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I think FFVII was so popular for a couple reasons:

1-the marketing. I don't believe there's been a game marketed quite as strongly as FFVII, except for possibly GTA: Vice City.

2-the fanboy fodder. Most FFVII fans I've run across extol the uber-awesomeness of Cloud, Sephy, Vincent, or some combination of the three.

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Sooner or later, I'm going to post in or make anew a topic on the complexity of FFVII's plot and whether it was "fit" for the RPG medium.

I'd like to see that. Sounds very interesting.

I saw alot of "well, it was the first game that did x, y, and z" posts, but that really wouldn't be it. This is just one example, but FFIV was the most innovative RPG for the SNES (arguably, of all time) and was also the first RPG for the SNES, but more people, I have found, hold FFVI in higher regard than IV.

I think it had to do with the game catching people at an age where a simplistic, drawn-out, hole-filled, convoluted story can be seen as wonderful if the angst level is high. When FFVIII upped the angst ante, most of the people playing it had already played VII and moved beyond that age, slightly, and found the higher level of angst annoying. This is kind of like that arguement I heard that people only think the first Star Wars Trilogy didn't suck as bad as the second trilogy because they saw the first one when they were ten, and everything's better when you're ten. Go back and look at the cartoons you watched when you were little. I grew up on the Marvel cartoons, the Timm-Dini cartoons, Power Rangers, Ninja Turtles, and the Tick. Going back, most of them suck, even when they're not being preachy. The same will be true with the rest of you. The only difference is, we didn't form an emotional and/or psychological attachment to these shows like people did with FFVII and Star Wars.
When people formed the attachment to FFVII because of the one aspect of the story that appealed to them, the rest of the game became "perfect" by proxy. Materia is far from being original, having the biggest weapon doesn't make Sephiroth "badass" (actually, the opposite is true), and all the hairstyles are stupid-looking, yet these are all reasons people list as why FFVII is the "best game evar."

And for the record, I also blame anime.

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"I had to write four novels before they let me write comic books."
-Brad Meltzer

Except for the Tick. Ren&Stimpy, nowadays, I can't stand. The sands of time obscure
all.

For me, it was stepping out of 2d. Even with limited 3d presentation, it fascinated
me. The movie cemented my affection, with its lavish rendering (manifesting what
could have been, but for the hardware). In fact, I remember loving FFV more in
the Anthology release because of the added FMVs. 'I didn't love you as much yester
day I as I do today' ... because today you have fmvs to enrich my imagination.
I even enjoyed reading TheHobbit more after seeing that the Shire, and its hobbit
population, were cool in a way and not as lame as when I first read it 'sounded'. It
was in the FellowshipOfTheRing movie, but it opened my admiration to a print-
media book that takes place before the series.

Thus, for me, no longer being a sprited cartoon made a world of difference in my
enjoyment of FFVII.

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Putting the A's in W lm rt: A11smart, Jobclass: Retailer.

id have to say its really popular because of its likeable chracters, cloud is cool top+bottom of it, so is sephiroth, some of them im nt fussed on but theres no1 i dislike (apart from don corneo, but im discounting ppl like him as hes not massive 2 the story line) even rufus is cool in his own lil red haired way so yano,

look at VIII, i liked seifer the most an he was just alrite some of them just plain pissed me off on VIII
IX wernt much better, the main chracter had a tail an was 4ft 5
X Auron was cool but tidus was a bit of a girl an 1 of them main enemies was a priest so thats y i loved VII

This post has been edited by cloud17 on 15th July 2006 21:06

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In the end, it boils down to two simple choices. Either you do or you don't.