i miss FFVII

[jaekaido]

i truly miss the old days where i played final fantasy 7. any one have any solutions?

[Red Fel]

i truly miss the old days where i played final fantasy 7. any one have any solutions?

Play the remake? The advertisement for it is apparently the longest ever to air on Japanese television (https://kotaku.com/seven-minute-final-fantasy-vii-remake-ad-is-the-longest-1839602410).

[Narkis]

Play the remake?

But it's not out yet.


i truly miss the old days where i played final fantasy 7. any one have any solutions?

Freeze yourself until March 3rd?

[Rynjin]

What's stopping you from playing the original?

[Winthur]

What's stopping you from playing the original?

He evidently clarified that he misses the old days when he played FFVII, when he had a ton of free time that he could mismanage and still could be carefree and play FF7. Now, instead of buying the game on Steam, dusting off an old console or finding one of the other ways to acquire and play one of the most acclaimed games ever made, he made this thread.

Making this thread took like 5 minutes during which you could have easily started a save file. Chop chop, get the game, manage your time better, life is short.

[Arutema]

i truly miss the old days where i played final fantasy 7. any one have any solutions?

Well, the PC port of the original is on Steam. There's also ports of it to PS4 and Switch.

Or buy the PS1 classics version if you have a PS3, PSP, or Vita.

[Kaptin Keen]

Speaking of ...

I played the original, and I remember there was some sort of socket system, or .. I don't even remember .. that I never figured out. What was that all about?

I played with a friend, and I remember feeling my party was now pretty powerful, and we went to fight some big boss because we really couldn't find anything more to do on the map .. and the boss one-shot the entire party, doing some sort of ... 400.000 AoE damage, killing everyone instantly.

That's where the game ended, as far as I was concerned =D

[factotum]

Speaking of ...

I played the original, and I remember there was some sort of socket system, or .. I don't even remember .. that I never figured out. What was that all about?

I assume you mean materia? Essentially, all magic in FF7 came from materia socketed into items, which meant you could even give the beefy mercenary with a gun instead of a hand healing magic, if you so chose. I think it got a bit more complicated where you had double sockets and would get different effects depending which pair of materia you put in there, but that part I'm not so sure about.

[D-naras]

Speaking of ...

I played the original, and I remember there was some sort of socket system, or .. I don't even remember .. that I never figured out. What was that all about?

I played with a friend, and I remember feeling my party was now pretty powerful, and we went to fight some big boss because we really couldn't find anything more to do on the map .. and the boss one-shot the entire party, doing some sort of ... 400.000 AoE damage, killing everyone instantly.

That's where the game ended, as far as I was concerned =D

The materia system was the entire gameplay for me. Weapons and armor had slots that could be single or paired. The maximum number of slots per item was 8. You put your materia in the slots and gained abilities based on the materia. Green materia was magic, purple materia was passive abilities, like increased stats or the ability to counter, red materia were the summon spells, yellow materia were all command abilities besides magic and summon (stuff like steal, throw, etc.) and blue materia were support materia that would only work when paired with others.

There were obvious combinations, like the All blue materia, paired with most magic that allowed you to cast a spell on All targets, but there were also advanced stuff, like using the same type of magic materia with many support materia in different slots, combining the effects. For example, you could make it so that you started each combat by automatically casting Fire 3 on all enemies while stealing items, hp and mp from them by using 4 Fire materia, each one paired with All, Initiative (I think), Steal-as-well, Absorb-MP, Absorb-HP. Shenanigans that you, absolutely, didn't need to finish the game but were still available for your adolescent/pre-teen power trip.

[danzibr]

I notice the op talks about missing the *old days* when they played ffvii.

I too miss those days. I was 11, had no responsibilities. Spent all weekend and summer playing video games. Ahh, those were the days...

As for ffvii itself, for many years it held the title of favorite game of all time for me. Looking at it objectively, I’ve played many games which are better, but it’ll always hold a special place for me.

[tyckspoon]

Speaking of ...

I played the original, and I remember there was some sort of socket system, or .. I don't even remember .. that I never figured out. What was that all about?

I played with a friend, and I remember feeling my party was now pretty powerful, and we went to fight some big boss because we really couldn't find anything more to do on the map .. and the boss one-shot the entire party, doing some sort of ... 400.000 AoE damage, killing everyone instantly.

That's where the game ended, as far as I was concerned =D

Sounds like that might have been Emerald Weapon and it's Aire Tam Storm attack (somebody had to point out to me that this is 'Materia' written backwards), which does damage based on the number of materia you have socketed. Surviving it either requires having auto-cast reraise abilities or going minimalist on your materia loadout for at least one party member.

Edit: The other optional superboss, Ruby Weapon, has a trick where he'll exterminate you unless you go into the fight with only 1 living member. You can raise them after his first move, IIRC, but you want to start it with 2 dead people and like one character with auto-Wall.

