*Spoiler Alert.

Alright, I have been putting off creating a post such as this for awhile, due to the extreme amount of speculation that can be brought to this table. But nonetheless I am really doing this for two reasons, firstly to see what others opinions are on my personal favories, and secondly to try and see if anyone can push a couple more really great RPG's into my focus.

I suppose it will be necessary to come up with some rules on how I will judge this, because obviously this isn't really a matter I take too lightly. Unfortunately I haven't yet gotten ahold of any next gen RPG's but at the same time, I have heard that this really isn't the most awful curse one could have thrown at them. I am also pretty JRPG focused, and very old school.

If you have any additions, / speculations I welcome them with open arms. My personal rule is that I never use "help" the first time I play a game "gamefaqs.com / guidebooks" and I also will try to keep to my opinion the first time I played the game, not the 100th.

My first judging factor will be Playability. What is most important to me with regard to this factor is how easy is it to just pick up and play. Simple enough right? This doesn't mean difficulty, this just means to me, how easy is it to get absorbed into. Obviously this is one of my most speculative rules.

My second judging factor will be Difficulty. I don't like games that are too easy, but with regard to the above statement, I hate games that take too long to get the hang of as well.

Third is going to have to be Battle Operations. A lot of things go into this, especially the first two classifications, but I am going to be focusing more on originality of the system, and how much fun it is. Nothing is worse than a monotonous fighting structure.

Fourth will be customization. This includes spells / skills you learn as you level up. Combo attacks, battle tactics, and such. I love the ability to customize the game to the players fit, such as focusing on taking a more magical or a more physical route with characters, etc.

Fifth is going to be Plot, keep in mind these judging criteria are not in order of importance. Twists, Character Development, that kind of thing.

Lastly will be Replay Value, the ability to actually place this game more than once.

I will analyze a few of my favorites based on these criteria, and will give an award in each of the categories to the games I choose. Let me know if you think my criteria, game chosen, etc should be tweaked for future blogging. I will also not be judging the games on what I think are #1 - whatever, these will be in no particular order as well. I will let you choose if you think these games / criteria / whatever deserve to be on here. Forgive me if I jump around a bit. I will give each factor a 1-10 rating, but the cumulative score isn't necessairly going to mean its my favorite one.

With regard to that I will start with probably one of the most recognizable games FFVII, I will add this same forewarnment to any future games I choose to do as well. For now I will just stick with this one since this blog is already longer than I anticipated, maybe I will do a top ten later.

Final Fantasy 7

Playability: Right away when you pop in the game, you go through a cut scene, and have a little bit of time to interact on the field, to get familiar with your environment. You do get to have a little bit of customization at first, but nothing that is going to really affect this factor. Obviously once Materia is introduced you will be getting a lot more Customization, and for a newbie to RPG's this can definitely be a factor. I can say that this was the first RPG I really played with any kind of consistancy, hence my reason for choosing it, that and the fact that I have beaten it dozens of times. As a first time gamer, putting this game in got me hooked very quickly, the beginning draws you right into the world with little difficulty, and keeps you hooked through most of the game in my opinion.

I found that there are few factors that made me really want to turn this game off. Levelling up is fairly easy, just playing through the game doesn't require much if any level grinding. If you don't know where to look for special easter egg's (ultimate weapons, summons, etc etc) you can still finish the game, and enjoy it. Of course I highly recommend Chocobo Racing, and Knights of the Round Quest. etc etc. It has a fairly good balance of plot, then fighting, then mini games, it mixes it up enough to keep it interesting through the end of the game, and there are tons of things to do on the side. I must say that Yuffie stealing all your materia did make me want to throw my controller at the tv, but you didn't have to recruit that bitch anyway. I would say the playability is about a 6 for my first time through, I would get caught up by some of the side quests, and get a little lost, and the high degree of customization also made things difficult at some points too. I actually did turn this game off and start over because I got stuck in Wutai, my second time I did not recruit Yuffie (what a noob i was lol) Subdiving for the Ancient key was kinda stupid too. Bone City digging was gay as well. If you don't use a guide, because a lot of the easter eggs can only be done on certain disks, at certain times, it can be frustrating to miss limits for Aeris / Vincent, and things like that as well. For the most part the plot leads you in the right direction though. The playability is a 9 once you figure everything out ( a few annoying parts) but I believe that if you don't cheat and use guides a 6 is appropriate. (I factor this because you can't find everything / may miss characters / and since I used Aeris as a Permanent member of the party the first time losing her made it especially annoying.)

Difficulty: Honestly I found nothing too difficult about this entire game except for a few of the hidden bosses, which can easily be destroyed with the correct preperation. But at the same time it wasn't too easy either. My first time playing I didn't just breeze through the way I can now after a multitude of playthroughs, and it is hard for me to imagine the first time I went through this beast back when I was in Middle School. But I can safely say that I did have trouble spots where I needed to go back, and level up, and adjust strategies, buy new materia etc. But one of my big Rules about RPGS that I hold myself personally accountable for is to never use a game guide on the first time I play through a game. On a scale of 1-10 I would say the difficulty is a 7 more for the sake of "first time plays" customization, playability, etc. Also for the fact you were probably not going to tackle the hidden bosses, or find everything unless you used a guide. I would reduce this to a 3 if your a veteran in the RPG business due to how much customization you get. Its one of those funny things that make it a bit hard the first time, but easier as you figure it out. (Shin Megami series is a LOT harder, Wild Arms requires more Strategy)

