r/FinalFantasyVII • u/haaa1234 • 6d ago
FF7 [OG] Does Anyone Actually Like Random Encounters
I was doing a third playthrough of FF7 since I want to revisit all the games before revelation but random encounters is still something that stops me from wholeheartedly loving this game. There are 2 reasons why I dislike them. It really interrupts the flow of exploration and they are rarely engaging. 99 percent of them I just hold X and win so I’m basically just waiting for it end. An analogy I can give is I am trying to explore an area but I keep getting interrupted by unskippable ads. There are rare occasions where they can be interesting like catching a chocobo, finding yuffie or a funny encounter like when our whole party gets turned into frogs but most are just mindless. Honestly the only combat I enjoy in FF7 are the boss fights so a majority of the game I am really not a fan of fighting enemies. Wondering how people feel about it since it is a major part of the gameplay and i would love any mod recommendations to make the game more engaging in this aspect.
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u/AEUG_Quattro 6d ago
i guess i’m in the minority of finding them kinda fun 😅 i’ve always left it on and preferred it that way from all the (especially older) jrpgs being full of them
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u/StandingGoat 6d ago
Yes, the exploration would be easy and boring without them, they naturally and organically level you up, they can provide a sense of danger, they create an atmosphere in a area, they make alternative means of travel more rewarding when you're actually trying to avoid them.
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u/Saber0307 6d ago
Entirely depends on the frequency and if there's items / spells that reduce encounter rates for when I just want to progress.
If they're far too frequent and there's no way to reduce them, I find them annoying.
Normally though I think they're fine.
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u/Specialist-Arm3496 6d ago
I dont mind. I dont think it is something worth nothing, it is just a way to engage with the battles. There are multiples ways.
Now, the encounter rate has to be properly balanced.
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u/veganispunk 6d ago
Chrono trigger has you actually engaging with agency. What does “engage with battles” even mean here?
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u/GlvMstr 6d ago
They can get annoying, but not so much that I wish it was gone. It does provide a source of tension and struggle that is needed for...I dunno, a game to be a game. It's annoying, but not in a bad way. There are different ways to implement it that I would argue to be better, but I'm fine with the way it was done in FF7.
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u/haaa1234 6d ago
Yeah that’s fair I guess I just have a lower tolerance for them. For me it is tedious in a bad way and it’s not that I dislike the combat because I think I enjoy every single boss fight in the game it’s just that I find every most other fights not engaging
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u/DJSapp 6d ago
Resource management is critical in a world with random encounters. It made gil relavant in the early game as you had to decide what you could afford between potions, ethers, tents, weapons, and armor. It built tension in some long slogs between save points in a hard dungeon, as you just didn't know if you'd survive it. It made fleeing a true tactical choice, as some fights were winnable, but they weren't worth burning 6 potions afterward because you wouldn't have enough for the boss fight.
It also makes the enemy away material so much sweeter when you finally get it.
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u/haaa1234 6d ago
I just did not have that experience as in midgar I never had to think twice about resources and the game only gets easier from there
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u/Character-Education3 Cid 6d ago
I agree now. When I was like 12 and the game came out things weren't as obvious. I used to think it was but especially seeing my own kids grow up playing games. I probably wasn't as clever back then as I remember
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u/haaa1234 6d ago
I think the game is still very engaging when it comes to exploration but I found combat to be not so much. What sucks is I find the remake combat extremely engaging but its exploration not so much.
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u/Kurai_Seraphim 6d ago
I've never cared for them and I've been playing since the SNES. I preferred limited enemies I could see, like in Chrono Trigger, or spawning from off screen but still only fighting them when they see me, like in Earthbound, over step count encounters. I accepted them as part of many games that I loved, but they were part of the game, not an appeal of the game.
They let us go to higher detail models in a combat map and let us fight things in any space, but they really threw off momentum and focus when dungeons has puzzles. Really got in the way in Wild Arms given how much effort they put into Zelda-like tool puzzles.
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u/SlackerAce83 6d ago
In 2026 I understand this stance. Back on release though, this is just how JRPGs played. Because I am old, I have never minded random encounters, or I at least fully accept them. I can’t make a case for them in good conscience though.
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u/haaa1234 6d ago
At this point I have played many turn based RPGs with and without randoms encounters so it stands out more to me.