[Kaptin Keen]

The materia system was the entire gameplay for me. Weapons and armor had slots that could be single or paired. The maximum number of slots per item was 8. You put your materia in the slots and gained abilities based on the materia. Green materia was magic, purple materia was passive abilities, like increased stats or the ability to counter, red materia were the summon spells, yellow materia were all command abilities besides magic and summon (stuff like steal, throw, etc.) and blue materia were support materia that would only work when paired with others.

There were obvious combinations, like the All blue materia, paired with most magic that allowed you to cast a spell on All targets, but there were also advanced stuff, like using the same type of magic materia with many support materia in different slots, combining the effects. For example, you could make it so that you started each combat by automatically casting Fire 3 on all enemies while stealing items, hp and mp from them by using 4 Fire materia, each one paired with All, Initiative (I think), Steal-as-well, Absorb-MP, Absorb-HP. Shenanigans that you, absolutely, didn't need to finish the game but were still available for your adolescent/pre-teen power trip.

Oh - delightful =) I never figured any of this out, and not through lack of trying.

Sounds pretty useful. Now that we have the internet, if I ever play the remake, I'll make sure to look it up.


Sounds like that might have been Emerald Weapon and it's Aire Tam Storm attack (somebody had to point out to me that this is 'Materia' written backwards), which does damage based on the number of materia you have socketed. Surviving it either requires having auto-cast reraise abilities or going minimalist on your materia loadout for at least one party member.

Edit: The other optional superboss, Ruby Weapon, has a trick where he'll exterminate you unless you go into the fight with only 1 living member. You can raise them after his first move, IIRC, but you want to start it with 2 dead people and like one character with auto-Wall.

Yes! The Emerald Weapon. Man it beat us silly.

[KillianHawkeye]

The best combo I ever saw was giving Cloud like 7 Counter materia and the one where you step in front of your allies whenever they're attacked and take the hit yourself (was it called Cover, maybe?).

[danzibr]

The best combo I ever saw was giving Cloud like 7 Counter materia and the one where you step in front of your allies whenever they're attacked and take the hit yourself (was it called Cover, maybe?).
Yeah, that’s a good one.

Apparently most possible damage is Cloud doing Omnislash, then 8x Counter-Mime.

[Man_Over_Game]

I can hardly stand Turn-based JRPGs now.

I used to be a JRPG junkie, but they're all just so...dull. The strategy in them is barebones and hardly existent, and it feels like they need to have something unrelated to the gameplay to get you to play it (in FFVII, this is probably the art, world and plot).

That's actually one thing I really liked about FFXII (and which kinda ruined JRPGs for me), which is that it made me realize almost all of the JRPG strategies can be completely scripted:


If the enemy's estimated damage in one round would reduce you to 0 HP, heal.
When healing, if healing with an area spell would heal more overall damage and still provide enough HP to push you above the lethal threshhold, use an area heal instead.
If an enemy is a boss, cast a buff.
If the enemy is not trivial, use a limit break on the highest health target that your limit break would reduce to 0 HP.
If there are more than 2 enemies, cast an area spell.
If the enemy has a weakness, use that weakness.
Attack the enemy with the lowest HP.


And you can repeat that script for almost every fight in every JRPG.

Although I have found that Chrono Cross and Battle Chasers have highly interactive and strategic mechanics that a JRPG veteran can enjoy, although I don't think they have quite as good of a story/world as most FF games. At this point, though, I think I'd much rather watch a nephew or child play FFVII as their first JRPG than play it myself.

[Amechra]

I can hardly stand Turn-based JRPGs now.

I used to be a JRPG junkie, but they're all just so...dull. The strategy in them is barebones and hardly existent, and it feels like they need to have something unrelated to the gameplay to get you to play it (in FFVII, this is probably the art, world and plot).

That's actually one thing I really liked about FFXII (and which kinda ruined JRPGs for me), which is that it made me realize almost all of the JRPG strategies can be completely scripted:


If the enemy's estimated damage in one round would reduce you to 0 HP, heal.
When healing, if healing with an area spell would heal more overall damage and still provide enough HP to push you above the lethal threshhold, use an area heal instead.
If an enemy is a boss, cast a buff.
If the enemy is not trivial, use a limit break on the highest health target that your limit break would reduce to 0 HP.
If there are more than 2 enemies, cast an area spell.
If the enemy has a weakness, use that weakness.
Attack the enemy with the lowest HP.


And you can repeat that script for almost every fight in every JRPG.

Although I have found that Chrono Cross and Battle Chasers have highly interactive and strategic mechanics that a JRPG veteran can enjoy, although I don't think they have quite as good of a story/world as most FF games. At this point, though, I think I'd much rather watch a nephew or child play FFVII as their first JRPG than play it myself.

You'll maybe want to give Dubloon (http://dumbandfat.com/#dubloon)/Phantasmaburbia (http://phantasmaburbia.com) a shot. Phantasmaburbia is much more polished, but Dubloon is free and it has pirates.

[Man_Over_Game]

You'll maybe want to give Dubloon (http://dumbandfat.com/#dubloon)/Phantasmaburbia (http://phantasmaburbia.com) a shot. Phantasmaburbia is much more polished, but Dubloon is free and it has pirates.

