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20 years later: Final Fantasy VII vs The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
- Thread starter Deleted member 249
- Start date
The first game with this sort of lock-on, from what I can tell, was Gundam on the PS1 from June 1995. Or perhaps it bridged the gap from earlier more sim-ish implementations like Earthsiege. This actually predates Virtual-On's brand of lock-on too.
Im guessing a few other games also had some kind of camera lock-on before Zelda, just not 3rd person adventures and in the way they implemented it.
Wow. Two of the greatest games ever made and two of the games that influenced entire generations. What a contest!
I'm so torn.
I have to admit that, at the time, I was more into my Playstation than my N64 and whilst I thought OoT was a wonderful game, it didn't capture my imagination like FFVII did. I mean, FFVII just blew everything else out of the water at the time. Whilst the exact same could be said of OoT, 27 year old me was more into dark and gritty than I was into fanciful and wondrous.
Then. Years later. I replayed OoT. Both the 3DS version and on N64. And, fuck me. as the memories came flooding back, it just blew and still blows me away today. The art style still stands up and whilst the camera and odd angles are a bit off, the gameplay and wonder of that world are just off the scale. In contrast, I downloaded FFVII on the PS4 and... it didn't hold up at all for me. My memories of it far out-do the reality. Whilst the art style is still fine and the rendered backdrops are still lush, the gameplay falls over when compared to modern games. Just for me at least - I can see others are saying the exact opposite above.
So. What do I do? Choose the game I preferred at the time or the one I appreciate today as a masterpiece?
I think I have no choice but to go with OoT tbh. I still love both games. I still think they are both two of the BGOAT. But if I had to choose one to play right now, it would be Ocarina. <3
I'm so torn.
I have to admit that, at the time, I was more into my Playstation than my N64 and whilst I thought OoT was a wonderful game, it didn't capture my imagination like FFVII did. I mean, FFVII just blew everything else out of the water at the time. Whilst the exact same could be said of OoT, 27 year old me was more into dark and gritty than I was into fanciful and wondrous.
Then. Years later. I replayed OoT. Both the 3DS version and on N64. And, fuck me. as the memories came flooding back, it just blew and still blows me away today. The art style still stands up and whilst the camera and odd angles are a bit off, the gameplay and wonder of that world are just off the scale. In contrast, I downloaded FFVII on the PS4 and... it didn't hold up at all for me. My memories of it far out-do the reality. Whilst the art style is still fine and the rendered backdrops are still lush, the gameplay falls over when compared to modern games. Just for me at least - I can see others are saying the exact opposite above.
So. What do I do? Choose the game I preferred at the time or the one I appreciate today as a masterpiece?
I think I have no choice but to go with OoT tbh. I still love both games. I still think they are both two of the BGOAT. But if I had to choose one to play right now, it would be Ocarina. <3
VII and IX are the best for me. X was amazing as the jump to PS2 made it look even more incredible. But I absolutely hated Tidus with his stupid shorts and teen angst.
Ehm... what exactly did FFVII do for the genre? It was heavily marketed and the CGI graphics were impressive and... that's it? I don't think it's considered to be the best RPG of its generation, neither the best FF game (imo FFVI was better).
A lot of gamers were exposed to JRPGs with this game but this was more a matter of Sony marketing the hell out of it and less of the game doing something new. In fact, I remember reading articles about a lot of returns by frustrated gamers in the US, who bit into the marketing and bought the game without really knowing what it was.
A lot of gamers were exposed to JRPGs with this game but this was more a matter of Sony marketing the hell out of it and less of the game doing something new. In fact, I remember reading articles about a lot of returns by frustrated gamers in the US, who bit into the marketing and bought the game without really knowing what it was.
FFVII has bit aged that well tbh. Tried to play it a few years ago and had a tough time.
Ocarina I can pick it up anytime, as long as you're not playing in a n64 the game holds up perfectly.
Ocarina I can pick it up anytime, as long as you're not playing in a n64 the game holds up perfectly.
Jrpg's are much harder to get into, Zelda is a simple adventure game.
You can't really compare the two, in critical terms at least.
There's stuff on both games that hasn't aged well at all (Dungeon design and Overworld for both games I'd say) , there's stuff that still holds up (Art design for both, combat for FF7 (debatable), pacing). They're both equally influential games. The first BIG 3D games that changed the landscape for how video games were made.
Discussions like these are fun at first sight, but threads like these always spiral out of control and people get way too invested in it.
There's stuff on both games that hasn't aged well at all (Dungeon design and Overworld for both games I'd say) , there's stuff that still holds up (Art design for both, combat for FF7 (debatable), pacing). They're both equally influential games. The first BIG 3D games that changed the landscape for how video games were made.
