As described in the opening episode, my goals for this Let's Play are this...

1) To beat the game 100% (meaning all optional characters, all optional bosses killed, and all Level 4 Limit Break items collected).

2) To accomplish all of this using RTA/Single Segment speed run strategies collected from both Puwexil and Tomatorice, who between them, having figured out how to kill even the WEAPONs in a speed run setting.

3) To keep you guys entertained with my commentary (though I may need your suggestions and criticism with this one).

4) To try to upload a video every 1-2 days (but not if I think the commentary is bad).

5) To have great sound and visual quality.

6) To talk to every NPC unless you guys don't want me to.

In any case, here's Episode 1...

Let's Play Final Fantasy VII Part 1: Barret's Holy War (HD, 100% Efficient Run) - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHXaZWxF0ss)

Episode 2 is going to be uploaded in about a day or so. Unfortunately, the sound effects are missing from the first six and a half minutes because of editing troubles that were caused by losing the original video to desync, but, it's fine after about the 7:40 mark, so that's good.

But in any case, should you watch Episode 1, could you please tell me what you think of it? Don't ever be afraid to let me know what you think, whether you think it's good, or whether you think I'm annoying, or anything like that. I will always be open to your opinions, suggestions, and criticisms

Hello guys! Here's Episode 2! Now, unfortunately, this had some audio issues (there's no sound effects for the first 6:15-6:30 minutes, and there's a video edit at 7:17, but I can say for a FACT that the video is just fine after 7:40, with no audio or visual troubles or anything), and it's pretty much all text anyways, so some of you might skip this, and that's fine. Just make sure to get the All Materia and Ether in the Training Hall before moving on, alright? That's EXTREMELY important!

Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAu-7raEY1I

EDIT: OH, and by the way, this is extremely important. Do you want me to show off the tutorial dialogue in the Training Hall as well as Cloud telling Barret how to use Materia, or not? That's something I'd like to show because of how funny I think the dialogue is, but, at the same time, it's a lot, so I can understand why you wouldn't want to view it.

Alright guys, video encoding is about to begin, so this video should probably be up at around 7:00 P.M. tomorrow, at the latest. Thank you so much for your time, and have a nice day!

P.S.: Seriously, do you want me to show the tutorial dialogue or not? That's something I'm really curious about!

Sigh...well, sorry guys, I mean, technically the video is up now, but the game audio is delayed by about 1 second after the 10:36 minute mark. So, if you don't mind that, you can watch it now...

Let's Play Final Fantasy VII Part 3: By the Skin of Our Knees (HD, 100% Efficient Run) - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNrBJDnor2E)

But I'm going to have a fixed version uploaded by tomorrow, so if you want to wait for that, that's cool.

fluo i'm the one who answered you on youtube on your videos.

Really? So you're piromaniac9999? Cool!

Hey, for anyone who's curious, I may be slightly late this update, partially because I've taken the time to watch Crisis Core (so that I might discuss my thoughts on it later on in this LP. In fact, I may also do the same for "Dirge of Cerberus"), and partially because I've been reading an excellent screenshot LP of "Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney" which has now convinced me to get that game for Christmas. But, with any luck, I should get cracking on the next episode tomorrow. Have a nice day!

Sigh...I'm so sorry for all the delays everyone. The reason for this is because PSXJin is about as evil as emulators come, and was, apparently, released with only 25% of it's recording options actually complete.

See, I've been recording with the "Power + Memory Card" option so far, but for some reason, when I try to playback the second half of what would be the next episode, my emulator always crashes right at the beginning, and, as of now, is now crashing every time I record ANYTHING with the "Power On + Memory Card" option. So, I recorded the second half again, but then overwrote it when I thought it was suffering from desync (when instead, it just turned out that having a memory card with different save files then how it was when you were recording the movie...can cause it to desync). So now, I'm going to have to record that part for a THIRD time!

So, yeah, I just wanted you guys to know why this is taking so long. Well, that's why, but I am no less determined to bring you guys some quality episodes! Take care, and have a nice day!

Alright, so as a man who's always looking for a way to improve his videos, I signed up for the "Something Awful" forums, and presented my LP in the "LP Sandbox" thread (you're supposed to sort of "test the waters" so to speak, of your LP there). And here is the feedback I have recieved...

By Cake Attack...


A video LP of a turn-based JRPG, is also almost always a terrible idea, and from what little I watched of the video, this doesn't seem to be an exception. JRPG's are just generally a bad fit for video. Watching every random battle, and watching someone explore every nook and cranny of a dungeon can get pretty tedious, there's a reason most JRPG Lp's here use screenshots (so that they can cut the bulk of that stuff and focus on the essentials). It's nothing specific to the video itself, it's just a JRPG thing.