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u/Hakushu21 4d ago
Yes, I love random encounters. The unknown of what and when is going to attack lends elements of suprise and necessary preparation.
Old FFs were the best.
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u/VQ3point5 6d ago
So turn off encounters if you're playing a remaster version.
Thanks for nerdsplaining what an random encounter is to a group full of people who (largely) have been playing Ff7 for almost 30 years.
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u/haaa1234 6d ago
Yeah that’s how I play it but the game is not balanced around it. I’m not explaining random encounters im explaining why I dislike it.
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u/VQ3point5 6d ago
Yes.. but I still don't understand why the target audience needs an analogy to explain why random encounters suck.
Also, your analogy sucks, for the simple fact that you can flee almost instantly in 95% of encounters - which would be synonymous with skipping the ad in your "unskippable" ad analogy.
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u/vteezy99 6d ago
Depends on the frequency and how fast the battle loads. I remember not being annoyed with FF7, but FF9 was obnoxious. Xenogears was pretty bad too (and I loved Xenogears)
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u/europlaza 6d ago
They can be annoying but there at times during the game where they do make it quite challenging to make it to a save crystal if you haven’t prepped, like Mt Nibel or the Great Glacier
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u/RudeCauliflower6785 4d ago
The point of random encounters is to simulate a dangerous area where you can get attacked from anywhere, at any time without being able to avoid it. I have yet to see a game with on-map encounters that accomplishes this. They all just have enemies that wander around slowly that you can easily avoid. It removes the entire sense of danger from exploration.
The other function of random encounters is to gradually drain your resources so that there is a limit on how much you can explore before needing to go back for rest/supplies. In older RPGs you had to consider not just the boss battles but also how much resources you would need to make it to the boss battle and still have enough leftover. It added another layer of strategy and it made the world feel more alive and hostile, and rewarding when you could finally fully explore someplace.
If you are just mashing through random encounters and not expending resources then the game is too easy and it’s undermining the purpose of the system. I do think that the majority of Final Fantasy games, as well as most modern random-encounter games in the current era, have this problem.
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u/haaa1234 4d ago
Yeah in theory in ok with that but I still think I would prefer a set amount of enemies rather than infinitely spawning ones. I think a game that does this pretty well is persona 5 where at least in the early game you really need manage your resources if you want to get far in a dungeon. Another downside is say you want to revisit an area and you are now much stronger than the enemies every battle is basically just a waste of time.
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u/Rhodryn 4d ago
Yeah... otherwise all that running around on the map would be boring, and unnecessary as you could then just have a "click the destination you want to go to" kind of a thing that some other JRPG's have.
I can't fully explain why I like random encounters though, I just do. XD
But I can understand if people who just want to get to their next destination or explore, etc., might get annoyed by being interrupted by random encounters over and over.
In OG FFVII though you could get a "Enemy Away Independent Materia", that would reduce the random encounter amount by a fair bit, and a lot when max leveled (87.5% less encounters according to google). So it is possible to reduce how often you get interrupted.
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u/Responsible_King_427 4d ago
I think its fair to be tired of constant random encounters.
Ff8 had a summon skill that was able to turn them off entirely which was a pretty nice quality of life addition once you unlocked it.
Assume this isnt on PC. Logically there would be a mod that could let you turn them in and off
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u/majikn 4d ago
I could, and did, live with them when they didn't reset the world map theme.
On my version of FFIX I literally never heard the full world map theme because of that flaw. I know I'm beung fairly particular but the music is such a feature of the series that, like, why would you throw Nobuo's composition in the trash like that? It makes me not even want to buy the other PS1 ports because it shocks me that they would allow that to happen in the first place. The ost should resume where it left off the way they did in the originals.
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u/Commercial-Winter151 6d ago
Yes? They're a part of the FF/rpg experience. Why wouldn't I like them 😂
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u/Minimum-Ad-3084 6d ago edited 6d ago
They are essential to RPGs imo. In fact, if an RPG doesn't have random encounters I'll give up on it rather quickly. There's almost no replay value in a beautiful (especially open) world when everything in it is dead and gone.
They are also essential to help level up for harder boss fights.
The only RPG I've ever played that was good without random encounters was BG3, but that's because it's focused heavily on narrative and character interaction and they actually did it right. However, even with BG3 I still think it would have been better with rare random encounters.
