"They TELL you [that Sephiroth is powerful], they don't SHOW you." Hold on, I have to completely disagree there. The fight against the dragon in that flashback, you see Cloud, the main character, the protagonist, with his measly 140HP, next to Sephiroth's 3,000+HP, at a time in the game where you're extremely unlikely to have a character who has over a thousand HP, and your most damaging attack is probably in the 500-700 range, Sephiroth's BASIC ATTACK does over 3,000 damage. I was all, "Holy shit, THAT'S the guy I'm chasing?"
Also add in the fact that you're taught that Jenova is a powerful entity from space, you slowly learn that Sephiroth's sheer will alone was enough to basically overtake and control Jenova while simultaneously being manipulated by Jenova, and the scenes you get to see of just... DEATH that he causes. Not only are you always one step behind him, but you get to see in at least two instances just how above you he is. The game outright tells you that you are not strong enough to face the snake in the swamp. If you try to face it without grinding, it TEACHES you that you're not strong enough via party murder, and then you finally go and get the daggum Chocobo to outrun it... only to see that Sephiroth not only killed it, but decided to suplex it onto a dead tree and SKEWER it in a bloody mess RIGHT after you finished running for your life from it. Later, the trail of blood speaks for itself. But hey, Sephi isn't even really the main villain anyway, he's just the end goal of the party. It can be argued that the true villain is either Jenova, 'cause duh, or Hojo. Without Hojo, Sephiroth never happens. Zack never happens. Cloud never happens. Without Hojo, Final Fantasy VII NEVER happens. Or at least, not how it did. And that... THAT they show AND tell plenty.
@@Superintendent_ChaImers one: that was near the end of the game, after several encounters with him that painted him as a psychopathic monster, but not a godlike being. Second: KEFKA didn't destroy the world, MOVING THE WARRING TRINITY did. Kefka just absorbed a ton of power afterward and destroyed several settlements from his tower, which would have seemed a lot more menacing if that was ever a threat to your party.
@@Hotsaucedeluxe Oh I know it is. FF7 is what got me into the series. I played 7 and quickly went to try and get the other games. Luckily 1 and 2 came to the PS1 at some point soon after, or before, I forget.
You forgot a major reason it was so impactful: the world building. you start of as an ECO TERRORIST, a huge novelty that adds complexity from the beginning, each major location is used multiple times, elements like Shinra and Materia have wide implications throughout the story, locations are distinct with their own character and backstory, and at one point you lose the main character. This is fantastic macro storytelling that usually goes overlooked.
I love how the world opened up after 6 hours in Midgar. Even though this is a PS game, that moment left me with of feeling of “I am just getting started”
The environmental storytelling, by which I mean the environments, objects, and music, and how they're used to tell you more about the whole story beyond the dialogue and plot, is why FFVII is by far my favorite in the series. I've never loved a fictional world as much as FFVII's. Remember how you felt when you found the forgotten city?
Fun Fact: The Limit system is actually an improved version of FF6's desperation attacks-- which most people don't even know exist. Because the conditions are so freaking rare that you can play the whole game without seeing one.
What are those?! Desperation attacks? Limit breaks are pretty cool, tho' (and then FF9 had Trance and I don't even... I can't even... Like, 7 and 8 let you use it, 9 has it random: bar fills up, character transforms all sailor moon/power rangers like - ON THEIR OWN! Effectively WASTING it... you can't save it for boss battles... Now that I look at it, the Trance IS a lot like the desperation attacks)
I remember FINALLY seeing Cyans desperation attack and thinking I found some super secret thing and then spent countless hours trying to find the ones for other players once I figured out the reason it happened I was telling people in school and no one believed me as most people never saw any of them
Yep, had no clue these existed. But I guess that is the fun of these games. There are so many obscure secrets to uncover and you have to pay a ton of attention to uncover them and why they happened.
I actually quite enjoyed how the myth of Sephiroth was build up in FFVII back in the day. When you are locked up in jail in the Shinra building and got to see the bloody murder trail when you get out. He managed to kill all those guards, that you were not able to do and leaving a bloodbath behind. Or going the extra mile to catch a chocobo in order to get around a gigant powerful monster in the swamps, just to see in a small intro sequence, that Sephiroth butchered one of those and pinned it on a tree to get there. Makes you feel so uncomfortable weak in comparison (at this point in the game). Loved it.
Yeah I also disagree with him here. Building him up as a mythos AND showing his feats was brilliant. Was he shown as a world ending Threat? No but neither was Kefka. Unlike Seph he wasnt even shown as a real threat for the party for the most part.
Yeah, here's where Jared's judgement seems to be skewed, somehow. He mentions "Show, don't tell", and he seems to mistake "show" with "character actually appearing on-screen". The game SHOWS how Sephiroth's is an imposing menace, even if he's not physically there. It SHOWS the consequences of his actions, in a way that builds up dread. Heck, even the "it's not actually Spehiroth, is just Jenova" criticism falls flat when you remember Sephiroth was still directly controlling Jenova, not the other way around. Saying Sephiroth only became popular because of his cool design is just disingenuous.
@@Bradley_Lute show not tell should be a rule (now'a'days they info dump on you and you're somehow remember it, then the game's more like filling your taxes than escapism, lol)
Also, random fun fact about 7 (since Jared brought up Chrono Trigger), during the development of the game, Tetsuya Takahashi submitted a story for FF7, but it was rejected for being too dark. Later though, it was reused for another game: Xenogears. From there, Tetsuya left and founded Monolifh Soft and made Xenosaga so he could continue the series (as Square declined his request for Xenogears sequel a few years before his leave), and later Xenoblade Chronicles. So in a way, the Xeno series wouldn't exist if it weren't for FF7. Just thought that was interesting.
I didn't know xenogears was originally submitted as ff7. I am bored to read Perfect Works, have it in pdf. Never got why in end is mentioned as Xenogears Episode V. Does Perfect Works have any difference from the main game? Also I never played any of saga games. I think I finished gears 2 or 3 times, probably has most deep story from any game I played venturing in psychology like existence, ID, ego. I assume because of legal rights saga series cannot have direct relation to gears but some hint on it. Not sure if I should invest my time if story is not as nearly good.
@@panagiotisgoulas8539 "Xenogears" ends with "Episode V" because Tetsuya Takahashi and Soraya Saga thought of a narrative that was ridiculously massive, so they could only focus on one part of it. They wanted to create a huge epic that was too ambitious for their own good. When they created Monolithsoft, they decided to reimagine their entire story and telling it from the beginning. So "Xenosaga" would be more a spiritual successor, rather than a proper continuation. Keep in mind that "Xenogears", "Xenosaga" and "Xenoblade" are three different IPs altogether. Some people call them "the Xeno series", but that's a misnomer. "The Xeno games" I guess would be a more appropriate term that's still convenient to use in conversation. I enjoyed "Xenosaga" story better than "Xenogears", but that seems to be an unpopular opinion. It's true that "Xenogears" used symbolism better, but honestly, I think "Xenosaga" did characters better.
If I wanted to get into the Xeno series, besides the obvious choice of Xenoblade Chronicles which one would you recommend and what can I play them on? I'm not super fond of using emulators personally but I understand that sometimes that's really the only reasonable option.
Once FF7:Remake gets more episodes to the point of the death scene and how it most likely become averted, I expect a "Wreck-It Ralph predicted FF7:Remake!" comment around here.
@@Tailstraw_xD Too bad it never had a sequel, like the Matrix. Because if it did, imagine what a horrible mess Disney would insist on, turning it into a shitshow of Brands, Outdated Memes and Disney Princess Merchandising, with the characters acting against their ideals and Fix-it Felix would be relegated to being off-screen for almost the whole movie. And that would be sad. So, so glad they never made a sequel.
how ironic. the game that was the start of a beautiful friendship with sony. and yet its stars are both playable in super smash bros and *NOT* playstation all-stars.
Perhaps a testament to how great the Playstation did with IP in less time. Nintendo has made some great properties but it has also been milking the same properties since the 80s and 90s.
@@Bradley_Lute I think it's more of a different philosophy with IPs. Even though Nintendo has been making Mario for decades, you can't really say they aren't reinventing their own wheel. Nintendo seems to be much more inclined to refining and inovating with their pre-existing series while Sony is more inclined to use new IPs for that
@@joaoassumpcao3347 It's about brand risk. Even Capcom does it too. Darkstalkers are technically glorified demos to test systems and mechanics in Street Fighter. Hence why Street Fighter V has such a horrid launch. They don't have Darkstalkers to test the waters.
@@Bradley_Lute Final Fantasy was made by the same people on both Nintendo and Playstation, Squaresoft, so not sure what your point is. Playstation (Or Sony) has nothing to do with this. Final Fantasy is not Sony's property and Final Fantasy is almost as old as Zelda and Mario so why bring up NIntendo milking IPs since the 80s? (Final Fantasy 1 was released in the 80s also man) And what does Nintendo have to do with any of this anyway? They didn't make FF1 to FF6, that was still Squaresoft.
Cloud *was* present at most of the events in Nibelheim, as one of the generic troops, even if he wasn't the one doing them. Tifa never knew that he was there, because he was too embarrassed at not making it into SOLDIER to show his face. And in the end, Cloud is still the one who "kills" Sephiroth in the Mako reactor. Which means Cloud may actually have done the things he remembers doing that weren't directly involved with Tifa, Zach and Sephiroth, and Tifa would never no about it.
Yeah, it's a shame that Pro Jared is talking about how the biggest plot twist, bigger than Aerith's death, is Cloud's identity crisis, but then keeps saying "Cloud was never in Nibelheim". He _was_ there. That's why he was able to recount those events in accuracy, but just overwriting Zack with himself. It's not like those memories magically flowed into his mind, he knew what happened because he himself witnessed it.
Almost as if Jared is actively misrepresenting fascets of the game to try and validate his opinion of the game when he falls short of actual reasoning.
@@JaitsuStudios I actually moreso got the impression that Jared misunderstood Cloud's story. To be fair, the story can be quite confusing, especially due to the dodgy translation.
Barret is not just a walking stereotype. In the beginning he certainly can come off as one, but his motivations and character development go on well past the Gold Saucer. Imo Barret and avalanche are great examples of how the ends don't necessarily justify the means. In the first flashbacks of Corel Barret isn't the aggressive bombastic person we see at the start of the game as he's reasoning with Dyne, but once Corel is burned down things change. He also feels like it's his fault too, so he tries to angrily push all the blame on Shinra in denial of the role him and the elder played. Even if the player knows Shinra is the only one who really did anything wrong here, Barret isn't so sure inside. This hatred made him want revenge on the Shinra which is what motivated him to become the leader of an eco terrorist organizationagainst the Shinra. After this point though, Barret questions himself and his actions in Midgar numerous times, lamenting at the loss of his comrades but later at the loss of other innocent people's lives too. At first he ends any self reflection angrily swearing revenge against Shinra, in denial that he and avalanche might be wrong too, but later on in disc 2 he's much more willing to calmly admit that recklessly boming a reactor and letting innocent bystanders in the slums suffer is not justified just by saying it's to save the planet. I also really like his relationship with Cloud. At first he's untrusting towards Cloud because he clearly doesn't share Barret's passion and motivation for the mission, but you can tell he's always at least a little worried about Cloud whenever something happens to him. When questioned about it Barret gets all defensive too, further cementing that he cares about Cloud deep down which is why sometimes he knocks him every now and then. Calling Barret a walkimg stereotype just totally dismisses all the development he has when he's probably the most interesting of all the other party members. And Tifa being an enabler wasn't intentional obviously. She wanted to help which is why she prodded Cloud with questions about the past or how he's feeling more than anyone else. She avoided asking and answering too many big questions firstly out of a misguided fear that he'd break if he learned the truth and secondly because she was unsure herself a lot of the time. After all Cloud was there in Nibelheim just not in the role he told himself in. The idea I think is that she took too long trying to gather information about this Cloud passively which was an understandable mistake on her part imo.
i think barret is very endearing and he's my favorite party member by far, but jared is at least right that he doesn't get more fleshed out beyond corel.
@@thisisnotaustin1 @Austin Scheiner He self reflects on his own motivations and the morality of AVALANCHE's actions at various points afterwards and each time he feels a little different being in denial at first but slowly realizing his own faults. I'd say he gets fleshed out throughout the game til the end of disc 2 if anything.
18:50 you say that Cloud wasn't in Nibelheim during the events when Sephiroth burns the town. But he actually was. YES when he's telling the story he takes Zack's role. But in reality he was one of the shinra's guard (with the mask). He still witnesses the events, he's even the one who takes Sephiroth down in the mako reactor ! So yes he was there. And even if there are things we know for sure didn't happen (such as him taking a photo with Tifa and Sephiroth as we clearly see later the photo with Zack) there's nothing that tells us for sure he didn't went in Tifa's house or her room.
Every detail that the comment is written is correct and canon. Cloud was never a soldier. He was a shinra guard. He didnt take off his helmet becuase he doesnt want tifa to see him. Thats the guy who gives you the option to ask why hes not taking off his helmet. In the canon thats cloud. Piece crisis core and the original game story and this is the result you get.
cloud was a kid who had very low self-esteem due to his mental state he wasnt able to join soilder like his hero sephiroth however he did have the physical body of one
I would argue in the case of Tifa not telling cloud, she herself also doesn't quite remember everything that happened there. For example she didn't know Cloud actually WAS at nibleheim and doesn't even remember him saving her from Sephiroth because she was so heavily injured and he hid his identity the whole time they were there. Without that knowledge telling Cloud would have been incredibly dangerous and reckless, Cloud's sense of identity and self worth was so fragile that telling him he was never there would probably cause him to have a full breakdown like when Sephiroth did it (nevermind the fact that wouldn't even be true). Tifa isn't a therapist so it's understandable that she'd be a bit anxious about approaching the topic if she didn't absolutely have to. And when that time came she did pull through and they figured out the truth together.
Personally I would also argue that hearing clouds recollection may have caused her to doubt her own memory of events. I would imagine all the shit she went through would be highly traumatic and may have contributed to her doubts. Or at least that's what I've come to think after hearing someone else's argument for why she didnt tell cloud her end of the story at that time
@@brovid-19 Well yeah she remembers most of it but from the scene in the lifestream you can tell she doesn't have a perfect understanding of what happened.
@@megaham1552 I wouldn't say it's lazy, most stories have plot conveniences for the sake of the story progressing smoothly. Plus again I think it's a bit overstated in this video how much Tifa actually knew about the Nibleheim incident and who cloud was. Like at most she knew she grew up with A Cloud and that in her mind he wasn't even at the incident, she hadn't seen him since childhood. That is precisely enough to shatter his world view but not enough to actually help him. I do think they could have put more emphasis on Tifa trying to find the words to tell him but that's only a criticism one makes in hindsight. Remake can always smooth that over.
