybe permanently, who gives a rat's ass? Using that lame excuse of the Buggy breaking down just because you passed CC so now you can't even trek backward sucked balls, truly.

Then again, I also didn't like using the plane as a boat. The damned thing didn't even have pontoons. It shouldn't be floating. If they didn't want you to explore outside the core continent area, they could have erected *giggity* a wind barrier, said that only the Highwind could penetrate it *giggity*.

[Carl the Llama]

When people start questioning things in a game with fantasy in the title, you really have to stop and try not to argue with them, because it is the way it is and there is nothing they can do that will change that.

[Bubba]

The Kalm flashback was brilliant. It is bound to get a little tiresome if you've played the game 800 times like I have so I don't particularly look forward to it. I still don't really mind playing through it though as there are some really great scenes... and yes, it still gives me shivers when I hear that Sephiroth theme.

There could maybe be an option where you don't have to go through it. Similar to Barret asking you to explain materia to him in Tifa's Heaven... or them all asking Cloud to recap things when they're in the Gold Saucer Hotel. But, it's such an important scene I don't think you should be able to skip it.

[Jinx]

I love Cosmo Canyon, but personally I hate being stuck there. Still it feels like you have more freedom than the flashback.