Discussions like these are fun at first sight, but threads like these always spiral out of control and people get way too invested in it.
I don't follow completely. In Gundam you lock on with a button and cycle through your targets by pressing that button again. Mostly like OOT's "switch" style. You stay facing them for attacking and circle strafing, and melee/shooting won't be have to manually aimed (although you can move the reticle to lead them, for example). Maybe not adventure, but the levels are big and open and you are freely moving around and choosing targets for 1 v 1 encounters like this.
It all feels pretty janky though, forward and back are actually acceleration buttons and there's a dedicated strafe button (hold it so left/right strafe, if locked it'll be circle strafe). You can also lose your lock if they get behind you too fast or you get hit for example.
Gundam Side Stories Sega Saturn from Sep 96 (and two sequels, last one from 97) is a rock-solid implementation though. The directionals change from free movement to relative movement after you press the lock-on button, for a permanent lock until you manually unlock or they die. Notice the big focus on circle strafing and quick dodges, looking for openings etc... Adventure or not!
No manual camera control while locked here, just moving your body.
I'll show you a 3rd person ARPG with adventuring and a much more similar implementation, give me a minute...
Late edit: The producer of these said their success altered the course of Gundam games towards that style, I see the director of Side Story made many many more with similar lock on mechanics over the years including in third person.
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What's that got to do with being more influential and more important than FF7?
I played OOT a couple of years ago for the first time, and I didn't really do it for me. I got bored halfway through and had to start over years later because I had no idea what was going on. Still a good game, but nothing earthshatteringly amazing that people have lead me to believe.
FF7 I played on release, so the comparison is probably not fair because of nostalgia and all. All I know is that I became enamoured with its cast and story and still am, something that didn't happen with OOT at all.
FF7 I played on release, so the comparison is probably not fair because of nostalgia and all. All I know is that I became enamoured with its cast and story and still am, something that didn't happen with OOT at all.
OoT hasn't aged that well for me. The story is still great, and it's a wonderful, magical adventure overall. But the gameplay is just too easy and simple for me now. Maybe it's still good for kids, but just speaking for myself, it's no longer very fun to play.
I never thought FF7 was good. I never really connected with the story and characters -- just gets a little too bizarre for me. And the battle system isn't anything special compared to the dozens of other great JRPG battle systems I've played since then. I still really love the prerendered backgrounds in FF7 though; they are beautiful.
I never thought FF7 was good. I never really connected with the story and characters -- just gets a little too bizarre for me. And the battle system isn't anything special compared to the dozens of other great JRPG battle systems I've played since then. I still really love the prerendered backgrounds in FF7 though; they are beautiful.
FFVII: Good RPG, great music and imaginative setting, but the storytelling seriously sucks and the game doesn't have narrative depth.
Zelda: As cookie cutter as the story could be at times between ripping off Peter Pan and having some pretty on the nose character twists, it had a message and a super strong presentation. The awe of "open world" does not hold up today, but it's a small easy to pass through playing field and everything else is timeless to me, particularly because of the unmatched dungeon design.
Easily Zelda for me.
Zelda: As cookie cutter as the story could be at times between ripping off Peter Pan and having some pretty on the nose character twists, it had a message and a super strong presentation. The awe of "open world" does not hold up today, but it's a small easy to pass through playing field and everything else is timeless to me, particularly because of the unmatched dungeon design.
Easily Zelda for me.
I mean it really depends how far you got. He's charming by pretty much Wall Street. It's only the very start that he's squall-like.
Not to say everyone has to like the character, it's just the idea of him being mopey is only really representative of the first 3 hours of the game (oh and every FF7 sequel bleugh)
I keep forgetting what a game changer Z targeting was. Also the auto jump was so weird at first and so natural after playing a bit.
I really don't care for another re release of OoT, prefer they give us an HD version at some point. At least for the first time I'm hopeful it happens, Nintendo has seen how well HD ports/remasters do.
It's kind of apples and oranges to me, but I didn't even enjoy Ocarina enough to finish it once, while I played through FFVII multiple times. I get that it popularized z-targeting and I get that for folks of a specific age, it was their first 3D game or their first Zelda or their first game at all. It just never clicked with me, though I'll admit to not having gone back to it since probably late 1998. Still, FFVII is memorable as a PS1 game and as a FF game to me, while OoT isn't even a top 10 Zelda on my list. Easy pick.
Final Fantasy games were the same old type of random encounter RPG's I'd been playing for years prior on my Commodore 64, so I wasn't impressed with it back in 1997. It had a great story sure, but the gameplay was dated long before development even started, to say nothing of when it released.
Ocarina of Time, on the other hand, broke new ground in gameplay systems. Story wise it's fine but obviously lacking next to Final Fantasy VII.