It could work with heavy editing, but it's generally accepted around here that JRPG Video Lps are pretty much verboten.

By scary ghost dog...


Well, I'm afraid your videos are not especially entertaining. You spend a lot of time talking about nothing interesting and you read things aloud that we are perfectly capable of reading ourselves. You're not funny, but that's just my opinion. You're not informative, and for such a tedious and uninteresting game it pays to tell viewers something they don't know. Your microphone is crap, or you have a terrible voice; either way, the ** sound quality on the vocal track doesn't help the video. Furthermore, you're not going to get very many viewers playing Final Fantasy 7 because anybody who cares has either played it or watched one of the billion amateur playthroughs available on YouTube and here.

I'm sorry if this isn't the reaction you wanted, but there's really nothing to praise. The A/V quality is bad because of your pointlessly complicated setup, the game is so boring it's criminal despite your attempts to make it interesting, and you are not a good commentator. Find another hobby or get much better at this one.

By Niggurath...


The first thing that grabs me is how absurdly loud you are; you really sound like you're yelling into your mic and it made me immediately want to shut off the video. The next thing that grabs me is the bad quality of your video; how exactly are you recording or capturing this? If it's through an emulator then you need to correct the settings cause it's clear that something is getting messed up (just looking at the missing lines in different letters should have hinted you off to that). Also you've got frame blending going on and it looks kinda bad when a lot of motion is going on. Onto your actual commentary you start to make mention of the current FF 7 LP going on right now in the forums and I'd say to probably stay away from that cause it'll just make people want to not watch your videos even more.

Not onto the idea of breaking and exploiting a game; now it can work with some games but what you're doing is massively dull. Running from battles constantly, and listening to you ramble on about your adoration or at the 10 minute mark when you decide to talk about roms and the evils of pirating...I mean you're in the middle of a boss fight, why not explain the boss? Also certain sound effects in the game overwhelm your commentary even with you sounding like you're yelling.

But really, really keep in mind that turn based RPG's are awful ideas to do in video format....and holy ** this alarm noise! Why is this alarm so horrid!

By Robust Laser...


That video made me turn it off really quickly though. Loud and annoying. Bad first impression.

By TwoDayLife...


People have addressed the technical issues you have so let's talk about commentary and presentation. Full disclosure I was only able to get through about 4 minutes of your first video.
Let's ignore the fact that doing a video Let's Play of an older RPG is a bad idea for a second. Let's talk about cutscenes, you mentioned that the purpose of your LP was to show off speedrun stuff. I'm sure most of us here either know or don't care about the general story of FFVII, your LP isn't about story, right? Why not skip cutscenes or put them in a separate video. No need to talk over them, you seem to lack in things to talk about 2 minutes into the video, instead of making sound effects for characters punching stuff, why not talk about the game then?

Do you need to show off all the dialog? Why do you want to talk to every NPC? Figure out what kind of LP you're going for here. You advertise it as a speedrun, why am I sitting through hours of dialog here? You have a pretty long game here, what the hell are you going to talk about? In combat you can go over techniques that you're using, but do we really need another LPer spewing off an hour long love letter to (spoilers)? Or talking about what impact (spoilers) had on him?

Bottom line: Figure out what you want to show us, figure out what you want to talk about. Figure out what's the best way of making it entertaining. Do we need to see you doing the same ** thing on 30 different random encounters? Do we need to see you reading every ** line of dialog in the game? Do we need to see you chocobo grinding for 3 weeks? Put your best material forward (the speedrun techniques), discuss it in an intelligent or amusing manner and cut the out all the fat, and this game has a lot of fat.

By Spiffo...


Fnordguy, the fact that you couldn't find much to talk about is exactly the problem. Solving that problem is your job as the LPer. If you can't fill that space, the solution isn't to just talk about whatever, you're supposed to STOP. Back up. Figure out what you're going to say.

So, I'm not here to complain about their comments and criticism, in fact, I love their criticism because they point to things I can improve. But, be honest with me, how much of what they have said so far is accurate? Would you agree with them? This is something I really need to know before I can continue.

So, I'm not here to complain about their comments and criticism, in fact, I love their criticism because they point to things I can improve. But, be honest with me, how much of what they have said so far is accurate? Would you agree with them? This is something I really need to know before I can continue.

I honestly didn't watch your video, but I think you have to ask yourself a number of questions.

