Is the Steam version of FFVII a good port?

[WhiteTigerShiro]

I am not a fanboy. I own an xbox, but openly admit it has many, many flaws. I owned a PS3, but got rid of it. I like many game series, but will often focus more on their flaws than their strong points when discussing them. FF7 is one of the few things I will gush about, because it is actually good.

What's your point? You can be a fanboy to a game without also needing to be a fanboy a console. The two things are mutually exclusive; you can be both, either, or neither. And yes, if you're going to sit here and tear-down another Final Fantasy title just so that you can build-up your Final Fantasy of choice, then you are a fanboy. Especially when your tearing-down of the other one displays a shocking lack of knowledge of the elements that you are slamming, to the point where one wouldn't be blamed for assuming you had only played a few hours of the game. Seriously, I could just as easily write-up a "FF6 is awesome" post without even really needing to make many changes to the post I initially quoted outside of swapping any FF6/7 references.

 

[EstrogenicMuscle]

It's.... okay.
The dropped the Securom and the installation is much easier.

Signing in even once on a PC ever is pretty obnoxious, though. Really, the only bad thing about this port is the music. Which is why, if you look on Google, it is easy to find a way to replace the midi soundtrack on this one with the original. It's really just a matter of replacing the .ogg files with the appropriate files.

So people also replacing the original songs with remixes. Really, it's not a great port, but it's good enough. You don't have to worry about having a disc in the drive or using virtual drives to make the computer think a Final Fantasy VII disc is in it. And the compatibility of this version is much better. It isn't as glitch, and while, there aren't many options, there's still some moderate improvements over the release of Final Fantasy VII for the PC many years ago.

This Steam version is by far the easiest version to install. Much more plug-and-play than any other PC version. And with that, you get all of the mods and such. Even just the vanilla version of this copy is as good as playing Final Fantasy VII with maximum settings on an emulator like ePSXe. And with mods it is a much better experience than you're going to get with ePSXe. So while it may not be a perfect version, it is still, in many ways the best version to date.

If you're a Final Fantasy VII fan and a PC gamer, it is a version worth owning just because this version is better than the PlayStation version. Especially after mods. Since this game has been out for a long time, there are a lot of mods that are out for it. And most of them have been ported to the 2012 release.

 

[The_Tron]

Wait, you think ff6 is good? The characters are flat, one dimensional archetypes. Terra for example is an emo, who only feels despair, angst and loneliness all the time, kefka is a generic designated villain with no motivation for blowing up the world, and the characters almost constantly rely on 4th wall breaking attempts at comedy, which undercuts the drama, as well as sequences which simply do not make sense. It is hard to truly sympathize with anyone's suffering when they point out how they are fictional and their suffering does not matter right before the tragedy occurs, or when any nonsensical sequence of events shatters suspension of disbelief.

In the ghost train sequence for example, the characters are trying to get off the train, then get in a boss fight where they are off the train, and then waste time during the bossfight running away from the train on the tracks, instead of running away from the tracks, then after defeating it climb back on the train, wait for it to get to an arbitrary point then get off, and then after that disgusting excuse for "comedy" we immediately cut to a "tragic" scene of Cyan's family, who do we do not care about because of the loss of suspension of disbelief.

The characters have little motivation, lack depth and complexity, immediately skip from 4th wall breaking comedy to tragedy, undercutting the tragedy because of the attention called to the fact that the characters are fictional. FF6 is one of the most horrible games I have ever played.

By contrast, Cloud is not an emo, but someone who can be playful, encouraging, and friendly, in addition to feeling angst and despair. He is a complex person, rather than an archetype. Sephiroth had an actual motivation for blowing up the world, and because the sequence of events make sense in the context of the game without breaking the 4th wall, the comedy does not undercut the tragedy. FF7 actually has a good story.

The fanboyism is strong in this one.

I am not a fanboy. I own an xbox, but openly admit it has many, many flaws. I owned a PS3, but got rid of it. I like many game series, but will often focus more on their flaws than their strong points when discussing them. FF7 is one of the few things I will gush about, because it is actually good.

He's saying you're a blind fanboy towards FF7. All of that crap you listed off about "clouds emotions" is just your piss poor attempt to cover up that fact. Both of their stories aren't great, they're nonsensical at the best of times and flat out ridiculous. All I was saying is that there are so many blinded fanyboys like yourself who can't see past their nostalgia glasses and realize that FF7 is no where near as good as people remember. People love hating on 8 but overall it's a much better game (nonsensical bullshit aside). Same with X, people love ripping into it because of the piss poor voice acting, but it still was a much better game all around than 7.

 

[RelexCryo]

Wait, you think ff6 is good? The characters are flat, one dimensional archetypes. Terra for example is an emo, who only feels despair, angst and loneliness all the time, kefka is a generic designated villain with no motivation for blowing up the world, and the characters almost constantly rely on 4th wall breaking attempts at comedy, which undercuts the drama, as well as sequences which simply do not make sense. It is hard to truly sympathize with anyone's suffering when they point out how they are fictional and their suffering does not matter right before the tragedy occurs, or when any nonsensical sequence of events shatters suspension of disbelief.

In the ghost train sequence for example, the characters are trying to get off the train, then get in a boss fight where they are off the train, and then waste time during the bossfight running away from the train on the tracks, instead of running away from the tracks, then after defeating it climb back on the train, wait for it to get to an arbitrary point then get off, and then after that disgusting excuse for "comedy" we immediately cut to a "tragic" scene of Cyan's family, who do we do not care about because of the loss of suspension of disbelief.

The characters have little motivation, lack depth and complexity, immediately skip from 4th wall breaking comedy to tragedy, undercutting the tragedy because of the attention called to the fact that the characters are fictional. FF6 is one of the most horrible games I have ever played.