So both games approach things very differently and are both absolutely worthy of praise for the areas they pushed, but Ocarina was and will remain the bigger shock and influence to the industry than will VII.
Edit - I'll never forget that story a journalist writing an article about the game years later related about how he was at a developer's office at the time, one of the crowd watching one guy play the game, and more importantly the reactions of the people around him. Several people would periodically shake their heads at what they were seeing, others were fastidiously taking notes. When the guy playing got to the Gerudo Fortress there was a collective grown as the stealth gameplay was so similar to a game they had in development at the time, mechanics the entire game was based around, and here Nintendo had shoehorned it in to one masterful twenty minute section.
Ocarina of Time, on the other hand, broke new ground in gameplay systems. Story wise it's fine but obviously lacking next to Final Fantasy VII.
So both games approach things very differently and are both absolutely worthy of praise for the areas they pushed, but Ocarina was and will remain the bigger shock and influence to the industry than will VII.
Edit - I'll never forget that story a journalist writing an article about the game years later related about how he was at a developer's office at the time, one of the crowd watching one guy play the game, and more importantly the reactions of the people around him. Several people would periodically shake their heads at what they were seeing, others were fastidiously taking notes. When the guy playing got to the Gerudo Fortress there was a collective grown as the stealth gameplay was so similar to a game they had in development at the time, mechanics the entire game was based around, and here Nintendo had shoehorned it in to one masterful twenty minute section.
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Ocarina of Time by a landslide.
That was the easiest pick between two options I had to chose in a while.
Visuals aside OoT is a game that you could still release today and have it ranking among the best action adventures on the market.
FF VII on the other hand is like a gallery of all the most overused tropes and most common flaws in JRPGs and mechanically/gameplay-wise was never that interesting in the first place.
That was the easiest pick between two options I had to chose in a while.
Visuals aside OoT is a game that you could still release today and have it ranking among the best action adventures on the market.
FF VII on the other hand is like a gallery of all the most overused tropes and most common flaws in JRPGs and mechanically/gameplay-wise was never that interesting in the first place.
I mean, people refer to Z-targeting all the time, but in reality OoT was an incredible achievement in 3D world design. Its camera system featured actual direction to guide the player, the battle system was unprecedented for a 3D action game, the dungeon design was brilliant (and elevated its main designer, Aonyma, to head of the franchise) and the context sensitive button mapping was one of the first, or the first implementation of this design logic.
Add all the rest - the world building, instrument playing, horse riding, time travel, rumble pack implementation (remember fishing, or looking for treasure holes in the map?) and probably things that i even forget and you have a milestone in 3D gaming that few other titles have ever reached.
In my opinion it is laughable to compare it to FFVII.
I have played both games way after their initial release (Ocarina of Time around 2006 and FF VII back in 2012), so I have no real sense of nostalgia.
Gotta say, I love both games a lot. Ocarina of Time came into my life where I tried various Zelda iterations for the first time and it certainly turned me into a fan. FF VII on the other hand opened up a world to me that I still love to think about. It's the only FF game I have played through (although I tried and started up at least 3 other FF games in the past), so that's something.
But in the end, I have to give it to Ocarina of Time. It's achievements and influence for the gaming industry is still noticable today and I can't even count how many times I played through it in the last 12 years - at least 6-7 times on various plattforms. I love to think about FF VII, but I would probably not play it again right now (at least in its current form - I'm still waiting for the remake).
Gotta say, I love both games a lot. Ocarina of Time came into my life where I tried various Zelda iterations for the first time and it certainly turned me into a fan. FF VII on the other hand opened up a world to me that I still love to think about. It's the only FF game I have played through (although I tried and started up at least 3 other FF games in the past), so that's something.
But in the end, I have to give it to Ocarina of Time. It's achievements and influence for the gaming industry is still noticable today and I can't even count how many times I played through it in the last 12 years - at least 6-7 times on various plattforms. I love to think about FF VII, but I would probably not play it again right now (at least in its current form - I'm still waiting for the remake).
It's so weird that people say OoT has aged so poorly when pretty much every action-adventure and TPS game to this day still plays like OoT.
One is a timeless and generation defining masterpiece and the other one is a solid Final Fantasy.
Ocarina of Time. Play it to this day on 3DS, and if it ever comes to switch I will play it again.
I tried to get into FFVII on several consoles but just could not. Not to say it is not a great game, I'm certain it is, but it's likely not for me. (That said I played and enjoyed FFVIII and FFX)
I tried to get into FFVII on several consoles but just could not. Not to say it is not a great game, I'm certain it is, but it's likely not for me. (That said I played and enjoyed FFVIII and FFX)
So you deny that an adventure game is a much easier genre to get into than a Jrpg? Lol.
Adventure games are much more appealing to casuals/mainstream than Jrpg's.
