Beginning areas usually suck and drain lots of replay out of the game. I'm looking at you Taris.

Of what I played of FFVII, Midgar was the only part I liked. I hated the Saucer, gave up the first time in the desert, picked it up later, managed to slog through to the part where you can try to get Vincent, got frustrated with continually dying in a place that was a half hour away from a save point, threw the controller at my TV, and resolved never to play FFVII again.

I agree with the author on one point: Midgar certainly has an impressive, if oppressive atmosphere. IMHO, the rest felt like it had no atmosphere at all beyond "Generic Fantasy Village #36", and the gameplay was so boring I felt no incentive to continue, just in hopes of occasionally getting some half-decent dialogue with Tifa. If anything, what the game failed for me was in consistency of theme and storytelling--every region felt like an entirely different game to me.

People keep telling me how great the writing of the game is, and then I remember the line from the red kitty: "I think I grew up a little!" I think I threw up a little. And then I went and replayed Torment.

Disclaimer: All of the above is my personal opinion on the game, and I mean to cast no judgment on people who do like the game. It is obviously popular for a reason, it just missed the mark with me.

I can't imagine having a more different reaction.

Midgar was great. The music was eerie, the enemies were mean, and everything was just so well put-together. And then I got out of it and... it was like being thrust into some long-winded cartoon that I didn't care for. Enemies became more or less random, things were often annoyingly colorful, the dialogue is boring and oh my GOD the Golden Saucer is the most annoying thing I have ever endured in a video game. A bunch of goofy-looking minigames with half the polish of a random browser Flash game, all for obscure and difficult-to-acquire special weapons and things which I knew I was supposed to want, but couldn't care about because the weapons I had killed things just fine.

Granted, I didn't play the game when I was young so I don't have happy happy memories to fall back on. (I have happy happy memories of Prince of Persia and Marathon and other games to fall back on)

I'm gonna agree with these last two guys.

For me, Midgar was one of the game's high points. A huge city, probably one of the first jrpg societies to extend farther than a few screens. The music fit, and the atmosphere was solid, for all that the layout and social structure of the place confused me. I could even ignore how cartoonishly evil the Shinra corporation was, in favour of the brilliant steampunk settings which you don't really see anywhere else in the game; after the motorcycle bit (which appealed to me just for the sheer over-the-top measures that Nomura was going to to convince his audience that "okay, this Cloud fellow is a badass and you should think he is cool"), it simply became typical Final Fantasy. The music stayed pretty good throughout, but the locations became more generic and there was less to explore within. Where once a jrpg-ified incarnation of Babylon had filled the main villain slot, an uninspired new character with little motivation other than "heh heh heh I have gone insane, better kill everybody" steps in.

Midgar isn't by far the only enjoyable location in the game, but leaving it always marks a gradual decline in my overall appreciation. Personally, I'd like to see more jrpgs take place entirely within one city. Your average city is as large, if not larger, than your typical jrpg world map, and has just as much variety. As a bonus, you don't have to awkwardly skirt the issue of how everyone in the world's dozen towns can speak perfect english.

I'm not going to share my opinion on any part of FF7 because experience teaches me it'll only lead to a pointlessly endless discussion with a bunch of fanboys. In stead, I'm going to be an ass and point out a little error in the article.

The city is a pinnacle of man's triumph over nature, and nobody got around to inventing the escalator?

They do have escalators and elevators. You can choose to take the stairs because they're considered obsolete; it's the only way in that isn't guarded.

bladester1:
Beginning areas usually suck and drain lots of replay out of the game. I'm looking at you Taris.

+1.
I don't enjoy replaying KOTOR for the same reason I don't enjoy playing FF7. It feels like breaking out of a prison. But replaying the game? Its like asking for solitary confinement. I'm not that much of a masochist. And the second time around, the feel of everything being on rails makes it even drearier.

I'll say this for MMORPGs, at least you might talk to someone new, some new experience. For all the idiocy of many of the users in them, there's always the moments of new, original stimuli.

I really enjoy these articles of yours, Brendan Main. Keep up the good work.

This is a similar feeling I had with Fallout 3.

This is where I quit. I was back where I started, with no motivation to save the world I was in. Perhaps this is what BioWare intended: the feeling of helplessness and disinterest in your own world. Surely this is what their inhabitants felt like. The only reason to go on was to give yourself something to do. There was no motivation to save the world, no point to reaching the goal: the inhabitants, like the player, continued on because they had nothing better to do.

But unlike the inhabitants of that barren wasteland, I had my own goals that were worth accomplishing. There were other games to play and friends to see. So I set the game aside on the shelf.