By contrast, Cloud is not an emo, but someone who can be playful, encouraging, and friendly, in addition to feeling angst and despair. He is a complex person, rather than an archetype. Sephiroth had an actual motivation for blowing up the world, and because the sequence of events make sense in the context of the game without breaking the 4th wall, the comedy does not undercut the tragedy. FF7 actually has a good story.

The fanboyism is strong in this one.

I am not a fanboy. I own an xbox, but openly admit it has many, many flaws. I owned a PS3, but got rid of it. I like many game series, but will often focus more on their flaws than their strong points when discussing them. FF7 is one of the few things I will gush about, because it is actually good.

He's saying you're a blind fanboy towards FF7. All of that crap you listed off about "clouds emotions" is just your piss poor attempt to cover up that fact. Both of their stories aren't great, they're nonsensical at the best of times and flat out ridiculous. All I was saying is that there are so many blinded fanyboys like yourself who can't see past their nostalgia glasses and realize that FF7 is no where near as good as people remember. People love hating on 8 but overall it's a much better game (nonsensical bullshit aside). Same with X, people love ripping into it because of the piss poor voice acting, but it still was a much better game all around than 7.

JRPG's, above all else, are usually defined by their story. If you had said that Chrono Trigger was better than Final Fantasy 7, I would not have laughed at you. Chrono Trigger has an excellent story. If you had said that Wild Arms was better than Final Fantasy 7, I would not have laughed at you. Wild Arms at least has a decent story. If you had said that To The Moon was a better JRPG than Final Fantasy 7, I might have agreed with you, because To The Moon has an awesome story.

But when you say that Final Fantasy 6 is better, I have a problem. Not because FF7 is the best JRPG ever- it's debatable if it is even the best JRPG I have played- but simply because FF6 is so abjectly horrible. Tell me something- can you even tell me the name of the "The Empire" in FF6? In FF7, They are called Shinra. In Star Trek, the Klingons are not called "The Empire," or "The Bad Guys," They are called the Klingons. In Star Wars, there is a legitimate reason for calling The Galactic Empire that-It is the central authority of the entire galaxy, derived from the remains of the Galactic Senate.

In FF6, The Empire is called the Empire even though they are not the central authority of the planet, simply because the developers of the game did not respect your intelligence enough to care. Even Pokemon respected the players intelligence more than this, calling the antagonist organization Team Rocket rather than "The Bad Guys." Final Fantasy 6 is one giant trainwreck of a horrible game. The issue is not that FF7 is good, it's that FF6 is absolutely horrible.

For example: In South Figaro, you find evidence that blatantly shows the richest man in town is going to betray the town. Edgar, the king, who has the authority and/or connections to throw that man in prison, does nothing. Nobody comments on it. Later, when the town is invaded, we find out that the rich man did not even need the money that was paid him, and he did not want to sell out the town, so, like Kefka, he had no motivation. The plot of FF6 that I remember is one giant train wreck like this.

I cannot claim that FF7 is the best JRPG ever, or even the best JRPG I have played. To The Moon is probably the best I have played. But I can say that FF6 is the worst I have played, by a huge margin.

 

[Zeldias]

I know I'm gonna catch a lot of flak when I say this. But the gameplay and story are extremely outdated. So much so that there's no way it will live up to anyone's expectations. Bought it on the PSN when it came out there and was shocked that it ever became a favorite among so many people to begin with. It just goes to show you how many graphics whores there are and because it was such a huge jump in graphics among FF games that it still stands out as "The greatest EVAR!!!" in their own minds.

Don't believe me, play it yourself and prepare for a huge disappointment.

I completed it again a few days ago, and to me, FF7 still holds up as one of the greatest (if not THE greatest) RPGs of all time. The OST is among the best in games, and I personally believe that the gameplay is very well balanced. There aren't any sections in the game which are downright unfair, and decent management of items etc really does matter.

The only two problems I have with FF7 are battles which spawn a group of six frogs (any FF7 player should know what I mean) and the fact that if you obtain the 'big guard' enemy skill, quite a few of the fights are trivialised. Aside from that, I still find the game to be spectacular, nostalgia goggles aside. I put 35 hours into the campaign without any of the side quests, and it completely flew by.

Well you're welcome to believe that, I just gotta ask some others that you've played. I mean If you've only ever played FF7 then I can see why you think it's the greatest right. Not that that's the case but that's the point I'm trying to make. Personally I think there's so many other ones out there that have no where near the fan base that are way more deserving of it than this overrated game. For example certain games in the Tales of series are way funner, and the persona series. Hell even FF6 doesn't get anywhere near as much love and it's a much better game all around but doesn't look as pretty. In my opinion, FF7 is not bad, but it's not great, it's simply an above average JRPG for the time.

Wait, you think ff6 is good? The characters are flat, one dimensional archetypes. Terra for example is an emo, who only feels despair, angst and loneliness all the time, kefka is a generic designated villain with no motivation for blowing up the world, and the characters almost constantly rely on 4th wall breaking attempts at comedy, which undercuts the drama, as well as sequences which simply do not make sense. It is hard to truly sympathize with anyone's suffering when they point out how they are fictional and their suffering does not matter right before the tragedy occurs, or when any nonsensical sequence of events shatters suspension of disbelief.

In the ghost train sequence for example, the characters are trying to get off the train, then get in a boss fight where they are off the train, and then waste time during the bossfight running away from the train on the tracks, instead of running away from the tracks, then after defeating it climb back on the train, wait for it to get to an arbitrary point then get off, and then after that disgusting excuse for "comedy" we immediately cut to a "tragic" scene of Cyan's family, who do we do not care about because of the loss of suspension of disbelief.

The characters have little motivation, lack depth and complexity, immediately skip from 4th wall breaking comedy to tragedy, undercutting the tragedy because of the attention called to the fact that the characters are fictional. FF6 is one of the most horrible games I have ever played.