FFVII, no question.
I didn't even like OOT at launch, much less now. BotW is still the only 3D Zelda to appeal to me.
I didn't even like OOT at launch, much less now. BotW is still the only 3D Zelda to appeal to me.
OOkkay. So Gunnm: Martian Memory is the first released in an action adventure setting, if you discount partial ones like Tomb Raider and others I know of.
This game has a battle stance button (select) that locks on when pressed if an enemy is available, if not you stay in the stance facing the original direction much like OOT...
(gifs reallly compressed)
...when locked jump + direction changes to roll dodge, there are also side steps, cycling through targets, a "stinger" like attack, timed counters for extra damage, simple combos (like DMC) using R1 as a modifier, and un-locking at any time to run away or whatever.
This had a kind of similar development timeline to Zelda, started 1995, released Aug 98 (three months before Zelda), although it was actually completed earlier but some drama with Sony forcing them to censor some stuff delaying them to that.
It was already in beta around the time OOT had its full z-targeting reveal in Nov-97 - before that OOT had only a few intentionally vague video clips of z-targeting from April-May 97 with no explanation - places like IGN were speculating some kind of auto-camera at that time.
So neither game influenced the other.
Gunnm had an early prototype demonstrated around July 96 that didn't (seem to, hard to tell from the cut on the vhs highlight) have the targeting implemented yet. It might have been more like Tobal's adventure mode at the time, not sure. Bear in mind OOT had no real media until later that year, when they showed clips with no evidence of z-targeting yet as well.
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...why the 3ds art? cmon now
edit: i guess I'm used to the character models. art seems the same. *shrug*.
FFVII for me
edit: i guess I'm used to the character models. art seems the same. *shrug*.
FFVII for me
I still play Final Fantasy VII to this day. I've beaten it many times and I can't get enough of it. Ocarina of Time, I moved on from. Breath of the Wild is the definitive 3D Zelda experience for me so there's no reason for me to go back to playing OoT. Even in 97/98, I enjoyed VII a lot more. I'm the kind of person who enjoys linear narratives more than action adventures anyway.
OOkkay. So Gunnm: Martian Memory is the first released in an action adventure setting, if you discount partial ones like Tomb Raider and others I know of.
This game has a battle stance button (select) that locks on when pressed if an enemy is available, if not you stay in the stance facing the original direction much like OOT...
(gifs reallly compressed)
...when locked jump + direction changes to roll dodge, there are also side steps, cycling through targets, a "stinger" like attack, timed counters for extra damage, simple combos like (like DMC) using R1 as a modifier, and un-locking at any time to run away or whatever.
This had a kind of similar development timeline to Zelda, started 1995, released Aug 98 (three months before Zelda), although it was actually completed earlier but some drama with Sony forcing them to censor some stuff delaying them to that.
It was already in beta around the time OOT had its full z-targeting reveal in Nov-97 - before that OOT had only a few intentionally vague video clips of z-targeting from April-May 97 with no explanation - places like IGN were speculating some kind of auto-camera at that time.
So neither game influenced the other.
Gunnm had an early prototype demonstrated around July 96 that didn't (seem to, hard to tell from the cut on the vhs highlight) have the targeting implemented yet. It might have been more like Tobal's adventure mode at the time, not sure. Bear in mind OOT had no real media until later that year, when they showed clips with no evidence of z-targeting yet as well.
This game is like sort of similar but its not putting the camera directly behind the player in a cinematic style. Like it looks like a set camera no matter where you're locked on in that one. Probably helped that OoT was so immensely popular and critically acclaimed that everything it did right was more likely to be emulated and influential.
FFVII is a timeless masterpiece that was way ahead of its time.
Till this day the atmospheric world and soundtracks \ Story and cast of characters \ gameplay and the variety of side things you can do is top notch.
Nothing can compete with its charm and magical feelings even the Remake.
Till this day the atmospheric world and soundtracks \ Story and cast of characters \ gameplay and the variety of side things you can do is top notch.
Nothing can compete with its charm and magical feelings even the Remake.
To another really popular and highly acclaimed game! Lol
I kind of like these Ocarina of Time discussions because every time they happen, I learn about some ultra obscure PS1 game that technically did something that OoT did a few months earlier.
LoZ? Really? LA was really lineair, fun though. LttP fell into the same tier for me.
The first game with this sort of lock-on, from what I can tell, was Gundam on the PS1 from June 1995. Or perhaps it bridged the gap from earlier more sim-ish implementations like Earthsiege. This actually predates Virtual-On's brand of lock-on too.
Never played those, I was a nintendo kid :) Not sure how that was implemented. Regardless, you saw a lot more titles in the action-adventure mode using this kind of mechanism after OoT.
