FF7 vs FF8

5 points of consideration when deciding which RPG is best for your gaming needs

I was enjoying FF8 one weekend when a buddy of mine called and commented on how even after all these years, Final Fantasy 7 is still the best one in the series. Nightmares came rushing back from my expierences with that game and an argument ensued. This is a long debated topic amongst many die-hard FF fans, arguing mainly over which one is better, 7 or 8. I prefer 8 over 7. Hell, I prefer ANY of the Final Fantasy's over 7. So I provide you with some "points of consideration"

1. Graphics. I understand the PS1 was still fairly new at the time and polygons had yet to be perfected, but when someone claims that the graphics on 8 were worse than 7, I have to disagree. The characters had blocks for hands, no facial expressions and no mouths. All they could really do to express emotion is blink and wave thier little blocky arms/hands around. Even the FMV's didn't show any emotion. FF8 had characters who could show any emotion they wanted to, and even had individual fingers! Imagine that!

vs.

2. Story. Maybe its just me, but FF7's story made absolutly no sense. I mean, one minute you're a spiky haired blond guy named Cloud, next you're a clone with the memory of this spiky-haird black guy named Zach? It doesn't even explain the transistion. FF8 had me glued the entire time. Dramatic storyline, great love story, plot twists, etc.

----->

WTF?

3. Villan has an Oedipus complex. What is the deal with Sephiroth and his mother? He goes crazy and then devotes his life to finding, liberating, and protecting his mother Jenova who by the way is half-dead and horribly mutated.

i love you mommy!

FF8 has a good old evil sorceress trying to take over the world. I say go with what works rather than give the villan a creepy complex.

Yay! Evil!

4. Materia. This I just plain don't get. You either know magic or you don't. If you have MP, you know magic. Thats how it should be. With the Materia system, you know whatever magic is applied to that Materia, and you have to be holding the Materia to know that spell. Remove the Materia? No more spells. To access higher level spells, you have to work with the Materia for about a decade. Then you might get to Fire2. No. Not acceptable. You either know the spell or you don't.

woo. ice.

Now THATS an ice spell!!

5. Unfair Character Loss. 3/4 the way thru the game the villan kills off your best healer. Thats right. You lose Aeris after Sephrioth impales her with his gigantoid sword. All the while I might add, with no emotion or expressions. There is NO way to bring Aeris back. So after you spent the better part of your youth getting Aeris to an acceptable level to stay in the party, they go and kill her. I don't care if the developers want to kill off a character for dramatics, but at least give us the option of trying to get them back.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Keep in mind these are my opinions and i'm entitled to them. I'm just trying to prevent any more unfortunate mind twists of young gamers by this one mistake of a great legacy.

Comments

The bit about Cloud turning into Zach isn't entirely true.

First you have Cloud who wanted to become SOLIDIER First Class like Sephiroth. Unfortunately, he doesn't make it to First Class but his best friend does, who is conveniently named Zach. Ashamed, he returned to Nibelheim while wearing a Shinra uniform (to hide his face; this was Zach's plan). Later, while in Nibelheim, Sephiroth went crazy and went to free his mother. Zach and Cloud chased after Tifa who ran to her father's aid. Zach was injured in the battle between him and Sephiroth but Cloud managed to pick up Zach's sword and defeat Sephiroth. They are then captured by Shinra soldiers and infused with Mako in the Shinra mansion but Zach escaped and took Cloud with him to Midgar. Once at Midgar, Zach is killed by Shinra soldiers who left Cloud (drooling and muttering nonsense) sensing his death. Cloud then regains his strength, picking up Zach's sword and calling Zach's life his own out of shame.

Not that hard actually.

Ahem. Allow Moi to shed a little light. 8 is better in too many ways.

Lets begin with the biggest of them all. Game play. In 7, Game play is too bland and boring. Characters have NO differences. Any character can be as good as any other character in any way. The only distinct character difference is aeris, who just sucks more. Guess what, she is not better at magic, she just sucks more attacking to make it look better by comparison. Only character differences are their special moves which just comes down to whose final limit breaker does multiple hits, which they all either do that or do a stupid move that hurts all once, but their previous limit breaker was better. Also, unless you are Tifa you just choose the move and watch. And your strategy is just use the strongest attack. FF8 on the other hand has much better character skill distinction, special moves are more fairer and funner where you interact with your attack, not just watch, and strategy/challenge is better.

