This Game is Overrated

[Pumpkin]

I wish people could appreciate any game without comparing it to others (I have comparison issues).

Okay well maybe not that, it is okay to compare to have a discussion, but basing how good of a game something is based off of another game is a bit silly. A game should stand on its own merits. Not "X is a better game because it has better ____ than Y"

I prefer VI to VII and would pick it any day of the week. But honestly the games don't even remind me of each other. If anything, I might say VI is underappreciated because I'd heard of games like VII, VIII, IX, X, XII, but I'd heard almost nothing about VI until I joined a forum revolving around the series. And its a good game. It has good characters, it has an interesting story, it has decent gameplay, it has a type of humour I can appreciate, I enjoyed playing it. I'm honestly surprised I didn't hear more about it.

[Bolivar]

And when considering FF snes games alone, I would actually say V trumps VI in terms of graphics. But hey, that's just my opinion.

Nope, it's also my opinion. One of the many reasons I think V is a better game than VI.

You do know trumps means better... right? I was saying V has better graphics then VI.

So was I. In response to you saying "that's just my opinion", I said "Nope, it's also my opinion." Like, agreeing with you.

Also wrong, it's all our opinions! (ie, me too)

As has already been pointed out numerous times in this thread, most popular does not mean best. If most popular were best then presumably Kenny G would be the best jazz artist and Justin Bieber would be the best pop artist. I'm sure we all know that's not true.

There's a world of difference between a well-marketed pop star finding an audience at the time of release and the sober appraisal of a video game 20 years later. You're fighting a war that's been over for many years.

[The Man]

You could, but then you would be mistaken, FFVI, FFVII, FFXII and CT all get a Metacritic score of 92%, I just checked.

Sorry, I meant Gamerankings. FFVII has 92.35%, FFIX has 92.72%, FFXII International has 93.00%, FFIII for SNES has 93.96%, Chrono Trigger has 95.64%. So according to Gamerankings FFVI is the best entry of the series and Chrono Trigger is better than any of them. I would actually put Chrono Trigger tied with FFVI and would rank FFV higher than FFVII (although it may have had a chance at being so if it had actually been released here in 1992), but regardless.

Aside from that the term "best" is subjective, for you it means quality, to me it means game that has the highest rating by the fans of said games.

That's nice. You do realise that the GameFAQs poll doesn't necessarily mean that FFVII would be the highest-ranked FF by fans of said games, right? It could just mean that the most people have played it. There is nothing in the GameFAQs poll forcing everyone who votes on it to actually be familiar with all of the entries on the list, and judging from the average GameFAQs poster, most of them aren't.

I would also point out that metacritic is based upon the scores of the 20 critic reviews out there published by companies, companies that have a limited number of peoples opinions, where as the poll I provided had many voices, and in the opinion of those people (the gamers) FFVII is the best, simple as. Sure its a matter of opinion on how you define the word best but you could say that about anything, to me the majority wins out, that is how I define the word, so by default to me FFVII IS the best.

Again, Kenny G isn't the best jazz artist of the last 30 years. This is a stupid metric for determining the best.

Game reviewers are professionals who evaluate each game on the merits. Their opinion isn't perfect but it's a hell of a lot more reliable than a popularity contest with the unwashed masses.

Nothing about how horrendous the polygons look, "awe inspiring" pretty much say it all. Arguing about a games graphics is like arguing how a steak looks, when you should be arguing about the taste. Taking into the fact that the game started development in 1994 when the PSone was brand new speaks pretty much for itself.

My argument has never been that they looked bad at the time. It is that they haven't aged well. So well done for pulling up a review that does nothing to address my criticisms, I guess?

I don't know about you, but I consider CTs graphics far superior to graphics from VI. And when considering FF snes games alone, I would actually say V trumps VI in terms of graphics. But hey, that's just my opinion.

Yes when you anti-alias one graphic and don't anti-alias the others it looks better, well done for figuring that out. You also didn't pick a particularly representative screenshot from FFVI. Look at something like Mt. Koltz and tell me it looks worse than the environments in FFV.

Would you give me some examples of these so called "glaring flaws" and "almost incomprehensible" because I never encountered such while I was playing.

