FF VII VS. FF VIII - The Final Duel

[Pilika]

Ok, I am writing this topic because I am sick and tired of people saying all the tim how Final Fantasy VII is so much better than Final Fantasy VIII. What was so good in FF VII? I first played FF VII and almost started hating the FF series, but than I played FF VIII an i started loving it. I am not saying that FF VII is so bad, it has one good point, the villan Sephiroth is one of the best characters I have ever seen. And Cloud? in my opinion Squall is so better than Cloud, and I can relate to him more. I want this to be a hard core FF VII VS. FF VIII discussion so please post about anyithing in those games that can be argued.

[Aurelien]

Not that FF VII is *that* good, but I just find FF VIII to be a horrible game. So my vote goes to FF VII.

As for Sephiroth being one of the best characters, I honestly don't see what's so special about him. And I'm a bit confused on how you could relate more to Squall because IMO Squall was a very unrealistic character (started very anti-social on disc 1, and by disc 4 he was all lovey-dovey to Rinoa). Too drastic of a change to be real IMO.
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~City-States of Jowston and Tinto Republic~
06.06.2004 - 20.01.2008

[Glen Cott]

While I think that Final Fantasy 8 is one of the best games ever, I think that FF7 outshines it in nearly every way. Better characters, better storyline and I liked the materia system much better.

I'd much rather see a poll of FF8 versus FF9, not only because it think it would be very close but also because than I would be able to rant on how terrible FF9 is as a game :mrgreen:.

[Thief]

Honestly I like both almost equally. There should be options to vote for both and neither.

[kuwaizair]

OH I found a very cool (word missing from vocabulary) somone made, its the symbolism and "true meaning" of FF7, it invovles symbolism and mythoigies. read it and FF7 will be a better game(plot wise)

I tryed playing FF8 and it just...didn't speek to me, they had to many newfangled-crazy things (I thiknk it had to do with level growth or money attining)
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few runes short of a set of 27

[Elc]

Final Fantasy VII gets my vote, from what I have played of it thus far. There were multiple things I don't like about Final Fantasy VIII (still playing it, though) with the whole Junction system being one of them, as well as the enemies' levels being adjusted according to Squall's level. (so, essentially, you've got to keep Squall at the lowest level possible if you don't want to be struggling through the game.) But, in an odd turn for Final Fantasy, I find the soundtrack to be very dull and I cannot stand the Final Fantasy VIII overworld map music. Whereas Final Fantasy VII has some very memorable music, including Cosmo Canyon and the infamous Golden Saucer music, which threatens to get stuck in my head at the mere thought of it! :lol:

But, I don't "hate" Final Fantasy VIII, but it just doesn't rank up there as one of my favourites. It does get points for getting Robin Williams to play the part of Headmaster Cid.

At this point, I can't comment on both games as a whole, because I always seem to get sidetracked when I plan to play them through. I do prefer the materia system over the junction system, hands down, it has to be one of (if not the) easiest ways to acquire a large amount of spells and abilities which, for the most part, only requires you buy (or find) each materia only once. Then you just fight in battle with the materia-equipped character, and watch as the materia is mastered and finally "gives birth" to a new materia of the same type. No drawing or refining needed, just simple battles.
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"You make me smash the clock and feel, I'd rather die behind the wheel.
Time was never on my side, So on I wait my whole lifetime."

[Leb]

There seems to be decent discussion right now, so this versus topic can stay open. However, if this degenerates, you guys know what'll happen.

Anyway, neither of them particularly stood out. Both had a mediocre storyline, terrible characters, even more terrible villains, and shoddy gameplay. But, since I have to pick, I'll go with VIII and its slightly more tolerable battle system and better music.

[Njord]

I voted for Final Fantasy VIII for these reasons:

1- The graphics of Final Fantasy VIII is much better in everyway than the graphics of Final Fantasy VII (a game with bad graphics don't really attract someone to it).

2- It's soundtrack is a lot more better than of Final Fantasy VII (I know that Final Fantasy VIII has some annoying ones but at least they won't bore you to death like the bad ones in Final Fantasy VII).