"Too bad Sephiroth is so easy he dies before you can barely hear it." Ah, so you also got up to make a sandwich, take a leak and file taxes during Supernova.
I mean, I had the hard version of this fight because I had done no grinding and beat most of the rest of the final bosses with knights of the round spam.
@@blackchibisan8116 the fight is actually easier the lower level you are. Though at level 99, I can still beat him before he can even get Supernova off.
That's the face of a man who's been through hell and back and has only proved that he is a pro That thumbnail just oozes things are about to go down. Truly happy to see this finally.
There are a number of inaccuracies in this review, specifically in the part about Cloud. The most obvious of those is the claim that Cloud wasn't in Nibelheim during the events that took place 5 years before the events of the game. That's false. Cloud was there, he was one of the Shinra soldiers, he just didn't take his helmet off because he didn't want Tifa to recognize him. What actually happened was this: when Sephiroth went crazy and burned down Nibelheim, Zack followed him to the Maco reactor and engaged him in battle, which Sephiroth won. After that Tifa, having witnessed the destruction Sephiroth caused, followed him in the Mako reactor as well and attacked him but was severely injured. Shortly following that Cloud arrived, also furious at Sephiroth. He picked up Zack's Buster Sword, caught Sephiroth off guard in the reactor core, and attacked him before attending to Tifa. When a wounded Sephiroth emerged from the reactor core, Cloud attacked him again, intent on avenging the deaths of his mother and all the townspeople Sephiroth had killed. Though impaled on Sephiroth's Masamune, Cloud summoned the strength to overpower him with sheer willpower. Using the katana as a lever, Cloud lifted Sephiroth up and hurled him into the Mako pit below before collapsing. After that, Cloud and Zack, as well as other survivors in the town (with the exception of Tifa who was rescued by Zangan before Shinra arrived), became Professor Hojo's test subjects and were experimented on for 4 years in the Shinra mansion. As a result of the trauma caused by the Nibelheim Incident, his mako poisoning, and Zack's death, Cloud impressed Zack's memories and fighting abilities into his own. This, along with Tifa's memory of him and his own ideal image of himself as a SOLDIER, created a new set of memories with an accompanying persona. As such, Cloud was led to believe he had joined SOLDIER and was Sephiroth's partner in place of Zack, and in his own memories, he took Zack's place; in his distorted memories, Zack never existed. So in reality, Cloud did not lie to the party, as this video claims. He wasn't telling the truth, yes, but that's because he had forgotten the actual events, due to the extreme mental trauma he suffered. At some point during the events of the game, he finally remembers everything and tells the party what actually transpired during the Nibelheim Incident.
@@Aliangerhe did, it’s just that none of it makes sense. This game gets over defended. I get it, if you were about 13-14 when this came out it was probably a transformative experience. I tend to agree with this review that’s it’s flawed and a bit over rated.
Yeah i straight up looked up another one of his thumbnails to make sure i was just an idiot and jared just had weird neon blue eyes and i never noticed it And then i thought i was an idiot for thinking jared had neon blue eyes...
I hate to be that guy, but the proper way to make this joke is, 'Brilliant acting at the beginning. I was engaged and heartbroken for the entire scene. Jared was good too.' ;)
@@styler8940 There's also the alternative where the uncle just... didn't say anything about that. It doesn't have to be an extreme one way or the other
Pfft...quarantine has been heaven for all us introverts. "You mean I can stay inside all day, play video games and not have to interact with people or have various people judge and pester me for this behaviour?!"
I admit, that first time I witness Aerith's death, I put the controller down and got teary eyed like a lil bitch. It was one of my first times actually getting emotional due to a video game. Still love this game
Imagine taking in Red and Yuffie into that. I did. I liked using what my friends wasn't using. Red's is touching enough due to how it calls back to his father but yuffie, uh, has the strongest reaction to say the least. It's easy to forget she's 16 and she handles it about as well as, well, a hormonal teenage would, and it's fucking gutting.
@@roetemeteor Yeah i gotta agree but my party was Tifa and Yuffie. Those two i feel have the most emotional interaction with the scene. Where everyone else aside from Red just has that well this sucks feeling, and Red howling like he did for his father. The one that annoys me though is always Cait Sith.
Don't feel bad about tearing up, my dude. At the end of Crisis Core I crawled under my covers and legit cried. I was 16. To this day is one of my most cherished video gaming memories.
One thing you got wrong: Cloud WAS at Nibelheim during the events of the flashback. He is just telling that story from the wrong perspective, as he was actually one of the nameless soldiers instead of one of the SOLDIERs. But we have every reason to believe that he did visit Tifa’s house because of the piano side quest.
And I gotta disagree about Vincent too. He might not have "developed" much in the main story, but his back story is pretty important. Cait Sith too, to a lesser extent.
@Nicholas Brown Well when you think about him as Reeves, he's a good man wanting what's best for midgar. It's not very well explained I confess, and it's a bit dumb why he screws you over; but the Wiki makes some sense of it. Tifa, Red, Barrett and Yuffie were totally one dimensional. Cid was probably my favourite - kind of reminded me of a Pixar movie plot minus the swearing.
@@Tailstraw_xD Nah, in-game they do a decent job of explaining the snippets. You learn that he tried to stop Lucrecia from agreeing to the experiments with Hojo, you learn that he locked himself away as penance, and you learn that he was a former turk who was murdered even if you go to Lucrecia's Cave and see his flashback. It's actually a pretty important snippet that's easily missed and gives some insight into how terrible Hojo is. Hell, Hojo experimenting on Vincent is in the original game too and explains his shapeshifting. Dirge only retconned that it was chaos and the protomateria specifically that gave him those abilities rather than Hojo's random experimentation. since the game has party-specific Dialogue, there's a lot you can miss if you don't play through with certain characters in your party, like Hojo telling Vincent that he saw Lucrecia as "nothing more than a tool" and Vincent then firing back that it was Hojo that should have been locked away in a casket for so many years when he's faced atop the Sister Ray. There is A LOT that can be missed in this game if you don't go looking for it, including some character development.
I just assume Jared's replay of the game lacked the party diversity to catch those snippets. My team fluctuated between Barret, Cloud, Cid, and Cloud, Vincent, Tifa most of the time so I caught a lot of the little snippets the game gives. Yuffie's story is also quite interesting if you realize what happened to her people in the fight against Shinra and what that means for her.
In a series where inconsistency is the only consistent thing, FF VII is like the heart of the series, you can see the influence from the past games and the influence that it will have over the games to come, even for videogames in general, it will always have a special place in story
@@oxcare5 X didn't have a world map you traveled, just that weird "location list" type thing. It also had that weird horrible level up system, that Final Fantasy VII didn't have. So yeah, if you look going forward, I guess X was an example of things to come.
@@oxcare5 FFX is actually my favorite, probably my favorite game of all time, but even I have to admit that is not as important or influential as VII, specially when the series changed drastically after X (also the whole Square - Enix deal was a big factor of change I guess...)
nah, only to people who were not fans of JRPGs before playstation. (I LOVE ff7, it's just under the 9th, eth & 5th) >Cause to us it's FF4 & FF6. FF7 is just flashy. But uses everything that was already there only with tons of ressources. And Suikoden is better for PSx JRPGs
I was partway through my first playthrough of FFVII when this video came out. I went in totally blind, aside from knowing a certain death, and I am *so* glad I waited to watch this video. I finally beat the game last night, and it was truly an amazing experience, and I completely understand all the hype surrounding the game.
@@chesspunk489 Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not a younger generation. I'm 23. Heck, I own the CD box set for FFIX, so it's not like I'm some young kid discovering the beauty of Gaia.
@@chesspunk489 Ah, then yes! You're right. Honestly I'm just glad it kept my attention; I never got far in FFIX, and I was worried FFVII would have a harder time keeping my attention, but I absolutely *loved* every single second of it!
@@nordinreecendo512 I also had trouble caring that much about ff 9 and ff8 while playing them. I didn't finish either one. I just didn't feel as absorbed into the characters as I did with ff7.
For example Tifa’s name is a combination of two of the syllables from solfeggio, which is a system that assigns names to pitches or degrees of a musical scale. Her name is a combo of the 7th syllable (cheeky 7) “Ti” and the 4th “Fa”. I’m guessing they did this because Tifa is a piano player. Remember the only way to get her premium heart is to play the main theme of FF7 on her piano multiple times throughout the game.
I actually like the ending of FF7. A part of the theme is that the planet was "alive" and I recall a part that elder in Red's home town goes over is the planet making the choice to save the humans or not via the lifestream. The way it ends is with you hoping that everyone survived. That while in the end you released Holy to slow Meteor. That the planet itself also spared you. That is why I think Aerith shows up in that last seen. Not only is she apart of the Lifestream but to represent the hope that everyone survives.
'I'm going cloud. *I'll be back when it's all over.*' her last lines. I always thought that was pivotal. Aerith sacrifices herself to master the life stream. She does the opposite of sephiroth for ostensibly the same reasons (save the world, because remember he wants to save it). She isn't randomly butchered, *she wanted him to kill her. That was always the mystical twist for me and why she is smiling at the end.
Lost my Dad last year, and I still really haven't had time to fully contemplate it. Brought tears to my eyes hearing you talk about what makes Aerith's death so powerful. I do believe you're right about that. Not being able to stop and mourn is a luxury we don't seem to have in this day and age.
@14:00 the biggest Playstation JRPG death is GREMIO in Suikoden 1. Aeris is barely 2nd. Gremio's tragedy is bigger than the Aeris one, but people liking women more eases the fandom of Aerith vs Gremio. But nobody is more dedicated to a hero in a JRPG than Gremio was. Cleo is amazing in Suikoden, but if you don't save Pahn and then Gremio dies, the story is heart breaking. Aeri's death was not een as traumatizing to me as the Porom & Palom sacrifice in FF4.
@@Bulletproof_Trump Aeris was amazing. But Germio's death is like have your big brother who followed forever be executed by an evil mind... later you have the choice to kill the vilain... or allow them to join your team... tough choice
For the record, Yuffie actually has good limit breaks and her ultimate weapon Conformer is absolutely busted. It only deals 1HP if it hits an ally, removes the Morph damage penalty so she's the only viable user, and the damage bonus is based on enemy level with it acting as an enhancer for the already high attack power rather than revolving around it like how Cloud's Ultima Weapon works.
Vincent, though not as good, is also a viable morph user. He doesn't remove the penalty completely, but his penalty is far lower than all other characters.
He also claimed that there was a Materia that gives a character the ability to "Jump" (8:26), which is flat out wrong. Only thing that is even somewhat similar with Materia is 'Long Range' which just lets back row attacks be as strong as front row attacks. Cid has some Dragoon like limit breaks but, that ain't Materia.
I disagree with your take on the ending. Considering the fact that the uncertainty as to whether humans are good for the planet is brought up when Holy is introduced, the fact that no humans appear in the game after the point when Holy intersects with Meteor adds room for speculation as to whether the planet actually considered humans good for it and left them to live on it, which in my opinion is somewhat weakened by the media taking place afterwords where the main characters appear.
One weird thing, that stands out to me not just about Jared’s review but other comments, is how nobody seems to understand that the main reason Aerith appears is she stops Meteor. Holy was her dying wish, it’s heavily implied she helped with the lifestream at the end, and she’s also the personal connection the player has to the planet’s fake and stopping Sephiroth. As well as the party’s collective motivation to face him. It was to stop him from stopping Holy.
But overall. The end has a creepy laugh too. Something to ask.. if life starts over again. Like thats the whole point of this game is Sakaguchi wanted to make a game about life. Thats why this game is so good. It gives you certain type of... questions to this stuff. Its a pretty good game. And still cool!
I didn't really grasp the full impact of the Aerith death scene as a kid. I knew it was sad or whatever, but it was still just part of a video game. After experiencing a few deaths in my family, I now understand more of what the game was trying to convey. The post-death battle conjurs up that "life goes on" feeling that you get after someone close passes away, and I was holding back tears when Jared talked about it. Well done sir, this is why I watch these reviews
What I think people don't appreciate about Aerith is how normal she is. She acts like an outgoing 22 year-old woman would. She likes fashion. She likes cute guys. She likes to flirt, shop, and make fun of himbos who take themselves too seriously. She acts like someone you would know. She can get jealous and petty. The fact people paint her as some sort of virginal waif prophesized to sacrifice herself robs her death (and how shocking to both the audience, the characters, and Aerith herself) its impact. Like yeah, she's the person most capable of saving the world (and Jenova the most capable of dooming it, not Cloud/Sephiroth) but she's very grounded. Aerith being spunky and having a zest for life and Sephiroth's pretentious, cold motivation and reaction to her murder is haunting. And Cloud finally, totally, 100% thinks selflessly for the first time when she dies. Sephiroth does not think of her complexly, calling her "the girl". Cloud, finally about to think of others besides himself complexly, shuts him up. He doesn't care about how this affects him, he says how unfair it was to Aerith. "Aerith will no longer laugh, cry, or get angry". Cloud finally drops the Tough Guy acts and unabashedly weeps for his friend, responding in total disbelief. Her death matters a lot and cynical, bad-faith, intellectually dishonest people acting like it was something it wasn't galls me.
quick correction: Aerith doesn't reappear at the end to remind you "she was murdered", it's to show SHE was the one who directed the Lifestream to save everyone's lives, even after death she tried her best to follow her people's legacy and to save the world and people she loved so much.
@@dlaniganohara Jared misunderstood a lot of FF7's story. When he's talking about Cloud being an unreliable narrator, he notes that "Cloud never did any of the stuff in Nibelheim." Cloud was in Nibelheim, just not in the role he imagined himself to be. He was one of the infantry accompanying Zack and Sephiroth, so it's quite likely that Cloud did everything in Nibelheim that he claims he did. Jared says, "Tifa was actually there, Cloud wasn't." Cloud was absolutely there, that's how he's able to recount the events of Nibelheim so thoroughly. That was when he and Zack were experimented upon by Hojo. And Jared notes that, "ZACK tried to stop Sephiroth when he burned Nibelheim down," implying that Cloud didn't. Zack did indeed try to stop Sephiroth but failed. It was then that Cloud took up Zack's sword and chased Sephiroth into the reactor. Cloud is THE reason that Sephiroth ended up in the Northern Crater, transported there through the Lifestream after Cloud threw him down the hole. Jared seems to have completely missed those flashback scenes where it's shown that Cloud was indeed present at those fateful events, just not in the role that he originally claimed to be in. Tifa was unaware that Cloud was present because he kept his identity hidden, embarrassed that he had gone away to join SOLDIER but failed, becoming just a regular infantry instead.
It’s safe, everyone likes toast, but it’s slightly burnt after being left for to long. Time didn’t help it. It’s still good, but it’s still burnt toast.
Hard disagree on the characters, Barrett especially. Also, regarding Cloud's backstory, you seem to have completely blanked out the second (and most important) half of the twist. All the better for those who somehow still haven't played through it, I guess.
