Talk:Final Fantasy VII

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July 2004 – June 2005 July 2005 – January 2006

Advent Children

I noticed that the Compilation part of the article had no reference to Advent Children. So, I wrote a small summary:

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children — The movie sequel to Final Fantasy VII, ocurring two years after the Meteor strike. The population of Midgar, still dealing with the aftermath of Meteor, has also to deal with a mysterious disease called Geostigma. Meanwhile, the ex-members of AVALANCHE face a new menace, three "remnants" of Sephiroth's will named Yazoo, Loz and Kadaj, while Cloud seeks atonement for his past sins.

Hope you find it good and useful. ;)

Request

I request that someone please write a detail account of the story for Lunar:_Silver_Star_Story and Final_Fantasy_VII. Lunar SSS and FF7 are classic RPGs, but their story section is highly summarized. For an example of a detail account of the story, section, please look at FF6.

In the story section of Final_Fantasy_VI, a lot of details are given, such as Kefka poisoning the water supply in the siege of Doma Castle, Terra unable to accept herself being a half-esper, the balance of the world is destroyed, etc. However in the summarized FF7 story section, nothing is mentioned about the death of Aeris in the hands of Sephiroth, Meteor threat, Tifa helping Cloud overcoming his psychological problem, etc.

Request: If anyone have free time and can write a good article, please spend some time writing a more detailed story for Lunar SSS and FF7.

Talk clean-up

I am going to start going through the talk page and moving old discussion to the end under an archive section until we are ready to move them into the actual archive area. If there are any objections to this, just yell at me. Tetsuo 15:39, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Why was Compilation merged?

What the hell? The compilation had its own article, and for good reason. I also saw no talk for merging. I'd like to know why.

~regruBgniK

There was a merge tag actually.

Personally, I thought the article was better alone. The compilation is continually growing and its cluttering up the FFVII article, and it was easier to just go to the compilation page rather than trudging through the FFVII article to get to the info.--Claude 06:44, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Censorship

My comment was based on having played both versions, nothing more. I don't recall anyone ever saying "Shit" in the PC version, which happens on a fairly regular basis in the PSX version, for example. PurplePlatypus 22:54, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I actually read an article in GamePro magazine before the game was released in the US that said the ESRB was considering giving the game an 'M' rating due to the whole Honey Bee Inn thing. If I could find the issue it was in, we could include it in the Title and release information heading. ~ Hibana 23:19, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I skipped the HBI on my only complete playthrough in the last few years, so I don't actually know how that came out in the two versions. I was only referring to the dialogue. But this does sound like a potentially interesting line of inquiry. (I know some of the dialogue most in need of a better translation was around that part of the game, too.) PurplePlatypus 03:32, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I can substantiate this; a number of instances of profanity which remained in the Playstation version's script were rendered as comic symbols in the PC version's script. I have no idea WHY, but... UOSSReiska 22:58, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Spaces

An anonymous user seems to have just spent a great amount of their (free) time putting two spaces between all the sentences in the article. I know that this is gramatically correct, but does this even matter on Wikipedia? You could put five spaces and it would still appear as only one space in the actual article. ~ Hibana 18:22, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

• I don't think it matters but I don't really care how many spaces there are after a space either, as long as it isn't more than two. For what it's worth, I just saw that the edit also broke the [[Mako (Final Fantasy VII)#The_Lifestream|Lifestream]] link by removing the right bracket, so I put it back in. --70.25.168.90 23:47, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
  • I've run into this a few times, and I never understand why people spend time on it. It goes along with people who go through an article and change all the [[10 January]] dates to [[January 10]] for no reason. --Pagrashtak 01:09, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
• People do this because in some writing formats, one space is required between sentences and in others, two are required. It is the same with date formats. In many non-American countries, peopel format the date DD MM YYYY. This is even done in the numerical date representation, making dates a big headache for international businessesTetsuo 15:48, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

FFVII Wiki Cleanup

The long and short of what I'm saying here is that Wikipedia looks like a Final Fantasy fansite. Cloud's page looks like a biography, Advent Children's looks like the reports that came out of Venice when the film was first screened there, just yesterday I had to merge Ultima Weapon with Weapons, and then we've got a plethora of unnecessary random pages.

Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy X are the worst about the whole thing. Head over to the Final Fantasy X Talk Page to see what I'm talking about in regards to it.

Final Fantasy VII's problem is that some pages are downright unnecessary. Until recently, there was even a page for the damn Sister Ray. Here's what needs to be addressed:

• Midgar (there's nothing that warrants it not being in the List of Final Fantasy VII Locations page; there's hardly so much to say about it that a general interest venue can't keep it sounding interesting without writing about everything from its newspapers to its schools).
• Materia (crystalized form of Mako; same attributes apply to both).
• Mako (condensed form of Lifestream which can crystalize into Materia; same attributes apply to both).