By contrast, Cloud is not an emo, but someone who can be playful, encouraging, and friendly, in addition to feeling angst and despair. He is a complex person, rather than an archetype. Sephiroth had an actual motivation for blowing up the world, and because the sequence of events make sense in the context of the game without breaking the 4th wall, the comedy does not undercut the tragedy. FF7 actually has a good story.

Them's fightin' words.

Terra initially is an amnesiac emo, yes. Gradually, she finds acceptance with a group of people who are like "Yeah, once you were a mind-controlled slave and you can cast magic, which is a thing out of legend, but you're cool." Then, after Kefka breaks the world, she finds a place caring for orphans and again seeks to deny herself and her heritage. The fight against Phunbaba helps her come to terms with her power, her heritage, and her responsibility to, if not save the world, at least avenge it, for her friends and the kids that depend on her.

Kefka was always presented as a megalomaniacal schemer, and comes to defeat the big bad and usurp his place, destroy the world, and basically become a living god. His motivation is that he goes from being a haughty, violent jerk, to gradually becoming more insane and vicious, gaining more political and magical power until he can literally force the world to bow to him.

Each of the characters has some semblance of an arc (although I will readily admit that some arcs like Sabin's are far and away weaker), but I think it's not true to say they were flat.

By contrast, I found Cloud to be a guy with a mental illness and an atrocious coping mechanism. Once he beat that, he was a lot better, and he was one of the few characters I found interesting. I loved Barret and his thing with his daughter and Dyne, but that hardly went anywhere. I can't even understand why Cid and Yuffie choose to stick it out with the group, frankly. Sephiroth was your typical anime villain ("He's so awesome and strong! We love him! Oh no, he's disillusioned now! He's gonna kill us all!" It was about corruption or something, right? What the hell does that even mean in specific? I've always hated that motivation), and what makes it worse, he had the usual stoic personality so it felt like there was barely any personal connection. By contrast, Kefka felt like he grew right along with the protagonists and was a constant thorn in their side.

I'll agree that a good bit of FF6's humor falls flat, but most humor in FF falls flat for me. At the very least, though, I got a chuckle out of FF6 breaking the 4th wall. FF7 never even got a smirk out of me. "Oh, he's dressing like a woman." "Why is Hojo surrounded by women and totally fine with me talking to him?" "Is the guy who owns Golden Saucer running around in speedos?"

I like both games (although I think FF7 is easily eclipsed by 8 and 9), and I'm not trying to tell you your opinion is wrong. Just for me, FF7 really didn't do enough with the characters to make me feel like they were worth having more than mild interest in. 6, 8, and 9 were WAY better for me in that regard. And I think Kefka is one of the most interesting villains in the main FF series.

 

[The_Tron]

I know I'm gonna catch a lot of flak when I say this. But the gameplay and story are extremely outdated. So much so that there's no way it will live up to anyone's expectations. Bought it on the PSN when it came out there and was shocked that it ever became a favorite among so many people to begin with. It just goes to show you how many graphics whores there are and because it was such a huge jump in graphics among FF games that it still stands out as "The greatest EVAR!!!" in their own minds.

Don't believe me, play it yourself and prepare for a huge disappointment.

I completed it again a few days ago, and to me, FF7 still holds up as one of the greatest (if not THE greatest) RPGs of all time. The OST is among the best in games, and I personally believe that the gameplay is very well balanced. There aren't any sections in the game which are downright unfair, and decent management of items etc really does matter.

The only two problems I have with FF7 are battles which spawn a group of six frogs (any FF7 player should know what I mean) and the fact that if you obtain the 'big guard' enemy skill, quite a few of the fights are trivialised. Aside from that, I still find the game to be spectacular, nostalgia goggles aside. I put 35 hours into the campaign without any of the side quests, and it completely flew by.

Well you're welcome to believe that, I just gotta ask some others that you've played. I mean If you've only ever played FF7 then I can see why you think it's the greatest right. Not that that's the case but that's the point I'm trying to make. Personally I think there's so many other ones out there that have no where near the fan base that are way more deserving of it than this overrated game. For example certain games in the Tales of series are way funner, and the persona series. Hell even FF6 doesn't get anywhere near as much love and it's a much better game all around but doesn't look as pretty. In my opinion, FF7 is not bad, but it's not great, it's simply an above average JRPG for the time.

Wait, you think ff6 is good? The characters are flat, one dimensional archetypes. Terra for example is an emo, who only feels despair, angst and loneliness all the time, kefka is a generic designated villain with no motivation for blowing up the world, and the characters almost constantly rely on 4th wall breaking attempts at comedy, which undercuts the drama, as well as sequences which simply do not make sense. It is hard to truly sympathize with anyone's suffering when they point out how they are fictional and their suffering does not matter right before the tragedy occurs, or when any nonsensical sequence of events shatters suspension of disbelief.

In the ghost train sequence for example, the characters are trying to get off the train, then get in a boss fight where they are off the train, and then waste time during the bossfight running away from the train on the tracks, instead of running away from the tracks, then after defeating it climb back on the train, wait for it to get to an arbitrary point then get off, and then after that disgusting excuse for "comedy" we immediately cut to a "tragic" scene of Cyan's family, who do we do not care about because of the loss of suspension of disbelief.

The characters have little motivation, lack depth and complexity, immediately skip from 4th wall breaking comedy to tragedy, undercutting the tragedy because of the attention called to the fact that the characters are fictional. FF6 is one of the most horrible games I have ever played.

By contrast, Cloud is not an emo, but someone who can be playful, encouraging, and friendly, in addition to feeling angst and despair. He is a complex person, rather than an archetype. Sephiroth had an actual motivation for blowing up the world, and because the sequence of events make sense in the context of the game without breaking the 4th wall, the comedy does not undercut the tragedy. FF7 actually has a good story.

