Few thoughts on the game.

GameGeeks

GameGeeks

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Don't know about anyone else, but the materia system beats any customize system in any other rpg I've played. Grids in FFX and XII meh. Seem more like a downgrade of the materia system to me even though you can potentialy get every spell and what not on one char. But 16 slots for materia is more then enough anyways. With a system like that of FFVII you can use any char you want at any given time and if you're forced to use a char you normaly don't use you only have to worry about the level of said char and not gain points and what not to get them usefull skill. Since the progress is saved to a particular item you can just transfer it and be done with it. Yes I know with the grid you can still get points for out of party chars but the chars start at different areas and it could take more points to get to a particular part of the grid to give them what you want them to have. I also get the whole uniqueness thing in battle but I rather use chars I prefer for storylines then battle.

:banghead: Crap, I had something else I wanted to talk about but I can't remember what it is. Oh well. If I remember later I can just post it then. :P
 
This should belong in the I just beated ff7 here is my review thread

The materia system was the best for me too. I loved master magic+hp/mp absorb. They did good in Crisis Core when you could fuse it although getting 100+ or 999% was hard it was still a good idea. I also liked how the other members didn't drag behind and if I'm not mistaken they level up with you but not as much.
 
Members out of party got half the xp gained. While not much was better then nothing. I think IX did the same thing. Yeah I love thinking up combos though I tend to stay away from cheap ones. Though final attack=pheonix was the cheapest I go combination wise. Not to mention FFVII probaly had the strongest summon of any FF to date. Though Clouds omnislash could still out damage it.
 
Yeah the materia system for me was the most straightforward. There u could choose what magic u wanted. And the materia combos were easy to make. I found that levelling materia was a good incentive to keep playing the game and at the same time u could level the team.
 
I fell in love with the materia system - and since this was the first ever RPG I ever owned (damn - first game console game I ever owned when I purchased it with a PSX system - again, the first game system that I ever owned.)

So... after playing other RPGs. I got spoiled.
 
Makes you wonder why they never used a simular system again. With a few tweaks you could easily have placed it into many game types.
 
The materia system in FFVII was simple, flexible, and easy to understand and there were infinite amounts of ways you could combine your materia which I liked. Even 80 hours into the game I was still finding new ways to combine my materia differently. I felt that Square dropped the ball with the Junctioning system in FFVIII. It was too complicated. FFX's grid-system was alright, but the materia system was still better.

GameGeeks said:
Makes you wonder why they never used a simular system again.
Click to expand...
It's crazy, isn't it?
 
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Yeah, great system. Don't know what they did with it in DoC but don't blame them for changing it a bit in CC since that was a more action oriented game.
 
Hmmmm nah ive gotta disagree, i did prefer the materia system to the license board but in comparison to the sphere grid and the junction system i thought it failed.
The junction system for example is so much fun to play around with, sure it makes the game rather easy but after umpteen playthroughs the game is easy anyway. I loved drawing loads of magic and giving my characters a huge boost right at the start.

The sphere grid i loved because you know exactly how much your characters stats are developing and you can take then in any direction you want.

I did like the materia system, making combinations was a great invention and made for a more interesting battle, my main criticm of it would be the fact that it takes so long to master magic, and the fact that materia changed your stats rather annoyed me.

IX was quite a dissapointment i feeled it was too limited and the restraints on how many abilities you could equip was far too low.

sorry for the long post :P
 
I think everyone agrees that the materia system is the best. i was so dissapointed when playing other FF after playing FF7
 
^ Bit more effort in your post please

I liked he Materia system, but have it in every game? No way, it would get old and boring fast, you'd also have to have a similar weapon set up with the slots... I remember playing VIII thinkg ZOMG, where are my materiaz :gasp: The materia system is certainly better than the junctioning system, but I'm all for trying new things. And I think the Sphere grid shits over everything anyway, that was the mutts nuts IMVHO

It was good yeah - the posiblities were endless with the materia combos and you could create your own classes, but I was more interesting in mastering my materia than coming up with any funky combinations - so i just gave whoever what ever and tried to use my triple/double growth items as often as I could

I think the materia made it too easy. Once you have mime/KOTR?HP absorb you are all but undefeatable, and if you are high levelled, you can beat Sephy without even having any equipped....or healing once, for that matter <_< Although that's strictly not the materias fault, but still xD

In short, I thought it was a nice syste,m, but to see it recycled over and over in every FF game? No thanks, I like to see whats new rather than think, oh okay, I know this *skips tutorial*
 
The materia system is awesome because you can costumize each character with a job or simply as you want. I have mixed materis to create all te jobs from the other ff like thief, knight, and all the other jobs. Sometimes this makes the game fun.
 
