A game which needs no introduction, but I’m a kind man so I shall assist the six people who have been out of the loop or in space for the last decade.
The highly anticipated Squaresoft RPG for Sony’s Playstation released in 1997 to massive critical acclaim and gamer praise. It boasted beautifully rendered backgrounds, an engaging storyline, and an excellent soundtrack. Whether or not those things held true to you is a matter of opinion. In fact, the unpopular opinion thread was partly what inspired me to do this.
I’ll begin by saying I do like this game. In fact, it's one of my favorite games of all time, but realize it has many flaws. For one, when it was released, the pre-rendered backgrounds were fairly nice, and battle sequences held up well against the need for higher quality characters. Sadly, the strange deformed ‘chibi’ characters used in all other sequences looked pretty awful from the start. Today, the graphics have dated expectedly, but I still maintain that some of the backgrounds are well-detailed.
Still, I’d say one of the most blatant issues of this game is the poor translation. Throughout the story, a lot of lines are poorly worded, oddly constructed, or just plain indecipherable. Reznik said it best as “a story that might be described as only kinda-confusing becomes incomprehensible to a lot of people.” I’ll do my best to clarify what’s going on in those cases, but I can’t make any promises.
I’ve played this game through a number of times, but during the last few I went to the Gameshark to ease the pain of leveling up. I’m not going to do that this time, but I’ll say it has probably been many years since I last played legit (possibly as many as 10), so bear with me.
This LP will be presented in Screenshot Format, obviously. Not only do people not want to watch 30+ hours worth of videos, they certainly don’t want to watch said videos with commentary by me as spontaneous commentary is not my strong suit. This will be my first LP. I’ve read through and watched a fair amount of LPs, but obviously this will be far from perfect. Criticism and suggestions are welcome. I’ll do my best to incorporate some interactivity in terms of character naming and such.
Also this will be a satire/humor based LP. A bit odd since I'm known for being rather serious amongst my friends and coworkers, but the game certainly lends itself to joking, not to mention the alternative would be an informative or expert play LP and I am neither well-informed or an expert at FFVII. Though I'm going to be keeping the story as intact as possible, with summaries or thoughts as it progresses. So I suppose it's partially informative. Oh uh, just a standard warning, I curse a lot in it. This is a Penny Arcade forum so I assume no one cares, but if for some reason you do. Well, too bad I guess! Also, while I may get venomous toward certain characters or plot points, remember that it's just all in fun.
The very pretty PS3 Tech Demo where they remade the opening:
Space… The Final Frontier… These are the voyages of…
Ahwuh?
Nevermind. Just some chick doing hallucinogens in a dark alley. Moving along…
Attractive woman, emerging from alley into slum streets. Cue upbeat music and cast montage, it’s Rapeville 90210.
Is the bar run by a man named Goblin, an actual goblin, or it for goblins only? These are things I must know.
Alright, so is it a slum, a city, a dance club? What? This place is beyond confusing!
(May not be as final as advertised)
This opening is painfully un-dramatic. A few more shots of the train go by as we zoom back into Club Midgar. I’m excited. Aren’t you? I mean, c’mon… The train is totally in a hurry to get to its pre-designated endpoint!
Guard: ‘Ah, excellent. Our shipment of prostitutes in teddy-bear costumes… I’ve been so needing to get laid… and a cuddly hug… I hate my life…’
‘Bob? You’re not supposed to start without me!’
‘Hey where’s your costu- hynaghhh! Ohgodwhy!’
‘Can I at least… get the hug…? ’
‘Momma always said if I pray hard enough, God’ll give me a skinny, spiky-haired white boy to call my very own…’
‘Hallelujah!’
‘I think I’ll call him... Creampuff!’
Creampuff is totally a better name than Ex-SOLDIER(!!!!!) Lookit them blue eyes. So purty…
Soldier: ‘We came as quick as we could! Are the hugs here?!.. Wow, they really pulled out all the stops, this time. This is the prettiest one, yet!’
Guns vs. Sword. Time to stand down, I guess...
Actually, no.
Despite the fact that I just chopped his friend into bits, this soldier continues to fight... by deciding to completely ignore his projectile weapon, rushing the man with the giant sword and engaging in melee combat...
You can guess how that went...
Meanwhile, Puffy steals a strange liquid off of a man’s corpse. Huzzah!
‘Listen, my hearing is fine. You can stop shouting…’
‘Jesus… Just.. nevermind.’
This was the only rename suggestion I got. Next time, I'm just going with my own ideas!
‘For now, I shall give you temporary mental names. Hannibal, Faceman (seriously, lady, you have the face of a man), Murdock…’
‘B.A. Baracus!’
His expert advice is to never stick together. Sticking together is for suckers. Wise, wise words.
Sure glad we’re getting all our issues out now. It’s not like we’re in the middle of the fucking mission already or anything.
I always imagine the Mission: Impossible theme beginning here… LET’S DO THIS.
End notes: Rereading this update after like 25 others almost makes me want to rewrite it, but that would be cheating. I may fix some of the shots later, though. I know this is like 30 shots for 5 minutes of gameplay. This won't be the ratio all the time as that would mean about a million shots total (rough estimate). Future updates have turned out to be between 40 and 70 shots for each "section" of the game. Sections seem to typically be about an hour in length not counting world map travel and any level grinding you do in between.
I'll be poking fun at the game's flaws, so it's okay if you do, too. Let's not turn the thread into an FF debate though, please. I do my best to update regularly, but there's no set schedule. Anywhere from 1-3 days seems to be the norm so far.
Holy shit screenshot lp for this is just.. oh my god.
Not to sound like an ass but have you ever done an lp before? Because if not then really you should not try to attempt a screenshot lp of final fantasy 7 for your first lp ever..
__________________ Do you know the Terrible Secret of Animal Crossing?
Good luck! The last attempt here only made it to the Don...
Hm, I didn't even see that. I did multiple searches, too. I am quite a failure. That model mod sure is interesting. However even if I had it, I'd keep the old models for nostalgia's sake. I figure if my commentary doesn't satisfy, maybe some people will look through it for the memories, at least.
Anyhow, to everyone warning me. Yeah, I'm totally aware this'll take a lot of work and probably like, a year to finish, but I'm going to do my best. Thanks for the well wishes, though. I just hope it remains interesting enough, as I'm not anywhere near being a professional writer or comedian, nor are either of these things my career (IT/Network Admin). Anyhow, working on the 2nd update now.
It ends at naming Tifa. No one really took advantage of Cloud or Barret other than MinionofCthulhu, so don't blame me if you don't like the names! Well, I guess you can blame me for Barret's since I chose his.
So if you want to get a head start on Tifa name suggestions, go for it.
01-19-2009, 12:55 PM
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‘Momma always said if I pray hard enough, God’ll give me a skinny, spiky-haired white boy to call my very own…’
‘Listen, my hearing is fine. You can stop shouting…’
UnbreakableVow on PSN
8151 7074 1538 2994 on Wii
Also, for LPers who have a terrible speaking voice(like myself).