Battle Operations: Even though this battle structure is a fairly overused one, it was new to me at the time. I like that you can customize the ATB speed, because there is nothing more annoying than waiting 5 mins to attack, of course speeding it up makes you have to think a little bit faster obviously. A lot of customization goes into this factor because of Materia. Really there were not a lot of "physical" materia, and I would have liked to see more of that, kind of like how it was used in Crisis Core. I always stuck to pretty heavy magic loading, with the exception of limit breaks, never cared for the more "magical" ones. I liked Cloud, Barrett, and Cid, for their multi hit physical final attack limit breaks. Didn't care for Vincents transform then berserk bs. Most of Aeris's were pretty dumb, and you couldnt get them all unless you wasted a lot of time on her, and watched her Die shortly thereafter. Cait Sith... really... was just useless, never once used him. Yuffie was kinda a douche bag, her annoying steal your materia shit was never worth picking her up in my opinion. Her last limit is useless, unless you want to power up her base stats for a multi hit physical limit 3, I thought she left a lot to be desired. Tifa was a bit random for my tastes, and Red XIII is a talking dog thing and if Hojo killed him before I got there, I wouldn't have minded his last one is like Yuffies one hit for 9999 only.

Sorry, got a little bit into plot there, but those are really just more my preferences on battle usage. Plus the Power Up's for Ultimate Weapons for Cloud, Barrett, and Cid were pretty easy to deal with too. For my first playthrough it was fairly easy to test the waters with each character, and decide what I liked by myself, I actually did end up finding all the characters on my own as well. (Yuffie / Vincent are optional) I didn't find all the ultimate weapons / limits my first try, but for the sake of the Operations part I thought it was necessary. I never found battle to be "too slow" or "too fast," and it is still pretty innovative, and straight forward if you ask me. I would give this an 8. Loses points for Originality, pretty cut and dry if you ask me.


Customization. FFVII is one of the few games I can honestly say had it all. If you seek a high degree of customization, or choose to simply buy your materia and play with it, you could get through the game either way. You had Yellow Materia "command" to steal, manipulate, attack, item, magic, w-item / magic (2x in one turn) and many more. Red "summon" and plenty of beasts to choose from. Green "magic" every elemental flavor except holy and dark really, that was pretty much exclusive to Alexander and Hades. You can count cure on Undead too I suppose. Blue "support" all, final attack, etc etc. You could make any character into anything you wanted, but didn't have to. There were many ways to kill enemies (which made me knock off some points for difficulty) Might have been cool to see some other spells, but there were definitely enough. Shoot it got a little time consuming in the menu choosing which materia were worth leveling, and which were not. Tons of Armor, and Weapons, and effects to go with those. Accessories left a little to be desired.... I would have loved a 3rd Ribbon.....Not to mention Limits, explained in the battle section. Very well rounded if you ask me. I would say a 9 I say, there are a few other more Customizable games in my opinion. (Dark Cloud with towns, Shin Megami with demons / personas / mantra etc, any tactical RPG's with classes) but still very good.

Plot: You could miss some elements of the Plot via easter eggs, but not enough for me to say I would really dock the points system on this all that much. The Plot kept me really hooked throughout the game because it was multifaceted. It wasn't about saving the world at first, as much as it was a rag tag group of rebel environmentalists, with a hired "jack of all trades" who happened to have a personality complex. It has a Love Triangle between Aeris, Tifa, and Cloud. I liked the Character Development of Cloud, but as many RPG's go, the rest of the characters usually fall short. Barrett, Marlene and his hometown / Dyne, Cid and the Space program. Tifa, her hometown, and the Bar / Love triangle. Aeris adopted, real mom is Ancient. Vincent is Hojo's son / Shinra involvement (never played Dirge of Cerberus, heard it sucked) Cloud and Sephiroths duality / mental breakdown, I personally loved the psychology between these two conflicting forces. Yuffie and the war for materia. Red XIII awww he's all alone.... boo hoo GRANDPA nooooo!. Cait Sith spy becomes reformed. Sephiroths mental breakdown from being experimented on, his apathy towards other people, arrogance of skill, finding out the truth of his origin, belief that he was superior, etc etc. Just didn't like that Sephiroth was actually in the crator the whole time but it does explain why he didn't kill our heroes, because he could have at any time otherwise, and it was his crazy clones dropping off random jenova parts.

Replay Value. One of the best for any game I played, but maybe its because it was my first RPG that I feel so biased towards it. That and the fact that if you play it without guidebooks you can find something new everytime and using the guide book helps you to uncover even more you will grow to love about this game. The plot is worth reliving. Minimal interferance from Playability. Difficulty isn't so annoying that you don't want to play it again, but not so easy that you don't have a few challenges / excuses to level up. Good customization and Battle Operations. I would say I don't know anyone that hasn't played through the whole thing that didn't do it a few times. Wouldn't put it up there with Parasite Eve or Resident Evil games though because of the length, but its still good. I would say 9.

-Dan

I hope to do one on Parasite Eve, WIld Arms, Xenogears, Grandia, Shin Megami series, and a few others im kind of on a quest to replay a few of my faves. Let me know if you liked my first installment, if not maybe I won't waste my time