3- It has a variety of interesting and attractive characters that makes you wish that you were one of them or someone living between them (Final Fantasy VII also has some interesting characters but they didn't really feel full of life).

4- The junction system was more challenging and interesting than the matria system (just my opinion).

5- Although Squall seemed a little lifeless, his looks made it out for him (must admit that he was less dull than Cloud and he had Rinoa with him at the end :mrgreen:so there is no comparing).

In the end, we must know that both games are different from each other, each one of them has their unique style and things that make someone like or dislike it but for me Final Fantasy VIII is more appealing thus why I vote for it.
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[Aurelien]

Reason #1 seems to be dodgy IMO. While I fully agree that FF VIII's graphic is way better than FF VII's, I totally disagree if it's a factor to say that FF VIII is a better game than FF VII. Think about it this way, FF VIII has better graphics than Suikoden II, but would you say that FF VIII is a better game than Suikoden II? I doubt so. While I agree that bad graphic wouldn't interest people, good graphic doesn't necessarily mean that it'd attract people either. And frankly speaking, being an attractive game isn't the same as being a good game. Unless the graphic is awful (which FF VII's wasn't), I don't think that graphic played a big role in determining a good RPG or not.

Same goes to reason #2. Unless the music is really awful (which FF VII's wasn't), music wouldn't really affect the game *that* much IMO.

Reason #3 seems to be the one I disagree the most. FF VIII's characters are not even interesting one bit to me. Squall's change of characteristic from anti-social to lovey-dovey, and the others just accidentally coming from the same orphanage? Way way too cheesy for me. On the other hand, I consider FF VII's characters to be unique and interesting. While Cloud is the basic hero (though with a twist of his memory and all that), the other characters make it up IMO. Yuffie was definitely excellent (the thief part, the air-sick part, huge comic relief), Vincent was the "I'm cool and I don't talk much" guy though I personally am not his fan, Cid was the one with carefree I-can-do-whatever attitude, and the Turks are excellent IMO. To me, FF VII's characters are varied even more than FF VIII's characters.

Reason #4, fully respected your opinion. But I'm wondering whether the word "challenging" is the proper word to describe what you meant or not. To me, junction system allowed way more customization than materia system. In fact, I think junction system is the most customized system that I've ever played in RPG games. Having said that, I thought that it is challenging to come up with good junctioning (though it's still basically junction this part to give the best bonus and nothing more), but once you've got it right, the "challenge" totally disappeared. Basically try to copy the same (or as similar as possible) junction to every of your character and they're all going to be as good as the other.

But of course they are your opinions and I can't say that it's wrong. I'm just trying to say that I still don't see why you'd consider FF VIII to be better than FFVII. Better graphic for sure (no arguing, FF VII's no nose isn't really good), better music maybe (way too subjective to really discuss), better characters questionable (I haven't seen you put any reason why they are better than FF VII's), junction system better maybe (it's a double-edged sword IMO, can make the game hard or easy), and Squall better looking than Cloud maybe (personal preference).
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~City-States of Jowston and Tinto Republic~
06.06.2004 - 20.01.2008

[Shrew]

FFVII, for all of it's flaws, has alway struck me as a very deep game. There's a ton to do in it, main quest wise and side quest wise. FFVIII has a good deal as well, but not as near the depth of FFVII.

I don't dislike either in the gameplay department, though I prefer FFVII. The junction system is deeper than materia, but very tedious. Waiting for draw points to regrow is very annoying. I'd say that FFVII had a faster more user friendly system that could still throw a lot of difficulty at you when it wanted. FFVIII was too slow, and the tendency to overuse GFs was too great.

Story and character wise, VII is definitely better. While VII does have its share of boring static characters, VIII is worse. Sephiroth, the overrated villain of doom, is at least better than the distant non-villain of FFVIII. Stupid Ultimecia.

But I feel that Squall is better than Cloud, both perhaps the only dynamic character of their game. Yet I find Squall's introspective but rough exterior more appealing than Cloud's insanity whirl of a memory. My only problem with Squall is his love for Rinoa. Like Squall's desperate attempt to save her in space, only to completely shove her off when they're saved. That part makes no sense whatsoever.