It's a great game. I'm happy to have purchased the collector's edition and I enjoyed playing it, but I would never finish it, because after having discovered what the game was about, there was nothing left to enjoy. Sure, there were challenges to overcome and an interesting story to unfold, but I had been so convinced of the pointlessness of saving this barren world that I had no interest in seeing it saved.

The narrative was excellent. Perhaps too good. In the process of making me believe the hopelessness of the world, I too felt no desire to see it through.

I loved Midgar, strangely, but didn't notice until I had finished the game once or twice. It seems to take up such a massive portion of what I recall when I think about Final Fantasy 7. In particular, the lead up to the climax where you assault the Shin-ra building: the one on one fight with Rufus, as well as the FMV of Cloud acquiring the bike, were real standouts.

Midgar seems like a pretty brave step for the start of a JRPG. I think in some ways it actually gave quite a western portrayal of a city. Come to think of it, the styling of Midgar reminds me a fair bit of some of the design of Final Fantasy 6, although this may simply be due to some of the more industrial themes involved.

You forgot to add

ZippyDSMlee:

Zero=Interrupt:
whinny'snip

If you have to ask...its over your head...[snipped]

Oh and crisis core sucks BTW no wonder its stuck on the crappy PSP!

Nothing substantial to say, so you stoop to insults and attacks. Oh, I do love the internet.
In order...

(your first comment) I know what it's about. I'm just saying, there's no POINT. It offers nothing new other than someone's opinion and a lot of flowery writing.

(your second comment) I have no end of rants about the PSP (why doesn't it project holograms? Why?), the DS (two small screens is pussing out: they should have made a 17" one with a subwoofer...) and pretty much every other game system out there, but you know what? I'm too lazy to build such a device or program games for it, so I'm going to let companies like Nintendo and Sony do that for me.

And lastly, if you think Crisis Core sucks, then I guess it's just over your head....

What a brilliant article! Final Fantasy VII is one of those games that is truly art. There's an energy around that game that keeps drawing people back in.

Zero=Interrupt:

ZippyDSMlee:

Zero=Interrupt:
whinny'snip

If you have to ask...its over your head...[snipped]

Oh and crisis core sucks BTW no wonder its stuck on the crappy PSP!

Nothing substantial to say, so you stoop to insults and attacks. Oh, I do love the internet.
In order...

(your first comment) I know what it's about. I'm just saying, there's no POINT. It offers nothing new other than someone's opinion and a lot of flowery writing.

(your second comment) I have no end of rants about the PSP (why doesn't it project holograms? Why?), the DS (two small screens is pussing out: they should have made a 17" one with a subwoofer...) and pretty much every other game system out there, but you know what? I'm too lazy to build such a device or program games for it, so I'm going to let companies like Nintendo and Sony do that for me.

And lastly, if you think Crisis Core sucks, then I guess it's just over your head....

Being grammatically correct dose not equate to being substantial, dial back the trying to hard hate/cynicism a tad and you might enjoy it more, tho I guess all that modern gaming has decayed and warped what you are suppose to by cynical about.....*rolls eyes*....

I looked at the Midgar level at an opposite view too. The nihilist atmosphere and Orwellian structure appealed to me greatly (though that could be my adoration for George Orwell and Dostoyevsky). Compared to lingering, confusing story that is the outcome of the Sepheroth chase portion of the game, the beginning was much more coherant and accessible plot wise.

Note: Everyone in gaming has to admit it's hard to make a consistent, sensible plot that lasts 60 hours! The plots in games that are best reviewed, (Uncharted 2, Beyond Good and Evil, Monkey Island), usually have 10-20 hours in the main story. Plots like Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy are bound to confusing plot holes or have slow parts in the plot

This is why it's hard to see a good plot in a book or movie like Grapes of Wrath or The Godfather and say, "Why don't game writers make plots like these?"
Books and movies have linear stories and have no impact from you controlling the characters; Metal Gear Solid borrows most from cinematic techniques with long character development and story building, wether you like that or not is your taste.

Sorry for going off topic, but I believe wether you like Final Fantasy VII or not relies heavily on how much you care for a plot. Personally, I always appreciated a good story which why I hold games like Metal Gear Solid and Bioshock very high and, unlike most gamers I talk to, ffvii wasn't my first RPG. Odd enough, that would be FFX. Weird huh? X my favorite FF but I think that's understandable with it being my first.

It's funny because (while I was and still am a fan of FF7) I thought that the only part of FF7 that really, truly nailed solid the themes and atmosphere of the game, was Midgar.

I'll frequently go back to FF7 if only to play through Midgar, and stop right after the motorcycle escape at the end.