This is what I propose:

• Midgar is merged with List of Final Fantasy VII Locations.

There's no reason for all this stuff to be scattered across Wikipedia when it can conveniently and reasonably fit on shared pages. Thoughts? Ryu Kaze 09:18, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Have you visited Wikipedia:WikiProject Final Fantasy? A lot of work is being done there to remove non-notable article and make merges like you suggest. You would do better to suggest it there. --JiFish(^Talk/_Contrib) 12:04, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I've joined it, but didn't think to do that. That was a good suggestion. I've put up a notice over there. Ryu Kaze 12:32, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Honestly, if any individual location from the Final Fantasy series deserves its own article, it's Midgar. That being said, I'm not entirely convinced that any individual location from the Final Fantasy series actually does deserve its own article :). I'm sitting on the fence here: I'm concerned that the Midgar article is acting as a beacon for fancruft (I just removed an entire section on similarities to Metropolis that was a patent violation of WP:NOR), and I don't think it's long enough that it can't be merged into a list article. The problem is that in its current state, I don't think the content of this article belongs in List of Final Fantasy VII locations. The entries in that list are brief and largely geographical, whereas this article contains a lot of background information. I emphatically do not feel that expanding each entry in the list is a good idea, but I also don't know if slicing up the Midgar content so that it would fit there is a good idea, either.

I also think that Mako (Final Fantasy VII) might be too detailed and GameFAQs-y in general. Also, I have a feeling that Materia is going to be a more commonly searched for subject (though that's just a gut feeling). My suggestion is to pare down the Mako material into two or three paragraphs and to merge it into either the Materia article (not my personal choice, but there is a connection there) or Final Fantasy VII (where I feel it would fit most comfortably), and to move the current longer article to the Final Fantasy Wiki (like was done with Pyreflies rather successfully, IMO). Materia probably needs some significant copy-editing, but I think it can be kept as a seperate article, at least. Just my two gil, though. – Seancdaug 18:11, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Strong disagreement on your point that Mako is too detailed. I highly prefer a detailed version over a short version. I'm sure there are a lot of people out there like me who like detailed version. Please don't change it and keep it as it is. Otherwise include two version for this topic, one detail version for people like me who like to read highly detailed wiki, and one short version for people who like short wiki. 218.111.181.180 09:25, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I assure you I could edit Midgar into the list without looking awkward if that's decided. I'll write a revision of the one currently on the locations page later and put it up.

As for Mako and Materia, I see your point. Materia is going to be on the mind of the average researcher sooner. We do tend to think of things in their applications sooner than their base elements (t.v., computer, and blender before electricity, etc.). Mako could be made to fit here, but I really think it would be more tidy to put it with Materia.

My main gripe with Midgar remaining seperate is that it really isn't necessary on the whole, and it's just an invitation for tons of fancruft -- which means constantly removing references to Metropolis, Akira's Neo-Tokyo, and God knows what else -- as well as an invitation for pages on everything from Lindblum to Costa del Sol to be made. I really can't think of a single other Final Fantasy city that has its own page, and there's not really a reason that Midgar couldn't be made to fit on the location list.

I'll wait a little while for some more feedback from you and anyone else before doing anything. Ryu Kaze 20:03, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I've gone ahead and put up what I propose as the new Midgar section on the List of Final Fantasy VII locations page, but I've saved the original version of that section in case the decision's overruled. Also, be aware that I'm expanding the content of each of the other sections to account for the noticable increase in content that Midgar's getting. By the time I'm done, it shouldn't look at all awkward. I've already edited the eastern and western continents' content and am moving on to the northen continent. The work's almost done. Ryu Kaze 03:13, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Alright, completely finished now. If you'll take a quick look through the list, you'll find that while Midgar is still longer than the other sections, most of the others are of a significant size now as well, and that prevents Midgar from looking out of place -- and being that it's the first one on the list, that should prevent any feelings of disorientation or of a break in the flow of the article.