Now let's go to story. FF7 has a lot of problems. For instance, if Cloud was too weak to join Soldier, how did he beat Sephiroth in the flashback, but couldn't beat him in the present when Cloud is stronger. How does Tifa know to go along with Cloud's lie. How is Red XIII connected with the clones? Why was Cloud suddenly under control by Sephiroth. Why was the meteor such a problem, but Super Nova (which blew up every other planet) didn't even scratch the Earths surface. And Why does none of the t.v shows, movies, and extra games not explain any of this to us?

FF8 may have its share of oddness, but that is expected from FF. Only difference is that they make sense in explanation. Go ahead and throw out the whole orphans with no memories of it thing. I dare you. At least they explain it in a way that can explain itself. They didn't magically lose their memories, it happened over time due to their powers. Thats good enough for me. It's short and sweet, and get's to the point. And why are they together? Does it make sense that if they were all orphans together, they would all end up in the Gardens as SeeD's? Because that sounds pretty logical to me. Ultimecia my not have been as epic as Sephiroth, but that's mainly because between swordsman and magic user, most people would choose a swordsman. But at least Ultimecia wasn't a pussy momma's boy like Sephiroth. When she wants to do something, like destroy/rule the world, she does it!

Let's face it. FF7 is a paycheck. It isn't great for it's game, but for it's timing. Square makes FF7, and people act like school girls and eat it up, giving them money to do whatever. FF7 leaves you questioning, and emotionally disturbed. FF8 is just too much better. If you like FF7 more, than you prolly just want to go with the crowd. Those need to do some serious thinking

i love both 7 & 8 about the same. although 8 is my favrite, everything after 7 & 8 sucks in my opinion. zadine blows, titus is always fucking happy, and vaan is a homo.
anyways, i feel that the junction system was a good way to improve charcters and build them into power houses. the matreia system was to simple.
i do feel that the stoies are about the same so i say there equal. a sorceress and her knight, a raging warrior bent on destroying the world... priceless. i think that cloud and squall are both really great characters, i do like squall more because i'm more like him then cloud. but i wold like them on my side in a battle. the supporting cast on each side is equal. you have more of a verity on 7, but i feel you get to know the cast in 8 more and feel a connection with them. when it comes to your main characters rivil, thats a diffrent storie. Sephiroth hands down is the best, and would destroy sifer. think about one thing cloud wouldent be as popular as he is with out Sephiroth. in 7 i think it that the second disc is just filler and the weapons are usless.
when it come to graphics 8 wins hands down, even though its unfair to compare cause of the time they came out.
thats my opinon, feel free to emial me if you want to talk about this.
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Sorry to burst your bubble, but my favorite Final Fantasy is and will always be FF6. I have played every FF released in America and although I can vaguely remember each story, only in FF6 do I remember just about everything. Not only that but I remember the growth of the characters and truly feel something for them. The closest one I felt to that since then was FF10. But I respect your opinion.

Oh, I do agree with you on the graphics. I hated the graphics on FF7, but I did love the graphics on 8.

PS: janova could have landed on any of the ff worlds that's how complex the story is.Think about that......

FF7 is much better than stupid every single FF thats before ff7. ff1 to 6 is pish. Its totally 2D and sucks. FF7 has better Soundtrack, People, Storyline, Cool limit breaks and FF8 and FF9 are just good as FF7 but the 2d ones have no interest in me. Hands down, no doubt, FF7 , FF8 and FF9 are the very best PSX FF games.

personally, I like both Final Fantasy 7 and Final Fantasy 8. Both are really good games to me. It doesn't matter to me how the graphics look, as long as the story line is good, and from all the Final Fantasy games that I've played, I haven't found one with a sucky story-line yet! I like all of the Final Fantasy games equally. To me none of them are better than the other by a great deal. (some are slightly better than other to me, but I still love all of them, pretty much the same.)

But, everyone is entitled to their opinions, and you did make some pretty good points so this was a pretty good article.

WTF are you guys talking about?? FFXLVI for for the PS9 is by far the best! The story line, characters, summons....wow, the summons, magic spells, I can feel the heat from Fire2 with the PS9's Human-to-Game interface, you are actually IN the game playing the role!!....sigh... I want that...

Fair point about Aeris though, really annoying after i'd spent most of the game trying to get cloud to pull her.

Yes but ff7 was better because they didnt overdo the graphics. The Manga styling suited the type of game brilliantly and made it easier to get into.

I did it twice (anybody who has to sign on for a while should be given a copy of the game with their jobseekers allowance to get them through the dark times - usually around 2am when you cant sleep) years ago and am seriously considering doing it again. To date, no other game has gripped me as much.

Long live Bahamut Zero!