I really think Jared did this a disservice here. He seems so eager for reasons to criticize that he starts misrepresenting things when there's no reason to. The game has plenty to criticize without omitting or making shit up.
There were limit breaks in FF6, but they were pretty uncommon. If a character's life was low, there was a chance that the limit break would trigger instead of their regular attack.
desperation attack were bad in the sense that I played FF6 before even knowing they existed XD In this case it would have been better if he said that ff7 introduced it properly XD
The problem, of course, is that the game never tells you about them or shows them off; this is the same RPG where Sabin literally plays like a fighting game character, and they gave that mechanic something that amounted to a full-on tutorial. Granted, limit breaks aren't nearly as important, given the player's lack of control over them, but it would have been nice to at least have some reference to them.
The hole "Attack" command is kinda weak considering that everyone, other than Locke, have better things to do than a basic attack at any point in combat.
Cloud wasn't intentionally misleading the party. When him and Zack were doused in Mako, cloud and Zack's memories were intertwined. When Zack died all of cloud's memories died with himand returned to the lifestream and he took on Zacks personality. That is why Tifa helps him get his memories back in the lifestream.
@@_WOR why would it get debunked? It's what happens in the game. The problem is the english translation is dogshit. For example it's Jenova that kills Aerith not Sephiroth. Sephiroth is sleeping inside north crater. She takes on the appearance of Sephiroth to the party because that is what they see her as. They don't know the whole truth behind cloud's story.
@@Gunplabro I could have misread it but I was positive Square revealed that Cloud did get his memories mixed up with Zack’s but he still knew what his own were and used Zack’s to impress Tifa. He had a huge crush on her and Zack’s memories were basically ‘cooler’. But again I’ve been out of the loop for a while.
The game dropped the ball and vomited all over if in terms of story presentation. If you don't watch the videos at the Icicle Inn abandoned house, the story of what Jenova really was will never be filled in. That is a massive detail to leave just lying around for the player to maybe find. Story = A+. Story Presentation = D-
@@_WOR Return to the Shinra Mansion basement after recovering Cloud. The game itself confirms it. In fact, not going there leaves a giant plot hole if you don't already know that part of it.
It's been 20 years and the memory of Aerith's death is still so vivid in my mind, coupled with your great description of the entire sequence almost brought me to tears again. Thank you Jared
I don't think the flexibility materia provides is a bad thing. The limit breaks and weapons are enough of a differentiator for the characters imo. It means that if the plot demands that your healer isn't part of the party anymore, you're not screwed, you can build someone else as white mage. It means you can focus on characters you think are cool instead of characters you think are good.
THIS I don't have Barret all the time on my party because his skills are cool, I have him because I want BARRET in my team, and Materia allows anyone to play the character they prefer without sacrificing utility, and the Limit Breaks and weapons make the characters distinct. Hell, even if you don't like a character's mechanics (Vincent's LBs for example) you can use Materia to get around it (Deathblow+High accuracy gun or Added Cut+Sense). That's what I love about VII, amongst many things, it doesn't punish you for choosing characters over functions
"Every character is essentially a blank slate. There's very little that separates them from each other. [Materia] takes away their individuality." 2m later: "No one else had abilities like Aerith. From her healing Limit Breaks and affinity for magic. Nothing makes up for her. She's irreplaceable." Got it.
What got me into this game, was the colourful running chickens. I was 10, barely knew basics of English, but those goddamn chickens in that amusement park made me pick up a dictionary and translate to paper, with a pen, almost the whole dialogue of that game, when my sister's boyfriend at that time let me start my own save on his console.
FF7 has a big factor going for it: mass appeal. Like Jared said, RPG's were insanely niché, and the genre itself marked a big turnoff point for a lot of people who didn't know much about RPG's. But that also means FF7 had enough "unconventional" ideas that defined its uniqueness. It's not like we didn't have epic RPG stories before, but this is the epic RPG everyone talked about, and this meant that FF7 became a codifier for unconventional stories, presentations, and mechanics. It was easier to impress people, not because they were dumber, but because RPG tropes weren't remotely as widespread as with other genres.
As far as I can tell, there were several things that helped FF7. Many of which Jared pointed out, but there was also the fact that gaming was losing its niche factor and becoming a mainstream thing. So you now have a big chunk of a new generation playing games because its more acceptable and growing attached to the games of that time(FF7, Ocarina of Time, Half-Life, Pokemon, Ect.). So many different factors, and probably more that I don't know about.
I think the JRPG that had, arguably, the most "involved" story before FF7 was Dragon Quest 5. But a lot of that comes from the fact that you (the player) are quite literally playing through the story of one family as it faces its destiny.
Sephiroth is a Soldier, First Class, who discovers his entire existence is a mere experiment for Shinra. Learning this fact, his mind is shattered, sending him into an existential crisis so severe that it drives him insane. Insane enough to desire the destruction of the human race for it's atrocities, for sucking the planet's life energy away, and for experimenting on the cells from Jenova his being was made from, his "mother". And he was so hell bent on destroying the human race, he was willing to destroy the planet itself. That's an uninteresting character?
honestly, i just wonder how he would react if he found out the truth, rather than just what he thinks is the truth. what would he think if he saw his real mother?
Honestly... yeah? "I learned something that challenged my identity, and now I'm insane and want everyone to die" is kind of one-dimensional, isn't it? As far as I'm aware, that's his entire character in a single sentence, which is not very engaging for the prime motivator of a story, and I imagine would have fallen very flat without all the cool affect. Maybe if there were more substance between "identity challenged" and "everything must die". But as I recall, it was presented as just like "Oh..." *CLICK* "Ok I'm insane now".
@@salmongod9115 thats not how it was presented at all. His character is drip fed incredibly well thoughout the game, and even the flashback it literally takes place over multiple days where he locks himself up in the mansion reading. He was also quite arrogant and cold beforehand too, it makes enough sense that he would go all ideological. And thats the key thing, he doesnt go "insane", he has a very clear ideology he adopts based on what hes learned. And I mean, what more can you ask for?
@@Underworlder5 probably nothing. he either wouldnt believe it due to his delusions, or go in another rampage amd continue wanting to destroy everything
I strongly disagree on the difficulty, but otherwise great video/essay. The game only becomes a more average/easy difficulty if you are incredibly patient and have a long history of playing JRPGs. If you’re a relatively new or impatient player, it can be incredibly difficult. Not only do all the optional Weapon bosses pack a massive punch and practically require near-max levels and strategies, but even main story content in the endgame can be difficult if you play the game linearly, skip a lot of mini games and optional dungeons, and don’t grind. The only way you end up with the opinion that FFVII is too easy is if you’re a JRPG veteran who takes plenty of time to do everything the game has to offer. I played FFVII as a kid and, while I loved the game for all the great qualities talked about here and dove into its expanded universe head first, I couldn’t finish FFVII because of the difficulty. I only went back and replayed the full original game and finally beat it once it re-released on Switch.
@@sarafontanini7051Yeah Alundra 2 is very different and for me its not really a sequal. If you havent played Alundra 1 theb do it. You will love if you like long RPGs and Character development
Alundra was a hidden gem! It was definitely one of my favorite RPGs. Although I admit while I got very far I never ended up beating it. Another overlooked game is Secret of Evermore on the SNES.
Jared: My favorite part is when the picolo chimes in Me: was actually expecting to hear Picolo from DBZ to yell something or just randomly fly accros the sky in the background
When I was a kid, I remember hearing Shimmer by Fuel on the radio after Aerith's death, and it was then that it hit me really hard. I was only 11 years old, so I was confused as to why this game had me so heart broken. I even went to bed that night thinking about Aerith, as if I had actually lost somebody, and it wasn't until I was an adult and replayed Final Fantasy VII that I realised how powerful that scene was and still is - it's no wonder it had such an impact on my adolescent mind. This game will forever be at the center of my heart, no matter how poorly a lot of it has aged ❤
I can agree with the assessment of "not the best, but the most important". This (and a generation later Fable) got so many people I knew to give RPGs a chance. Not just FF games, but all RPGs. I appreciate it a tremendous amount for that.Thanks for the video Jared!
@Wenceslao Futanaki this is why I don't like FF6 fanboys: can't ever get over the fact that FF7 is more popular. 7 isn't my all time favorite, but I don't feel the need to tear it down every time it's mentioned and talk about the superiority of 6.
You seem to have totally missed a lot of reasons this was loved by a generation. The world building being a major part.. The ending did not suck at all imo - by the time u get that cutscene and see the world take action to protect ityself gave me and so many others goosebumbs.. it was so well done. Ive played the all and think your advertising bit a the end isnt true either and seems almost like a cheap shot at an amzing game. I never even saw an advert for it when i was a kid. I found it in a shop and did know what sort of game it would be. I decided to plunge in as it finally had the scope and size, and story to grip me and so many others. I feel like your love for 6 affected this review. The myth aspect of Sephiroth was also awesome to young me.. it felt like everyone talked about or had heard of this legendary soldier - by the time you get to him it feels scary and ominous.
Yep, seems like he was a bit of a hater for whatever reason almost like he was trying to make the case for some of the older ff games. That's why he thought it was better after he replayed it. I also never remembered a single advertisement for it back then and first heard about it through a friend in jr. high. I first played it in 98 when there were no spoilers so Aerith's death and all those graphics shocked me to my core. This will forever be the best game ever in my book as well as so many others.
I agree. Despite the fact that Jared set out to review all the main FF games, this one felt like his entire outlook was skewed from the get-go. Like this was his opportunity to show everyone all the things he didn't like about FF7, and point to them as the reason why it's overrated. I assume he was very salty about FF7 being revered by so many people. As if all that attention should have been given to FF6. It's kind of sad. He could have fell in love with it like so many of us did back then. Instead he's steadfast in his stubborn dislike for the game out of blind loyalty that will ultimately go unrewarded.
He keeps on saying "Cloud was not there" but I thought that Cloud was indeed at Nibelheim and that eventually he was the one who bested Sephiroth, but just as a blue MP...
Everyone has a bias when it comes to series they love and Jared is showing his here. In the FFVI review, he talks about themes and the great character development, but skips through FFVII's. Tifa and Barrett are well developed characters and Red XIII's arc in Cosmo Canyon doesn't just change how he saw his father, but how he saw himself. The ending is the thematic resolution of the game; Sephiroth is, as he said, a myth more than a character, his development is secondary to his role as a part of Cloud's splintered identity. There's quite a it he didn't address about the game, which I replayed recently and found to hold up extremely well. I'm curious how he justifies FF Tactics and its story, given it shares many of the same issues.
I remember that moment when I realized that Aerith was dead. It was the moment when I looked in the strategy guide and noticed that the list of her weapons was a lot shorter than everyone else. Basically I knew she was dead right from the beginning despite the guide giving no details about the story whatsoever. Luckily I was a diehard Tifa fan so it all worked out! =P
One thing that I always thought was pretty clever about the Jenova fight after Aerith's death is there are two fairly easy items you can get leading up to that fight that when equipped to one character actually makes you invincible against that Jenova. This leads to a feeling of your grief and rage over Aerith's death empowering you and spurring you on to take revenge for her. It actually leads to feeling quite powerful in the moment as if you are actually driven into a frenzy over her loss. It was a nice bit of immersion and story telling, even if it wasn't intentionally done.
Japan as a nation kinda stereotypes a lot compared to countries like the US, especially back in the day. Take a game like street fighter 2 for example, Indian people aren’t super stretchy from yoga and breathe fire from eating hot curry (Dhalsim), Brazilian people aren’t rabid jungle dwellers (Blanka), and not all black people are big loud boisterous hulking monstrosities (Balrog and Barret)
Barret was something Nomura wanted to make for a long time though. Well it was both Barret and Cait Sith (which is funny since everybody hates Cait Sith haha)
it's ironic that Jarod thinks Yuffie is useless... considering how integral she is to source farming later in the game once you have the conformer and morph. if you want more then a snowballs chance in hell against emerald and ruby weapon.. your gonna be seeing ALOT of Yuffie in your party. either that.. or spend an absurd amount of time farming kills with Vincent before you can even think of using him for source farming. edit: does anyone else get a bit of "i like ff6, and hate the fact that ff7 over shadowed it" from this review? don't get me wrong. it's entertaining and has some good points, but i feel a few were a little forced because of the aforementioned love for ff6 and how it all turned out. like Barret being a caricature or the ending being sup-bar or sephiroth never being shown as powerful.. when you see him basically one shot a dragon during a flash black or that cloud "lied" when that really isn't the case or tifa enabling cloud when she was protecting his fragile psyche or the characters being blank canvases when they all clearly have strengths or the other characters outside tifa cloud and aerith not having any meaningful story when they all do... including the optional ones.. yuffie and vincent both have sizable side quests that both give back story to the world and the current events or the only reason it was so well thought of was marketing when half the people that love this game never saw and advertisement for it... the list could go on but i think the point is made. especially considering ff6 is no perfect game, it's a great game. even a master piece but has just as many flaws as ff7... i don't understand the rivalry tbh, they are both ff games. why we can't just appreciate them both for the impact they had. is beyond me.
My biggest complain about XIII is that if you take the time to analyze it, it had so much potential. The story starts really well and as you progress in the game it makes you feel that you're not only not getting closer to a solution, but you're getting closer to achieve what the villains want. But then we have terrible character writing, important plot points and character development moments out of nowhere, and a generic Deus ex machina ending that makes no sense. It's actually sad if you ask me.
I actually quite enjoy the minigames. Looking back, i probably spent more time playing minigames and chocobo breeding than anything else in the late game.
@@kejiri3593 Dont pretend it was "good", it still needed more of an remake then FF7, but since that game wasnt that popular etc back then, we are stuck with versions that are "there" in terms of quality. And I dunno if I should be proud of FF2 that it brought the Romancing SaGa series to the table because of that system.
@@Evilriku13 It at least tried to do things different, I'll give you that, but if you play it like many other RPGs, the grind isn't much different. Personally, I've been enjoying my run through of it so far.
@@RexcorJ I think FFII is best described as "good ideas executed poorly". The leveling system is seen as a huge joke, but if you think about it, the conceit of "skills level up as you use them" is perfectly logical and it's pretty much exactly what Elder Scrolls does. It was just a perfect combination of frustrating and cheesable. The line between brutally difficult and unbelievably easy in FFII is as thin as spending an hour kicking your own ass to raise your HP. The keyword system is a great idea in terms of making you feel like you're actually conversing with the game and figuring out and progressing the story yourself as opposed to just having it told to you, but you wind up with so many useless options that conversations become an endless loop of "I don't know anything about that" over and over again. Those awful Monster Rooms are essentially just a twist on the Mimic enemy, but instead of one tricky monster you get stuck in a room with like five full random encounters and it just grinds the game to a halt. Et cetera. II is one of the worst in the series but it has a place in my heart for the problems at least being the result of ambitious risks as opposed to making the critical error of letting Tetsuya Nomura have ideas. The issues with II are entirely technical and feasibly could've been fixed or reworked into something much better. Still wouldn't've been phenomenal, but it could've been so much more.
