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4. No. Making your own Gummi Ship is not fun. In fact, it's the exact opposite.
I used to behold with contempt those sad individuals who bought a PlayStation for NBA Shootout, and ended up duped into buying Final Fantasy VII by Square's computer-animation-extravaganza of a television ad campaign. I had to help a few of them tackle the final dungeons. It wasn't pretty.
"Dude, you have, like, no materia, or magic spells."
"Shit," one guy said. "I didn't know how to use that shit."
I wonder how the high school kids in my IRC channel feel when I tell them "I don't feel like making a Gummi Ship of my own."
They probably think I'm some sort of hard-headed dumbass.
Well, it's true. I don't feel like making a Gummi Ship. I don't even feel like flying the Gummi Ship. (Much like the producers don't ever feel like showing us the Gummi Ship, in the context of the "story," outside its introduction) At first, shooter fan that I am, I thought, "Yeah, this is alright."
Hours later, holes had been bored into my skull. I understood why not a single Square-released screenshot had ever shown the Gummi Ship: "Look, a fun way to get between worlds!"
I was getting vocally ticked off at the amount of vibration when I hit walls -- which didn't happen very often.
My friend: Damn, man, you can always turn the vibration off.
Me: ____ you!
Much as I didn't feel like making a Gummi Ship, I didn't feel like taking advantage of the "synthesis system" for making new items.
I scoffed every time I opened a treasure chest, and was told that three puppies had "returned home!"
I mean, what the hell? For the game's main sidequest, that sure is weak as hell. You open a treasure chest, and three of the 101 Dalmatians "return home." Why can't we see them leave the treasure chest? Or at least learn who put them in there? Why three at a time? Why can't certain ones be won in arena battles, or bought in rare shops? Why not mix it up, make it truly epic, or reward me as I go along?
Oh, oh -- because the sidequest was an afterthought?
I see.
This is inane, people. This is thrown into the game as an illusion of Final Fantasy VII's depth. This is "replay value" of the lowest order.
And building your own Gummi Ship is replay value of the chunkiest order. The system is so slow, so ridiculously menu-laden, that it comes off as a joke. I mean, really, do they expect people to do this? And what does it say about the people who do?
Again, we get "The King's Camelopard." The men tricked into attending the show -- which turned out to be a three-minute hoax -- didn't tell their friends how much it sucked. Rather, they went on to laud the performance, just so they wouldn't feel like they were the only ones who fell for it.
What's more is that the conmen in charge had predicted this very reaction, much as Squaresoft predicted your -- our -- "Aura Purchase."
[Next: tim rogers summons ted woolsey: 37,000 damage to tetsuya nomura's 'story'telling]
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