Them's fightin' words.

Terra initially is an amnesiac emo, yes. Gradually, she finds acceptance with a group of people who are like "Yeah, once you were a mind-controlled slave and you can cast magic, which is a thing out of legend, but you're cool." Then, after Kefka breaks the world, she finds a place caring for orphans and again seeks to deny herself and her heritage. The fight against Phunbaba helps her come to terms with her power, her heritage, and her responsibility to, if not save the world, at least avenge it, for her friends and the kids that depend on her.

Kefka was always presented as a megalomaniacal schemer, and comes to defeat the big bad and usurp his place, destroy the world, and basically become a living god. His motivation is that he goes from being a haughty, violent jerk, to gradually becoming more insane and vicious, gaining more political and magical power until he can literally force the world to bow to him.

Each of the characters has some semblance of an arc (although I will readily admit that some arcs like Sabin's are far and away weaker), but I think it's not true to say they were flat.

By contrast, I found Cloud to be a guy with a mental illness and an atrocious coping mechanism. Once he beat that, he was a lot better, and he was one of the few characters I found interesting. I loved Barret and his thing with his daughter and Dyne, but that hardly went anywhere. I can't even understand why Cid and Yuffie choose to stick it out with the group, frankly. Sephiroth was your typical anime villain ("He's so awesome and strong! We love him! Oh no, he's disillusioned now! He's gonna kill us all!" It was about corruption or something, right? What the hell does that even mean in specific? I've always hated that motivation), and what makes it worse, he had the usual stoic personality so it felt like there was barely any personal connection. By contrast, Kefka felt like he grew right along with the protagonists and was a constant thorn in their side.

I'll agree that a good bit of FF6's humor falls flat, but most humor in FF falls flat for me. At the very least, though, I got a chuckle out of FF6 breaking the 4th wall. FF7 never even got a smirk out of me. "Oh, he's dressing like a woman." "Why is Hojo surrounded by women and totally fine with me talking to him?" "Is the guy who owns Golden Saucer running around in speedos?"

I like both games (although I think FF7 is easily eclipsed by 8 and 9), and I'm not trying to tell you your opinion is wrong. Just for me, FF7 really didn't do enough with the characters to make me feel like they were worth having more than mild interest in. 6, 8, and 9 were WAY better for me in that regard. And I think Kefka is one of the most interesting villains in the main FF series.

It's ok, this guy is clearly beyond reason. I mean saying JRPG's revolve around good story telling is like saying what makes a jack and coke good is the Tap water you put into it. It's just a "wow, not even close." moment. I mean if he's saying FF6 is the worst RPG he's ever played than he should consider himself very fortunate. As by many reputable critics it's still favored over that over rated POS.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

In FF6, The Empire is called the Empire even though they are not the central authority of the planet, simply because the developers of the game did not respect your intelligence enough to care. Even Pokemon respected the players intelligence more than this, calling the antagonist organization Team Rocket rather than "The Bad Guys." Final Fantasy 6 is one giant trainwreck of a horrible game. The issue is not that FF7 is good, it's that FF6 is absolutely horrible.

Bro, do you even? Here's a little hint: http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Gestahlian_Empire

Lemme break it down for ya, just in case reading comp isn't one of your strong suits: It was called "The Empire" in the SNES translation for the same reason that a lot of story elements had to be cut from the SNES translation; there was so much story text that the SNES cart literally did not have enough space for it all (at least, not with all the gameplay content, too). In the original Japanese version, and in the GBA release (for both JP and US), The Empire is called "The Gestahlian Empire". It's a bit much to have to swallow when you're translating for a game who's dialogue already needs to get trimmed-down, so it was shortened to just "The Empire". So basically, your evidence boils down to stuff that was lost in translation.

The plot of FF6 that I remember is one giant train wreck like this.

Yeah, the plot that "you remember" was a giant train wreck. So basically, FF6 is bad based on fuzzy memories... k. By the way, speaking of lost in translation, aren't you talking-up the Final Fantasy title who's plot was notably train wrecked BY stuff that was confused in its translation? Some malarky about the clones, except they weren't actually clones by the standard definition... I don't even remember. So by your own standards, doesn't that make FF7 just as bad as FF6?

By the way, next time you want to harp on Kefka for being a bad villain because he has "no motive", yes he does. What's his motive? Well, who's the most popular DC villain by leaps and bounds (or if not DC in general, then definitely the most popular Batman villain)? What's his primary motive? Oh yeah, that's right:

 

[Sassafrass]

It has black bars on the edge but it's not too bad.
Cloud saves are fucked to shit on my end and I've seen a thread on Squeenix's site that reports others having a similar issue so don't use that feature, local saves work fine.
Haven't really noticed anything about the sounds myself.

Although it is really only for those who want FF7. I'm nostalgiaing pretty hard and enjoying but that's only because I haven't played it for 10 years now and it was a game that ate my childhood. So yeah, take from that what you will.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I'm only a couple hours in, so take this with a grain of salt, but here goes:

Personally, it's a pretty good port overall. The keyboard controls I find to be rather clunky and unintuitive, but it works just fine with my Xbox 360 controller, so I can't really complain there. Other than that, mechanically it works pretty good. I've had no technical issues with it or any real problems. The sound isn't really bad, but it is the same files the PSX used, and that much is clear. You're not going to be hearing any sweeping scores from The Black Mages or whatever here, just the old PSX chiptunes. I find it to be charmingly retro, but your mileage may vary.

When it comes to the graphics though, it definitely doesn't run at 1080p. If you set it to that (which I do), you'll get black bars on either side and a very small bar on the bottom. It looks fine and works, but it's not really 1080p.

That's a shame about the bars, especially for things like combat where they could have easily just opened up the screen to show the rest of the rendered bits (though I can totally understand it on the Pre-rendered backgrounds where the sides might just cut off, not that there isn't a way around that through programming...).

