Thar be spoilers ahead.

How many times have you heard that Final Fantasy VII is the best game ever? Square Enix is making a 'remake' after almost 20 years so it clearly has a huge following and I'm happy to see it happen.

Up until maybe a week ago I was sure it was my favorite Final Fantasy, and I'd defend it saying it has a rich story and the characters are amazing! Barret has a gun for a hand, c'mon!

I went back and played it on the PS4 and I've come to the conclusion that Final Fantasy VII is good, but really weird sometimes.

At the beginning of the game you might recall that you are blowing up power reactors that are needed by loads of decent, hard-working people. The group you are part of is AVALANCHE, some kind of eco-terrorist organisation. Their goal is to take down Shinra, a tyrannical, underhanded energy company, who are literally sucking the life energy from the earth.

The playable character, Cloud, is a mercenary who doesn't care as long as he gets paid. Oh, he also has amnesia. because of course he has amnesia, and maybe it'll be good in the long run so he can forget all the people he's going to make miserable.

Later on, Shinra retaliate against AVALANCHE and destroy an entire sector of Midgar -- a place that Shinra themselves created -- in the hopes that they kill Cloud's little gang. They literally crush the entire population of Sector 7 to death in an extremely dark cut-scene where I assume small children and cute pets probably died.

Do you know what my character was doing not too long before this happened?

You guessed it! He was in a squatting competition, trying to out-squat a muscular cross-dresser in order to win a wig. With said wig, he can sneak into a brothel dressed as a woman.

For some unbelievable reason, this insane plan actually works, and the owner of the brothel - who has undoubtedly seen women of all types, is fooled by an awkward guy in a wig.

This section of the game is so weird that people who otherwise know nothing about FFVII, know about the cross dressing part. It's so memorable that you can also forget that it's not even close to being the only strange moment.

Remember this thing? Yeah, it's a house. Well not actually a house but a creature that just looks like a house. I'm not even entirely sure there's any explanation for it. The game really just says "Fuck it, here's a house monster, and it's also possessed or something, okay?."

Obviously there's other moments that stand out:

• The implied rape scenes by other humans and animals alike.
• The bit where Barret straight up accuses you of being a pedophile while you're on a romantic gondola ride.
• Palmer getting HIT IN THE FACE BY A TRUCK mid-battle.
• The snowboarding mini-game and how long it goes on for.
• Barret disguising himself as a sailor, even though he stands out due to the fact he has a GUN FOR A HAND and is twice as big as everyone else.
• Cait Sith in general. What the hell is it?
• The fact that your party still has to do their victory dance even when you're escaping from a bomb and have very limited time.
• Finding Vincent in a coffin. And actually being able to miss him completely.
• Remember when Yuffie stole all of your Materia? And you had no choice but to go get it bacK?
• The Knights of the Round Table summon being over two minutes long. Perfect for bathroom breaks though.

Boy does this game go places. Don't get me wrong, I love the game, but it certainly wins the award for weirdest Final Fantasy game ever made.

Right beside FFX-2.

You should try Final Fantasy 8

I played it for the first time this year, and I agree. Super weird.

Which was not what I was expecting based on all of the other stuff that came out with the FFVII name on it. That movie they made was deadly serious, and all the spin-off games looked dark and brooding. I was absolutely caught off guard by the silly mess that is Final Fantasy VII.

@pyrodactyl said:

I have and I love it. That goes places too, I agree. It has flying schools FFS. And I think dinosaurs within the school. Hahaha. Beautiful.

@drekly: time travel, saved by a space dragon and the actual gameplay systems are way weirder too.

All the Final Fantasy games are like that to a degree, though some more so than others. Because they're all over the place tonally, it lets people focus on and remember the parts they enjoyed while brushing aside the parts they disliked. Just which parts are which is why the fandom is so splintered. I personally like FF8 a ton, but it's because of the characters and the setting, not the crazy plot or potential to hose the battle system.

I think 7 is way weirder than 8. In 8 a bunch of weird stuff happens in the plot, but the characters and setting are relatively well-grounded (though we all need to pretend that a certain orphanage never existed). In 7, the plot is arguably less weird than 8, but everything else is crazy weird; as described by the OP.

The only weird thing about 7 is the absurd amount and variety of mini-games in the first 10-15 hours of the game.

This is why I wonder if people REALLY want a remake of 7 or are just riding on a nostalgia high. It feels like this kludged together thing.

Cloud Strife over Squall Leonhart any day of the week. FF 8 is a sogging mess of a sad main guy.

Finally beating that brothel-part is one of my favorite gaming memories. I remember it so well because the first time I beat it (was stuck for a LONG time) my mom immediately pulled the plug on my PlayStation to use the vacuum so I had to do it all again.

You are correct in your assessment.

Everyone recommending that this user play Final Fantasy VIII... you people are monsters.

I thought I taught you better than this.

FFVII is a trip, but XIII-3 is weirder. The bar done got raised.

JRPG-ass JRPG....I never realized how bizarre that game was until you put just a few of the weird crazy things in a list and you basically left the main plot out of it entirely.

One thing though that Brad pointed out in a bombcast a few weeks ago...in ff6 you can suplex a train. Also you fight an octopus in the sky

I replayed it like a year or two ago. It still holds up IMHO. Still my favorite Final Fantasy and a top five all time game for me.

@mento said:

Only Final Fantasy I haven't played is XIII-3, how weird is it? Is that the game where you can travel in time?

YEAH! And don't forget Bahamut (I think?) in that facility where you had to answer him with an invisible dialogue option to fight him. Such a cool ass game.

I thought drawing magic in FFVIII was fine but I didn't wanna see it again in FFXV.

@drekly: Nah, XIII-2 is where you travel through time creating and then fixing time paradoxes with Lightning's schoolgirl sister, a moogle and a boy from the end of the world. XIII-3 is weirder than that.

Rikku is my waifu