OK here’s my big brained take: The mechanics of Final Fantasy seven don’t devalue the characters relative to the materia, but in fact the mechanic thematically supports the story of the game. The through line of the entire game is that of the life force of the planet, which is being threatened, and that is where materia comes from. In essence, what the game is suggesting is that individual actions are less important than the life force that binds them together. This also justifies why the characters are more or less identical to one another. It doesn’t matter what party you save the world with it, the point is that through the use of materia, our heroes can save the world.
Mind if I go a few layers deeper? The use of materia is calling upon the forces of nature, the planet itself, to defeat Sephiroth and Jenova, but when you think about it Jenova is a product of the very same nature they're trying to fight with and save, except it's against them. That's why I think Sephiroth not being that interesting as a character is actually thematically relevant. He isn't a fleshed-out human being, he's chaos incarnate brought to the front by human obsession. Hojo's hubris was thinking that he could take this chaotic force of nature and bend it to his own whim with the experiments, but one might argue that the heroes are also doing the same with materia, including Holy. The ending scene is soul rending and beautiful all the same, seeing Midgar grown over means that nature has taken back what is hers. It is ultimately the final authority on what happens in this world, be it the beauty of Holy or the horror of Jenova. Were humans included in the post-Holy world? Maybe not, but Cloud and his group fought on in the face of that possibility. And that's why I love the story of this game. That's just my interpretation though. I could be putting things there that don't exist since it's been so long since I've played.
And the way materia damaged a character's stats in exchange for power, that really stood out at the time. I always thought of Jenova as materia's flipside -- insurmountable strength that took everything away, and could only be misused.
Odd note, but I kinda want that "Loveless" movie poster hanging up on my wall. I think about it every time I watch the intro or pass by the city center in-game.
Well it was a sort of Easter egg referring to a really important rock album that released in the 90s called LOVELESS by the group My Bloody Valentine. Always loved that record so the fact they tossed that in one of my favorite games always made me happy lol
As an unapologetic fan of both N*SYNC and Final Fantasy, Lance Bass voicing Sephiroth was one of my all time geek-out moments as a kid. I don't care how silly it sounds now, that shit rocked my world
You known ProJared, I think you might have overlooked one tiny little thing about FF7 due to nostalgia; IT'S A BUGGY MESS!!! Magic Defense doesn't work at all, the game LIES to you that you got one thing when you really got something else, and does the Blind stat even WORK in this game?! Those are the only ones I can remember off the top of my head, but I know for a fact that there's more. Regardless, I get how important this game is to RPGs and games as a whole. I like the game, but I strongly prefer FF9 as my personal favorite Final Fantasy game.
@@XNSever later versions of FF7 (including all modern port to home consoles and the Steam Version) have bugs like the Magic Defense fixed. Not ALL of them mind you but the really bad ones got fixed
yuffie is one of the best chars in ff7 she can morph enemies for 9999 at full power not only that one of her limit breaks is a multi hit like the omnislash
I heard she's basically the "Good Luck Charm" of the party, if the battle starts to seem like you have a disadvantage, so long as she's in your party, she can save the entire fight.
it feels like most of jared's reviews of the series are basically the definitive, most concise retrospectives. Really appreciate the balancing between pointing out what makes the game so great and memorable and the flaws people tend to gloss over.
He is not without his flaws though. He completely missed one key detail about the ending, that is the very reason why it doesn't show what happened to the characters. Holy! The magic that would rid the planet of anything that isn't good for it. The magic that Aerith tried to cast, but she was killed before she could do it. At the end of the game, Holy activated and it is unknown whether or not humans were deemed bad for the planet.
The game was telling the player Cloud wasn't who he believed he was from the get-go, you're fighting SOLDIERS 3rd class at the Shinra building who do as much damage as Cloud at that moment, and as you get stronger you fight 2nd class and 1st class, any of them would've mopped the floor with you at the start of the game.
Loved the review. I disagree mightily on your opinion on Sephiroth. FF7 treated Sephiroth much like Spielberg treated Jaws... the nightmare is in what you don’t see.
I agree. First time playing, every time I saw a trail or collection of dead bodies, I knew what was up and was legitimately scared. First time they pulled it, with no explanation and freaky monsters, it gave me the chills.
While the video is generally decent enough, the vibe I'm getting from this video is that Jared still kinda hates the fact that FF7 has become THE FF game over something like FF6. cuz some of the complaints don't make any sense, the game did an amazing job setting up and showing how powerful sephiroth was, and seph looking goofy can all be attributed to the visuals being from '97.
about yuffie: her ultimate weapon, the conformer, is really easy to get and it rips through enemies because the damage it hits scales up to the enemy's HP. put 2x cut on her and she's as broken as tifa + curse ring and powersoul. this is my favorite game of all time. it's nice to hear your thoughts on it, great review.
There is an easy way to swap materia between characters. I haven't played in a while but I think you can use the Arrange function to swap all the materia on a weapon, armor or complete character (Materia menu -> Arrange -> Exchange)
Yeah, god that was useful, but not overly clear that it existed lol Kinda reminds me of how people struggled with GF and magic junctioning in FF8, although that might be a bigger issue than that of swapping materia... Ah well...
@@KitsyX it was buried in one of the tutorials that everyone ignores/skips. I only found out about it after watching my sister play and she was actually reading the tutorial.
16:40 I think the same thing as well. That one spoiler everyone knows kinda protects the actual plot twist. I checked with some friends who never played FF7 and they all know about the famous one but no one has even a single clue about the true plot twist
I knew the "hard to swap" materia topic would come up after watching you play the game. You can actually fastswap materia in the system, you just never found it. :D
He actually did use it several times, it's just that it's rarely a 1:1 swap situation due to the different number of materia slots available depending on equipment, and the times where you have to form two parties, you have to divide your best materia, or at least put _something_ on those who aren't equipped with anything.
"They TELL you [that Sephiroth is powerful], they don't SHOW you."
Hold on, I have to completely disagree there. The fight against the dragon in that flashback, you see Cloud, the main character, the protagonist, with his measly 140HP, next to Sephiroth's 3,000+HP, at a time in the game where you're extremely unlikely to have a character who has over a thousand HP, and your most damaging attack is probably in the 500-700 range, Sephiroth's BASIC ATTACK does over 3,000 damage.
I was all, "Holy shit, THAT'S the guy I'm chasing?"
Same, I still liked the video but I had a hard disagree there about Sephiroth, I thought they did a great job at making him feel threatening
Also add in the fact that you're taught that Jenova is a powerful entity from space, you slowly learn that Sephiroth's sheer will alone was enough to basically overtake and control Jenova while simultaneously being manipulated by Jenova, and the scenes you get to see of just... DEATH that he causes. Not only are you always one step behind him, but you get to see in at least two instances just how above you he is. The game outright tells you that you are not strong enough to face the snake in the swamp. If you try to face it without grinding, it TEACHES you that you're not strong enough via party murder, and then you finally go and get the daggum Chocobo to outrun it... only to see that Sephiroth not only killed it, but decided to suplex it onto a dead tree and SKEWER it in a bloody mess RIGHT after you finished running for your life from it. Later, the trail of blood speaks for itself.
But hey, Sephi isn't even really the main villain anyway, he's just the end goal of the party. It can be argued that the true villain is either Jenova, 'cause duh, or Hojo. Without Hojo, Sephiroth never happens. Zack never happens. Cloud never happens. Without Hojo, Final Fantasy VII NEVER happens. Or at least, not how it did. And that... THAT they show AND tell plenty.
Compare that to Kefka in FF6 where they show you blatantly destroying the entire world.
@@Superintendent_ChaImers one: that was near the end of the game, after several encounters with him that painted him as a psychopathic monster, but not a godlike being.
Second: KEFKA didn't destroy the world, MOVING THE WARRING TRINITY did. Kefka just absorbed a ton of power afterward and destroyed several settlements from his tower, which would have seemed a lot more menacing if that was ever a threat to your party.
@@Superintendent_ChaImers granted you are only told about the light of judgement and not shown.
"...it's the most important one" I dunno why, but that line hit hard
I feel the exact same way.
then the ff theme plays
It's not a even close to a controversial statement. It's a fact.
@@Hotsaucedeluxe Oh I know it is. FF7 is what got me into the series. I played 7 and quickly went to try and get the other games. Luckily 1 and 2 came to the PS1 at some point soon after, or before, I forget.
Its the one in Smash.
You forgot a major reason it was so impactful: the world building. you start of as an ECO TERRORIST, a huge novelty that adds complexity from the beginning, each major location is used multiple times, elements like Shinra and Materia have wide implications throughout the story, locations are distinct with their own character and backstory, and at one point you lose the main character. This is fantastic macro storytelling that usually goes overlooked.
I love how the world opened up after 6 hours in Midgar. Even though this is a PS game, that moment left me with of feeling of “I am just getting started”
@@eamonxl8183 Took you 6 hours to leave midgar? Oof.
Jared is a FF7 hater, its not going to adress anything great about the game
The environmental storytelling, by which I mean the environments, objects, and music, and how they're used to tell you more about the whole story beyond the dialogue and plot, is why FFVII is by far my favorite in the series. I've never loved a fictional world as much as FFVII's. Remember how you felt when you found the forgotten city?
@@Cody-ox2uu It took me 242 hours but I was level 99.
Fun Fact: The Limit system is actually an improved version of FF6's desperation attacks-- which most people don't even know exist. Because the conditions are so freaking rare that you can play the whole game without seeing one.
i played ff6 through at least 3-4 times in my younger days, and i NEVER knew about them.
What are those?! Desperation attacks? Limit breaks are pretty cool, tho' (and then FF9 had Trance and I don't even... I can't even... Like, 7 and 8 let you use it, 9 has it random: bar fills up, character transforms all sailor moon/power rangers like - ON THEIR OWN! Effectively WASTING it... you can't save it for boss battles... Now that I look at it, the Trance IS a lot like the desperation attacks)
I remember FINALLY seeing Cyans desperation attack and thinking I found some super secret thing and then spent countless hours trying to find the ones for other players once I figured out the reason it happened
I was telling people in school and no one believed me as most people never saw any of them
Yep, had no clue these existed. But I guess that is the fun of these games. There are so many obscure secrets to uncover and you have to pay a ton of attention to uncover them and why they happened.
Ive played through it almost 8 times and have never got it
I actually quite enjoyed how the myth of Sephiroth was build up in FFVII back in the day. When you are locked up in jail in the Shinra building and got to see the bloody murder trail when you get out. He managed to kill all those guards, that you were not able to do and leaving a bloodbath behind. Or going the extra mile to catch a chocobo in order to get around a gigant powerful monster in the swamps, just to see in a small intro sequence, that Sephiroth butchered one of those and pinned it on a tree to get there. Makes you feel so uncomfortable weak in comparison (at this point in the game). Loved it.
Yeah I also disagree with him here. Building him up as a mythos AND showing his feats was brilliant.
Was he shown as a world ending Threat? No but neither was Kefka. Unlike Seph he wasnt even shown as a real threat for the party for the most part.
Sephiroth is an urban myth, pretty much... until you find out he's real! (he's the slender man of FF7... kinda), boob eye Jenova didn't help, either
Yeah, here's where Jared's judgement seems to be skewed, somehow. He mentions "Show, don't tell", and he seems to mistake "show" with "character actually appearing on-screen". The game SHOWS how Sephiroth's is an imposing menace, even if he's not physically there. It SHOWS the consequences of his actions, in a way that builds up dread. Heck, even the "it's not actually Spehiroth, is just Jenova" criticism falls flat when you remember Sephiroth was still directly controlling Jenova, not the other way around.
Saying Sephiroth only became popular because of his cool design is just disingenuous.
A brilliant example of show, not tell storytelling. The entire game is brimming with this type of world building.
@@Bradley_Lute show not tell should be a rule (now'a'days they info dump on you and you're somehow remember it, then the game's more like filling your taxes than escapism, lol)
Also, random fun fact about 7 (since Jared brought up Chrono Trigger), during the development of the game, Tetsuya Takahashi submitted a story for FF7, but it was rejected for being too dark. Later though, it was reused for another game: Xenogears. From there, Tetsuya left and founded Monolifh Soft and made Xenosaga so he could continue the series (as Square declined his request for Xenogears sequel a few years before his leave), and later Xenoblade Chronicles. So in a way, the Xeno series wouldn't exist if it weren't for FF7. Just thought that was interesting.
I didn't know xenogears was originally submitted as ff7. I am bored to read Perfect Works, have it in pdf. Never got why in end is mentioned as Xenogears Episode V.
Does Perfect Works have any difference from the main game?
Also I never played any of saga games. I think I finished gears 2 or 3 times, probably has most deep story from any game I played venturing in psychology like existence, ID, ego.
I assume because of legal rights saga series cannot have direct relation to gears but some hint on it. Not sure if I should invest my time if story is not as nearly good.
@@panagiotisgoulas8539 "Xenogears" ends with "Episode V" because Tetsuya Takahashi and Soraya Saga thought of a narrative that was ridiculously massive, so they could only focus on one part of it. They wanted to create a huge epic that was too ambitious for their own good. When they created Monolithsoft, they decided to reimagine their entire story and telling it from the beginning. So "Xenosaga" would be more a spiritual successor, rather than a proper continuation.
Keep in mind that "Xenogears", "Xenosaga" and "Xenoblade" are three different IPs altogether. Some people call them "the Xeno series", but that's a misnomer. "The Xeno games" I guess would be a more appropriate term that's still convenient to use in conversation.
I enjoyed "Xenosaga" story better than "Xenogears", but that seems to be an unpopular opinion. It's true that "Xenogears" used symbolism better, but honestly, I think "Xenosaga" did characters better.
Feels similar to how Devil May Cry was a rejected Resident Evil 4 game as well.
So that explains why the xenogears easter egg is in FF7
If I wanted to get into the Xeno series, besides the obvious choice of Xenoblade Chronicles which one would you recommend and what can I play them on? I'm not super fond of using emulators personally but I understand that sometimes that's really the only reasonable option.
"AERITH LIVES" - Written on the walls of the train station in Wreck-it Ralph.
That movie was a love letter to gamers everywhere
Once FF7:Remake gets more episodes to the point of the death scene and how it most likely become averted, I expect a "Wreck-It Ralph predicted FF7:Remake!" comment around here.
Much like Elvis.
@@Tailstraw_xD Too bad it never had a sequel, like the Matrix. Because if it did, imagine what a horrible mess Disney would insist on, turning it into a shitshow of Brands, Outdated Memes and Disney Princess Merchandising, with the characters acting against their ideals and Fix-it Felix would be relegated to being off-screen for almost the whole movie. And that would be sad. So, so glad they never made a sequel.