And, yeah, as much as I love Keyboard and mouse for most games, for console games I always just use my DualShock3 (which usually just emulates a 360 controller when using it with my PC), so that won't be an issue.

Side note: I love chiptunes.

Ugh. If it's midi, then it's highly dependent on the synthesiser on your computer.

And... Unfortunately, since few people use midi anymore, the synthesisers on most people's computers are terrible.

Back in the day (of windows 98) I used the Yamaha S-YXG 120 software synthesizer (The original PC port of Final Fantasy 8 even contains specific extension for Yamaha software synthesisers).

Now, trust me when I tell you that the sound quality of even the low end yamaha S-YXG 50 software synthesiser is miles ahead of the Rolan GM/GS synth that is included with windows.

Best of all, you can improve the audio quality of ALL programs that use midi just by getting a better midi synthesiser on your computer.

Unfortunately... The drop in popularity of midi has meant such synthesisers are hard to come by.

The Yamaha software synths are no longer sold, and the last ever version released runs on windows XP, but nothing more recent.

To top it off, sound cards with decent midi hardware are almost as rare these days...

All that leaves for midi playback on modern systems is that same old legacy Roland GM/GS synth microsoft has included with windows since the days of windows 95. And that really is pretty awful overall.

So I find all this very interesting because I'm actually an electronic music producer and sound engineer, so my computer is actually loaded with quality softsynths and has a studio quality sound card, though after a bit of checking it's clear Windows 7 isn't smart enough to use any of them. It can however use my audio-card's MIDI using a user made control panel, but honestly I'm not wowed by it so I'm looking in to this: http://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/virtualmidisynth
Looks promising, and I'll be playing around with it and Doom for a bit to find a quality synth, and based on your comments very natural rage against the Roland GS I'd suggest you check it out too.



So, as OP, I feel the need to come to a conclusion, and based on what everyone is saying I'm probably just fine sticking to ePSXe, however based on what I've seen the graphics do come off as better, and with the possibility of mods around the corner that enhance the game even further, and the fact that my only other real concern of the music is something highly flexible I think I might just go ahead and throw a bit more of my money at Square (here's hoping it reminds them to go back to making good games instead of mildly interactive CG movies).

That said, I think I'm buying it more to tinker with it and examine how it looks, and for other users I'd suggest waiting for a Steam sale, because you know there will be one (and know that I'll see that sale, and be like "UGG, why didn't I wait?!", haha).


One final note, more in the hopes that some SquareEnix guy will see it by some chance: I'm not keen on SquareEnix's new love for DRM, and if anything were to stop me from giving them money in the future it would be that. I'll never forget the time I tried to play Chrono Trigger on my tablet while on a train only to find the DRM wouldn't allow such a thing.

Dude, thank you for this post. I had no idea there was a free software synth like that out there. I recently downloaded Munt (which emulates the old Roland MT-32) and got it set up to work with DosBox, but the MT-32 used a type of synthesis that pre-dates general midi, which means you can't play modern midi files through it and expect them to work properly. This gives me an option that isn't an immediate downgrade.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Wait, you think ff6 is good? The characters are flat, one dimensional archetypes. Terra for example is an emo, who only feels despair, angst and loneliness all the time, kefka is a generic designated villain with no motivation for blowing up the world, and the characters almost constantly rely on 4th wall breaking attempts at comedy, which undercuts the drama, as well as sequences which simply do not make sense. It is hard to truly sympathize with anyone's suffering when they point out how they are fictional and their suffering does not matter right before the tragedy occurs, or when any nonsensical sequence of events shatters suspension of disbelief.

In the ghost train sequence for example, the characters are trying to get off the train, then get in a boss fight where they are off the train, and then waste time during the bossfight running away from the train on the tracks, instead of running away from the tracks, then after defeating it climb back on the train, wait for it to get to an arbitrary point then get off, and then after that disgusting excuse for "comedy" we immediately cut to a "tragic" scene of Cyan's family, who do we do not care about because of the loss of suspension of disbelief.

The characters have little motivation, lack depth and complexity, immediately skip from 4th wall breaking comedy to tragedy, undercutting the tragedy because of the attention called to the fact that the characters are fictional. FF6 is one of the most horrible games I have ever played.

By contrast, Cloud is not an emo, but someone who can be playful, encouraging, and friendly, in addition to feeling angst and despair. He is a complex person, rather than an archetype. Sephiroth had an actual motivation for blowing up the world, and because the sequence of events make sense in the context of the game without breaking the 4th wall, the comedy does not undercut the tragedy. FF7 actually has a good story.

The fanboyism is strong in this one.

I am not a fanboy. I own an xbox, but openly admit it has many, many flaws. I owned a PS3, but got rid of it. I like many game series, but will often focus more on their flaws than their strong points when discussing them. FF7 is one of the few things I will gush about, because it is actually good.

He's saying you're a blind fanboy towards FF7. All of that crap you listed off about "clouds emotions" is just your piss poor attempt to cover up that fact. Both of their stories aren't great, they're nonsensical at the best of times and flat out ridiculous. All I was saying is that there are so many blinded fanyboys like yourself who can't see past their nostalgia glasses and realize that FF7 is no where near as good as people remember. People love hating on 8 but overall it's a much better game (nonsensical bullshit aside). Same with X, people love ripping into it because of the piss poor voice acting, but it still was a much better game all around than 7.

I take issue at saying FFX was a better game than FF7. FF7 had varied gameplay, and while it was linear as all getout, gave enough of an illusion of freedom that it didn't /feel/ that way. FFX was the game that started the whole corridor crawl thing, and the plot was as bad as the voice acting. It had a great battle system, but that was about all it had going for it. Well, I also liked Blitzball. But that's one minigame, compared to the mountains of them 7 had. FFX was the game that turned me off of the series, haven't played a new FF since.