TBH as easy as it was to use. I didnt find it all that intresting, much of the Materia you could go through the game without having to use. I got away with just tanking my party up and having a one character with Cure + All spell pretty much.


I didnt find and reason to use alot of the status materia, or much of the yellow materia.



I think if a so called Remake is ever released, they should incorperate a way to ensure you need to use these. Or maybe have an Advanced system like on FFX where you can choose to use basic or advanced sphere grid.

So maybe some of the stronger weapons can only hold certain types of materia or only certain colours.



As for summons, I think they become pretty useless pretty quickly. As soon as you get you basic elemental spells to level 2 they do the same damage at much lower MP cost.
 
The Materia system really takes from past FF Skill/Magic systems and makes it work flawlessly. Buying Magic from shops and then being able to level them up. It's better from just leveling to learn magic or buying stronger magics at shops.

It really worked great in this game but, I love how every FF game has a different system to use magic. It really makes each game unique.
 
Mischief said:
^ Bit more effort in your post please

I liked he Materia system, but have it in every game? No way, it would get old and boring fast, you'd also have to have a similar weapon set up with the slots... I remember playing VIII thinkg ZOMG, where are my materiaz :gasp: The materia system is certainly better than the junctioning system, but I'm all for trying new things. And I think the Sphere grid shits over everything anyway, that was the mutts nuts IMVHO

It was good yeah - the posiblities were endless with the materia combos and you could create your own classes, but I was more interesting in mastering my materia than coming up with any funky combinations - so i just gave whoever what ever and tried to use my triple/double growth items as often as I could

I think the materia made it too easy. Once you have mime/KOTR?HP absorb you are all but undefeatable, and if you are high levelled, you can beat Sephy without even having any equipped....or healing once, for that matter <_< Although that's strictly not the materias fault, but still xD

In short, I thought it was a nice syste,m, but to see it recycled over and over in every FF game? No thanks, I like to see whats new rather than think, oh okay, I know this *skips tutorial*
Click to expand...
I didn't mean every game. Though with ten and twelve it seems they tried to do something simular but make in needlessly complicated. As for KotR that summon was just plain over powered and I never used it. Same with mime. Though I do use mime if I'm doing classes. But then that's all I give that char and I set their gear to basic.
 
I found the materia system to be enjoyable and refreshing for the first couple of hours of FFVII, but in the long run it broke the game. After developing enough materia early in the game just became, especially after getting tons of summon materia. At that point everyone in the party essentially became high powered summoned/healers, and boss battles became non-stop summon spam, interrupted occasionally by healing and a limit break. My other big problem with the materia system is that it, more than any other customization system, removed all uniqueness from the characters, they are all essentially blank slates that can be changed radically on a whim without any consequences. Developing characters is secondary to developing materia, which always struck me as bizarre. This may just be my background in western RPGs talking, but I prefer customization where my decisions have weight and long-term consequences, requiring me to think carefully about which stats I change or magic I select.
 
Maybe if a remake, RED materia needs to recharge so you cant just blast out SUMMON after SUMMON. personally I dont use summons much, as the early ones ony have the same power as level 2 magic at a greater MP cost.
 
I love the materia system, you had lots of options and it was easy to grasp. Different weapons having different slots and growth rates was cool too. I like that the ultimate weapons (aside from Aeris' one) had no growth rate, so you had to try to master your materia if you didn't want to miss out on gaining experience for the equipped ones on your strongest weapons.

Yes, the correct materia could make the game very easy, but still, it's great fun levelling up, mastering and trying to get all of them!

I also like that it is unique to FF VII.
 
The materia system was my fav too. Although if you had made the master materia's you could have any and all characters maxed to the extreme. The system in FFX I suppose was a cut down version but that could be used on basically all characters as well. FFVIII was a little different I guess.
 
Definitely think the materia system is the best. Personally I'm not a big fan of the Junctioning though it was fun it was just a little bit too complex. Being a very big fan of X, I do think the Sphere Grid is neck-to-neck with the Materia system. However, I'd give the edge to the materia system as it allows for more flexibility yet being accessible at the same time. For your characters to acquire different abilities in X, you've to travel very far to other character's grids which would be just a tad bit tedious. I also love how they had different coloured materias for different types of abilities. They also integrated the materia/mako aspect so well into the main story of VII, bravo.
 
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