@@darkowl9 But I still liked it ! xD
how ironic. the game that was the start of a beautiful friendship with sony.
and yet its stars are both playable in super smash bros and *NOT* playstation all-stars.
Perhaps a testament to how great the Playstation did with IP in less time. Nintendo has made some great properties but it has also been milking the same properties since the 80s and 90s.
@@Bradley_Lute I think it's more of a different philosophy with IPs. Even though Nintendo has been making Mario for decades, you can't really say they aren't reinventing their own wheel. Nintendo seems to be much more inclined to refining and inovating with their pre-existing series while Sony is more inclined to use new IPs for that
@@joaoassumpcao3347 It's about brand risk. Even Capcom does it too. Darkstalkers are technically glorified demos to test systems and mechanics in Street Fighter. Hence why Street Fighter V has such a horrid launch. They don't have Darkstalkers to test the waters.
@@Bradley_Lute Final Fantasy was made by the same people on both Nintendo and Playstation, Squaresoft, so not sure what your point is. Playstation (Or Sony) has nothing to do with this. Final Fantasy is not Sony's property and Final Fantasy is almost as old as Zelda and Mario so why bring up NIntendo milking IPs since the 80s? (Final Fantasy 1 was released in the 80s also man) And what does Nintendo have to do with any of this anyway? They didn't make FF1 to FF6, that was still Squaresoft.
@@Bradley_Lute lol nintendo is making new IPs all the time, yall just wont buy them because "not mario"
One of the most satisfying sound in the world: The original Playstation intro.
That shit was so nostalgic it hurt
Full body shivers.
Amen
Not gonna lie, it put me at half-mast.
90s gamer ASMR
Cloud *was* present at most of the events in Nibelheim, as one of the generic troops, even if he wasn't the one doing them. Tifa never knew that he was there, because he was too embarrassed at not making it into SOLDIER to show his face. And in the end, Cloud is still the one who "kills" Sephiroth in the Mako reactor. Which means Cloud may actually have done the things he remembers doing that weren't directly involved with Tifa, Zach and Sephiroth, and Tifa would never no about it.
@RectalDiscourse o_O?
Yeah, it's a shame that Pro Jared is talking about how the biggest plot twist, bigger than Aerith's death, is Cloud's identity crisis, but then keeps saying "Cloud was never in Nibelheim". He _was_ there. That's why he was able to recount those events in accuracy, but just overwriting Zack with himself. It's not like those memories magically flowed into his mind, he knew what happened because he himself witnessed it.
I wouldn't really say Cloud lied to everyone. He actually believed everything he said was true.
Almost as if Jared is actively misrepresenting fascets of the game to try and validate his opinion of the game when he falls short of actual reasoning.
@@JaitsuStudios I actually moreso got the impression that Jared misunderstood Cloud's story. To be fair, the story can be quite confusing, especially due to the dodgy translation.
Like what Ocelot said, there's no lie if you believe it's the truth
That just means that he was also lying to himself. Albeit unconsciously.
yeah and thats lying since it didn't happen the way he said it did
Barret is not just a walking stereotype. In the beginning he certainly can come off as one, but his motivations and character development go on well past the Gold Saucer. Imo Barret and avalanche are great examples of how the ends don't necessarily justify the means. In the first flashbacks of Corel Barret isn't the aggressive bombastic person we see at the start of the game as he's reasoning with Dyne, but once Corel is burned down things change. He also feels like it's his fault too, so he tries to angrily push all the blame on Shinra in denial of the role him and the elder played. Even if the player knows Shinra is the only one who really did anything wrong here, Barret isn't so sure inside. This hatred made him want revenge on the Shinra which is what motivated him to become the leader of an eco terrorist organizationagainst the Shinra. After this point though, Barret questions himself and his actions in Midgar numerous times, lamenting at the loss of his comrades but later at the loss of other innocent people's lives too. At first he ends any self reflection angrily swearing revenge against Shinra, in denial that he and avalanche might be wrong too, but later on in disc 2 he's much more willing to calmly admit that recklessly boming a reactor and letting innocent bystanders in the slums suffer is not justified just by saying it's to save the planet. I also really like his relationship with Cloud. At first he's untrusting towards Cloud because he clearly doesn't share Barret's passion and motivation for the mission, but you can tell he's always at least a little worried about Cloud whenever something happens to him. When questioned about it Barret gets all defensive too, further cementing that he cares about Cloud deep down which is why sometimes he knocks him every now and then. Calling Barret a walkimg stereotype just totally dismisses all the development he has when he's probably the most interesting of all the other party members. And Tifa being an enabler wasn't intentional obviously. She wanted to help which is why she prodded Cloud with questions about the past or how he's feeling more than anyone else. She avoided asking and answering too many big questions firstly out of a misguided fear that he'd break if he learned the truth and secondly because she was unsure herself a lot of the time. After all Cloud was there in Nibelheim just not in the role he told himself in. The idea I think is that she took too long trying to gather information about this Cloud passively which was an understandable mistake on her part imo.
i think barret is very endearing and he's my favorite party member by far, but jared is at least right that he doesn't get more fleshed out beyond corel.
@@thisisnotaustin1 @Austin Scheiner He self reflects on his own motivations and the morality of AVALANCHE's actions at various points afterwards and each time he feels a little different being in denial at first but slowly realizing his own faults. I'd say he gets fleshed out throughout the game til the end of disc 2 if anything.
First of all, great analysis.
Second of all, the wall of text hurts my brain.
Felix golden sun
Great comment, Barrett is my favorite party member and I think it's wrong to dismiss him as having no more depth than "angry guy who swears"
18:50 you say that Cloud wasn't in Nibelheim during the events when Sephiroth burns the town.
But he actually was. YES when he's telling the story he takes Zack's role. But in reality he was one of the shinra's guard (with the mask). He still witnesses the events, he's even the one who takes Sephiroth down in the mako reactor ! So yes he was there. And even if there are things we know for sure didn't happen (such as him taking a photo with Tifa and Sephiroth as we clearly see later the photo with Zack) there's nothing that tells us for sure he didn't went in Tifa's house or her room.
Oh!? So you're talking about Ramirez!?
Every detail that the comment is written is correct and canon. Cloud was never a soldier. He was a shinra guard. He didnt take off his helmet becuase he doesnt want tifa to see him. Thats the guy who gives you the option to ask why hes not taking off his helmet. In the canon thats cloud. Piece crisis core and the original game story and this is the result you get.
I'm just happy to see nobody forgot about good ole' Ramirez
cloud was a kid who had very low self-esteem due to his mental state he wasnt able to join soilder like his hero sephiroth however he did have the physical body of one
@@frybread002_3 i get it
I interpreted Cloud's actions in the flashback as things he did in uniform; Tifa just didn't know it was him. But that takeaway works, too.
Yeah cloud was the shinra soldier that survived and he did fight and wound septheroth in nibelheim
I think that was more or less what you were supposed to think, just that in hindsight it couldn't be anything other than what Jared explains
A random uniformed soldier going in Tifa's house and jamming on her piano yeees
@@MaddieDeux Well they knew each other from childhood.
Sounds like you interpreted a plot hole differently than Jared did
If I was the original voice of Seph, I'd be kinda proud of it too...
Shame there weren't any voiced cutscenes with him.
Bro have you heard sephiroth’s voice in kingdom hearts 1? Give it a listen it’s hilarious
@@WardenKaz how so? He says maybe three different words...one being meteor
to quote a friend of mine who misheard the lines from KH1's Sephiroth: "METEOR FACE! DARK FACE!" xDD
It's a small and silly note, but pretty cool to have that in your resume!
I would argue in the case of Tifa not telling cloud, she herself also doesn't quite remember everything that happened there. For example she didn't know Cloud actually WAS at nibleheim and doesn't even remember him saving her from Sephiroth because she was so heavily injured and he hid his identity the whole time they were there. Without that knowledge telling Cloud would have been incredibly dangerous and reckless, Cloud's sense of identity and self worth was so fragile that telling him he was never there would probably cause him to have a full breakdown like when Sephiroth did it (nevermind the fact that wouldn't even be true). Tifa isn't a therapist so it's understandable that she'd be a bit anxious about approaching the topic if she didn't absolutely have to. And when that time came she did pull through and they figured out the truth together.
Personally I would also argue that hearing clouds recollection may have caused her to doubt her own memory of events. I would imagine all the shit she went through would be highly traumatic and may have contributed to her doubts. Or at least that's what I've come to think after hearing someone else's argument for why she didnt tell cloud her end of the story at that time
She does remember, she just doesn't want to destabilize his sanity and can't bring herself to correct him for fear of hurting him.
@@brovid-19 Well yeah she remembers most of it but from the scene in the lifestream you can tell she doesn't have a perfect understanding of what happened.
I get what your point but it could have been done better really, it just feels kinda lazy and poorly handled
@@megaham1552 I wouldn't say it's lazy, most stories have plot conveniences for the sake of the story progressing smoothly. Plus again I think it's a bit overstated in this video how much Tifa actually knew about the Nibleheim incident and who cloud was. Like at most she knew she grew up with A Cloud and that in her mind he wasn't even at the incident, she hadn't seen him since childhood. That is precisely enough to shatter his world view but not enough to actually help him. I do think they could have put more emphasis on Tifa trying to find the words to tell him but that's only a criticism one makes in hindsight. Remake can always smooth that over.
"Too bad Sephiroth is so easy he dies before you can barely hear it."
Ah, so you also got up to make a sandwich, take a leak and file taxes during Supernova.
I mean, I had the hard version of this fight because I had done no grinding and beat most of the rest of the final bosses with knights of the round spam.
Blackchibisan yeah KoR is really op. Even if you don’t use it in this fight, the boss is still on the easier side compared to other games.
@@blackchibisan8116 but...all that breeding...you just grinded a different part of the game XD
Play Japanese original version keeps you on your toes
@@blackchibisan8116 the fight is actually easier the lower level you are. Though at level 99, I can still beat him before he can even get Supernova off.
"A materia that makes Yuffie an integral and useful party member?"
*me:* Morph?
*Jared:* There isn't one.
._.
Yuffie is the best.
Morph yuffie is the play
@paula Kept her in my main party with Cid because I'm a big fan of dragoons and ninjas.
@@Cyril86 Yuffie's not the best - Mayor Domino is the best. Everyone says he's cooler than the rest.
Ironically she's actually one of the best choices for your party since she isn't hindered by being used in the back row.
That's the face of a man who's been through hell and back and has only proved that he is a pro
That thumbnail just oozes things are about to go down.
Truly happy to see this finally.
Oh yeah, the Mako eyes. XD Thanks for pointing that out.
Cringe
a real pro would know FFVIII is the best one
meow bastard has a cat pfp
Calls other people cringe
👌
Hey it's you again
There are a number of inaccuracies in this review, specifically in the part about Cloud. The most obvious of those is the claim that Cloud wasn't in Nibelheim during the events that took place 5 years before the events of the game. That's false. Cloud was there, he was one of the Shinra soldiers, he just didn't take his helmet off because he didn't want Tifa to recognize him.
What actually happened was this: when Sephiroth went crazy and burned down Nibelheim, Zack followed him to the Maco reactor and engaged him in battle, which Sephiroth won. After that Tifa, having witnessed the destruction Sephiroth caused, followed him in the Mako reactor as well and attacked him but was severely injured. Shortly following that Cloud arrived, also furious at Sephiroth. He picked up Zack's Buster Sword, caught Sephiroth off guard in the reactor core, and attacked him before attending to Tifa. When a wounded Sephiroth emerged from the reactor core, Cloud attacked him again, intent on avenging the deaths of his mother and all the townspeople Sephiroth had killed. Though impaled on Sephiroth's Masamune, Cloud summoned the strength to overpower him with sheer willpower. Using the katana as a lever, Cloud lifted Sephiroth up and hurled him into the Mako pit below before collapsing.
After that, Cloud and Zack, as well as other survivors in the town (with the exception of Tifa who was rescued by Zangan before Shinra arrived), became Professor Hojo's test subjects and were experimented on for 4 years in the Shinra mansion. As a result of the trauma caused by the Nibelheim Incident, his mako poisoning, and Zack's death, Cloud impressed Zack's memories and fighting abilities into his own. This, along with Tifa's memory of him and his own ideal image of himself as a SOLDIER, created a new set of memories with an accompanying persona. As such, Cloud was led to believe he had joined SOLDIER and was Sephiroth's partner in place of Zack, and in his own memories, he took Zack's place; in his distorted memories, Zack never existed. So in reality, Cloud did not lie to the party, as this video claims. He wasn't telling the truth, yes, but that's because he had forgotten the actual events, due to the extreme mental trauma he suffered. At some point during the events of the game, he finally remembers everything and tells the party what actually transpired during the Nibelheim Incident.
Yeah it's almost like he didn't pay attention at all for some parts while playing the game lol
@@Aliangerhe did, it’s just that none of it makes sense. This game gets over defended. I get it, if you were about 13-14 when this came out it was probably a transformative experience. I tend to agree with this review that’s it’s flawed and a bit over rated.
@@Metallizombie Pal, you haven't got a damned clue what you're talking about.
@@JaitsuStudios I sure do. I was there.
You mentioned a number of inaccuracies but other than cloud being in nibelheim what other inaccuracies are there? I couldn’t find any.
Did anyone notice that in the thumbnail Jared got infused with mako, because of his eyes?
I was just about to comment about that lmao. Really nice attention to detail there.
would've slipped through if not for you, thx bro
Yeah i straight up looked up another one of his thumbnails to make sure i was just an idiot and jared just had weird neon blue eyes and i never noticed it
And then i thought i was an idiot for thinking jared had neon blue eyes...
@Vincent Velasquez That's why he's called PRO Jared!
I actually saw that way before loading the video
Brilliant acting on the part of Final Fantasy Tactics at the beginning. I was engaged and heartbroken for the entire scene.
Jared was good too.
I hate to be that guy, but the proper way to make this joke is, 'Brilliant acting at the beginning. I was engaged and heartbroken for the entire scene. Jared was good too.'
;)
I remember years later my uncle let me and my brother play and told us Aerith was gonna be important for the final boss, still mad about that lie
In a way, he's not wrong.
well, he wasn’t wrong
Would you rather he spoil the game for you?
@@styler8940 There's also the alternative where the uncle just... didn't say anything about that. It doesn't have to be an extreme one way or the other
Imagine farming levels hard for her and then goes whoops, ded.
"My favorite part is when the piccolo chimes in."
*sound of someone screaming "NEEEEEEEEEEERD!" in the distance*
i get it
More like "DOOOOODGE!!!"
DOOOOOOOOOOOODGE!!!!
*Naaaaaail guuuuuun!*
@@Mr.Foxhat
"...sh*t, that's good."