I've not actually gone through with merging the location articles yet since that hasn't been agreed upon up to now, so at the very least, what we're going to get out of this is a more fleshed-out locations list. Personally, I feel that most of the general interest information about Midgar is in the locations page now, and that having a Midgar page to describe a few events in a bit more detail isn't warranted or worth the headache of weeding fancruft. But, I'm aware that that opinion may only be mine and not shared by the rest of you. So, do we like or do we not like? Ryu Kaze 04:35, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

By the way, I'm going to go ahead with merging Mako with Materia. I've heard back on it from yourself here, and Gamemaker and AustinZ over on the Midgar Talk Page, and there's not been any opposition to the idea so far. I'll save a copy of it over on the Final Fantasy Wiki (after giving it a much needed clean-up), though, just in case it's needed to reverse anything. Ryu Kaze 11:19, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

NOTE: The issue has been settled. The Midgar page will remain. Head over to the List of Final Fantasy VII Locations Talk Page for more details. Ryu Kaze 13:01, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Character links template

Right, now there's {{FFVII character external links}} which I unceremoniously put on all of the character pages. Currently, it links to FFWiki and Square-Enix FF7 site.

Now, it also has fields for fanlistings, but apparently some people went to delete them from some of the character articles. My original idea was to add a link to each character's fanlistings.net-approved™ somewhat prestigious® fanlisting, which was infinitely more fun than watching people add zmillions of links to Random Sites. At least with fanlistings on the articles, we could point to their link lists.

So what's the idea now? I could fix the remaining articles to have links to fan listings and then edit the template to link to them. The remaining issue is, do people agree having links to character fan listings would be a good idea? And does anyone have any good ideas on where else to link to, besides ffwiki and official site? --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 16:46, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

May I ask why you felt is was neccsary to use a template? It seems a bit overkill to me. --JiFish(^Talk/_Contrib) 18:00, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

*furious confused head scratching* Ummm... guess you meant something else. It did occur to me that this might be a bit complex way, but if we have a bunch of characters that are described in several places, why not? --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 19:00, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

A template is a good way to deal with a single link that appears slightly differently on many pages. (As with an interwiki link.) A Final Fantasy Wiki template can be used on more than just the characters from one game, it can be used in practically every Final Fantasy releated article here on wikipedia. It is the grouping of several links for just the Final Fantasy VII characters that confused me. As for why not, well I don't have a reason. I've just never seen it before. --JiFish(^Talk/_Contrib) 19:46, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Chonological Timeline

I was wondering if anyone could post up a Chronological timeline of all the events through out the FF7 game and Advent Children. Maybe starting from the earliest event with Jenova.

Sounds like a good idea, with all the different sources used within this article it is extremely difficult for somebody without prior knowledge of the sources to know the correct order. Plebmonk 17:16, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

It is a nice idea but most of the sources are probably fanmade. ScotchMB 12:29, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Merging in articles

For the merger of Compilation of Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VII technical demo, see a discussion here. ~ Hibana 20:04, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Archive

This section is an archive of old discussions. If you are going to post to it, please move the entire block back up into the active Talk section and move it up one header size (take out an '='). Tetsuo 15:48, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Caps Lock

Why are some words fully capitalized every time. Arent we suppose to put them in italics if we want them to stand out? Tutmosis 18:59, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I assume you are talking about AVALANCHE, SOLIDER and WEAPON. These aren't capitalized in order to stand out. These are proper nouns, in which the capitaliztion is the correct form to render the name. (They were capitalized this way in FF7's script.) --JiFish(^Talk/_Contrib) 19:22, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Proposal for addition to the plot summary

The plot summary in this article is visibly 85% about the technical details of the game's sci-fi setting and 15% about the actual human story. I feel that this isn't right, that the human story is more important than any particular technical details of the setting.

Note that I am not advocating a complete change, if a majority of people feel that the deal with Shinra and the Life-Stream are important, than so be it, leave them there.

I added something like this:

"Final Fantasy VII's international popularity can probably be ascribed less to its sleek anime/sci-fi presentation than to its universal human themes. For example, Aeris Gainsborough can be compared to Richard Wagner's 'Holy Elizabeth' in that she represents the power of love to improve men's faults. The power of love to improve people is a truth not only in the universe of Final Fantasy VII, but among real people on Earth as well."

Any Comments/Criticism are invited.

--Zaorish 20:26, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

UPDATE: If this idea of universal themes doesn't immediately make sense to you, think about the similarities between the original Star Wars Trilogy and Final Fantasy VII. Despite Star Wars being Sci-Fi before that was common, and FF7 being an anime-style game before anime-style art was commonly accepted, they both were international hits exponentially above and beyond other movies and games. The two elements that they had in common were these Universal themes and leitmotifs.

--Zaorish 20:43, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

This strikes me to be orginal research if unsourced. --JiFish(^Talk/_Contrib) 23:07, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

OK...I went and read the article about original research. Because I've seen many articles with reader-contributed unproven theories, I assumed it was ok...Apparently it's not. So instead, putting aside ALL ELSE ABOVE, I propose adding this:

"Final Fantasy VII's story, among other themes, presents a redeeming power of love. Stories of people redeemed by love are shared by many cultures and include the story of Jesus, of many South and East Asian Bodhisattvas, many European Romantic Operas, some works of William Shakespeare, and popular films including the international hit Star Wars."

