I won’t argue it could have been better presented. But if you take the time to talk to NPCs, read the Clan Primer, and pay attention to the back-and-forth, you can glean an intriguing story out of it.
Whoa, nelly! [SPOILER]Tifa overcame her fear that she could lose Cloud by telling the truth and basically came to understand that no matter what, the truth was more important than misleading the one she loves, although that point isn’t as clear as I thought it would have been after Aeris was out of the way for her.
Barrett stopped blaming himself for Dyne’s misfortune and…er, became a better father because of it? You know what? He was just a blatant black caricature from start to finish so you might have me beat.
Nanaki learned that his father wasn’t a coward (I hated that dungeon by the way, I always had trouble with that boss) and though I’m not doing the scene justice, you can’t say that didn’t change Nanaki’s perspective on himself or what it meant to be a hero. [/SPOILER]
Cid stopped being a jerk based off of his incorrect perception of the shuttle’s launch and I’d even note that beating the Wutai Pagoda sidequest and the Lucretia sidequest shine a different light on Yuffie and Vincent respectively.
As a matter of fact, it seems like every major conflict in FF7 is propelled by a character’s inability to percieve the truth or their denial of it. Or in Tifa’s case, which is even worse in my opinion, their will to prop up a false reality instead of dealing with their problems. What FF7 failed to do that FF9 excelled at was creating a sense of genuine comradarie and friendship between it’s characters. Besides the C-A-T love triangle we had going for a bit, the characters don’t really relate to one another; the longer the game goes on, the less they seem to attempt to do with the secondary characters. I guess those little “events” that would occur when you entered a new town really did build up the characters then, huh?
Funny, I can’t remember many character relationships in FF8 I liked.
Wait, is there a statute of limitations for spoilers? I remember there was that comic about spoiling King Kong on PA about that…and there’s the fact that FF7 came out when I was like, 9 years old.
you agree that the story isn’t bad, it’s just not your personal preference.
Certainly, and I’ve never meant otherwise. Sorry if that wasn’t clear. I’ve never truly sat down to analyze FFT fairly, though some of its flaws, like the way the Lucavi subplot fits in, are apparent.
First you’re railing against characters being too realistic, then you dislike the fact that they’re not realistic enough. Pick your battles.
Ok, you lost me here. I specifically said that realism and plot needs to be balanced in any story, though, if forced to choose, I’d personally favor plot over realism.
Seraphim: You made an excellent point on how the way any story (not just an RPG’s) is presented affects the impact it has on the audience. While Cid may have a point that the story of 12 is bigger than its characters, that isn’t how it’s coming across so far. And I’m starting to fear how the Esper subplot will affect it as well (will it seem as intrusive as in Tactics? Again, I’ll decide after I complete the game.)
You know, one thing I wish this game had, is a “watch the cutscenes again” feature like certain games such as Lunar have; it would be a lot easier to criticize the story if we could see all the scenes next to each other rather than separated by hours of wandering around.
Not only it is not as intrusive, it is simply not there at all. You’ll use Belias once to open a door, and you’ll get one summoned on you as a throwaway boss, and that’s it. There is not another mention of the Espers throughout the entire story, and even the one I just mentioned is only recognizable as an Esper because of the introduction.
They’re just random side-bosses that are scattered across the map whom you fight for no other reason than completion and whose “power beyond measure” as Ashe put it is completely ignored for the rest of the plot. Don’t worry though, you’ll still get another pseudo-fantastical plot quest thrown at you to take you as far away from any relevant political event as it is physically possible.
EDIT: You know what I just realized? “Befriending Larsa”. That’s it. That’s the ONE thing you ever do before the ending battle that has any meaning to the conflict. Even the whole mess with the Occuria only takes value when considering the overal flow of history, but as for the Archadia-Dalmasca-Rozarria mess, making buddies with Larsa is pretty much the only thing Ashe’s quest managed to do that had any sort of meaning in the end.
True, there was some character growth in FF7, but nowhere near as dramatic as that in FF9. Many of the characters in FF9 really end up being entirely different people from who they were when they started. In FF7, Cloud and Cid are the only ones who really have any sort of personality change or growth (and even Cid isn’t any less of a jerk, he’s just nicer to Shera specifically). The others may learn a lesson or two, but they don’t intrinsically change.
Originally Posted by Cidolfas
True, there was some character growth in FF7
Wasn’t that all reconned by FF VII:AC to the point where none of that happened? Or did nobody learn their lesson (or suddenly got better in both the cases of Rufus and Sephroth)?
It wasn’t retconned. In FF7, Cloud may have gotten better, but he relapsed. That’s not the same as claiming it never happened. What’s with Rufus? I don’t think he changed much in FF7.
For that matter, FF4 had tons of character growth. Cecil sheds his dark ways and steps into the light as a Paladin. Kain overcomes the force controlling his mind. Edge feels redemption at stopping the evil that destroyed his kingdom. Rydia starts off as a weak little girl able to only summon a Chocobo and case very weak white and black magic. She eschews her white magic and goes on to be able to summon Bahamut. Palom, Porom, Yang, and Cid all give up their personal goals to keep the rest of the group from destruction. Edward overcomes his brooding Emo depession and Tellah makes peace with his departed daughter.
Dunno how to the the “spoiler” parts as I only see now to change text colour but not background/highlight colours.
Not only it is not as intrusive, it is simply not there at all.