But I do love the first two discs of FFVIII, they actually seem epic in a sense. Then from there it's just "Save Rinoa!" Oh, there's some evil Soreceress, let's kill her and save Rinoa!
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Fear our Vagueness.

[Drizzt]

Well when I first started playing Final Fantasy 7 and 8, I absolutely hated them both with a passion. I just could not get into them, though after playing them both way back ages ago, I liked Final Fantasy 8 a bit better.

But years later, I played Final Fantasy 8 again, multiple times, until I actually finished it like a year ago... Gotta say I really like it, though a bit through the first disc, every time I re-play it I get bored and stop playing it. Though last year I battled past that issue and beat the game. It got WAY more interesting for me in the later discs and I did not really stop playing it because I was really getting into the game and the storyline that was getting more revealed as I went on.

I really liked the ending, don't worry I am not gonna write about in case of spoilers. And it really made me think and get worried for a while for obvious reasons. But anyhow after finally playing through the whole game, I liked it a lot more then I did many years ago. Though I suppose the junctioning did get weird and annoying at parts, and the GF system was intriquing, because of how you could 'do up' a summon. But as everyone knows and probably hates, the long GF sequences did start to get annoying after awhile, and being able to skip them and go straight to the damage would have been a very handy and time saving ability had Square integrated that feature into FF8, though they got a lot smarter for the summons in Final Fantasy 9, but that is another story.

So of coarse for Final Fantasy 8 there were many good parts about the game, and a few bad parts, some bearable, some just plain annoying... I still learned to love this game in the later parts of the game however...

Okay, moving right along, the same sort of situation occured when I was playing Final Fantasy 7. I played it for a few hours, hated it to death due to a sheer boredom factor, and the lack of a gripping and interesting plot... So I think I only gave FF7 a couple of tries before I locked it away in my cupboard never to see the light of day for many distant years to come.

Anyhow when the time was drawing near, I was going through (and still am...) a 'Must Finish ALL Final Fantasy and FF related games on PS1' so I got through 1,4,5,8, and still have a few parts to go in the other remaining FF's, not including the PS2 ones...or FF3. Back on track, I decided to get past my first few bad feelings of resentment to FF7 and got out disc 1 and started playing it again. Although this time I payed more attention to what characters and NPC's had to say, learned more about the gameplay dynamics such as how the materia system really worked, and how to exploit it he he...

So I still hated this game for the most part, due to the boredom factor once again and the 'God Awful, Square Tried Too Hard Graphics' and ws thinking about banishing this game to the realm of never being played or thought about forever, but I put these thoughts aside and played on. Just to point this out, I severly hated the first few hours of this game, and would dread playing through them again... Shinra Corporation...highly interesting...Boring Reactors and crap looking slums and 'cities' if you can call them that... hated all of this stuff and hated it some more!

Though when you get past all this part of them game, and you leave the slums/city whatever it is called, and get onto the world map for the first time, and felt a breathe of fresh air and the game started getting much better for me (Not saying a world map is integral for a game, I just feel I have more control) and I enjoyed it from then on. Still many boring parts and weird feelings here and there, but noetheless it became more 'playable' for me IMO, although when an event happened involving Aeris disc two or whenever (Can't remember) I got real bored again and have not finished FF7 to this day because I could not handle it anymore...

Well I still do play to finish it some day, as my mission is to finsih all Final Fantasy's, no matter how boring, or how much I hate them. So to sum up, for all the above reasoning and more (Can't think of any to write about right now) I would have to say Final Fantasy 8 would get my most definate vote in the talley. Maybe my vote could be swayed to Final Fantasy 7's side if I actually finished Final Fantasy 7 the whole way through without being side tracked and playing another game, but I suppose I will never know for a couple more years I imagine...Only time will tell...Distant time.
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“Firbolgs die with honor,” Morten explained as the logs beneath Tavis began to burn. “We don’t beg for mercy. We don’t show pain. We just die.”
“Maybe we skin you alive,” Noote warned. “That hurt plenty." - The Twilight Giants, Book I.