I vaguely remember playing that (Dubloon) a long time ago. Like 10 years or so? Although I barely remember much of it, other than it was a lot like Earthbound. I'll take a look at it, thanks!

I'd recommend Exit Fate, which is also free. It's practically a direct rip off of Suikoden 2, but different enough that it feels like a sequel. It still has some of the weakness of the JRPG playstyle, but the 6-person party, the telegraphed enemy mechanics, and the fact that formation played an important part of the game, made it a lot more mechanically challenging than most.

Still, make backup saves. I got stuck about 2/3 of the way through the game and saved after an unmentioned point-of-no-return . Encountered a really tough boss fight that I couldn't beat, and so I was stuck between not being able to go back or forwards.

[KillianHawkeye]

I used to be a JRPG junkie, but they're all just so...dull. The strategy in them is barebones and hardly existent, and it feels like they need to have something unrelated to the gameplay to get you to play it (in FFVII, this is probably the art, world and plot).

That's actually one thing I really liked about FFXII (and which kinda ruined JRPGs for me), which is that it made me realize almost all of the JRPG strategies can be completely scripted:


If the enemy's estimated damage in one round would reduce you to 0 HP, heal.
When healing, if healing with an area spell would heal more overall damage and still provide enough HP to push you above the lethal threshhold, use an area heal instead.
If an enemy is a boss, cast a buff.
If the enemy is not trivial, use a limit break on the highest health target that your limit break would reduce to 0 HP.
If there are more than 2 enemies, cast an area spell.
If the enemy has a weakness, use that weakness.
Attack the enemy with the lowest HP.


And you can repeat that script for almost every fight in every JRPG.

I mean, that's basically the same script you use to win fights in D&D, too. If you replace "limit break" with "high level spell slots", that is. And that you have more options to limit and control the enemy's actions than your standard jRPG debuffs.

[Man_Over_Game]

True, but outside of DnD 4e, the most memorable moments of Dungeons and Dragons gameplay didn't happen from tactics or combat. It was the story-telling, the plot twists, or the events leading up to the clutch criticals. That can also be said of most tabletop games.

The thing that pretty much all JRPGs share is their turn-based combat formula. That itself isn't a bad thing, but the fact that most of them don't take that part seriously is.

Or, from another angle, if a tabletop game neglects to flesh out its non-combat elements, it ends up being a "bad" game (as seen with DnD 4e). However, poorly implemented combat in tabletops isn't nearly as big of an issue (World of Darkness, Fate). I believe that's because people don't play tabletops for the combat, but I certainly play JRPGs for it.

[Aotrs Commander]

True, but outside of DnD 4e, the most memorable moments of Dungeons and Dragons gameplay didn't happen from tactics or combat. It was the story-telling, the plot twists, or the events leading up to the clutch criticals. That can also be said of most tabletop games.

Or, from another angle, if a tabletop game neglects to flesh out its non-combat elements, it ends up being a "bad" game (as seen with DnD 4e). However, poorly implemented combat in tabletops isn't nearly as big of an issue (World of Darkness, Fate). I believe that's because people don't play tabletops for the combat, but I certainly play JRPGs for it.

Have to disagree with you there (to a degree, anyway); the majority of my most memorable moments over the years have been combat-related, and while my group doesn't play tabletop solely for the combat, it is probably the single biggest contributor in time played.

(Notably, though, we basically only play some various stripes of D20 (predominiantly 3.5/PF; though we play 4E because one of the chaps runs it, I'm not enamored with it for similar reasons as it seems you have, ironically) and Rolemaster, and with the odd dip into first edition Warhammer a while back.)

I also tended to play JRPGs because of the story, not the combat (I say "tended," since I don't play them any more, simply sue to lack of inclination; in fact the grind therein (especially in tactical RPGs once the novelty wore off) was one of the reasons I have not made the effort to use my PS2 for years since the dining-room telly was nicked).

[Traab]

FF7 was one of the top 3 ff games for me, 7,9,3/6 no particular order. I actually like the turn based combat. I stopped playing rpgs when they started swinging in the direction of enemies wandering the map and active battles as I grew up with random encounters and turn based and its what I liked.

[Rynjin]

I really liked the wandering enemies and active combat of XII, though that seems to be an unpopular opinion on the net. I grew up with random encounters too, playing a lot of Gameboy RPGs (I actually liked the Final Fantasy Legend/SaGa series way more as a kid than actual Final Fantasy), but never liked them.

For my money the best Final Fantasy games are 4, 10, and 12. Honorable mention to XIV for being a game I almost really liked for close to a year, despite the fact that I despise MMOs; the not-quite-endgame grinding, anyway.

[danzibr]

Ahh favorite FFs? I’d like to chime in.

I actually like all of them (haven’t played the MMOs though). I like all of them for different reasons. My least favorites are III because of its poor job execution (though at the time it was... revolutionary?), IX (I think I’d like it more if I played it now though, only did once as a kid), and XIII (a few reasons).

XIII: Lightning Returns was surprisingly good, especially given what it came after.