Yeah, that’s what I feared. Why go to the trouble of recreating the Lucavi and giving them an expanded, Fallen-Angel-like background just to stick the majority of them as optional Bosses/Summons? It’s almost like they changed their minds at some point in the game’s production but decided to keep the Espers just to remind us that this a FF game. Too bad, it would’ve been more interesting (in my opinion) if much of the war was caused by the Espers infiltrating society, ala FF Tactics (but done and explained better.)
And I’m aware that the real plot of the game involves the Nethicite Shards and a quest for divine power; but even that seems terribly vague. In particular, do they ever explain WHY the gods felt like dropping these utterly dangerous things on Ivalice, or why they never bothered to interfere again, not even when the fragments started to be used for massive destruction?
And Khalbrae: to spoiler-tag anything, just select the text with your mouse and then click the Spoiler button (the black one with an “S” on it.)
[spoiler] Spoiler: do they ever explain WHY the gods felt like dropping these utterly dangerous things on Ivalice, or why they never bothered to interfere again, not even when the fragments started to be used for massive destruction?[/quote]
They do explain it, but in case you miss the nuances, feel free to read the spoiler text. 8p
The shards of nethicite were used as a tool to control human destiny. They gave it to who they wanted so that that person would shift the balance of power in the world. The Occuria don’t use it all the time, but whenever they deem the time is right. The most recent time was Raithwall; after that, they let things take their course until the current time, when they decide they need to intervene again.
FF7:AC shows us just how little the characters in FF7 changed. Cid is still putting his airship above his woman(no pun intended). Barrest still “isn’t there” for Marlene. I can’t say much for Red VIII, though he never really had much growth to do. His major problem was that he didn’t know about his father, and was a little immature for his species.
Vincent was still eaten up inside over Lucrecia. Him showing up at the end was a minor concession.
Yuffie was still a materia junkie.
Delving into FF7:DoC, Reeve was still a “politician” type. Although, they really changed his character a lot from “spy who begrudgingly drops a plate to kill thousands of people” to, a laughable “If another robotic doll comes along, please remember me” which was confusing as hell. Was Reeve controlling Cait Sith, or did Cait Sith have a programmed mind of his own ? I am still unclear on that even today.
In the end, the characters in FF7 really had little growth.
The problems with Advent Children were that a) it was meant to reinvigorate the FF7 franchise, and b) it was too focused on the Cloud/Sephiroth rivalry. Even the Bahamut battle, as I understand, was added in late into the project to give the rest of the group a chance to show off. So really, there was little room for character development in it.
As for Reeve/Cait Sith… that has always been unclear. For half the game, you think it’s a sentient robot, only to later find that it’s a remotely-controlled spy, only to then find out it’s actually Shinra’s Reeves; and if I remember correctly, at one point both were seen together, with Cait repeating what Reeves was saying! So, whether or not they were the same person or if the robot(s) had some degree of autonomy really needs to be cleared up.
I didn’t mind too much about the focus being between Cloud and Sephiroth. My complaint about it was, “It’s too short”. That’s my complaint about most movies today. I could give you a nice long list of movies that i would like better if they were even 20-30 minutes longer. I really liked the motorcycle battles and the sword fights. How Cloud can take a bullet to the face and get a scratch… i can’t explain, but overall, I liked them.
Watching AC with my brother and father, i had to explain a lot of things to them(since they didn’t play the game). A lot of the details were hard to get across, for example, why Cloud felt responsible for Aeris’, Why this white haired freak shows up at the end out of nowhere and goes Agent Smith on Cloud’s ass. But that was their complaint too, at the end all these guys show up with some really cool moves, but to my family who watched it, they show up out of nowhere and end up disappearing.
My dad even went, "Who in their right mind sees their buddy in a sword fight and goes, ‘this is something he needs to do himself’ ", and then makes a joke about that one episode of Firefly. (you know, when Zoei goes, “this is something the Captain needs to do himself” and then Mal yells out, “no i don’t!”)
In the end, i had to say to my family, “The movie just seems to be for the people who played the game, it really doesn’t make sense if you havn’t”.
They did admit that the fight scenes were interesting, and they HATE CG movies. See, my Dad and Brother are like, “Cartoons are for kids”. Funny thing is, when The Spirits Within was on Sci-Fi a few months ago, my dad actually watched it and commented, “I didn’t know it was like that. It was allright” which “allright” from my dad translates as “frickin awesome”.
For the recrod, and to close my long mostly-pointless post, i always liked The Spirits Within 
It was really different, not what i expected, but hell, when i first saw the previews for The Matrix, i went “that’s gonna be totally stupid”. three monthers later i got home from the movie theater i says to my dad, “When that comes out, you gotta get it, it was frickin awesome”. My dad then replied, “It can;t be that good, i saw the previews, looked stupid.” It finally comes out and he rents it, “It was allright”.
(end of anecdotal typing)
Yeah, there’s no way I’d ever show AC to anyone who hadn’t played FF7. And for the record, AC started life as a tech demo. It was never really meant to be a full-fledged sequel that explores all the relationships and whatnot; it was meant to be centred around Cloud and Sephiroth. Everything else was a side thing.
As for Cait Sith, my understanding is that it’s a completely sentient robot (that’s eminently the truth based on scenes in DoC where Reeve and Cait Sith talk to each other, and that they have very different voices and even style of talking), but Reeve still has the ability to see through Cait’s eyes and use his mouth when needed.