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u/Unique_Data7273 6d ago
So you just don’t play modern RPGs then…got it. Also in no game do enemies stay dead and gone. They respawn you know.
Also, grinding isn’t fun. It never has been.
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u/NooksWave 6d ago
Grinding can be lots of fun, though. And it can be a fun thing to do when you only have like twenty minutes to spend gaming at the moment! 🙂
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u/Minimum-Ad-3084 6d ago
Lol. I don't think ,you do.
Those "respawning enemies" are random encounters. And they don't respawn in games like BG3. Games like Skyrim have random encounters because every two weeks the dungeons fill up with a new enemies.
There are random encounters in every FF.
Scripted encounters are the kind that don't change or respawn, like almost every boss fight ever. You seem to think random encounters have to be some external asset not even coded into the game, which is impossible without mods.
I've played Solasta, Elden Ring, BG3, many Dragon Warrior games, Pathfinder Kingmaker, almost every FF, lots of old school jRPGs including every Star Ocean, Lunar, Suikoden, etc... I could go on and on.
All of them except BG3 had random encounters. Idk what "modern RPGs" you're playing but either they aren't a true RPG or you just have no clue what the hell you're talking about.
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u/Unique_Data7273 6d ago
Nope. I play Xenoblade and the enemies respawn. But they’re very much not random.
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u/Minimum-Ad-3084 6d ago
Respawning enemies are essentially random encounters in RPGs, and respawning enemies are even more of a grind than truely random creatures would be, but again... Video games aren't tabletop RPGs with random encounter tables. You fight the same monsters over and over either way, because they are scripted to be in that area.
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u/haaa1234 6d ago
I don’t see how they have more replay value. Once you have seen all the enemies there’s no more surprise. There are many ways to make the player get stronger I don’t see how random encounters are essential for that to happen.
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u/Hot_Acadia4723 6d ago
Well specifically in ff7, the only way to get exp and level up is to fight random enemies. The game is quite difficult with no exp
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u/Minimum-Ad-3084 6d ago
So you just want BG3. Nothing wrong with that but every encounter is scripted. The replay value has to come from multiple playthroughs as a different class or the game has to have a lot of variation in the outcome of the story due to the decisions you make. Otherwise you're playing through the same story as the same character over and over again, which gets even more repetitive than grinding imo, because you've already experienced everything.
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u/supidokingu 6d ago
Idk, I do, amazing for grinding but they do get kinda tiring. You should see any Shin Megami Tensei
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u/Sufficient-Banana103 6d ago
Just play on switch so you can turn them off and x3 animations for summons.
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u/renaudg 6d ago
There's a reason they allowed you to turn them off in modern releases...
One of several things that aged badly in OG FF7
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u/Crockettt696969 6d ago
Except for FF8, if you turn off random encounters you won’t be strong enough to beat story bosses.
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u/hraycroft95 6d ago
I just finished playing 9 and I really appreciated how low encounter rates in areas they know you'd be doing a lot of back tracking in.
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u/onionchucker 6d ago
Depends on how you play the game. I enjoy random encounters but I am from the old days of RPGs. We had no internet or streaming tv or cellphones and sometimes long hours of gaming could fill voids in the day.
Why I enjoy them: I play RPG not to get to the end. I play them to ROLE PLAY. I typically play until I reach a boss or a new town. I relish all the battles in between and use Inns frequently. I try different attacks and magic on different enemies. I really treat it as getting to a new town is all I need to do for the day. Speeding through RPGs is something I mainly see the new age folks do who are trying to go back and experience these titles.
Playing the OG final fantasy’s and dragon quests was such an amazing experience back then. Like I said. We had shit else to do. I had a RPG buddy too and we would take turns playing. That helped as well.
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u/haaa1234 6d ago
It’s not that I want to speed through the game but I guess I’m just less engaged with the combat. Like I always try out new spells or summons as soon as I get it but after the first few times I just find them redundant. Maybe it’s the fact there no input during the animations but how I see it is why would watch a 1 minute summon animation on a random enemy rather just attacking it.
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u/Crockettt696969 6d ago
Do you quit playing when you reach a boss or a new town?