 

[The_Tron]

Wait, you think ff6 is good? The characters are flat, one dimensional archetypes. Terra for example is an emo, who only feels despair, angst and loneliness all the time, kefka is a generic designated villain with no motivation for blowing up the world, and the characters almost constantly rely on 4th wall breaking attempts at comedy, which undercuts the drama, as well as sequences which simply do not make sense. It is hard to truly sympathize with anyone's suffering when they point out how they are fictional and their suffering does not matter right before the tragedy occurs, or when any nonsensical sequence of events shatters suspension of disbelief.

In the ghost train sequence for example, the characters are trying to get off the train, then get in a boss fight where they are off the train, and then waste time during the bossfight running away from the train on the tracks, instead of running away from the tracks, then after defeating it climb back on the train, wait for it to get to an arbitrary point then get off, and then after that disgusting excuse for "comedy" we immediately cut to a "tragic" scene of Cyan's family, who do we do not care about because of the loss of suspension of disbelief.

The characters have little motivation, lack depth and complexity, immediately skip from 4th wall breaking comedy to tragedy, undercutting the tragedy because of the attention called to the fact that the characters are fictional. FF6 is one of the most horrible games I have ever played.

By contrast, Cloud is not an emo, but someone who can be playful, encouraging, and friendly, in addition to feeling angst and despair. He is a complex person, rather than an archetype. Sephiroth had an actual motivation for blowing up the world, and because the sequence of events make sense in the context of the game without breaking the 4th wall, the comedy does not undercut the tragedy. FF7 actually has a good story.

The fanboyism is strong in this one.

I am not a fanboy. I own an xbox, but openly admit it has many, many flaws. I owned a PS3, but got rid of it. I like many game series, but will often focus more on their flaws than their strong points when discussing them. FF7 is one of the few things I will gush about, because it is actually good.

He's saying you're a blind fanboy towards FF7. All of that crap you listed off about "clouds emotions" is just your piss poor attempt to cover up that fact. Both of their stories aren't great, they're nonsensical at the best of times and flat out ridiculous. All I was saying is that there are so many blinded fanyboys like yourself who can't see past their nostalgia glasses and realize that FF7 is no where near as good as people remember. People love hating on 8 but overall it's a much better game (nonsensical bullshit aside). Same with X, people love ripping into it because of the piss poor voice acting, but it still was a much better game all around than 7.

I take issue at saying FFX was a better game than FF7. FF7 had varied gameplay, and while it was linear as all getout, gave enough of an illusion of freedom that it didn't /feel/ that way. FFX was the game that started the whole corridor crawl thing, and the plot was as bad as the voice acting. It had a great battle system, but that was about all it had going for it. Well, I also liked Blitzball. But that's one minigame, compared to the mountains of them 7 had. FFX was the game that turned me off of the series, haven't played a new FF since.

That's funny as X was the one that got me into the series. I had a lot of fun with the combat and ya the story was kinda dumb but I've come to expect that in most JRPG's. I killed so much time in blitzball, the monster arena and maxing out my favorite 3 that some of it's other shortcomings where masked by those strengths. 7 I played recently and it just did nothing for me, I found the minigames to be pointless "timed button pressing" games with exception maybe to Chocobo racing which was basically just watching (though I still had fun with that because I enjoy the song a lot) but after hearing from so many people how "IT's THE GREATEST GAME EVAR!!!!" I played through it and just felt like "really? is... is that it?" Once I reached the mansion section I wasn't even interested in it. The whole game just felt like a chore and the only reasons I wanted to continue on was to get my moneys worth and the see how the shit show was going to end. There was no way I was going to even bother putting in the time to max 1 character let alone the recommended of 3 to deal with the Ruby or emerald weapon. As for your argument about the linearity of both I feel opposed as in almost all of the FF games they're very linear until about 80% of the way through (the biggest exception is 13 in which it's just a drag race to the end, not even a slight change in angle) until you get the airship, at which point you can go almost anywhere.And I feel you're overlooking the reasoning as to why you're to follow the given path in X. As part of a pilgrimage, a predetermined order (I believe at one point they even say how it would have been more efficient to do a certain order but something regarding the pilgrimage, that parts fuzzy to be honest).

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Wait, you think ff6 is good? The characters are flat, one dimensional archetypes. Terra for example is an emo, who only feels despair, angst and loneliness all the time, kefka is a generic designated villain with no motivation for blowing up the world, and the characters almost constantly rely on 4th wall breaking attempts at comedy, which undercuts the drama, as well as sequences which simply do not make sense. It is hard to truly sympathize with anyone's suffering when they point out how they are fictional and their suffering does not matter right before the tragedy occurs, or when any nonsensical sequence of events shatters suspension of disbelief.

In the ghost train sequence for example, the characters are trying to get off the train, then get in a boss fight where they are off the train, and then waste time during the bossfight running away from the train on the tracks, instead of running away from the tracks, then after defeating it climb back on the train, wait for it to get to an arbitrary point then get off, and then after that disgusting excuse for "comedy" we immediately cut to a "tragic" scene of Cyan's family, who do we do not care about because of the loss of suspension of disbelief.

The characters have little motivation, lack depth and complexity, immediately skip from 4th wall breaking comedy to tragedy, undercutting the tragedy because of the attention called to the fact that the characters are fictional. FF6 is one of the most horrible games I have ever played.

By contrast, Cloud is not an emo, but someone who can be playful, encouraging, and friendly, in addition to feeling angst and despair. He is a complex person, rather than an archetype. Sephiroth had an actual motivation for blowing up the world, and because the sequence of events make sense in the context of the game without breaking the 4th wall, the comedy does not undercut the tragedy. FF7 actually has a good story.

The fanboyism is strong in this one.

