4mo ago

What is the better game...The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time or Final Fantasy VII?

91 comments

FF7 has 0 bullshit water temples
- ... and so is thus inferior.
- There is a bullshit under water superboss though.
  
  At least he’s optional! And easier than Ruby…
- Water Temple itself was not bad. What was bad was having to pause to switch boots. There are mods nowadays to allow equipping boots to the d-pad and it makes the temple much more fun.
- I guess they're tied on that front.

I'm a huge Final Fantasy fan. Ocarina of Time is the better game.
- It's really gameplay vs story. Ott heavy on game play where ff7 can be like reading a book. nothing really revolutionary about its game play some beautiful backgrounds and a deep storyline. Ott has some seriously revolutionary 3d interactions.
  
  I didn't love 7's story. There's a bunch of fluff with every side-character having their own mini-story. The amnesia plot line in particular was annoying.
  I generally like the whole lifestream stuff. But I think the whole story is pretty mid compared to the storylines of other Final Fantasy games.
  
  Agreed, as a game, as in fun, ff7 wasn't very good. That music, those visual designs (the pre rendered stuff), and the story (though it suffered from bad localization) were compelling. But random encounters, fights filled with mostly waiting to be able to do things, the best attacks doing too much spectacle which was nice the first time, but pretty boring on repetition... The materia management became frustrating as you got more party members and no way to arrange or search, even with in game dialog mentioning how it was a pain...
  Chrono Cross actually had significantly better game design, with enemies on screen and no standing around waiting for some characters turn to come up before anything would happen. Wish ff7 had clipped the "no action allowed by either side" time and that would have helped immensely. Then it just becomes a matter of if the player prefers real time adventure to menu driven play.

OoT isn't even the best Zelda... Link to the past ftw
- FF7 isn't the best FF

FF9 was better than 7.
I know, you guys hate me now.
- Every Final Fantasy I have beaten has been better than 7.
  
  I like 4,5, 9, and 12 all more than 7 as an adult.
  But 7 was a cultural phenomenon, and it devoured my teenage imagination when it came out.
  
  Have you not beaten 7?
- You have no future in politics.
  
  Thank fuck for that
- I hadn’t played that one yet.
  
  I'm here to add my opinion that FF9 is superior to FF7.
  In general, I prefer when your characters have set classes. It feels like it lets the characters have more fleshed-out personalities.
  Without spoiling anything, it allows you to tell story through the medium. Have a character who spent his whole life in one class, relying on specific skills, and he maybe goes through a huge fight to signify that he's changed for the better? Congrats. You have a class change! Now you're a level nothing!
  Maybe someone traumatizes a caster, and now they can't concentrate, giving them a chance to fail their spells!
  
  If you can, I would like to recommend that you do.
- Comrade! There are DOZENS of us!
- Any reasons why? Seriously asking because I had a hell of a time getting into FF9 for some reason, to the point where I actually never finished it.
  I'm leagues older now and, hey, maybe I can go back and appreciate it differently...who knows.
  
  I love a lot about IX. However the combat is much slower than the other games. IIRC, an attack has to complete entirely and the character returns before the next character goes. While in VIII, the next queued attacker starts moving before the last one finishes their movements. Additionally, IX has 4 characters in battle. If you're bring strategic, it can be very slow moving. Also, every boss has a valuable steal, but chances of stealing it are low. So if you take the bait, you will spend a lot of time repeatedly trying to steal. Also, your abilities are tied to your equipment unless you grind out enough points to unlock them, meaning you either keep bad equipment, upgrade and abandon abilities, or grind until the abilities are unlocked.
  Also, the chibi-style art isn't for everyone. I had more issues with 7's style. But it's a preference.
  
  I played it a very long time ago, so I don’t remember specifics, but I generally just liked the story and characters better.
- 9 is one of the two I haven’t played yet.

Mechanics: FF7
Atmosphere: Ocarina
Storyline: FF7
Aged well: Ocarina
- Agree. And now for a room splitter:
  Music: FF7
  
  I love the music for both and both games were part of my teen life, and I replayed Ocarina of Time a lot more... but I agree with FF7. Nobuo Uematsu is incomparable.
- I would switch mechanics and atmosphere myself, but I agree overall that it is 2-2. Both are good for different reasons and they weirdly do not overlap on any of them with the exception of music which both were only slightly above average. With that said the OoT soundtrack is much more memorable. There is only a single FF7 track that I actually remember well.

I'd have a much harder time if the questions was A Link to the Past or Final Fantasy VI

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.

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 it's a matter of taste. I prefer JRPGs, so FFVII is the best one for me. But both are great games in their own right.
Ocarina is more innovative and its formula was copied for many years. Z Targetting especially (I know some other game used something very similar before OOT), set an example for everyone to follow.
And FFVII, while not that innovative, also set its own legacy: if not for FFVII the West would have missed many great JRPGs from then on. It opened the floodgates and publishers started thinking of US and Europe as viable markets for JRPGs. So we have FFVII to thank for that.

They're not even remotely the same. I wouldn't say either is better than the other.

OoT. It's not even a competition

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 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.

I've only played oot, but it's a wonderful game. My first Zelda game that completely pulled me into the series.

It's close, but I give it to Ocarina of Time. Both were genre-advancing technological achievements of 3D and cinematics. Neither of them are the best in their series, with better games before and after these. But Ocarina of Time is more fun in combat and in glitches, so it's better.
The better debate is what's better: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past or Super Metroid. Both, of course!

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.

Are you trying to start a ~~fight~~ war?
- No, just an open discussion.
- Some kinda battle fight war conflict.

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.

Zelda.

Simple answer: Majora's Mask is the best.
- Very true, that was a simple answer. A wrong answer, but a simple one.

OoT for me. FF7 is great, but I play OoT at least once a year. 7 I’ve only finished once.

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.

You already know which one is better. You know. Everybody knows.....and those that disagree with me are trying to start a civil war!!!
(Guys, I'm doing this new thing where I cause so much division, and threats of civil war that the concept of division loses all meaning, and nobody has any more hate in their hearts. That way we can go back to having nightly anal orgy surprise parties!)
- It's a Mario Party!

I'll save you some time. The answer is always FFVII

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

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