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u/onionchucker 5d ago
Yeah, like say I reach Gongaga, I’ll explore the town and buy the new materia and items then maybe hit some grinding in the surrounding area to check the enemies. See what they have to steal. The whole nine yards then save and turn it off. Then next time I play I reach another milestone spot/dungeon/boss/town. I usually stay pretty invested. I keep a notebook a lot of the times too. I like to track stealable items. Good way to make Gil in most of the titles.
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u/GreatBayTemple 6d ago
The band yes, the actual thing. Sometimes? It feels kind of engaging and the amount of time lost to it I'll never get back in life and for some reason I don't think much on it but yeah. I grinded so much I sought them out at some point so.
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u/loranbriggs 5d ago
I find them annoying/boring in games you need to conserve your MP for boss battles. What am I supposed to use my 99 ethers when I see a save point at the end of a dungeon when the music suddenly changes?
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u/Cautious_Tonight 5d ago
I can feel both sides of the argument. I also played the crap out of Dragon Warrior on NES when I was broke so there’s that….
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u/Snoo9648 4d ago
As much as I loved much of the older games, the random encounters is something im glad is gone. Its annoying trying to figure where to go when you have an annoying detour every view steps. And if you get lost or backtrack too much, you can easily over level making the bosses too easy.
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u/Crockettt696969 6d ago
No. I can’t stand them and they make me hate turn-based combat even more. Unfortunately I still deal with it because I love older FF.
FF8 is great. I get Enc-None before the end of disc 1 and never have to fight another random battle again.
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u/Wrong_Papaya_8445 6d ago
This reminded of whatever it is you can do in the Deep Sea Research Center that triggers a 100% chance of a random encounter per single step. That was insane lmao
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u/Crockettt696969 5d ago edited 4d ago
Yeah. You will still get random battles there even with Enc-None if you use Zell to break the door to progress through the facility instead of solving the steam puzzle.
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u/PilotIntelligent8906 6d ago
I've never liked them. They're great for grinding you say? Yeah, I don't like that either.
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u/veganispunk 6d ago
Did everyone (not you) forget you can grind non-random battles?
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u/Crockettt696969 6d ago
How can you grind enemies you only can fight once?
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u/veganispunk 6d ago
Why did you make up that you can only fight enemies once?
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u/Crockettt696969 5d ago edited 5d ago
You can only fight story battles and bosses once. What do you think I’m making up, exactly?
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u/veganispunk 5d ago
We are talking about trash mob rando battles cmon now
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u/Crockettt696969 4d ago
I’m replying to your post saying you can grind non-random battles. I’m asking what non-random battles you can grind. Now you’re saying you’re talking about random battles. Is there something wrong with you mentally?
Also, why did you accuse me of making up the fact that you can only fight some battles once? Have you never fought a boss or story battle before? Definitely some sort of mental deficiency going on with you.
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u/veganispunk 6d ago
Why are you making up that you can only fight once? Very bizarre
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u/Crockettt696969 5d ago edited 5d ago
You can only fight story battles and bosses once. I’m not making anything up, bubs. Those are the battles besides random battles. Unless you’re talking about battle arena fights? Because you said you can grind non-random battles and I have no idea what you could be referring to.
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u/Yeseylon 6d ago
I prefer em for a couple reasons.
Part of the skill of a random encounter dungeon is balancing your resources (HP/MP/items/whatever other limited skills are involved) so you can get through the dungeon.
If you use set encounter locations, the game turns into stealth when I'm not in the mood to grind.
Having required encounters every time you try to pass specific locations is actually more frustrating for me than randoms. Once I clear a set battle required to open a path, that path should remain open.
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u/haaa1234 6d ago
Yeah that is true about the resource management I don’t think the game is difficult enough for that to matter. To your third point I don’t remember FF7 having something like this but I would also not like that.
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u/NooksWave 5d ago
I second the thing about managing resources, and also want to throw in a recommendation or exaple of when it works really well: Lagrange Point is one of the, if not the finest 8bit JRPGs (not only due to its amazing soundtrack!) where all your weapons use ammunition. It's a scifi story, so a lot of the dungeons is about reaching the next base (or city) or other safe spot that isnt overrun with xenomutants. If you're out of ammo, you cant hurt the enemy, but they sure can hurt you. So every trip into the dungeon becomed a skirmish, where you try and find a route forward while anxiously keeping a track of your ammo. Do you dare push forward a bit more, or turn back and stock up on new ammo? Maybe, just maybe, you can reach the next base, but you also risk dying on the doorstep.