I am not a fanboy. I own an xbox, but openly admit it has many, many flaws. I owned a PS3, but got rid of it. I like many game series, but will often focus more on their flaws than their strong points when discussing them. FF7 is one of the few things I will gush about, because it is actually good.

He's saying you're a blind fanboy towards FF7. All of that crap you listed off about "clouds emotions" is just your piss poor attempt to cover up that fact. Both of their stories aren't great, they're nonsensical at the best of times and flat out ridiculous. All I was saying is that there are so many blinded fanyboys like yourself who can't see past their nostalgia glasses and realize that FF7 is no where near as good as people remember. People love hating on 8 but overall it's a much better game (nonsensical bullshit aside). Same with X, people love ripping into it because of the piss poor voice acting, but it still was a much better game all around than 7.

I take issue at saying FFX was a better game than FF7. FF7 had varied gameplay, and while it was linear as all getout, gave enough of an illusion of freedom that it didn't /feel/ that way. FFX was the game that started the whole corridor crawl thing, and the plot was as bad as the voice acting. It had a great battle system, but that was about all it had going for it. Well, I also liked Blitzball. But that's one minigame, compared to the mountains of them 7 had. FFX was the game that turned me off of the series, haven't played a new FF since.

That's funny as X was the one that got me into the series. I had a lot of fun with the combat and ya the story was kinda dumb but I've come to expect that in most JRPG's. I killed so much time in blitzball, the monster arena and maxing out my favorite 3 that some of it's other shortcomings where masked by those strengths. 7 I played recently and it just did nothing for me, I found the minigames to be pointless "timed button pressing" games with exception maybe to Chocobo racing which was basically just watching (though I still had fun with that because I enjoy the song a lot) but after hearing from so many people how "IT's THE GREATEST GAME EVAR!!!!" I played through it and just felt like "really? is... is that it?" Once I reached the mansion section I wasn't even interested in it. The whole game just felt like a chore and the only reasons I wanted to continue on was to get my moneys worth and the see how the shit show was going to end. There was no way I was going to even bother putting in the time to max 1 character let alone the recommended of 3 to deal with the Ruby or emerald weapon. As for your argument about the linearity of both I feel opposed as in almost all of the FF games they're very linear until about 80% of the way through (the biggest exception is 13 in which it's just a drag race to the end, not even a slight change in angle) until you get the airship, at which point you can go almost anywhere.And I feel you're overlooking the reasoning as to why you're to follow the given path in X. As part of a pilgrimage, a predetermined order (I believe at one point they even say how it would have been more efficient to do a certain order but something regarding the pilgrimage, that parts fuzzy to be honest).

That's kind of the divide I've noticed. Those who started with X think it's the best game ever. Those who started anywhere before it tend to think it sucked.

Edit: Also, there's no need to max anybody to beat Ruby weapon. You just need to learn how to break the combat system badly enough to do it. The materia system lends itself to some seriously cheap shots, if you know what you're doing.

Edit edit: Second also, you haven't played the good minigames if you think they're all button mashing. You play the motorcycle one before even leaving midgar, and that's not button mashing. Neither is the rollercoaster thing, or the snowboarding game, or the submarine game, or the...

And now I want to grab my discs and start playing again.

 

[The_Tron]

Wait, you think ff6 is good? The characters are flat, one dimensional archetypes. Terra for example is an emo, who only feels despair, angst and loneliness all the time, kefka is a generic designated villain with no motivation for blowing up the world, and the characters almost constantly rely on 4th wall breaking attempts at comedy, which undercuts the drama, as well as sequences which simply do not make sense. It is hard to truly sympathize with anyone's suffering when they point out how they are fictional and their suffering does not matter right before the tragedy occurs, or when any nonsensical sequence of events shatters suspension of disbelief.

In the ghost train sequence for example, the characters are trying to get off the train, then get in a boss fight where they are off the train, and then waste time during the bossfight running away from the train on the tracks, instead of running away from the tracks, then after defeating it climb back on the train, wait for it to get to an arbitrary point then get off, and then after that disgusting excuse for "comedy" we immediately cut to a "tragic" scene of Cyan's family, who do we do not care about because of the loss of suspension of disbelief.

The characters have little motivation, lack depth and complexity, immediately skip from 4th wall breaking comedy to tragedy, undercutting the tragedy because of the attention called to the fact that the characters are fictional. FF6 is one of the most horrible games I have ever played.

By contrast, Cloud is not an emo, but someone who can be playful, encouraging, and friendly, in addition to feeling angst and despair. He is a complex person, rather than an archetype. Sephiroth had an actual motivation for blowing up the world, and because the sequence of events make sense in the context of the game without breaking the 4th wall, the comedy does not undercut the tragedy. FF7 actually has a good story.

The fanboyism is strong in this one.

I am not a fanboy. I own an xbox, but openly admit it has many, many flaws. I owned a PS3, but got rid of it. I like many game series, but will often focus more on their flaws than their strong points when discussing them. FF7 is one of the few things I will gush about, because it is actually good.

He's saying you're a blind fanboy towards FF7. All of that crap you listed off about "clouds emotions" is just your piss poor attempt to cover up that fact. Both of their stories aren't great, they're nonsensical at the best of times and flat out ridiculous. All I was saying is that there are so many blinded fanyboys like yourself who can't see past their nostalgia glasses and realize that FF7 is no where near as good as people remember. People love hating on 8 but overall it's a much better game (nonsensical bullshit aside). Same with X, people love ripping into it because of the piss poor voice acting, but it still was a much better game all around than 7.

I take issue at saying FFX was a better game than FF7. FF7 had varied gameplay, and while it was linear as all getout, gave enough of an illusion of freedom that it didn't /feel/ that way. FFX was the game that started the whole corridor crawl thing, and the plot was as bad as the voice acting. It had a great battle system, but that was about all it had going for it. Well, I also liked Blitzball. But that's one minigame, compared to the mountains of them 7 had. FFX was the game that turned me off of the series, haven't played a new FF since.

