Zelda.
OoT for me. FF7 is great, but I play OoT at least once a year. 7 I’ve only finished once.
I’ve only played oot, but it’s a wonderful game. My first Zelda game that completely pulled me into the series.
Final Fantasy VII, even though it was unfinished at the time. The N64 Zelda games never did anything for me personally but I’m in the minority there.
what do you mean it was unfinished at the time?
The game’s story is thread-bare and incomprehensible in places because a bunch of stuff got cut extremely late to get the game out the door. The entire Zack thing. Yuffie and Vincent had almost everything related to them cut out entirely. And then there was the english localization which fixed some of those issues but added more of its own with the pretty bad translation making things even harder to figure out. Square would end up doing the same thing but far far worse with Xenogears with large chunks of the game removed and replaced with text at the beginning of the second disc to give one example.
One of them I’ve started 4 times but never finished and the other made me scared of chickens.
Looks like someone clucked around and found out!
looking back its a weird thing to even have in the game
It goes back at least to A Link to the Past. Not sure if there’s precedent before that.
I think it started in that one, still wonder how the revenge squad idea came about though.
OOT is objectively bad in hindsight, despite having played it like 20 times myself because of the place it holds in my memory as being something I’d never experienced before. Here’s the argument: https://youtu.be/XOC3vixnj_0?si=xnuSdmY942tBQGpp
FF7 has its flaws but IMO is a better designed game
Thing is those criticisms also mostly apply to FF7.
Disconnect between combat and exploration? I see that for Zelda, but ff7 goes harder, with a random encounter jolting you into a different game engine for combat.
To much time in combat waiting while nothing happens? FF7 battle system is mostly waiting for turns to come to with lots of dead time.
Exploration largely locked to narrative allowing it? Yeah, FF7 had that too, with rare optional destinations a very prescribed order and forced stops. It opens up late in the game.
The video generally laments that OOT was more a playable story than an organic gameplay experience, and FF7 can be characterized the same way. Which can be enjoyable, but it can be a bit annoying when the game half of things is awkward and bogs things down a bit. Particularly if you are getting subjected to repeated “spectacle” (the slow opening of chests in oot, the battle swirl, camera swoops, and oh man the summons in ff7…)
They both hit some rough growing pains in the industry. OOT went all in on 3D before designers really got a good idea on how to manage that. FF7 had so much opportunity for spectacle open up that they sometimes let that get in the way. Also the generally untextured characters with three design variations that are vastly different (field, battle, and pre rendered) as that team try to find their footing with visual design in a 3d market.
You’re correct on all fronts, but I guess what I would point out is that those design elements were a staple of the FF franchise long before 7. It was another turn based strategy role playing game in a series of turn based strategy role playing games. With OOT you had a real time action adventure franchise with a game using design elements you’d expect from…well, from a turn based strategy role playing game xD
That’s where I have issues with OOT in hindsight. It stumbled in executing on its own self-image, whereas FF7 did a better of job of understanding itself
I think turn based is fine and in fact I like. However, when no one has a turn it’s annoying to sit around while nothing happens as the timer keeps ticking. Also, to make it “active”, the turn timer doesn’t stop when you hit the menu. If you delay your action the enemy may get to take their turn, just because you neglected to navigate the menu. I think ATB is actually the worst of both worlds, would prefer either turn based or action RPG rather than being forced to navigate a menu in some facsimile of ‘real time’.
Where FF7 kind of went south from a gameplay perspective compared to 6 was that in 6, summons were a brief flash. In FF7, by contrast, for example Knights of the round would “treat” you to an 80 second spectacle, which was cool the first couple of times, but then just a tedious waste of time. Generally rinse and repeat this for any action that was pretty quick in FF6 and before but a slow spectacle in FF7, with no real option to speed up those animations you had already seen a dozen times that wore out their welcome long ago. Just like that stupid chest opening in OOT.
Anyway, I did enjoy FF7, but the “game” half was kind of iffy.
Final fantasy. The controls and camera on oot we’e so annoying I quit after about 30 minutes. That’s not to say ff doesn’t have its own issues with camera and such.
It was a toss-up at the time but I’d argue FF7 has aged much more gracefully. Sure, you’ve still got the Lego figures and messy navigation on pre-rendered backdrops, but the battles still feel snappy and dynamic even with the low framerate. It isn’t a slog like FF8 and especially FF9 turned out to be when they started pushing the hardware.
Ocarina, meanwhile, has full-on 3D camera jank.
Are you trying to start a
fightwar?Some kinda battle fight war conflict.
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For some reason, I just can’t get into FF7. I mean, I’ve beaten, 4, 5, 6, and 8, but 7 puts me to sleep.
So that’s a vote for Zelda from me.
I think this is rather impossible to answer.
One of the biggest issues is that context changes over time.
FF7 in particular is nearly unplayable by modern standards, imo. The amount of transition times (random battles with 20 second intros and 20 second outros) and lack of QoL features make it ridiculously hard to swallow. There’s also an expectation of mindless “grinding” that has largely written out of modern games. Even the remake uses side missions, which at least have some interesting elements to them, rather than pure mechanical “go spend 2 hours killing basic enemies”.
OoT has many good things going for it, but the live controls and weird camera behavior have been largely solved by games nowadays.
If you consider them in the context of the current time, both were unlike almost anything that had been seen. And given the price/console exclusivity at the time, I’d venture that very few people actually played them at the same time in their contexts.
Both were absolute revolutions of their time, which isn’t capturable anymore. It reminds me of the movie Predator. It became the foundation for so many things, but modern movies have taken everything that Predator did and did them better. By modern standards it’s a clichéd action movie with basically no plot. Makes it hard to judge.
While I agree with the spirit of your comment, I’m not sure I’m on board with Predator being outclassed by works influenced by it. Admittedly, I’ve not watched Prey, so grain of salt and all. I hear it’s quite good, but with it being put in a historical context rather than contemporary, I think it’s a bit of a different animal.
I am curious to hear examples of films you think improve upon the og Predator’s formula. If nothing else it will give me some new movies to watch.
I’ll save you some time. The answer is always FFVII
Simple answer: Majora’s Mask is the best.
Very true, that was a simple answer. A wrong answer, but a simple one.
I love both games very much. I’ve played both a ton but I’ve definitely played OOT more so I suppose that’s my preference. But for me, the real question is between Chrino Trigger and FF6, as those are my two favorites.