What a beautifully written piece. Videogames can be art. Videogame writing can be poetry.

You've got a new fan here.

Tequila Shot:
I looked at the Midgar level at an opposite view too. The nihilist atmosphere and Orwellian structure appealed to me greatly (though that could be my adoration for George Orwell and Dostoyevsky). Compared to lingering, confusing story that is the outcome of the Sepheroth chase portion of the game, the beginning was much more coherant and accessible plot wise.

Note: Everyone in gaming has to admit it's hard to make a consistent, sensible plot that lasts 60 hours! The plots in games that are best reviewed, (Uncharted 2, Beyond Good and Evil, Monkey Island), usually have 10-20 hours in the main story. Plots like Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy are bound to confusing plot holes or have slow parts in the plot

This is why it's hard to see a good plot in a book or movie like Grapes of Wrath or The Godfather and say, "Why don't game writers make plots like these?"
Books and movies have linear stories and have no impact from you controlling the characters; Metal Gear Solid borrows most from cinematic techniques with long character development and story building, wether you like that or not is your taste.

Sorry for going off topic, but I believe wether you like Final Fantasy VII or not relies heavily on how much you care for a plot. Personally, I always appreciated a good story which why I hold games like Metal Gear Solid and Bioshock very high and, unlike most gamers I talk to, ffvii wasn't my first RPG. Odd enough, that would be FFX. Weird huh? X my favorite FF but I think that's understandable with it being my first.

I think FF4 and FF6 has the best story FF7 is abit all over the place FF8 the story centers more around the characters but is not that well grounded at times,FF 9 is...well....simple and spastic at times. FFX is better but annoys me as much as 8's I mean its like the main hero like his father befor him come from dream land to save the real world thats a chaotic dream of an over sized island eating fish.... its almost like Links awaking on acid made by FF fan girls....oh wait that's FFX2..... FF12 well..... its like a mix 8,9 and 10.....only with anything awesome tossed out becuse its too cool for our pretentious selfs.........

it seems I am ranting again ><

To be honest I never played FF VIII, but like Yahtzee I don't play games that "get better later on". I can understand the message but messages should never get in the way of gameplay.

Zero=Interrupt:
@ the author:
What the hell was the point of this article, anyway? I didn't need the opening chapter of FF7 recounted through someone's emo-glasses for me, and I certainly didn't need this guy pooh-poohing what was a beautiful, satisfying gaming experience for me and a lot of other players.
(snip)
So please, english major, appreciate the city and its chapter for what it is: damn good writing and solid, beautiful design.

Uhhhh... he WAS appreciating it for what it was. He was going into the depths of emotion the whole place can bring out in the player. Even you went into detail there, and that's the exact same thing. He was just giving a flavor going with the theme that it starts off in a dark place, then went into detail as to just how WELL DONE that darkness was. How Midgar has such character as a city, that it makes you CARE about what's going on.

That's not emo, and it's the OPPOSITE of pooh-poohing. He started off writing in a way that I, in fact, got ticked off at too... I was like "What?! He's gonna insult Midgar?! I LOVED Midgar!" So I started reading... and it became a bait-and-switch. Rather than complaining, it praised, just displaying how much we as humans often tolerate emotional stories and come out feeling fulfilled and satisfied. It put into words WHY so many of us loved Midgar, just in a way we probably never thought about.

Sorry, but if you DON'T feel for a deep story like that, then you're missing out on the depths that life has to offer. He wrote thoughtfully enough that it's CLEAR (if you actually read) that he doesn't look at ALL of life that way. It was just the flavor he chose for this article, and one of many perspectives for Midgar. He didn't hate Midgar, he appreciated it in loving detail.

I found it to be enjoyable, and could relate to it fully by the end. My eyes even teared up. Every month or so, it seems like folks find new ways in which this game had a LOT of thought put into how it was paced and structured. It's why so many of us still love it after so long.

Thanks for the great read, Mr. Main. It really gave me one more layer to add to my ever-thick love of this game. :) It may have started off like a complaint article, but... I see what you did thar. ;)

these experiences are worth a million, only the best games can give meaning to certain stuff. weapons in CODMW2 are just a bunch of samey suff that varies in accuracy or rate of fire, and no weapon feels magically better than any other. Yet games like GTA IV present you with city full of crap cars, and story shows how awesome in the Infernus or the staggering rarity of meeting a SuperGT(but this is later spawned parked on a certain place), this kinda feels like the bulletproof hummer from GTA III. Having these cars makes you not wanting to care about all supercars in GTA IV having the same maximum speed.