That's funny as X was the one that got me into the series. I had a lot of fun with the combat and ya the story was kinda dumb but I've come to expect that in most JRPG's. I killed so much time in blitzball, the monster arena and maxing out my favorite 3 that some of it's other shortcomings where masked by those strengths. 7 I played recently and it just did nothing for me, I found the minigames to be pointless "timed button pressing" games with exception maybe to Chocobo racing which was basically just watching (though I still had fun with that because I enjoy the song a lot) but after hearing from so many people how "IT's THE GREATEST GAME EVAR!!!!" I played through it and just felt like "really? is... is that it?" Once I reached the mansion section I wasn't even interested in it. The whole game just felt like a chore and the only reasons I wanted to continue on was to get my moneys worth and the see how the shit show was going to end. There was no way I was going to even bother putting in the time to max 1 character let alone the recommended of 3 to deal with the Ruby or emerald weapon. As for your argument about the linearity of both I feel opposed as in almost all of the FF games they're very linear until about 80% of the way through (the biggest exception is 13 in which it's just a drag race to the end, not even a slight change in angle) until you get the airship, at which point you can go almost anywhere.And I feel you're overlooking the reasoning as to why you're to follow the given path in X. As part of a pilgrimage, a predetermined order (I believe at one point they even say how it would have been more efficient to do a certain order but something regarding the pilgrimage, that parts fuzzy to be honest).

That's kind of the divide I've noticed. Those who started with X think it's the best game ever. Those who started anywhere before it tend to think it sucked.

Edit: Also, there's no need to max anybody to beat Ruby weapon. You just need to learn how to break the combat system badly enough to do it. The materia system lends itself to some seriously cheap shots, if you know what you're doing.

Edit edit: Second also, you haven't played the good minigames if you think they're all button mashing. You play the motorcycle one before even leaving midgar, and that's not button mashing. Neither is the rollercoaster thing, or the snowboarding game, or the submarine game, or the...

And now I want to grab my discs and start playing again.

I didn't say button mashing, just timed button pressing. I also never said that I think X is the best game ever, far from it in fact. I just believe it's better than 7, a which is not a very difficult feat. I also played 6,X,12,8,13,7 in that order. My play through of 6 was cut short due to a save file error (through an emulator) but I did eventually go back to play it and still enjoyed it more than 7 and 13. When I was looking into doing some of the late game side missions for 7, I saw a walkthrough that recommended maxing your main party for both fights, while it said it's possible to win without just to reduce your chances of a total party KO. And by that point I had no interest in extending the experience any longer than it needed to be. I'm gonna be honest I remember a motorcycle section but I don't remember how it played or whether I enjoyed it or not. Odds are if I have this much trouble remembering it, that it was a mediocre experience.

 

[RelexCryo]

In FF6, The Empire is called the Empire even though they are not the central authority of the planet, simply because the developers of the game did not respect your intelligence enough to care. Even Pokemon respected the players intelligence more than this, calling the antagonist organization Team Rocket rather than "The Bad Guys." Final Fantasy 6 is one giant trainwreck of a horrible game. The issue is not that FF7 is good, it's that FF6 is absolutely horrible.

Bro, do you even? Here's a little hint: http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Gestahlian_Empire

Lemme break it down for ya, just in case reading comp isn't one of your strong suits: It was called "The Empire" in the SNES translation for the same reason that a lot of story elements had to be cut from the SNES translation; there was so much story text that the SNES cart literally did not have enough space for it all (at least, not with all the gameplay content, too). In the original Japanese version, and in the GBA release (for both JP and US), The Empire is called "The Gestahlian Empire". It's a bit much to have to swallow when you're translating for a game who's dialogue already needs to get trimmed-down, so it was shortened to just "The Empire". So basically, your evidence boils down to stuff that was lost in translation.

The plot of FF6 that I remember is one giant train wreck like this.

Yeah, the plot that "you remember" was a giant train wreck. So basically, FF6 is bad based on fuzzy memories... k. By the way, speaking of lost in translation, aren't you talking-up the Final Fantasy title who's plot was notably train wrecked BY stuff that was confused in its translation? Some malarky about the clones, except they weren't actually clones by the standard definition... I don't even remember. So by your own standards, doesn't that make FF7 just as bad as FF6?

By the way, next time you want to harp on Kefka for being a bad villain because he has "no motive", yes he does. What's his motive? Well, who's the most popular DC villain by leaps and bounds (or if not DC in general, then definitely the most popular Batman villain)? What's his primary motive? Oh yeah, that's right:

I'm rather amused that they didn't bother replacing the text on the PS1 version with the original in that case. Secondly? The fact that Edgar as King could have easily stopped the rich man in South Figaro from betraying the town- and didn't- is still a rather large plot hole, and the game is filled with them. This is largely due to comedy that is excessively derived from breaking the 4th wall, which tends to undercut the tragedy. Especially since the game's pacing generally doesn't take the time to re-establish suspension of disbelief before switching from 4th wall breaking comedy to tragedy. The ghost train sequence in the forest example that I used earlier still stands.

 

[vasiD]

Dude, thank you for this post. I had no idea there was a free software synth like that out there. I recently downloaded Munt (which emulates the old Roland MT-32) and got it set up to work with DosBox, but the MT-32 used a type of synthesis that pre-dates general midi, which means you can't play modern midi files through it and expect them to work properly. This gives me an option that isn't an immediate downgrade.

Glad it helped! I'm really digging it as an on-board-MIDI-alternative as well.

 

[Zenn3k]

The game was release on the PC back in the day, this is just an updated port.

The game has always had MIDI music, it can sound different on the PC...but the PSX version still used Midi.

You can get some cool mods for the PC port which improve the graphics and sound.