/vr/ - Retro Games

>>9918292
well i'm pretty sure the sentiment in 1997 was IT'S IN 3D?! HOLY FUCK!!! 3 DISKS?! THIS IS THE BIGGEST GAME EVER!!!!

>>9918292
You're right on the first three, but the whole
> Plot full of anime cliches
thing is inaccurate. I will now explain why:

The only reason why FFVII feels like it's full of cliches is because every single fucking RPG that released for 20 years afterward took inspiration from it and blatantly copied aspects of its story or mechanics wholesale. In 1997 these were not cliches, they were all brand new ideas. If you didn't play it for the first time back in the late 90s or even early 2000s than you can never truly understand how groundbreaking it was when it originally released.

It's the same thing with games like Half Life 2 - if you played HL2 for the first time today you'd think it was full of stale cliches as well (physics puzzles, vehicle sections, interactive non-cutscene cutscenes, silent protagonist, etc) even though upon its release it was breaking new ground.

FFVII gets a lot of hype even now because it was such a different experience back then. Also because for a lot of people it was babby's first JRPG and most people over the age of 35 are blatant nostalgiafags, but still, you get the idea.

Throughout the SNES life span anime and JRPGs popularity grew into a loyal but niche fan base with strong word of mouth and by 97 it was still growing, Square like most other publishers was fed up with Nintendo and going to cartridges was the last straw so they hooked up with Sony and Sony pushed VII hard with ads and made the title a showpiece for the system. FFVII's cutscenes and pre-rendered backgrounds look quaint now but when the game dropped they were groundbreaking to western fans and the story while poorly translated gripped western fans with the death of Aeris becoming a spoiler that was near impossible to avoid.

>>9918391
are they saying they're going to have all of nintendo's developers executed by firing squad

>>9918292
It was mostly the amazing for the time graphics for middle school kids. The story contradicts itself as much as the new testament

>>9918292
FF7 was state of the art. JRPGs on the Playstation before then looked like advanced SNES games, mostly. Stuff like this:
>Arc the Lad
>Beyond the Beyond
>Persona
>Suikoden
>Wild Arms
I shit you not, that's all there was. Try to put this in perspective, FF7 dropped two years after Playstation's release in NA.
I'm going to list for you the JRPGs that came out between the releases of FF7 in 97 and FF8 in 99 and let's see how graphically impressive they were. Get ready:
>Azure Dreams
>Breath of Fire III
>Granstream Saga
>Jade Cocoon
>Koudelka [two months after FF8]
>Legend of Legaia
>Lunar 1
>Parasite Eve
>Star Ocean 2
>Thousand Arms
>Xenogears
As you can check for yourself if you aren't familiar with those games, most of them did not even have fully 3D battles let alone the quality and the amount of 3D cutscenes Squaresoft was producing for their products.
The only games that come close to looking as great as FF7's 3D, two years after its release, are Parasite Eve [another Squaresoft product], Jade Cocoon, Legaia, and Grandstream Saga. THREE games, before the release of FF8 which was another huge jump.
And of those, only Jade Cocoon and Koudelka matched the artistry of what Squaresoft was doing in terms of pre-rendered backgrounds + 3D battles. Later, Legend of Dragoon did as well - and that's IT. Everyone else was working in combined 2D and 3D.

>>9918451

>>9918453

>>9918458

>>9918463
This was exceptionally competent 3D work in a jrpg, pretty much no other game was doing this, and again...released over a year after FF7

>>9918467
A couple of devs knew what they were doing. Also a year later than FF7.

All these games look ugly and so does FF7. 3D graphics ruined JRPGs visually. Not saying they have bad mechanics or stories, they can still be good games, but they look like garbage.

>>9918451
Granstream Saga was 95 or 96

>>9918292
You had to be a non-zoomer to get it. As with 90% of /vr/ games. Will you make shitty threads like this during all of your stay here?

>>9918394
Yeah. Back then video game ads were a lot more edgy.

>>9918292
It was a different time, people on average were dumber back then.

>>9918770
Studies indicate that they were on average more intelligent actually.

>>9918292
You know you can just dislike a thing without making shitty 4chan threads about it?

>plot full of anime cliches

Good thing it came out in 1997 then. Anime was just exploding in popularity overseas so of course we didn't know any of that shit. Also, most of the cliches you're probably familiar with most likely also stem FROM ff7. Aside from the obvious shit like Cloud and Sephiroth being like Guts and Griffith.

>>9918292
You had to be there, and you weren't. You will never know.

>>9918292
I just wish the character models werent so ugly. Even ff8 had nicer models

>>9918432
>middle school kids.
The heaviest ad campaign was in rolling stone and playboy magazines. Multiple page ads in those magazines back when they were relevant and reached a premium demographic of college students and adult young professionals. Gen X with grown up jobs and money. The Playstation and Saturn were the first consoles marketed more heavily to adults over children. Ff7 came at the peak of this.

>>9918781
Much the opposite. Median intelligence has always been improving. It's only very, very recently that the average attention span took a nosedive (children growing up with smartphones and algorithmic media).
I'd like to see which study you're refering to and check its release date.

>>9918292
> anime cliches

The game subverted tranime cliches you retard

>>9918451
Star Ocean 2 was still great, even better than ff7 in certain aspects

>>9918671
I was going by US release dates so everything would be months earlier in Japan originally but I see it as 97 for Japan.

>>9919306
too anime for the masses

Between this and the constant OoT bait I wonder how people don't get bored of this place

>>9919306
Yeah lots of those games are excellent, Star Ocean 2 is considered one of the best on the system, so is Suikoden 2, Arc the Lad 2, the Lunar games are beloved. It just shows how advanced Squaresoft's games were.
As far as I'm concerned the only part of FF7 that didn't 'age well' are the overworld models because they became outdated so quickly by Square's own games.
Early 3D console games in general are more impressive than people think cause they need to be put in context.

>>9918292
You weren't born yet.

>>9918292
>How did this game become so popular?
Tifa

>>9918292
>He doesn't use periods.
How did this thread get over 30 replies?

>>9918292
I remember Final Fantasy used to be always #2 behind Super Mario Bros. 3 in Nintendo Power rankings and wondered about this next great game that I was unable to afford. When the SNES debut, there weren't many games available so with SMW bundled in, I randomly chose Final Fantasy 2 (4 easy) for my 2nd game and I had a great time playing it as it became part of what made me fall in love with JRPGs. Throughout the SNES life, I just mostly got Square games and they practically didn't fail me though FF3(6) subtly did, but they brought it back strong with Chrono Trigger. With the newer technology being pretty exciting on their own, it was the commercials for FF7 running on Sony's popular show Rurouni Kenshin that got me hyped to get the Playstation in anticipation. It was very good use of Sony marketing money coupled with the strong fondness and reputation of Square games that got everyone I knew interested.

>>9919408
>As far as I'm concerned the only part of FF7 that didn't 'age well' are the overworld models because they became outdated so quickly by Square's own games.

One of the things I prefer in Star Ocean 2 was the real-time with pause combat system adapted from Wester CRPG’s versus the turn based combat of FF7. The fights themselves, the limit breaks, the environments, and the enemy models all looked great, but turn based menu combat was a holdover from the NES era.