[Decado]

I have to vote for FFVII. This was the first real Final Fantasy game I had played (in fact the first game I played on the Playstation) and I loved it. I found the storyline to be quite involving and I enjoyed the whole thing immensley. I liked the whole plot (I loved the turks) with the whole Shinra thang. I agree the music isn't so great in some places, but I grew up on a diet of NES and SNES games and so I learned to live with annoying music. Also looking back at it I don't really like the materia system which I feel makes the characters very similar to each other (although I can only make this observation after playing several other Final Fantasys.

FFVIII on the other hand I felt wasn't so great. I had fun at the beginning and I enjoyed it as a whole, I just didn't find it as 'fun' as FFVII. The GF summons really annoyed me after a while, they just took so long! I know that when they had boost then you could increase their attack power but still...

Maybe if I had played FFVIII first then I would feel different but thats the way it is, FFVII gets my vote.

[EDIT]

[Njord]

Bugg, thank you very much for your response on my opinions (I very much appreciate it) but I have to argue with you on some of the following points:

[Glen Cott]

Moody_Mage, one day you may see the unleashing of my FF9 hatred, but not here and not now, lol.

On the argument, I have to say that I found the junction system incredibly easy to master. Refine the spells from items in bulk and go to auto, def. Whereas in FF7 you had to think about materia growth and linked slots and all.

But then again, although some people don't write it, these statements are all "In My Opinion", of course.

[Aurelien]

Njord, don't worry, I'm not upset, this is just a discussion between us and we just happen to have different opinions. =D I'll try to elaborate a bit more.

For the graphic and music (I'll just combine these two parts into one because they serve similar purpose IMO). I agree that graphics and music do play a part in the game, but as I mentioned earlier, I think a game (especially RPG) isn't going to be considered good or bad based on the graphics and music. Most people consider that the major points of RPGs are the story, the characters, and the battle system. Those three are the more commonly used reason to judge a good RPG or not. And IMO, the music and graphic fall into the more minor parts along with translations, difficulty, length of game, voice acting (if any), and so on.

Game like Grandia (the first one) is a perfect example of how a game could be considered as a good game because of its very well done battle system though having ridiculously painful voice acting (same old plain boring intonation all the time). But on the other hand, no matter how good the music and graphic of a game, it wouldn't be considered as a good RPG without a good story, character, and battle system.

Obviously we play RPG not to listen to the music (I agree with you, good music would sell the soundtrack, but exactly what I meant, if you want to listen to the music, you buy the soundtrack and not play the game), and we play RPG not to look at its pretty graphics (I'd rather watch a movie or anime or whatever if I want to look at pretty graphics rather than playing RPG).

As for FF VIII having interesting characters, could you please elaborate a bit on this? Because so far you've said that they are interesting but never really mentioned why. I'm interested to know the reason because I just don't see how they are interesting at all. No offense of course, I'm just trying to look at them from a different point of view, and who knows if you might be the person who would make me want to play FF VIII again.

For the junction system, the way I see it from your explanation, it's more of a tedious task than challenging. Challenging, IMO, would be something that you might not be able to do normally (like the optional boss fight is challenging because you might lose without preparation, and so on) but able to do if you really try. But from your explanation, it seems to have one main point which is "you must draw before you junction" and IMO that is just tedious and boring. Also if I'm not mistaken, I think the enemies have unlimited magic so you could basically just fight 1 type of enemy to draw a certain spell until you get full (or tired whichever comes first) before you hunt for another enemy. It's not challenging at all, it's just tedious because you have to repeat the process over and over again or waste time on 1 enemy to draw until max.

Another alternate for the junction system is mentioned by RandomGuy. Basically refine items and that's it. But I think by your own description, it's still not challenging at all to refine items to do proper junction. Hopefully you can see what I meant. Of course I'm not forcing you to change your mind or whatnot, I'm just interested on your response.
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~City-States of Jowston and Tinto Republic~
06.06.2004 - 20.01.2008