Final Fantasy VII Conclusions

So I wasn't sure if I wanted to power up really hard or just go kill Sephiroth. I knew that a piece of materia I needed for twinking out was found in the final dungeon (it would let Yuffie morph all enemies with one attack which is useful for maxxing speed and luck) so as soon as I got to disk 3 I went into the final dungeon. I figured when I found the master all materia I'd decide what to do at that point since I'd need it for either of my paths. And then I ended up running into Sephiroth before finding the materia. I guess I missed a turn or something. At any rate, despite him using the most over the top move in the history of over the top moves, I won easily. Yuffie attacked for 20k each turn. Since it turns out he only has 80k health the fight didn't last very long. Pretty sure the animation on super nova was longer than the rest of the fight combined. And yes, the move super nova does cause the sun to go super nova and destroy the solar system. I don't know how we keep fighting at that point, but fight on we did.



I guess I had twinked out a little since I did farm up 50ish power sources for Yuffie and got her ultimate weapon but it's nothing like what I could have done. I didn't even get enough AP into my 2-cut materia to turn the ability into 4-cut! At any rate I beat the final boss so I guess I'm done? I still had a bunch of stuff to write about, but I guess that's what a conclusion post is for, eh?

I did manage to date Yuffie in the amusement park. She was so cute... And Cloud was such a jerk. Made me feel bad for her. Yuffie is awesome, though. Tifa would be awesome if she wasn't so... disproportioned? I've never been a fan of Aeris but maybe that's just because I know she's going to die so there's no need to get attached? Also she's terrible at beating down and my default mode in these games it to attack first and cast spells later.

I didn't get around to raising or racing chocobo. I didn't play in the battle square. I only got one ultimate weapon and didn't learn any of the level 4 limit breaks. I didn't kill ultimate weapon, emerald weapon, or ruby weapon. I hardly did any of the fort condor battles. I left a lot of stuff on the table here, and still got a lot of play-time in on the game. Around 29 hours worth. That's a fair bit more than I put into either IV, V, or VI and I did practically everything in all of those games. I'm sure I had at least 10-20 more hours of other stuff I could have done in VII.

Of course, you didn't need to do any of that stuff to beat the game... But they put in challenge bosses to make powering up mean something. That's always been one of the annoying things about IV and VI. I could get to max level and manage my stat growths and such but at the end of the day it didn't matter. Tight play could beat Zeromus and Kefka at practically any level and they were pretty much as good as it got for bad guys in those games. The same is pretty much true of Sephiroth in terms of how easy he is to beat but not in terms of the side bosses. Emerald and ruby weapons are hard. If I hadn't beaten them the first time I played I'd feel more obligated to reload before I went into the final dungeon and go beat them up. As is, I think I'm ok with skipping them.

As far as the ending goes, I remain convinced after beating it again that the humans actually lose. I don't know how Red XIII's race manages to come back to life and regain control of the planet but I don't think any humans survived the clash between planet, holy, and meteor. I wouldn't be surprised if the planet needed to kill all the humans to generate enough spirit energy to beat off meteor. The humans could then all go to the promised land and live in the lifestream of the planet where they couldn't build any more mako reactors going forward.

The question of where to rank this game on my list is a tricky one. I feel like FFVI did absolutely everything it could have done with the constraints of the SNES hardware and cartridge. I feel like FFVII did some things less well than FFVI did. But I feel that the extra power from the switch to the PlayStation really helped it out. I prefer the music in VI to VII, but it sounds better through the PS. The addition of FMV sequences really made my day, but I think I would have preferred FFVI FMVs if they'd existed. The skill system in FFVII is awesome, though having some materia be missable sours me a little bit. I never could get the added effect materia because I missed it the one time I was allowed into cosmo canyon's dungeon. The plot and bad guy in VI were better than the ones in VII. But VII has so many extra things! It's a longer game just in terms of the game itself and then it has all this extra stuff you can go do. FFVI couldn't have had minigames the way VII did. But is it fair to take that into account? I feel like I should be looking at the game as a whole here and that includes all the stuff VII could do that VI couldn't.

I never really liked VII in the past, but I think that was my contrarian behaviour shining through. I was living with a house full of people who loved VII and found VIII annoying. I saw VIII before VII, liked it, and therefore took the opposite stance. But when it comes right down to it VII is a pretty fantastic game. There's a reason VII remains the highest selling game of the Final Fantasy series. 14 year old Nick is really mad that I'm putting any newfangled PS game ahead of the awesome FFIV and FFVI, but I think I'm going to have to. Welcome to #1, FFVII. I don't know how long it's going to last, but you've earned it for now.

Next up, Final Fantasy Tactics and then whatever this Ehrgeiz thing is. I don't own that second one yet, so I guess I should probably get searching.