Actually, I'll have to completely agree with you there. As much as I love FFX, there's no getting around Tidus being a BAD character. Bubbly, simple, and idiotic; the only thing that stemmed his stink for me was how much I loved the supporting characters especially Auron (as you could probably tell by my avatar =} ). To be honest, I've never finished playing FF6!
Before everyone throws plasma grenades at me, I know it's considered to have the best plot in FF history, but when your young, you're very impressionable so even if I play FF6 know (which I know I should!) it probably won't have the same impact that FFX did have on me when I was a kid; regardless wether FF6 has a better plot, characters, and game play.

Know what I mean?

I very distinctively remember being extremely disappointed when playing the game for the first time and leaving Midgar. Not because I enjoyed being in the grim city, but because that game that was so original, so unlike any of the Final Fantasy games I played before (namely IV, V and VI), suddenly fell back to the classic structure of the franchise. A world map. Damn.

The game proved later to still have some originalities up its sleeves, but more than being in awe at the potential size of the game world, more than feeling liberated by going from the grey city to the lush nature, leaving Midgar, I felt that my amazing 32-bit game shrank to 16-bit.

I remember when I first started playing FFVII, at first I thought Midgar was all there was. I thought my party would spend the entire game inside the city.

(Edit: Though I did start getting a little suspicious when I was 10+ hours into the game and hadn't seen a single weapon upgrade for Cloud.)

When I first stepped out of the city, instead of being happy to escape that urban disaster, I found myself feeling a little anxious. I thought, "We're leaving behind that huge, vast city ALREADY?! Why? There's so much to do there! So much still to explore! And we're running away from the Shinra Corporation! We still have seven more mako reactors to blow up!"

Little did I know that I would soon have to explore an entire world, upon which Midgar was little more than a mouldering concrete zit. Still, throughout most of the rest of the game I found myself looking forward to the day in which I would return to that dark city and finish what I started.

Brendan Main:

ZippyDSMlee:

If you have to ask...its over your head...its about the depth of of the midgar section of FF7 and some nostalgia whoring and possible lament over they don;t make them like they use to.

A nostalgia whore! That's a bit better than an emo-english major. Looks like I'm moving up in the world!

Which is good. Papa needs that thirtieth black turtleneck like gangbusters.

You ain't an Emo English Major OR a Nostalgia whore unless you got a BERET to go with that. *snaps fingers*

CantFaketheFunk:
Every time I try to replay FF7, I love Midgar. Then I get to the Kalm flashback and just can't SOLDIER (har har) through.

Oh god, that flashback. Please, someone invent a skip button for that flashback.

Erja_Perttu:

CantFaketheFunk:
Every time I try to replay FF7, I love Midgar. Then I get to the Kalm flashback and just can't SOLDIER (har har) through.

Oh god, that flashback. Please, someone invent a skip button for that flashback.

I hear in the rerelease of FF7 you'll be able to skip that scene due to its traumatic nature. Or you can choose to play through it, just without Cloud shooting off his mouth.

They're calling it "No Gushin''

Brendan Main:

Erja_Perttu:

CantFaketheFunk:
Every time I try to replay FF7, I love Midgar. Then I get to the Kalm flashback and just can't SOLDIER (har har) through.

Oh god, that flashback. Please, someone invent a skip button for that flashback.

I hear in the rerelease of FF7 you'll be able to skip that scene due to its traumatic nature. Or you can choose to play through it, just without Cloud shooting off his mouth.

They're calling it "No Gushin''

Hallelujah! Screw a remake, there's all the improvement you need, right there.

[quote="ZippyDSMlee" post="6.158859.3974225"

I am more a gameplay whore I can see the decline in gameplay more than I can see it in mode/story/setting ect. FF 1 was rich in fun equipment that made the game enjoyable, FF2-3 are a haze of my "emulated youth" FF4 was godly a much improved skill and class system with fun weapons and items, FF6 laged a bit in equipment but made up for it in accessories and skills used in battle even if the magic system made things feel generic. FF7 felt generic but was saved by equipment customization,accessories and limit breaks FF8 was a mess, FF9 was awesome despite a weakish plot and story the skill,class and equipment systems shined, FFX was both limited and generic the plot/story was wavering but no worse than FF8's romance world. And now with FF12 I have lost all faith in the FF franchise while the real time battles were great and gambits decent the game has no soul equipment is the blandest most antiseptic thing this side of a MMO the skill and class system is a joke and then some limit breaks are almost carbon copied and adjust a tad for each character. I kept dreaming of Balmier to use edgers tech/gadget stuff and while his airship stuff is cute it felt shallow and emtpy as dose the level design while it looks great and is a vast improvement over previous layouts there is something empty feeling about it. The story was bearable but but the game just dragged on and on it felt like a souless MMO.....