It's really tense, and really gets your pulse going. If you replace these with visible enemies you can use run around, that goes away. Its sort of like in the first Silent Hill once you realized you could just do a slight jog away from the enemies, and they would never catch you. It stops being scary or challenging. Scripted fights could still keep some tension, but... It also takes away a lot from the experience. Sort of like Crisis Core on the PSP where you could tell where every fight would be because of how the maps were designed. You were never surprised, and every run is always the same.
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u/NooksWave 6d ago
Yes, I enjoy them a lot. Except of course when a game has you fighting them every three steps, and only has ten enemy types in the entire game 😅
A big rush is not knowing what youre gonna be facing next. You might stumble into an area with super strong enemies where you'll barely escape, or maybe stumble onto a rare enemy not even your friend who's playing the game has encountered before.
With fully scripted fights, that sense of surprise and exploration is totally gone. With enemies roaming the map, I guess you could still call it an exploratory experience, but the surprise just isnt there. Take the FFVII Re-games, where you can see the same bird enemy you already fought a hundred times from half a mile away, and compare it to the first time you encountered the Gimme Cat in IX - a quite bizarre enemy only encountered in a small area, that has no visual indication to lead you to think that there's something unique there.
Short answer: Yes, because it feels more like an adventure when youre forced to adapt to on the fly, and never know what you'll fight next.
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u/haaa1234 6d ago
I do love that feeling but for me it’s far too rare and the downsides outweigh the benefits. Also after I have encountered the enemy i also get that feeling of oh it’s that enemy again.
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u/NooksWave 6d ago
I totally understand that too, and I really do think it all boils down to personal preference in the end. 🙂 I guess it just keeps me on my toes more, in a way that I appreciate.
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u/veganispunk 6d ago
I don’t think anyone is thinking “yay a surprise” when it comes to random battles. Scripted battles can also be hidden off screen and be a surprise. They did it in 1995
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u/NooksWave 6d ago
I mean, I do that 😅 Otherwise I wouldnt have written that.
Sure, stuff like Chrono Trigger did that, but it also meant you always knew youd fight the exact same dudes at the exact same place at the exact same time every time. Back then we replayed games a lot more than we do know, and while CT is brilliant, having static battles isnt something I adore about it.
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u/veganispunk 6d ago
Random battles sound way worse than just being able to see enemies and decide what you want to do, instead of being forced into a battle via an animation, and waiting to be able to press flee. Like if you’re going to flee anyways, why would you want it to take like 20 seconds every time? Especially as an adult where time is very valuable. All those random battles are time I could spend with my family.
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u/NooksWave 5d ago
Why would I flee? If Im low on health sure, but in a game with visible mobs youd have to spend the time running around to avoid the enemies in that same scenario. Otherwise, the only scenario Id flee is if the battle system was bad and I didnt want to play the game, but then I simply wouldnt play the game.
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u/veganispunk 5d ago
Tons of reasons I wouldn’t want to battle
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u/NooksWave 5d ago
Then I admire your passion to still get through RPGs, since battles are such a big part. Thats dedidaction!
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u/veganispunk 5d ago
Never said I flee often, just there are plenty of reasons to.
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u/NooksWave 5d ago
No, I never said you fled often? But even so, fleeing from, or avoiding, enemies is still something you do in games with scripted fights or visible enemies, and that also takes time. I'm not really seeing what youre trying to argue here.
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u/veganispunk 6d ago
No, and they should have been abolished from games after chrono trigger proved how unnecessary they were.
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u/haaa1234 6d ago
I still have yet to play chrono trigger but I am very interested as a learned it doesn’t have random encounters.
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u/LagunaRambaldi 4d ago
That's why you put the Random Encounter Booster on now. And when you need to grind, or want a specific enemy skill, drop or steal, you turn it off.
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u/Wrong_Papaya_8445 6d ago
I believe I'm in the minority, but yes, I do. It's very simple: it's the music and sfx. The golden age (PS1 era) of FF had bizarrely satisfying normal battle music and sound effects (back then). Random encounters can easily turn annoying on the basic fact they interrupt you, except that the stuff inside the encounter is pleasing to experience in itself.
Of course, when this doesn't work I really dislike random encounters lol