22:34 Actually, Sephiroth doesnt "just stand there", he is T-posing to assert dominance.
Or praising the -sun- meteor.
I get that one, Nice.
I thought he wanted a hug
That's a Y-pose not all poses are T-poses
@@samboyaus Exactly, he wanted a hug after he realised that he had accidentally killed Cloud's friend. Poor Sephiroth, he just wanted to say hi.
Jared started talking to his games, the quarentine has taken a toll on his mind
You don't?
Wilson!
I kind of get the feeling he did that long before quarantine to be honest.
I mean it’s tactics, if I knew where my copy of that game was I’d marry that piece of programed plastic.
Pfft...quarantine has been heaven for all us introverts. "You mean I can stay inside all day, play video games and not have to interact with people or have various people judge and pester me for this behaviour?!"
I admit, that first time I witness Aerith's death, I put the controller down and got teary eyed like a lil bitch. It was one of my first times actually getting emotional due to a video game. Still love this game
Imagine taking in Red and Yuffie into that. I did. I liked using what my friends wasn't using.
Red's is touching enough due to how it calls back to his father but yuffie, uh, has the strongest reaction to say the least. It's easy to forget she's 16 and she handles it about as well as, well, a hormonal teenage would, and it's fucking gutting.
@@roetemeteor Yeah i gotta agree but my party was Tifa and Yuffie. Those two i feel have the most emotional interaction with the scene. Where everyone else aside from Red just has that well this sucks feeling, and Red howling like he did for his father. The one that annoys me though is always Cait Sith.
Don't feel bad about tearing up, my dude. At the end of Crisis Core I crawled under my covers and legit cried. I was 16. To this day is one of my most cherished video gaming memories.
Ditto my friend! I'm a 33 year old man who's played the game 30+ times and i still get emotional like a bitch when Aerith dies.
Yeah, well I didn't. But then again I had the Prima strategy guide and that guide spoiled the feck out of that part.
One thing you got wrong: Cloud WAS at Nibelheim during the events of the flashback. He is just telling that story from the wrong perspective, as he was actually one of the nameless soldiers instead of one of the SOLDIERs.
But we have every reason to believe that he did visit Tifa’s house because of the piano side quest.
Jared: tries to advertise a vpn to a compact disc.
Me: umm, I'll go now... oh wait, the review, right.
The Irony is that he wished he was protected before the controversy happened. Oh well
Jared: tries to advertise a vpn in a video
Me: Good thing I have sponsor block ;)
@@yep-yep7821 Lol. I didnt know that something like this is even possible. Thanks for that, buddy.
At least he did not try to get Tactics to play RAID: Shadow Legends.
Its not even that hard to just click past the advertisement. Dude is just tryna pay his bills.
And I gotta disagree about Vincent too. He might not have "developed" much in the main story, but his back story is pretty important. Cait Sith too, to a lesser extent.
Yeah everyone gave Cait Sith a lot of stick, but his story is pretty interesting compared to most of the others.
@Nicholas Brown Well when you think about him as Reeves, he's a good man wanting what's best for midgar. It's not very well explained I confess, and it's a bit dumb why he screws you over; but the Wiki makes some sense of it. Tifa, Red, Barrett and Yuffie were totally one dimensional. Cid was probably my favourite - kind of reminded me of a Pixar movie plot minus the swearing.
That's just you applying current knowledge to that vampire dood you thought was cool in the 90s
@@Tailstraw_xD Nah, in-game they do a decent job of explaining the snippets. You learn that he tried to stop Lucrecia from agreeing to the experiments with Hojo, you learn that he locked himself away as penance, and you learn that he was a former turk who was murdered even if you go to Lucrecia's Cave and see his flashback. It's actually a pretty important snippet that's easily missed and gives some insight into how terrible Hojo is. Hell, Hojo experimenting on Vincent is in the original game too and explains his shapeshifting. Dirge only retconned that it was chaos and the protomateria specifically that gave him those abilities rather than Hojo's random experimentation. since the game has party-specific Dialogue, there's a lot you can miss if you don't play through with certain characters in your party, like Hojo telling Vincent that he saw Lucrecia as "nothing more than a tool" and Vincent then firing back that it was Hojo that should have been locked away in a casket for so many years when he's faced atop the Sister Ray.
There is A LOT that can be missed in this game if you don't go looking for it, including some character development.
I just assume Jared's replay of the game lacked the party diversity to catch those snippets. My team fluctuated between Barret, Cloud, Cid, and Cloud, Vincent, Tifa most of the time so I caught a lot of the little snippets the game gives. Yuffie's story is also quite interesting if you realize what happened to her people in the fight against Shinra and what that means for her.
In a series where inconsistency is the only consistent thing, FF VII is like the heart of the series, you can see the influence from the past games and the influence that it will have over the games to come, even for videogames in general, it will always have a special place in story
I haven't played VII, but X is the one that has a bit of everything a Final Fantasy game can have
@@oxcare5 X didn't have a world map you traveled, just that weird "location list" type thing. It also had that weird horrible level up system, that Final Fantasy VII didn't have. So yeah, if you look going forward, I guess X was an example of things to come.
@@oxcare5 FFX is actually my favorite, probably my favorite game of all time, but even I have to admit that is not as important or influential as VII, specially when the series changed drastically after X (also the whole Square - Enix deal was a big factor of change I guess...)
Oxcare 5 you wouldn’t know, you haven’t played vii
nah, only to people who were not fans of JRPGs before playstation.
(I LOVE ff7, it's just under the 9th, eth & 5th)
>Cause to us it's FF4 & FF6. FF7 is just flashy. But uses everything that was already there only with tons of ressources. And Suikoden is better for PSx JRPGs
I was partway through my first playthrough of FFVII when this video came out. I went in totally blind, aside from knowing a certain death, and I am *so* glad I waited to watch this video. I finally beat the game last night, and it was truly an amazing experience, and I completely understand all the hype surrounding the game.
It is a masterpiece of a game. It's cool to see younger generations enjoying it.
@@chesspunk489 Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not a younger generation. I'm 23. Heck, I own the CD box set for FFIX, so it's not like I'm some young kid discovering the beauty of Gaia.
@@nordinreecendo512 you're young compared to me. I am 34 and first played this when I was 11.
@@chesspunk489 Ah, then yes! You're right. Honestly I'm just glad it kept my attention; I never got far in FFIX, and I was worried FFVII would have a harder time keeping my attention, but I absolutely *loved* every single second of it!
@@nordinreecendo512 I also had trouble caring that much about ff 9 and ff8 while playing them. I didn't finish either one. I just didn't feel as absorbed into the characters as I did with ff7.
Of course the section with Jared explaining Materia has to have Yuffie's theme.
You knew what you were doing.
He was streaming the editing of the video when he made that choice, and asked chat "Do you think anyone will get it?" I'm happy you did!
@@SirhcAdrbohc I don't. Could you explain, please?
@@GlitchToph Yuffie's just so happy to be a part of your team and to... stealyourmateria.
@@SkyeGuy I FUCKING KNOW THAT REFERENCE.
@@SirhcAdrbohc I'm surprised I caught it as well, since I only played the original FF7 after the remake 😅
"No pun intended."
Nah, dude, the pun is 100% intended. Cloud, and the rest of the cast, are iconic examples of the meaningful name trope.
What other examples from the rest of the cast can you give?
whats a meaningful name trope
Frédéric aerith is close to a term for earth
For example Tifa’s name is a combination of two of the syllables from solfeggio, which is a system that assigns names to pitches or degrees of a musical scale. Her name is a combo of the 7th syllable (cheeky 7) “Ti” and the 4th “Fa”. I’m guessing they did this because Tifa is a piano player. Remember the only way to get her premium heart is to play the main theme of FF7 on her piano multiple times throughout the game.
@@beegchocobo there's also that kind of a stretch idea that it is based on the Kabalah, on one of the Sephirot, the Tiferet.
I dig the Mako eyes in the thumbnail! Subtle and cool lil nod!
Oh wow I didn’t even notice that
Jared I love you but the comment section can back me up on the fact that I think some parts of the story went over your head a lil'
23 years later, the music and JENOVA LIFE fight still makes me cry.
I actually like the ending of FF7. A part of the theme is that the planet was "alive" and I recall a part that elder in Red's home town goes over is the planet making the choice to save the humans or not via the lifestream. The way it ends is with you hoping that everyone survived. That while in the end you released Holy to slow Meteor. That the planet itself also spared you. That is why I think Aerith shows up in that last seen. Not only is she apart of the Lifestream but to represent the hope that everyone survives.
A part*
This time losing the space in between changes the meaning.
'I'm going cloud. *I'll be back when it's all over.*' her last lines. I always thought that was pivotal. Aerith sacrifices herself to master the life stream. She does the opposite of sephiroth for ostensibly the same reasons (save the world, because remember he wants to save it). She isn't randomly butchered, *she wanted him to kill her. That was always the mystical twist for me and why she is smiling at the end.
The ultimate power is not mako energy or materia (as it were)
It's the courage to sacrifice yourself for others.
They beautifully play on this in the remake insofar as aerith is always clairvoyantly nudging cloud to care about others
Leave it to SoyJared to misrepresent the game's story just to defend his precious FF6.
Call it a hunch but I'm starting to think Jared likes Final Fantasy
“He’s creepy” says user named “would you lick my salty balls” 🤔
i think you might be onto something here
what? never got a hint that he did, please explain?
Wtf why would you ever think that
That's quite the claim buddy. I'm gonna say "that's bullshit"
Lost my Dad last year, and I still really haven't had time to fully contemplate it. Brought tears to my eyes hearing you talk about what makes Aerith's death so powerful. I do believe you're right about that. Not being able to stop and mourn is a luxury we don't seem to have in this day and age.
My thoughts go out to you. My dad passed away that year too and i have same feelings at times
@14:00 the biggest Playstation JRPG death is
GREMIO in Suikoden 1. Aeris is barely 2nd.
Gremio's tragedy is bigger than the Aeris one, but people liking women more eases the fandom of Aerith vs Gremio. But nobody is more dedicated to a hero in a JRPG than Gremio was. Cleo is amazing in Suikoden, but if you don't save Pahn and then Gremio dies, the story is heart breaking. Aeri's death was not een as traumatizing to me as the Porom & Palom sacrifice in FF4.
@@WithScienceAsMySheperd well I never played Suikoden, so I'll have to take your word on that one
@@Bulletproof_Trump Aeris was amazing. But Germio's death is like have your big brother who followed forever be executed by an evil mind... later you have the choice to kill the vilain... or allow them to join your team... tough choice
@@WithScienceAsMySheperd porom and palom don’t die
For the record, Yuffie actually has good limit breaks and her ultimate weapon Conformer is absolutely busted. It only deals 1HP if it hits an ally, removes the Morph damage penalty so she's the only viable user, and the damage bonus is based on enemy level with it acting as an enhancer for the already high attack power rather than revolving around it like how Cloud's Ultima Weapon works.
Vincent, though not as good, is also a viable morph user. He doesn't remove the penalty completely, but his penalty is far lower than all other characters.
@@ikeillue8385 Which works thematically because of Vincent's transformations.
He also claimed that there was a Materia that gives a character the ability to "Jump" (8:26), which is flat out wrong. Only thing that is even somewhat similar with Materia is 'Long Range' which just lets back row attacks be as strong as front row attacks. Cid has some Dragoon like limit breaks but, that ain't Materia.
@@Vereid Maybe he was refering to the Cover materia. That's the only one I can recall makes the player using it jump in front of another in battle.
@@hugosmoable imagine if there was a dragoon jump materia.
I disagree with your take on the ending. Considering the fact that the uncertainty as to whether humans are good for the planet is brought up when Holy is introduced, the fact that no humans appear in the game after the point when Holy intersects with Meteor adds room for speculation as to whether the planet actually considered humans good for it and left them to live on it, which in my opinion is somewhat weakened by the media taking place afterwords where the main characters appear.
One weird thing, that stands out to me not just about Jared’s review but other comments, is how nobody seems to understand that the main reason Aerith appears is she stops Meteor.
Holy was her dying wish, it’s heavily implied she helped with the lifestream at the end, and she’s also the personal connection the player has to the planet’s fake and stopping Sephiroth. As well as the party’s collective motivation to face him. It was to stop him from stopping Holy.
I was going to post this.
@@carackcachu1375 My main theory. FF6 fanboys hate admitting FF7 is a good game. Because they dont want it to be :P
But overall. The end has a creepy laugh too. Something to ask.. if life starts over again. Like thats the whole point of this game is Sakaguchi wanted to make a game about life. Thats why this game is so good. It gives you certain type of... questions to this stuff. Its a pretty good game. And still cool!
@@kejiri3593 Yes, because the only reason someone would dislike something about a game is if they're a fanboy of another game.
I didn't really grasp the full impact of the Aerith death scene as a kid. I knew it was sad or whatever, but it was still just part of a video game. After experiencing a few deaths in my family, I now understand more of what the game was trying to convey. The post-death battle conjurs up that "life goes on" feeling that you get after someone close passes away, and I was holding back tears when Jared talked about it. Well done sir, this is why I watch these reviews
What I think people don't appreciate about Aerith is how normal she is. She acts like an outgoing 22 year-old woman would. She likes fashion. She likes cute guys. She likes to flirt, shop, and make fun of himbos who take themselves too seriously. She acts like someone you would know. She can get jealous and petty. The fact people paint her as some sort of virginal waif prophesized to sacrifice herself robs her death (and how shocking to both the audience, the characters, and Aerith herself) its impact. Like yeah, she's the person most capable of saving the world (and Jenova the most capable of dooming it, not Cloud/Sephiroth) but she's very grounded. Aerith being spunky and having a zest for life and Sephiroth's pretentious, cold motivation and reaction to her murder is haunting.
And Cloud finally, totally, 100% thinks selflessly for the first time when she dies. Sephiroth does not think of her complexly, calling her "the girl". Cloud, finally about to think of others besides himself complexly, shuts him up. He doesn't care about how this affects him, he says how unfair it was to Aerith. "Aerith will no longer laugh, cry, or get angry". Cloud finally drops the Tough Guy acts and unabashedly weeps for his friend, responding in total disbelief.
Her death matters a lot and cynical, bad-faith, intellectually dishonest people acting like it was something it wasn't galls me.
quick correction: Aerith doesn't reappear at the end to remind you "she was murdered", it's to show SHE was the one who directed the Lifestream to save everyone's lives, even after death she tried her best to follow her people's legacy and to save the world and people she loved so much.
I'm pretty sure he meant it as a joke, at least that's how that line sounds to me lol
@@PixelHeroViish nah I think he just genuinely misunderstood it.