First, is this something that other people will find useful? This game is one of the most highly reviewed and has TONS of 100% walkthroughs and playthroughs already. Personally, if I really wanted to know how to get 100% completion for a game, I would go to a written guide first rather than watch a video.

Second, is this something that other people will find entertaining? A lot of Let's Plays can be forgiven, even if ineptly carried out, as long as the LPer is entertaining. For instance, my favorite LPers on Youtube are PCGamer999 and ProtonJon. I would recommend watching at least a few videos from them or other highly rated LPers, and then take notes on what to talk about and how to communicate to an audience. You're putting on an act and have to make an entertaining show.

Third, what are you trying to accomplish in your playthrough? Are you there mainly for divulging information and tips for getting 100%? If so, do you really need to show footage for every battle? Why show the game in its entirety? Do Youtube watchers really have nothing better to do with their time than watch someone else play a great game? Why wouldn't they play it themselves? This game doesn't have that many secrets for 100% completion anyway, and the stuff that is secret can be condensed into two 15-minute long videos, I feel.

I understand that you love Final Fantasy VII and you want to share your love of the game and your knowledge of its secrets with the Internet (which has already thoroughly been shared basically since its release). But the Internet is full of people just like you, and honestly I don't think another strategy guide for this game is necessary. To be perfectly honest, I don't think many people will watch it because we don't want to experience the game vicariously through you, we want to play the game ourselves. Wouldn't I rather pick this game up and play it myself? Otherwise, it's like being at a friend's house and watching him play a great game by himself and not be able to play it. So I think that you're not going to get a lot of positive feedback because the game has been played, reviewed, and LPed to death, and if you can't find anything new, innovative, or interesting about it (always ask yourself, "What makes me interesting?"), then you should seriously just get your friends over to your house and play it with them. You'll have a lot more fun, not feel pressured, and any criticism will be greatly lessened.

I honestly didn't watch your video, but I think you have to ask yourself a number of questions.

First, is this something that other people will find useful? This game is one of the most highly reviewed and has TONS of 100% walkthroughs and playthroughs already. Personally, if I really wanted to know how to get 100% completion for a game, I would go to a written guide first rather than watch a video.

Second, is this something that other people will find entertaining? A lot of Let's Plays can be forgiven, even if ineptly carried out, as long as the LPer is entertaining. For instance, my favorite LPers on Youtube are PCGamer999 and ProtonJon. I would recommend watching at least a few videos from them or other highly rated LPers, and then take notes on what to talk about and how to communicate to an audience. You're putting on an act and have to make an entertaining show.

Third, what are you trying to accomplish in your playthrough? Are you there mainly for divulging information and tips for getting 100%? If so, do you really need to show footage for every battle? Why show the game in its entirety? Do Youtube watchers really have nothing better to do with their time than watch someone else play a great game? Why wouldn't they play it themselves? This game doesn't have that many secrets for 100% completion anyway, and the stuff that is secret can be condensed into two 15-minute long videos, I feel.

I understand that you love Final Fantasy VII and you want to share your love of the game and your knowledge of its secrets with the Internet (which has already thoroughly been shared basically since its release). But the Internet is full of people just like you, and honestly I don't think another strategy guide for this game is necessary. To be perfectly honest, I don't think many people will watch it because we don't want to experience the game vicariously through you, we want to play the game ourselves. Wouldn't I rather pick this game up and play it myself? Otherwise, it's like being at a friend's house and watching him play a great game by himself and not be able to play it. So I think that you're not going to get a lot of positive feedback because the game has been played, reviewed, and LPed to death, and if you can't find anything new, innovative, or interesting about it (always ask yourself, "What makes me interesting?"), then you should seriously just get your friends over to your house and play it with them. You'll have a lot more fun, not feel pressured, and any criticism will be greatly lessened.

All good points, and I certainly don't need to show all the footage of random battles. Anyways, what will set it apart, if not the commentary, is the strategies I'm going to use to beat it, including beating Emerald and Ruby WEAPON without Knights of the Round, with no one higher than level 50, and missing various other things that people usually have when fighting those two. To that end, I'm going to put all the NPC dialogue and extraneous stuff like that in seperate videos from now on.

Does that sound good?

All good points, and I certainly don't need to show all the footage of random battles. Anyways, what will set it apart, if not the commentary, is the strategies I'm going to use to beat it, including beating Emerald and Ruby WEAPON without Knights of the Round, with no one higher than level 50, and missing various other things that people usually have when fighting those two. To that end, I'm going to put all the NPC dialogue and extraneous stuff like that in seperate videos from now on.

Does that sound good?

That sounds much better! Best of luck on your videos!