Quote Originally Posted by Psychotic View Post

Also, no. Midgar is a superb piece of atmospheric scene setting and story telling. Leaving it, though, leaving it is freedom. In so many ways, you are free. There is more to life than the constant grind and mess and sprawl that is Midgar. As Cloud said, the people of Midgar are like the train, their life cannot leave the tracks that they are on. But you do, and it's great.
That's a good way of looking at it - there's little to no freedom in Midgar, and that feeling is in someway given to the player. I agree that there is a sense of freedom once you leave Midgar - there's so much more out there, and the fact that the way you travel changes once you leave Midgar adds to that.

To put in my view on Midgar, I liked it. There was a kind of atmosphere to it, and I liked the technical side to it (even when we were in the slums, there was the odd technical side to it) and I liked the look of the Shinra Building. I enjoyed the Sectors of Midgar as well, and the parts of the game visited them during, but I appreciate the freedom of having to leave.

Also, Final Fantasy VII was my first Final Fantasy, and my first RPG of this type, so I didn't know that The World Map was an integral part of these kind of games, so I didn't view Midgar as a departure from it.

One thing I would have kind of liked, was to have the chance to check out the Sectors we didn't see (I posted about this in the past), like when we came back, after getting the Key to Sector 5, to be able to see Sector 2, and Sector 3, as well as Sector 4 in full. Also Sector 1 in full if there's anything left of it.