Sumez wrote:
I don't feel right calling FF7 "groundbreaking" by itself. Sure, it was a huge impact on the video game world, but purely as a game I don't feel like it did anything FF6 didn't do.
It did
most of what FF6 did
better.
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In fact right when it came out, I was sorely disappointed by there only being one overworld, leaving behind what had been a Final Fantasy trope for the previous four installments at that point.
True. No argument there. I strongly suspect this the primary source of backlash against FF7 in general. I don't think it
ruins the game though. It succeeds because it brought something greater than multiple world maps to the table.
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What was new here, of course, was the big pre-rendered backgrounds and the FMV video, which is apparently what it really took to win people over to the FF series.
That's one of many things that were "new here." The music was a huge step up. The mini games were sophisticated. The graphics were in a whole different league. The third-person 3D views in the towns gave the game a look and feel unlike anything that had come before it and created a level of emotional immersion that was indeed "groundbreaking" in not just a FF game, but in a video game period.
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Though even more so I guess was simply the fact that this was the first game in the series to see a largely world wide release.
The fact that it was a world-wide release doesn't mean it wasn't succeeding on it's own merits. There were lots and lots of "world-wide releases" that utterly tanked. This game was a phenomenon because it was awesome
and because it got a wider audience.
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The tiny-man-on-a-huge-worldmap is one of my favourite JRPG tropes, and the thing I miss the most from the 8- and 16-bit eras. It's what ensures the sense of [i]exploration, which supports the sense of adventure which, to me, is incredibly important in an RPG! It's also the reason why I love Dragon Quests 6, 2 and 3 higher than any other game in the series.
I get you. I also like RPGs with this aspect. Love all those games you mentioned, but there's room in my heart for games without the little guy on a map and I don't feel that's solely responsible for a sense of exploration.