This is nothing we're going to agree on, but for me the game dipped severely in quality after the party left Midgar and fell further after the first disc. More importantly and incontrovertibly, the sheer number of people who didn't get, for example, that the "Sephiroth" the party follows for the first disc is a clone (as demonstrated by browsing any Final Fantasy-related message board about ten years ago) attests to poor storytelling.

There's a world of difference between a well-marketed pop star finding an audience at the time of release and the sober appraisal of a video game 20 years later. You're fighting a war that's been over for many years.

Yes, well, as I revealed, "sober appraisal" of video games as revealed by Gamerankings suggests that FFVI won. Which metric you use for determining "best" has a lot to do with what outcome you get, and the number of people who are nostalgic for a game they played seventeen years ago is no less a popularity contest than record sales figures.

[Forsaken Lover]

Looking at that site, Xenogears only has a score of 90.99

So the site is saying FFVII and IX are better than Xenogears.

Nope.jpg

[Kalevala]

Overrated. Not even the best of its era (V > VI).

Alright, come on now.

I actually agree with Gloria on that one. I'm a massive fan of FFV, it's just fun the whole way through, gameplay-wise and script-wise.

The story, characters, and soundtrack are all pretty unremarkable compared to a lot of other entries in the series. I agree the job system is a pretty cool feature, but I also remember having to grind an unpleasant amount to really take advantage of it. It all felt rather tedious to me, not fun.

[Jiro]

Metacritic is a dubious resource, fyi.

[The Man]

Looking at that site, Xenogears only has a score of 90.99

So the site is saying FFVII and IX are better than Xenogears.

Nope.jpg

It seems to be commonly agreed that the second disc of Xenogears is a complete waste of space that utterly squandered the potential of the story, so I'm ok with this.

Metacritic is a dubious resource, fyi.

I'm referring to Gamerankings, but I kind of agree, just blindly adhering to its judgements as a measure of quality is stupid. It's a more reliable indicator than a freaking GameFAQs poll, though.

Regarding FFV, the music and battle system are nice, but the characters and plot are definitely inferior to those of other entries in the series. Often underrated, but obviously nowhere near the level of FFVI, FFVII, or FFIX's. It rises above FFVII in my rankings for other reasons.

[Forsaken Lover]

The second disk of Xenogears had several of the best moments in the game.

[Carl the Llama]

It's a more reliable indicator than a freaking GameFAQs poll, though.

I don't see how its more reliable then a poll, its a simple case of you saying "He gets paid to play and write reviews so his opinion is more valued then that of the unwashed masses" such as myself and many other fans of said games.

I never trust a game magazine/internet article for reviews, simply because they get paid to write their reviews, I mean I would rather take the voice of the fans (albeit with a pinch of salt) then a single person, because many voices would generally agree that a game is good, but if you take the opinion of a single source you can never be sure if their opinion is valid. For an example I cite that Playstation Official Magazine US gave Final Fantasy XIII 5/5 rating... (which is included in its Gameranking valuation) the simple fact that these people get paid to promote the games, the fans pay out money to play the game, then give their honest opinion on the matter via a gamer review or a poll, of course you get people who write up a bad review on a game simply because someone says their game is better for example I can choose these 2 reviews:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps/197341-fi.../review-135648
http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps/562865-fi.../review-146235

Both are clearly made by fanbois, but on the whole I would think the fans are the more trustworthy sources of scoring a game they some company that gets paid to do so.

You are of course, entitled to your opinion and nothing I can say will change your mind about it, just as nothing you can say or do will change my mind that FFVII is the premier final fantasy out there.

[The Man]

I don't trust online polls as measures of a game's (or other medium's) quality because there is no way of knowing whether they were scientific (i.e. whether steps were taken to prevent people from freeping the poll), whether the people who vote on them are familiar with all the games they're voting on, etc. Theoretically doing something like a Rate Your Music approach should help to minimise this problem somewhat but it's well known that people game those sites with negative votes for albums they never listened to so their favourite albums can get top ranking for the year. There really is no effective way to survey a large number of people about their opinions of media's quality because people lie on surveys.