@@dlaniganohara That could always be lmaooooooo
@@dlaniganohara Jared misunderstood a lot of FF7's story. When he's talking about Cloud being an unreliable narrator, he notes that "Cloud never did any of the stuff in Nibelheim." Cloud was in Nibelheim, just not in the role he imagined himself to be. He was one of the infantry accompanying Zack and Sephiroth, so it's quite likely that Cloud did everything in Nibelheim that he claims he did. Jared says, "Tifa was actually there, Cloud wasn't." Cloud was absolutely there, that's how he's able to recount the events of Nibelheim so thoroughly. That was when he and Zack were experimented upon by Hojo. And Jared notes that, "ZACK tried to stop Sephiroth when he burned Nibelheim down," implying that Cloud didn't. Zack did indeed try to stop Sephiroth but failed. It was then that Cloud took up Zack's sword and chased Sephiroth into the reactor. Cloud is THE reason that Sephiroth ended up in the Northern Crater, transported there through the Lifestream after Cloud threw him down the hole. Jared seems to have completely missed those flashback scenes where it's shown that Cloud was indeed present at those fateful events, just not in the role that he originally claimed to be in. Tifa was unaware that Cloud was present because he kept his identity hidden, embarrassed that he had gone away to join SOLDIER but failed, becoming just a regular infantry instead.
@@brandonreynolds2645 very true, though misremembered details doesn't invalidate his opinion, but it does make me feel better about mine
So, now having watched it: If Jared still had the old rating system, I'm guessing he'd rate it "A slightly burnt toast out of 10".
It’s safe, everyone likes toast, but it’s slightly burnt after being left for to long. Time didn’t help it. It’s still good, but it’s still burnt toast.
Ah the memories...
BURN MY BREAD!!!
god i miss that rating system
Aww man . . . I didn't eve realize he wasn't doing that anymore ;-; I loved those cool comparisons XD
Hard disagree on the characters, Barrett especially. Also, regarding Cloud's backstory, you seem to have completely blanked out the second (and most important) half of the twist. All the better for those who somehow still haven't played through it, I guess.
I know right?! I loved all of the characters. There wasn't a single dull moment with them.
Those eyes...
I really think Jared did this a disservice here. He seems so eager for reasons to criticize that he starts misrepresenting things when there's no reason to. The game has plenty to criticize without omitting or making shit up.
yeah I had to dislike the video there. Every character except Vincent has their own character arc.
@@JaitsuStudios Seems like he just pulled stuff out of his ass because he’s butthurt that 7 is more popular than 6.
There were limit breaks in FF6, but they were pretty uncommon. If a character's life was low, there was a chance that the limit break would trigger instead of their regular attack.
They're more like "desperation attacks" but yeah they where the basic idea behind limit breaks in 7 and 8
Yeah there were numerous opinions stated by Jared I disagreed with, and this fact you mentioned. But still, a fun video to watch.
desperation attack were bad in the sense that I played FF6 before even knowing they existed XD In this case it would have been better if he said that ff7 introduced it properly XD
The problem, of course, is that the game never tells you about them or shows them off; this is the same RPG where Sabin literally plays like a fighting game character, and they gave that mechanic something that amounted to a full-on tutorial. Granted, limit breaks aren't nearly as important, given the player's lack of control over them, but it would have been nice to at least have some reference to them.
The hole "Attack" command is kinda weak considering that everyone, other than Locke, have better things to do than a basic attack at any point in combat.
Cloud wasn't intentionally misleading the party. When him and Zack were doused in Mako, cloud and Zack's memories were intertwined. When Zack died all of cloud's memories died with himand returned to the lifestream and he took on Zacks personality. That is why Tifa helps him get his memories back in the lifestream.
Wasn’t this debunked?
@@_WOR why would it get debunked? It's what happens in the game. The problem is the english translation is dogshit. For example it's Jenova that kills Aerith not Sephiroth. Sephiroth is sleeping inside north crater. She takes on the appearance of Sephiroth to the party because that is what they see her as. They don't know the whole truth behind cloud's story.
@@Gunplabro I could have misread it but I was positive Square revealed that Cloud did get his memories mixed up with Zack’s but he still knew what his own were and used Zack’s to impress Tifa. He had a huge crush on her and Zack’s memories were basically ‘cooler’.
But again I’ve been out of the loop for a while.
The game dropped the ball and vomited all over if in terms of story presentation. If you don't watch the videos at the Icicle Inn abandoned house, the story of what Jenova really was will never be filled in. That is a massive detail to leave just lying around for the player to maybe find. Story = A+. Story Presentation = D-
@@_WOR Return to the Shinra Mansion basement after recovering Cloud. The game itself confirms it. In fact, not going there leaves a giant plot hole if you don't already know that part of it.
It's been 20 years and the memory of Aerith's death is still so vivid in my mind, coupled with your great description of the entire sequence almost brought me to tears again.
Thank you Jared
Jared's developing some real mad scientist hair
Rushy you could almost say its... Insaneo
This is what the haters did to him...
After all the shit that went down, He's got nothing else to loose.
@@topknot01 Lose
I don't think the flexibility materia provides is a bad thing. The limit breaks and weapons are enough of a differentiator for the characters imo. It means that if the plot demands that your healer isn't part of the party anymore, you're not screwed, you can build someone else as white mage. It means you can focus on characters you think are cool instead of characters you think are good.
THIS
I don't have Barret all the time on my party because his skills are cool, I have him because I want BARRET in my team, and Materia allows anyone to play the character they prefer without sacrificing utility, and the Limit Breaks and weapons make the characters distinct.
Hell, even if you don't like a character's mechanics (Vincent's LBs for example) you can use Materia to get around it (Deathblow+High accuracy gun or Added Cut+Sense).
That's what I love about VII, amongst many things, it doesn't punish you for choosing characters over functions
"Every character is essentially a blank slate. There's very little that separates them from each other. [Materia] takes away their individuality."
2m later:
"No one else had abilities like Aerith. From her healing Limit Breaks and affinity for magic. Nothing makes up for her. She's irreplaceable."
Got it.
Glad someone elsed pointed this out, thought the same thing, contradicts himself pretty quickly lol. @nfantone
All those years and I still get goosebumps when someone talks about Aeriths death and her theme plays...
Just in case you didn’t know
wtf dude spoiler that shit!!!!!!!!!!
@@IdiotRace sorry, I thought that has become common knowlege.
What got me into this game, was the colourful running chickens. I was 10, barely knew basics of English, but those goddamn chickens in that amusement park made me pick up a dictionary and translate to paper, with a pen, almost the whole dialogue of that game, when my sister's boyfriend at that time let me start my own save on his console.
FF7 has a big factor going for it: mass appeal. Like Jared said, RPG's were insanely niché, and the genre itself marked a big turnoff point for a lot of people who didn't know much about RPG's. But that also means FF7 had enough "unconventional" ideas that defined its uniqueness. It's not like we didn't have epic RPG stories before, but this is the epic RPG everyone talked about, and this meant that FF7 became a codifier for unconventional stories, presentations, and mechanics. It was easier to impress people, not because they were dumber, but because RPG tropes weren't remotely as widespread as with other genres.
As far as I can tell, there were several things that helped FF7. Many of which Jared pointed out, but there was also the fact that gaming was losing its niche factor and becoming a mainstream thing. So you now have a big chunk of a new generation playing games because its more acceptable and growing attached to the games of that time(FF7, Ocarina of Time, Half-Life, Pokemon, Ect.).
So many different factors, and probably more that I don't know about.
I think the JRPG that had, arguably, the most "involved" story before FF7 was Dragon Quest 5. But a lot of that comes from the fact that you (the player) are quite literally playing through the story of one family as it faces its destiny.
Sephiroth is a Soldier, First Class, who discovers his entire existence is a mere experiment for Shinra. Learning this fact, his mind is shattered, sending him into an existential crisis so severe that it drives him insane. Insane enough to desire the destruction of the human race for it's atrocities, for sucking the planet's life energy away, and for experimenting on the cells from Jenova his being was made from, his "mother". And he was so hell bent on destroying the human race, he was willing to destroy the planet itself.
That's an uninteresting character?
honestly, i just wonder how he would react if he found out the truth, rather than just what he thinks is the truth. what would he think if he saw his real mother?
Honestly... yeah? "I learned something that challenged my identity, and now I'm insane and want everyone to die" is kind of one-dimensional, isn't it? As far as I'm aware, that's his entire character in a single sentence, which is not very engaging for the prime motivator of a story, and I imagine would have fallen very flat without all the cool affect. Maybe if there were more substance between "identity challenged" and "everything must die". But as I recall, it was presented as just like "Oh..." *CLICK* "Ok I'm insane now".
@@salmongod9115 thats not how it was presented at all. His character is drip fed incredibly well thoughout the game, and even the flashback it literally takes place over multiple days where he locks himself up in the mansion reading.
He was also quite arrogant and cold beforehand too, it makes enough sense that he would go all ideological. And thats the key thing, he doesnt go "insane", he has a very clear ideology he adopts based on what hes learned.
And I mean, what more can you ask for?
@@Underworlder5 probably nothing. he either wouldnt believe it due to his delusions, or go in another rampage amd continue wanting to destroy everything
OG Sephiroth was literally one-dimensional. All your bullshit points are obviously came from later games that fleshed out his character more.
I strongly disagree on the difficulty, but otherwise great video/essay. The game only becomes a more average/easy difficulty if you are incredibly patient and have a long history of playing JRPGs. If you’re a relatively new or impatient player, it can be incredibly difficult. Not only do all the optional Weapon bosses pack a massive punch and practically require near-max levels and strategies, but even main story content in the endgame can be difficult if you play the game linearly, skip a lot of mini games and optional dungeons, and don’t grind. The only way you end up with the opinion that FFVII is too easy is if you’re a JRPG veteran who takes plenty of time to do everything the game has to offer. I played FFVII as a kid and, while I loved the game for all the great qualities talked about here and dove into its expanded universe head first, I couldn’t finish FFVII because of the difficulty. I only went back and replayed the full original game and finally beat it once it re-released on Switch.
"Equipping abilities like steal, or jump!"
Jared, I know we both want Jump to be in the game, but it just isn't so
The closest thing to a dragoon we have is Cid.
That's something right?
he did not really replay it. He is lazy content creator and loathes FF7 for its success compared to his darling FFVI
@@dizzydazed8055 he played the remake a few months before this came out, and the original a few months before that
@@dizzydazed8055 Not at all, also 7 just sucks, it's horribly broken and doesn't hold up when compared to the next two games on the same system.
@@dizzydazed8055 we. LITERALLY. SAW. HIM. PLAY. IT.
If Projared reviews "The Adventures of Alundra" my life would be complete.
fun factL I've only ever played the completely unrelated and very different Alundra 2, one of my faves
Can he start with Landstalker?
@@sarafontanini7051Yeah Alundra 2 is very different and for me its not really a sequal. If you havent played Alundra 1 theb do it. You will love if you like long RPGs and Character development
Just for the story alone the game is worth it, the awesome gameplay is the cherry on top.
Alundra was a hidden gem! It was definitely one of my favorite RPGs. Although I admit while I got very far I never ended up beating it. Another overlooked game is Secret of Evermore on the SNES.
10:45 I guess Jared didn't know about the arrange button in the materia menu that allows you to swap the materia between characters super easily
I could have done with this 82 hours ago xD
There are a ton of things he got wrong or misunderstood in this one lol
This is something I appreciate Remake and Rebirth; they make the characters developed so much more compared to before.
Jared: My favorite part is when the picolo chimes in
Me: was actually expecting to hear Picolo from DBZ to yell something or just randomly fly accros the sky in the background
DOOOODGE!
@@orionhunter4855 NEEEERD!
IM NOT A YOSHI! DAMN IT GOKU!
@@orionhunter4855 Now it's time to teach Aerith to -go super saiyan- dodge!
WHHHOOOOERRRRSHHHH
"DOOOOOOOOOOOODGE"
When I was a kid, I remember hearing Shimmer by Fuel on the radio after Aerith's death, and it was then that it hit me really hard. I was only 11 years old, so I was confused as to why this game had me so heart broken. I even went to bed that night thinking about Aerith, as if I had actually lost somebody, and it wasn't until I was an adult and replayed Final Fantasy VII that I realised how powerful that scene was and still is - it's no wonder it had such an impact on my adolescent mind. This game will forever be at the center of my heart, no matter how poorly a lot of it has aged ❤
Awww!
I can agree with the assessment of "not the best, but the most important". This (and a generation later Fable) got so many people I knew to give RPGs a chance. Not just FF games, but all RPGs. I appreciate it a tremendous amount for that.Thanks for the video Jared!
It should have been Final Fantasy VI.
@@chrisrj9871 well it wasn't, so... 🤷🏾♂️
Wenceslao. And Tactics as well. Though it isn't an mainline Final Fantasy game. But still.
@Wenceslao Futanaki this is why I don't like FF6 fanboys: can't ever get over the fact that FF7 is more popular. 7 isn't my all time favorite, but I don't feel the need to tear it down every time it's mentioned and talk about the superiority of 6.
Still, I will always respect FF7 no matter what & I still love the game even if it's not the best or my personal favorite.
You seem to have totally missed a lot of reasons this was loved by a generation. The world building being a major part.. The ending did not suck at all imo - by the time u get that cutscene and see the world take action to protect ityself gave me and so many others goosebumbs.. it was so well done. Ive played the all and think your advertising bit a the end isnt true either and seems almost like a cheap shot at an amzing game. I never even saw an advert for it when i was a kid. I found it in a shop and did know what sort of game it would be. I decided to plunge in as it finally had the scope and size, and story to grip me and so many others. I feel like your love for 6 affected this review. The myth aspect of Sephiroth was also awesome to young me.. it felt like everyone talked about or had heard of this legendary soldier - by the time you get to him it feels scary and ominous.
Yep, seems like he was a bit of a hater for whatever reason almost like he was trying to make the case for some of the older ff games. That's why he thought it was better after he replayed it. I also never remembered a single advertisement for it back then and first heard about it through a friend in jr. high. I first played it in 98 when there were no spoilers so Aerith's death and all those graphics shocked me to my core. This will forever be the best game ever in my book as well as so many others.
I agree. Despite the fact that Jared set out to review all the main FF games, this one felt like his entire outlook was skewed from the get-go. Like this was his opportunity to show everyone all the things he didn't like about FF7, and point to them as the reason why it's overrated. I assume he was very salty about FF7 being revered by so many people. As if all that attention should have been given to FF6. It's kind of sad. He could have fell in love with it like so many of us did back then. Instead he's steadfast in his stubborn dislike for the game out of blind loyalty that will ultimately go unrewarded.
He keeps on saying "Cloud was not there" but I thought that Cloud was indeed at Nibelheim and that eventually he was the one who bested Sephiroth, but just as a blue MP...
Because he was there
He was there, but not in those scenes. He was outside, or standing guard, or just off screen.
He WAS there. he was one of the Mooks. He was literally present at Nibelheim. In general, Jared didn't do a great job with the plot at all.
By not being there, he means the actions portrayed as he described didn't happen.