Uhg I am mega ranting...I apologize for the sloppy wall o text.. I have a love hate thing going with RPGs/Jrpgs and FF(and grammar/writing :P) in particular ><[/quote]

Sorry did i read that right? FF4...godly? I really don't understand the hype around FF4. My favourite FF games so far are 3 and 5 (I've completed 1 2 3 4 and 7, halfway through 5 now) because of the class system, i think 7 makes up for the lack of it with the materia system so maybe i didnt like the fact that everyone had set classes and the abilities from other characters could hardly make up for this in my eyes. I can't fault the story or characters though but, like you im more of a gameplay whore.
FF5 is godly because of the mass of classes available and aoll the abilities and innate abilities.

I remember when I first played this I loved Midgar but thought that the whole game was going to be like that.
When I first stepped outside it I was really taken aback. I remember thinking something like "So that was just the first tiny bit?"
I wasn't sure at first whether I was going to enjoy the world outside of the dystopia I'd grown to love but as the memory sequence at Kalm and Fort Condor easily won me over...

RebellionXXI:
I remember when I first started playing FFVII, at first I thought Midgar was all there was. I thought my party would spend the entire game inside the city.

(Edit: Though I did start getting a little suspicious when I was 10+ hours into the game and hadn't seen a single weapon upgrade for Cloud.)

When I first stepped out of the city, instead of being happy to escape that urban disaster, I found myself feeling a little anxious. I thought, "We're leaving behind that huge, vast city ALREADY?! Why? There's so much to do there! So much still to explore! And we're running away from the Shinra Corporation! We still have seven more mako reactors to blow up!"

Little did I know that I would soon have to explore an entire world, upon which Midgar was little more than a mouldering concrete zit. Still, throughout most of the rest of the game I found myself looking forward to the day in which I would return to that dark city and finish what I started.

I see this is pretty much what I said...
I completely agree with this, I really wanted to see the rest of Midgar and even when I'd be clued up on the whole Sephiroth situation I still saw Shinra as an equal foe.
Although I think people focus on Sephiroth too much anyway, its not until near the end of the game with Rufus's "death" that Shinra no longer pose a threat to you, thoroughout the game they prove to be very harrowing, in particular the Turks...

Maker almighty must i wait till i die to see FFVII fanboyism die? </rant>

More seriously sure it was well written, and actually conveyed some emotion, except i dont think we played the same game. Having played the game several times, thinking i missed the point or something, i come always to the same conclusion : this is just an overhyped phony game.

And Midgar is actually the most enjoyable part of it indeed, it carries promises of great storytelling and you could see yourself bring down that evil company and stick it to the man.

Having played the previous FF games before i thought "well that's new, no saving the world usual crap? would they dare venture into more politically charged content?"

Fat chance. The oh so praised story turns out once again to be your good old save the world crap with an ecological twist to it. Think Miyazaki meets Dragon Ball, but the boring part of both.

Yet i wouldnt mind that, its just a game after all and surely i can just ignore the story which are always generic in RPGs anyway and focus on the gameplay.

Wrong again. The PS1 hardware rendered the experience unpleasant to say the least, and the battle designers/3d artists egos made the combat a pain in the ass, from the loading time to the attacks taking 30 seconds. What happened to "*dzz dzzz* fight fight *boom* *victory music*"? With a decent party that took 20 second tops. Here it can take 5 minutes for a simple encounter. I know you want to flash your awesome 3D animation and try to make it look epic, but thats fine once, not every goddamn fight.

So long story short, yeah sure its a decent RPG, the boosting system is actually interesting and it had cool moments. And of course everyone is free to project what they want when playing a game, so if it was the time of your life, amen to it.

But you made it that, not Square. So congratulate yourself for your imagination and writing talents, but burn that "Square forever" t-shirt as, to quote George Carlin too, they are "servicing the customer" from behind. And that customer is you.

But... if I burnt my "Square Forever" t-shirt, what would I wear when my thirty black turtlenecks are in the wash? Up in Canada, if we don't dress in layers, it gets chilly.

Count me among the people who thought FF7 went seriously downhill once you left Midgar... I ended up not liking the game very much. Even in 1997, I thought the much-praised graphics were ugly, and the translation is terrible. I'm not going to play it again until Square Enix gives me a version with a decent script.

RebellionXXI:
I remember when I first started playing FFVII, at first I thought Midgar was all there was. I thought my party would spend the entire game inside the city.

Ditto on that. I was honestly quite surprised when I discovered there was a rest of the world. I'd played other FF's, and I was sure that if there was one, I would've gotten there already. I'd given up hope...