And while it's true some reviewers seem to take money to review crap positively there are plenty of people who balance it out. FFXIII's score on Gamerankings is a comparatively dismal 84.15%. I generally find review score aggregates to be more reliable indicators of quality than polls of users, although there are exceptions.

That said, people can be wrong about things for a long time after they were released anyway. Moby-Dick is widely known as a classic now but it wasn't discovered as such until after World War I, literally sixty years after it was written. Contemporary reviews were scathing.

[Spooniest]

*sucks in big breath*

I absolutely vehemently detest the terms "overrated" and "underrated" because they dodge the real question in any entertainment situation: is the game any good? It's like saying you don't like pizza because everyone around you is eating it. It makes one suspect that you're doing it more for the attention you can get by saying it than trying to judge the quality of the object in question.

*lets out breath*

That said, FFVI has to be appreciated as a product of its time. Comparing it to FFV isn't fair; FFV was NOT OUT in the states at the time. And comparing it to FFVII is equally unfair: FFVII was produced on much more advanced hardware and came on three flippin' discs, fer cryin' out loud. FFVII wallops it, for sure, but it wouldn't exist without it.

I feel like the Joker: look, listen. I really want to get this point across so I'm going to reiterate it; asking whether FFVII is better than FFVI is fruitless and counter-productive. FFVII is FFVI's baby!!! Like I'm serious, FFVI got married to the PlayStation and the child they had was FFVII!

If FFVII and FFVI were people, and you were all telling FFVI that its child had surpassed it, there would be only one irrevocably inevitable reaction from FFVI: PRIDE.

FFVI fans should be proud as all smurfing trout of FFVII because it was the offspring of the game before it.

Now stop it! I said stop it! Don't make me come down there!

NinjaEdit: As for the question of Graphics...

Ugh. Since when do graphics = good game? Anyone still holding onto that ancient religion needs to have their head examined.

I reiterate one more time: FFVII is the better game, but it owes absolutely everything to VI before it, as each FF owes a debt to the one before it that can never be repaid.

[NeoCracker]

Firstly your entire point rests on the assumption that FF VII is the better game. Just because it came out better on better technology doesn't make it the better game.

Secondly, there are so many problems with the parent metaphor that I don't even want to get into that one. XD

Finally, it's not about graphics, at least not entirely. It's about Aesthetic appeal, (I will always hold that art design trumps high end graphics myself, but that's beside the point.) FF VII's character models have aged badly and look pretty clunky. FF VI's have aged much better. However FF VII is clearly the graphical power house by comparison. (Mind you, I do just mean the character models, a lot of the backrounds and locations do look great, as well as the FMV's have aged well.)

Given the visual nature of a video game, the aesthetics are very much a valid point to bring up. You are, after all, constantly looking at the visuals your entire play through, this is going to have an effect on your opinion.

[Pumpkin]

I think we should try and accept that different people have different opinions on games and realize that when you have 2 quality games (yes, I'm not a huge fan of VII but I'll admit its a quality game) its hard to find one that's objectively better. Heck, I'm sure you could find arguments to back up your claim on both sides and find sites with polls to back up both sides because neither one is objectively better than the other. Its not like one of them is regarded as a terrible creation that should never have existed like that E.T. game where one is very clearly better (although I'm sure someone out there feels that way about either game) so really it comes down to which is subjectively better in your own opinion. And what's really the point in arguing that.

I love IX more than any other game in existence. The only game that comes close in Majora's Mask. No other game, no matter how much I like them, is even remotely close to taking the top spot for me. Did VII sell better than IX? Absolutely. It sold a heck of a lot better. Are there a ton of polls saying that VII is better? Yes, and I would have no problem finding a whole ton of them. TO ME VII will never be better than IX. It just won't. It doesn't even come close. Trying to convince me otherwise is a pointless waste of time because my opinion won't change.

I don't have a problem with people saying "I think VI is better than VII because blah blah" or vice versa, but when you try and make it seem like its objectively better and not subjective in your own opinion, its a little bit insulting. Its basically telling people they're wrong about how they feel and what they think. Let people like what they like.

[Fynn]

It isn't. It is one of the most solid titles in the series. It deserves its love.

[maybee]

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