Everyone has a bias when it comes to series they love and Jared is showing his here. In the FFVI review, he talks about themes and the great character development, but skips through FFVII's. Tifa and Barrett are well developed characters and Red XIII's arc in Cosmo Canyon doesn't just change how he saw his father, but how he saw himself. The ending is the thematic resolution of the game; Sephiroth is, as he said, a myth more than a character, his development is secondary to his role as a part of Cloud's splintered identity.
There's quite a it he didn't address about the game, which I replayed recently and found to hold up extremely well. I'm curious how he justifies FF Tactics and its story, given it shares many of the same issues.
I remember that moment when I realized that Aerith was dead. It was the moment when I looked in the strategy guide and noticed that the list of her weapons was a lot shorter than everyone else. Basically I knew she was dead right from the beginning despite the guide giving no details about the story whatsoever. Luckily I was a diehard Tifa fan so it all worked out! =P
Disagree with the Zack statement. The secret scene with him in the truck shows he's a really goofy guy based off the short conversation in the truck.
Me? Gongaga.
@@Illoosion I always wondered how they pronounced it? Which G's are like G and which ones are pronounced like a J?
@@mikespearwood3914 "Gone gaga", as in gone mad...? Eh, we'll know when the remake tells us.
@@mikespearwood3914 Crisis Core confirmed it "gun gaga," all hard gs.
@@mikespearwood3914 You pronounce "Gongaga" as, "Gonjaja" or "Jonjaja"???
One thing that I always thought was pretty clever about the Jenova fight after Aerith's death is there are two fairly easy items you can get leading up to that fight that when equipped to one character actually makes you invincible against that Jenova. This leads to a feeling of your grief and rage over Aerith's death empowering you and spurring you on to take revenge for her. It actually leads to feeling quite powerful in the moment as if you are actually driven into a frenzy over her loss. It was a nice bit of immersion and story telling, even if it wasn't intentionally done.
The reason Zack wasn't fleshed out is because he was a last minute addition by nojima, and Barret being stereotyped is cause of the translators.
Japan as a nation kinda stereotypes a lot compared to countries like the US, especially back in the day. Take a game like street fighter 2 for example, Indian people aren’t super stretchy from yoga and breathe fire from eating hot curry (Dhalsim), Brazilian people aren’t rabid jungle dwellers (Blanka), and not all black people are big loud boisterous hulking monstrosities (Balrog and Barret)
nojima
@Joe Schmoe I meant his dialogue dude.
Barret is "What Asians think Black people are really like"
Barret was something Nomura wanted to make for a long time though. Well it was both Barret and Cait Sith (which is funny since everybody hates Cait Sith haha)
8:26 No, not jump. Only Cid gets any "Jump" abilities in his limit breaks.
Not gonna lie, I thought the minigames were memorable. I miss gold saucer
I like the minigames, but I can see why Jared doesn't.
Sure for the mini games, but that fucking theme was maddening.
I never played them because I couldn’t figure out how to get the gold saucer credits and couldn’t be bothered to
it's ironic that Jarod thinks Yuffie is useless... considering how integral she is to source farming later in the game once you have the conformer and morph. if you want more then a snowballs chance in hell against emerald and ruby weapon.. your gonna be seeing ALOT of Yuffie in your party. either that.. or spend an absurd amount of time farming kills with Vincent before you can even think of using him for source farming.
edit: does anyone else get a bit of "i like ff6, and hate the fact that ff7 over shadowed it" from this review? don't get me wrong. it's entertaining and has some good points, but i feel a few were a little forced because of the aforementioned love for ff6 and how it all turned out. like Barret being a caricature or the ending being sup-bar or sephiroth never being shown as powerful.. when you see him basically one shot a dragon during a flash black or that cloud "lied" when that really isn't the case or tifa enabling cloud when she was protecting his fragile psyche or the characters being blank canvases when they all clearly have strengths or the other characters outside tifa cloud and aerith not having any meaningful story when they all do... including the optional ones.. yuffie and vincent both have sizable side quests that both give back story to the world and the current events or the only reason it was so well thought of was marketing when half the people that love this game never saw and advertisement for it... the list could go on but i think the point is made. especially considering ff6 is no perfect game, it's a great game. even a master piece but has just as many flaws as ff7... i don't understand the rivalry tbh, they are both ff games. why we can't just appreciate them both for the impact they had. is beyond me.
I always took it that Tifa thought Cloud was either being to suffer the effects of Mako poisioning or a head injury of some kind. N
FF13: *mad scientist cackling in the distance*
Jared and myself: Ah shit, here we go again.
Oh, it's approaching. We are like halfway through.
Hear square enix might have the remaster of ff13 in it's lineup of games to reveal July and August.😁
My biggest complain about XIII is that if you take the time to analyze it, it had so much potential. The story starts really well and as you progress in the game it makes you feel that you're not only not getting closer to a solution, but you're getting closer to achieve what the villains want. But then we have terrible character writing, important plot points and character development moments out of nowhere, and a generic Deus ex machina ending that makes no sense. It's actually sad if you ask me.
13 wasn't that bad, it's a great game honestly. Maybe not a great FF, but a great game nonetheless.
@@MaskedGuyCh those are my thoughts on FF VIII; XIII isn't really terrible but it isn't good either IMO
I actually quite enjoy the minigames. Looking back, i probably spent more time playing minigames and chocobo breeding than anything else in the late game.
I’m only now playing this game for the first time on Switch, and I’m loving it.
Just played it. It was such a F’ING blast!!
Same, the game is awesome.
“Sephiroth is prettier than the villains before him.”
Emperor from FF2: Hello there...
That was such a good game in my view! Love FF2!
@@kejiri3593 Dont pretend it was "good", it still needed more of an remake then FF7, but since that game wasnt that popular etc back then, we are stuck with versions that are "there" in terms of quality. And I dunno if I should be proud of FF2 that it brought the Romancing SaGa series to the table because of that system.
@@Evilriku13 It at least tried to do things different, I'll give you that, but if you play it like many other RPGs, the grind isn't much different. Personally, I've been enjoying my run through of it so far.
Virgin Sephiroth Vs Chad Emperor Mateus
@@RexcorJ I think FFII is best described as "good ideas executed poorly". The leveling system is seen as a huge joke, but if you think about it, the conceit of "skills level up as you use them" is perfectly logical and it's pretty much exactly what Elder Scrolls does. It was just a perfect combination of frustrating and cheesable. The line between brutally difficult and unbelievably easy in FFII is as thin as spending an hour kicking your own ass to raise your HP. The keyword system is a great idea in terms of making you feel like you're actually conversing with the game and figuring out and progressing the story yourself as opposed to just having it told to you, but you wind up with so many useless options that conversations become an endless loop of "I don't know anything about that" over and over again. Those awful Monster Rooms are essentially just a twist on the Mimic enemy, but instead of one tricky monster you get stuck in a room with like five full random encounters and it just grinds the game to a halt. Et cetera.
II is one of the worst in the series but it has a place in my heart for the problems at least being the result of ambitious risks as opposed to making the critical error of letting Tetsuya Nomura have ideas. The issues with II are entirely technical and feasibly could've been fixed or reworked into something much better. Still wouldn't've been phenomenal, but it could've been so much more.
OK here’s my big brained take: The mechanics of Final Fantasy seven don’t devalue the characters relative to the materia, but in fact the mechanic thematically supports the story of the game. The through line of the entire game is that of the life force of the planet, which is being threatened, and that is where materia comes from. In essence, what the game is suggesting is that individual actions are less important than the life force that binds them together. This also justifies why the characters are more or less identical to one another. It doesn’t matter what party you save the world with it, the point is that through the use of materia, our heroes can save the world.
I actually liked that you could choose your party on who you liked the best without facing any disadvantages for it.
Mind if I go a few layers deeper?
The use of materia is calling upon the forces of nature, the planet itself, to defeat Sephiroth and Jenova, but when you think about it Jenova is a product of the very same nature they're trying to fight with and save, except it's against them. That's why I think Sephiroth not being that interesting as a character is actually thematically relevant. He isn't a fleshed-out human being, he's chaos incarnate brought to the front by human obsession. Hojo's hubris was thinking that he could take this chaotic force of nature and bend it to his own whim with the experiments, but one might argue that the heroes are also doing the same with materia, including Holy. The ending scene is soul rending and beautiful all the same, seeing Midgar grown over means that nature has taken back what is hers. It is ultimately the final authority on what happens in this world, be it the beauty of Holy or the horror of Jenova. Were humans included in the post-Holy world? Maybe not, but Cloud and his group fought on in the face of that possibility. And that's why I love the story of this game.
That's just my interpretation though. I could be putting things there that don't exist since it's been so long since I've played.
And the way materia damaged a character's stats in exchange for power, that really stood out at the time. I always thought of Jenova as materia's flipside -- insurmountable strength that took everything away, and could only be misused.
That's called justification after the fact.
Odd note, but I kinda want that "Loveless" movie poster hanging up on my wall. I think about it every time I watch the intro or pass by the city center in-game.
Well it was a sort of Easter egg referring to a really important rock album that released in the 90s called LOVELESS by the group My Bloody Valentine. Always loved that record so the fact they tossed that in one of my favorite games always made me happy lol
As an unapologetic fan of both N*SYNC and Final Fantasy, Lance Bass voicing Sephiroth was one of my all time geek-out moments as a kid. I don't care how silly it sounds now, that shit rocked my world
It made lance bass much cooler that’s for sure 😂
21:28 - 21:30
Ah, yes. The classic matchup of length vs girth.
I prefer girth 😈
Bro so pumped when projared releases his final fantasy 9 review, I just finished the game and I loved it so much
I couldn't stand it at all. Bored me to tears.
FF9 is the Final Fantasy game that has by far the most beautiful world.
@@Based_Chameleon i disagres i love ff9 but the cool place was the firsy continent the other ones not so much
@@i-evi-l It's slow for sure but it's so damn good. Shame you couldn't experience it
@@Based_Chameleon Nothing in any FF is more hype than Assault of the Silver Dragons
You known ProJared, I think you might have overlooked one tiny little thing about FF7 due to nostalgia; IT'S A BUGGY MESS!!! Magic Defense doesn't work at all, the game LIES to you that you got one thing when you really got something else, and does the Blind stat even WORK in this game?! Those are the only ones I can remember off the top of my head, but I know for a fact that there's more.
Regardless, I get how important this game is to RPGs and games as a whole. I like the game, but I strongly prefer FF9 as my personal favorite Final Fantasy game.
9 is goated
@@XNSever later versions of FF7 (including all modern port to home consoles and the Steam Version) have bugs like the Magic Defense fixed. Not ALL of them mind you but the really bad ones got fixed
yuffie is one of the best chars in ff7 she can morph enemies for 9999 at full power not only that one of her limit breaks is a multi hit like the omnislash
I heard she's basically the "Good Luck Charm" of the party, if the battle starts to seem like you have a disadvantage, so long as she's in your party, she can save the entire fight.
it feels like most of jared's reviews of the series are basically the definitive, most concise retrospectives. Really appreciate the balancing between pointing out what makes the game so great and memorable and the flaws people tend to gloss over.
He is not without his flaws though.
He completely missed one key detail about the ending, that is the very reason why it doesn't show what happened to the characters.
Holy! The magic that would rid the planet of anything that isn't good for it.
The magic that Aerith tried to cast, but she was killed before she could do it.
At the end of the game, Holy activated and it is unknown whether or not humans were deemed bad for the planet.
Except most of the "flaws" he points out are straight up bullshit by being ignorant and reductive.
@@definitelynotapervert5602 ???? Could you explain
"I play Final Fantasy 7 remastered for the plot" nowadays has two very distinct, but cultured reasons to why one would play the game.
Hi
Hey.
Haven’t seen this guy in a while.
I thought you had become Just Some Guy Without A Mustache
The Y. stands for Yuffie
Quarantine is so bad that Jared is advertising a VPN to a disc case
Quarantine is so bad that Jared had terrible takes and misinformation in this review. I'm surprised he didn't properly research or remember
@@Walamonga1313 still a mostly good review tho
The game was telling the player Cloud wasn't who he believed he was from the get-go, you're fighting SOLDIERS 3rd class at the Shinra building who do as much damage as Cloud at that moment, and as you get stronger you fight 2nd class and 1st class, any of them would've mopped the floor with you at the start of the game.
lol true.
i never looked at it that way but its true
I love that crisis core make Zack more of a person and is still to this day my favorite Final Fantasy game.
Loved the review. I disagree mightily on your opinion on Sephiroth. FF7 treated Sephiroth much like Spielberg treated Jaws... the nightmare is in what you don’t see.
I agree. First time playing, every time I saw a trail or collection of dead bodies, I knew what was up and was legitimately scared. First time they pulled it, with no explanation and freaky monsters, it gave me the chills.
3:54 Most satisfying, nostalgic inducing sound... gave me goosebumps!
While the video is generally decent enough, the vibe I'm getting from this video is that Jared still kinda hates the fact that FF7 has become THE FF game over something like FF6. cuz some of the complaints don't make any sense, the game did an amazing job setting up and showing how powerful sephiroth was, and seph looking goofy can all be attributed to the visuals being from '97.
about yuffie: her ultimate weapon, the conformer, is really easy to get and it rips through enemies because the damage it hits scales up to the enemy's HP. put 2x cut on her and she's as broken as tifa + curse ring and powersoul.
this is my favorite game of all time. it's nice to hear your thoughts on it, great review.
Her Level 4 is really easy to get as well. I always pick it up in disk 1 before getting the keystone for the temple of the ancients.
There is an easy way to swap materia between characters. I haven't played in a while but I think you can use the Arrange function to swap all the materia on a weapon, armor or complete character (Materia menu -> Arrange -> Exchange)
Yeah, god that was useful, but not overly clear that it existed lol Kinda reminds me of how people struggled with GF and magic junctioning in FF8, although that might be a bigger issue than that of swapping materia... Ah well...
@@KitsyX it was buried in one of the tutorials that everyone ignores/skips. I only found out about it after watching my sister play and she was actually reading the tutorial.
16:40 I think the same thing as well. That one spoiler everyone knows kinda protects the actual plot twist. I checked with some friends who never played FF7 and they all know about the famous one but no one has even a single clue about the true plot twist
I literally can't hear Aerith's theme without crying and I haven't played this game in twenty years
I knew the "hard to swap" materia topic would come up after watching you play the game. You can actually fastswap materia in the system, you just never found it. :D
He actually did use it several times, it's just that it's rarely a 1:1 swap situation due to the different number of materia slots available depending on equipment, and the times where you have to form two parties, you have to divide your best materia, or at least put _something_ on those who aren't equipped with anything.
My brother and I played this together growing up. Good times when I didn't know how to play video games.
I thought Sephiroth threw a bouncy ball and then flew away, and I was literally on the floor laughing for five minutes.