This passage seems to me to pass the restrictions on original research.

Again, comments and criticism are invited.

--Zaorish 04:44, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I would shorten this down to "Final Fantasy VII's story, among other themes, presents a redeeming power of love." The other examples seem a bit moot to me. I don't see how anyone looking up information on FF7 would want to know other tales have the this themes. After all, there are probabily thousands.

As for the other articles with reader-contributed unproven theories, it would be useful if you removed this orginal research, and pointed the authors to WP:NOR. --JiFish(^Talk/_Contrib) 14:07, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Good discussion, JiFish, thanks.
"After all, there are probabily thousands." You've hit the nail on the head. Many of the world's most popular stories, esp. the story of Jesus, the single most popular story in the world, center on this very theme. A story about one who sacrifices him/herself for the good of others is an archetype. People would want to know this because it links the reader from FF7 to the broader tradition of worldwide shared storytelling and shared values. I feel this is a very significant thing that readers would want to know.

How about this as a minimum: "Final Fantasy VII's story, among other themes, presents a redeeming power of love. Stories centered on this theme are shared and celebrated by many cultures."

And if you're feeling liberal about WP:NOR I might add this: "[...], and FF7's character Aeris has been compared to religious figures such as Jesus Christ and Buddhist bodhisattvas, because of the way she symbolically sacrifices herself to mend the failings of others." Again, thanks for your rational treatment of all this.

I will try to become a WP:NOR policeman in the future, though because it pains me to destroy interesting and new theories I wil try to do it nicely and give ideas on where else for people to share their ideas. --Zaorish 16:33, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

That's the problem, of course: an encyclopedia isn't a place for "new theories": it's a place for proven facts that can be verified externally. By and large, if you can't find information anywhere other than Wikipedia, that information shouldn't be on Wikipedia. Literary criticism (which is what I gather you're suggesting here) is one of those things that is difficult to verify externally, so it should really not be present here. I suggest moving it to the Final Fantasy wiki, myself, which isn't limited by the same rules as Wikipedia, and has a lot more room for theorizing and in-depth analysis. – Seancdaug 18:11, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Seancdaug, point taken, and thanks. I'm willing to adhere to the rules. I'll just add the facts and leave out analysis.

Lead section

In an attempt to reduce the lead section, I created seperate headers for sales/reception and allusions/influences. Deckiller 21:03, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Good Article status?

Does anyone feel like this page is ready for Good Article status? I've gone through and worked on the entire thing today to try get it there. Let me know, please (and feel free to nominate it). Ryu Kaze 17:49, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I nominated :) I worked on this page a bit in the past too, so I'd like to see it up to GA status. Plus, it leaves us with only a few more to go. — Deckiller 23:21, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

intro paragraph length

The intro has four paragraphs. Wikipedia:Lead section suggests that four is suitable for articles with over 30,000 characters, but this article only has about 20,000 characters. How about shrinking it down to two or three paragraphs? Shawnc 00:10, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

All set, I added the info in the last two paragraphs to its own section. — Deckiller 00:14, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Looks good, thanks. Shawnc 21:24, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Character ffwiki links

Just a random issue: Tifa and Cloud character pages had external links that looked like this:

• Final Fantasy Wiki | Tifa Lockhart

I fixed them up so they're consistent with the other links, like this:

• Final Fantasy Wiki article on Tifa Lockhart

I have a small issue with the former, sorry for being largely humorless here - those weren't formatted like most other external links. Links certainly don't use cutesy pipes. Pardon me for the opinion, but that sort of stuff only has place in either sites maintained by 12-year-olds, or in more "artful" or "entertaining" sites maintained by grown-ups. And this is supposed to be a boring dry encyclopedia. =)

The further beef I have with these links is that they're in "[[<source> article on <topic>]]" while most of the external links follow the format "[[<topic>]] <in/on/at/under/in front of/behind/between> <source>" format. I think they'd better work in format along the lines of

• Tifa Lockhart at the Final Fantasy Wiki

Righto? Unless someone objects strongly, I think I'll change them later. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 18:49, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

A template might be a good way to deal with this. --JiFish(^Talk/_Contrib) 18:40, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I think so. I was about to do some external link research, maybe I can templatify that while I'm at it. I'll be on to it shortly. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 22:03, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Translation?

Just out of curiosity, I read through the article, and it mentions that some grammatical mistranslations caused misunderstandings about the FFVII plot. Now, I have played the game several times myself, and have never had any trouble understanding it. Am I just automatically correcting the mistakes as I read (as I am known to do) or could somebody explain, and doe